8/20/41 SS Delay at Gomel

[robot]

Gomel Belorussia
8/20/1941
0700 Hours

The Russians on the 17th came across the river at Gomel. We hurt them but did not stop them. Well today we get another shot at them. We are to stop there advance here. We can expect to see a load of armor and men. They are making a big push and it will be mostly aimed at us. Visability is good today can see for over 2500 yards . Our gunners will have a field day firing at long range. Have set the max to fire at around 800 yards tho to conserve ammo. We do not have an over abundance of ammo so expect some runouts what with so many targets to fire at.

It is still early in the morning just woke up have not had coffee as yet. Went out on the balcony to have a smoke and this is what I saw comin at us. See recon photo. We are going to have our hands full. Did not get any mines from supply they were all out of them. Have the company engineers laying the few that they have out in front of companys. Sure wish I could have gotten about 50 or 60 of them. Could sure use them to stop some of this armor comin at us.

Our 150 have begun to open fire on the enemy troops. Can see the explosions landing in and amongst them from here. Right on target deal with the infantry and the tanks will go down too. Couple of our sig150 have begun firing at some of the lead tanks. Just saw one go up in smoke. Well thats one out of a hundred that we no longer have to contend with.

Going to be one heck of a long day. Guess I will forgo my coffee this morning and get humping here. Was supposed to have four bombers come over but the adjutant messed up and did not call the lafftwaffte and set up the flight path. So we wont get them today.

HQ: X SS Panzer
COL: Karl Vogel Commanding

[robot]

Gomel Belorussia
8/20/1941
0730 Hours

The Russians keep comin at us even tho they have already lost some where around 40 tanks. Our gunners are firing at between 500 and 800 yards range. This seems to be the optimal range to score hits and rip them apart. This also gets us into there range too. We have already lost 3 sig33 150s and 2 JPZI sp ATGs from there fire.

Our 150s have been laying down a murderus barrage on there infantry. This has kept them away from our front lines. Im sure they have already had at least 300 men killed to this bombardment and maybe more. It has also taken out at least 3 of there tanks. One of the tank gunners reported to me while back he had at least 79 targets to shoot at. And he was from the south flank side of the battle field, so with the north added in there was well over 100 out there on the field today.

I have been unable to tell if they are hitting the north half or the south half the hardest today. Right now it seems as if they have there troops split about even. This battle is going about the way we expected it too. We are not really in any kind of trouble as yet. Just hope our ammo holds out till they are on the run once again. Maybe another half an hour of us busting there armor all to pieces. Then I will send my infantry in amongst the burning hulks to clean up any crews that survived the carnage. By the way all the crews it seems suvived from our guns and are safe behind the lines.

HQ: X SS Panzer
Col: Karl Vogel Commanding

[robot]

Gomel Belorussia
8/20/1941
0740 Hours

Jeez this battle ended quick only 40 minutes of intense fighting and the Russians have given up the field. We lost only 39 men while there losses were 695 men. 6 tanks of ours were blown to bits and pieces while we made junk of 96 of theres. Keeping the firing range down around 600 yards was the smartest thing I did. That order was the best way to fight this battle today. They never really mounted any kind of threating attack against our troops. Our gunners were right on the mark all during the fight. The Russians never really had a chance against us today.

We will have a month off before we move back into the front lines again. We are to get upgrades to our PZ IIIe with PZ IIIh with the 50mm gun thank the leaders for that. Have found that the tank gunners do so much more damage with the bigger gun. Im thinking the Russians really dont have there production going as well as they would like. We are seeing an awful lot of the lighter tanks in our battles with them and not an awful lot of the bigger models. Thank the lucky stars for that.

It will soon be bitterly cold here soon. It worries me to see the winter coming so soon. I am afraid we are not ready for the really bad weather. And we are sure to have trouble if we dont start getting winter gear soon. This campaign could really turn nasty when the freezing weather hits us. It is already getting down to freezing at night and soon it will be that way during the day as well.

HQ: V Guards Heavy Tank
Col: Ivan Tarzaar Commanding

[PimpYourAFV]

What did you use to kill all those tanks? 88's? Maybe you should crank up the difficulty like use hard battle and AI advantage I think would be nice.

[IBTyrone]

Hey TokyoBoy.

I don't think he needs to change any settings. I'm glad to see Robot's boys win one. His Limeys were getting their collective heads handed to them by the Krauts in the North African Desert. See: tm.asp?m=1042078

[robot]

I always play hard time 2 battles plus the ai is at 75 % was thinkin of goin to 100 but havent made up my mind on that yet. Ambushed those tanks with infantry suppressed first with there fire then brought in my tanks and opened them up with 50mm and 75mm tank fire. Got real lucky on a lot of the battles between my tanks and theres. Also used light and 81mm mortar fire to suppress before moving my tanks into there line of fire. This saved alot of my tanks and they got off the first shot. This helped a lot of the times.

[PimpYourAFV]

robot, sounds like you took them out with great skill and grit. Thumbs up to you! Next, to fully prove your manhood try beating the enemy tanks using only riflemen and cavalry. [:)]

IBTyrone, thanks for the link. I will check it out. Will be nice to read about a disaster for a change from all the AI beatdowns usually mentioned.