Sarantaporon: Brigade Day Attack

[Grotius]

I played my first scenario as the Allies against the German AI in "Sarantaporon: Tac Ex - Bde Day Attack." What a great little scenario! My objective is to take a hill controlling a highway leading north. The scenario starts at midnight, and I have 24 hours. My orders say that I'd better take the hill by mid-day if I want a shot at a decisive victory. I've got a light motorized recce regiment (with Bren carriers); a battalion of rangers with small arms; a regiment of heavier tanks (Cruiser Mk II A); and some artillery, anti-tank, and other supporting units. As this is my first full game, I have order delay off, standard reinforcements for both sides.

My first decision is how far to advance under cover of darkness. At midnight, I can't see very far, and my guys will need rest. So I split the difference and order an advance halfway to the hill, where I'll make camp til daybreak. The recce regiment is to lead the way. One artillery unit, already in range, stays in place and gets some rest now. Here's a shot of my opening move:

[Grotius]

From here the plan was for the recce to scoot ahead while my main force prepared to get some rest. As the Hussars moved north along the road, I got my first surprise: an enemy motorised infantry company ambushed the Hussars from behind, after they passed on the road!

[Grotius]

One company of my recce unit takes losses and routs away, but the others hold their ground. I really didn't want a lot of shooting before daybreak. It's going to be a long day, and if fatigue works as it did in HTTR, my guys will need some sleep first.

[Grotius]

Fortunately, things quieted down, and I more or less lost sight of the enemy ambush unit, allowing my recce unit (and the rest of my force) to sleep in situ. At 5 a.m., with things still pretty quiet, I did a LOS check from the top of the hill to my positions. I love this LOS tool, which depicts not only LOS but also slope along the LOS vector chosen. I don't recall HTTR having this powerful a tool. Anyway, at this hour, I still can't see very far:

[Grotius]

In the meantime, I've been formulating my plan, such as it is. The rangers look like my best bet for scaling the hill. I don't think my tanks or motorised recce unit will be able to climb the steep slope, which well exceeds 30 degrees and has light woods to boot. So the rangers will lead the charge, with supporting bombardment from artillery, and supporting direct fire from tanks on the highway. My recce unit will push west to try to open the way to encircle the hill with motorised units; my tanks will initially plan themselves southeast of the hill to provide supporting fire for the main assault. At least, that's the plan. Here's a look at the ranger unit on the map:

[Grotius]

Here's a look at the equipment of one company of the ranger unit. It's mostly infantry, but it also has Bren carriers and trucks; I hope those can make it up the hill. I guess this unit counts as "non motorized" for the purposes of terrain effects?

[Grotius]

My heavy tank unit, by contrast, clearly is "motorized" for the purposes of the terrain rules, so I know it won't be scaling any mountaintops. Here's a look at the equipment of one tank squadron:

[Grotius]

Anyway, as dawn breaks, I order my force forward; I have the luxury of no order-delay, so I can micromanage this a bit. As my entire brigade approaches the enemy ambush unit, it eventually is forced west, where it will have to cross a river and turn north to rejoin its colleagues. At about 7 a.m., I do a LOS check. Visibility has improved with the break of day.

[Grotius]

Here's my cunning plan for the Ranger assault on the hilltop. I've ordered them to travel along the highway (by choosing "quickest" route, that ensures they'll use the highway), max aggro, rapid ROF, facing basically north. They will form up on the road just south of the hill and then assault through the woods, which will provide some cover. I did debate whether to order them to take the safer route to the target -- through the woods, over the river -- but I was worried this would take too long. And I was counting on supporting fire from armor and artillery to suppress the defenders enough to give the rangers cover. Also, I'm hoping the rangers will be out of LOS of several enemy units once they start scaling the hill; my LOS checks suggest this might be the case.

[Grotius]

8:35 a.m.: The bad guys concentrate their fire on my armor, and one company of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment (the unit with the Cruiser Mk IIa's) routs. But the rangers are moving north OK. The rest of my force is lagging, harasssed by enemy direct and indirect fire; that ambush unit is still being a nuisance.

Perhaps what's most interesting about this shot is that I was so preoccupied with my routing armor squadron that I didn't pay attention to the rocket (or is it anti-tank?) unit on the highway southwest of the hill. Later I would pay a price for this inattention.

[Grotius]

Shortly thereafter, I get a series of alarming messages about interdiction of my supply route. I've left my HQ's "base unit" way too far south, I guess, so I order it to close the distance between it and my main force. This seems to stop the complaints about supply -- for now. I've only worked through the basic tutorial, so I haven't gotten to the supply rules yet. I'm following the tutorial's advice to play a few simple scenarios before tackling that subject in detail.

[Grotius]

9:30 a.m.: My rangers' progress slows as they try to exit the woods and form up on the highway to assault the hill. Maybe I should've ordered them to traverse the woods and river instead of staying on the highway, but it's too late for second-guessing now. They retreat, advance, retreat, under heavy enemy fire. Still, the enemy is taking fire too, mostly from my bombarding artillery, and it's scampered back up the hill some. I'm pretty confident I can get my rangers on the hill, and my tanks to the base of it.

[Grotius]

Again, with the luxury of no order delay, I can adjust my plans somewhat, and I fine-tune the FUP (form-up point) and assault target of the rangers. I've highlighted range rings to indicate another reason why I chose the rangers for the close-in work: their short range. The tanks (and of course artillery) can fire at the hilltop defenders from long range; these rangers need to get up close and personal to be effective.

[Grotius]

The rangers finally start to get onto the hill and into the protective cover of the woods there. My earlier LOS checks also pay off: my guys are mostly invisible to the enemy. They seem only to be taking a little mortar fire from the west. Also, my heavy tanks encounter little resistance as they approach the southeastern base of the hill, from where they will pound the enemy, in theory.

My evil plan is to send my recce unit west, along the highway, to disrupt and dislodge the ememy mortar. Er, my evil plan of course ignored earlier intel suggesting that an anti-tank unit might be guarding the west end of this stretch of highway...

[Grotius]

11:37 a.m.: It's almost noon, and I'm nowhere close to taking the hill. I need a 10:1 ratio of friendly to enemy troops to "occupy" the victory objective. As this shot indicates, I can possibly achieve that just by massing my troops barely within the yellow circle, but having troops on the edges isn't a very secure way of ensuring I'll hold the objective; one rout and it could be history. So I press on, the rangers wading through the woods, and the tanks trying to take up position at the bottom of the hill. The tanks are slowed by enemy direct and indirect fire, which again is focused on them (since the rangers are out of enemy LOS). Likewise the recce unit is having trouble pushing west.

[Grotius]

1238 hours: slow progress, as my rangers continue to push forward, and my tanks take up position southeast of the hill. I still don't "own" the objective, but I presume I've denied it to the enemy at least.

My brigade HQ and its support units are also approaching the objective; I am holding them in reserve, particularly their anti-tank arm, in case enemy armor shows up. No sign of enemy tanks yet, though. In the meantime, my recce unit has finally pushed west; no sign of resistance there yet. Perhaps I can encircle the hill with my armor...

Also, at this point I'm feeling very pleased with myself because the recce unit is blocking the ambushing engineer unit to the SW from rejoining its colleagues. All part of my cunning plan, right?

[Grotius]

1:38 p.m.: Quick, rock-paper-scissors fans: what's the worst type of unit to send to attack an anti-tank unit? Ding, armor! My recce unit (which includes a dozen light AFVs per company) ran headlong into what I expected to be a mortar unit, and instead was an enemy unit with significant anti-tank capability on the highway southwest of the hill. This is the unit I spotted earlier but didn't notice while playing; I only noticed it after looking at these screenshots! Anyway, a whole bunch of my AFVs go up in flames, and all 3 of my recce companies retreat east; the fourth is busy holding off the enemy unit to the southwest.

Meanwhile, I still don't control the objective. Time to get my HQ's support units onto that hill. I had intended to do so earlier but, um, forgot.

[Grotius]

Just to test CoTA's terrain engine a bit, I try ordering my armored recce onto a wooded slope, and my heavy armor up the hill. (See the units circled in the shot below.) Nothing doing!

[Grotius]

At last, at 2:30 p.m., I gain control of the objective! My orders said "midday," so I'm behind schedule, but hey. To do so, I had to order my Brigade HQ and its supporting units to get inside the objective. They're mostly out of the LOS of the enemy; I assume I don't want the HQ unit on the front lines.

I do wonder whether a circle is always the best measure of who "controls" an objective. In ASL, the rule might've been: "must be fewer than 3 German units in good order on the hill", or some such. Because I've "taken the objective" but I still haven't really "taken the hill." But I'm probably just picking nits; let's face it, to secure this objective, I still gotta push those Germans back.

[Grotius]

And the objective isn't secure so long as the enemy is putting up such a strong defense. One of my ranger companies routs -- toward an enemy unit it apparently couldn't see.