Grand Stone (Dec 28, 2010)
I finaly got the time to play this scenario, and I must realy say, that it was a realy good scenario. I played the germans, and initially I thought that this was going nicely, as the number of sherman tanks safely got reduced in numbers without me taking any cassulties. But then, I suddenly realized that time was beginning to run out, and I had to be more offensive. I then started to push hard, took the objective, killed or heavily damaged most of the remaining sherman tanks. But in the next last round, pushing for victory, the AT gun (wich has stood far behind and done nothing the entire game) heavily damged an undamged panzer IV, and then continued with the last desperate action of a heavily damged sherman which managed to heavily damage an undamged SDKFZ 251 Half-Track, both which turned the tide.
At round 7, (out of
the germans was left with to four vehicles, two wich was heavily damaged vehicles, they were controling the objective and hand a handfull of infanteri squads. The US had 1 heavy damaged sherman and one unmanned AT-gun left. That is, the US was COMPLETELY DESTROYED. Anilated. Gone. Dead. Run away. Burned, killed, gone, dead dead dead. But since I needed three vehicles to exit to win the game, I was one short, and the US won. They won, despite being eliminated on the battlefield. ****! ****! ****! (but great scenario)
Maybe I shouled have done some different actions right at the end, but I geuss both sided made mistakes. Still though for choices for both sides. The germans will get into time problems, and thus needs to be somewhat aggressive. On the other side, they dont want to be to aggressive, cuz loosing only a single panther would be a big setback. I also recommend the germans to be carefull with their half-tracks. Although i love using them to swiftly move an infanteri forward ending with an assult action, they are way to valueble to just waste a way. Maybe it is better to simply have them stay behind doing nothing. Cuz, they might be needed in the end. Also, the german has the advantage regarding troops, first because they german has quit a lot of elites, secondly, because of reinforcements. Placing reinforcements in section 8B was a wounderfull move, as it allowed me to place infanteri right behind their defensive line. The reinforcements deck is realy nice. However, using it also ment that the US had the initiative most of the game. But I didn't find initiative to be to important since the US played fairly defensivly anyway, and most of the time they did not have to many shermans to attack me in the first place. But, then ofcourse, in a different situation with a more aggressive US player, loosing the initiative might have been an disaster.
If the US is too aggresive, it might make it to easy for the germans to kill of all tanks, and the german tanks is a heck of a lot better. But being to carefull might just lead to the german slowly grinding their way through. But then, time is on the US side, so a defensive US might be good. Carefully positioning the shermans such that they are never alone is important regardless. A lone sherman is a dead sherman.
However, one question, in this scenario the US gets to specilizations for each division. However, to use them both, the US must place a mortar and a MG on the same squad, which is increadibly stupid. I allowed my oponent to use and MG engineer, because I foud it to be to stupid to place a morter and a MG on the same squad. You should not be forced to do an increadible gamey combo just to be able to use both specilizations. What do you think? Maybe the single mortar could be replaced with to regular infanteri??? A single mortar is not that powerfull anyway, or increadible important for the US in this scneario?
