The word had been given, we were to cross the river in our sector and hold a bridgehead on the Russian side. The KG had been assigned to the 457th Inf. Rgt. for this operation.
Hauptmann Vebber stood in his command car and watched as the pre-bombardment rained down on the Russian side of the river. The large cal. guns were rending the trees and tossing them into the air like toothpicks. Smoke and huge chunks of earth spread in every possiable direction.
He tacked lower to the shoreline and watched as mortar rounds walked up and down the river bank. There was a poor Russian fisherman standing in the mud of the river bank looking this way and that trying invain to find an escape route. Vebber watched as a mortar round landed behind the man sending up a huge gyser of mud-smoke and fire. After the air cleared the Hauptmann studied the spot where the man had been standing and after a few seconds spotted the mans boots still stuck in the mud but now sign of the man himself!
Next the smoke rounds started hitting the Ivans side of the river and Vebber made ready to launch the flair to siginal the troops to man the assault boats and start the dash across the river.
As soon as the last smoke round had hit the hauptmann shot the flair and the troops started across the river. The assualt troops hopeing that the artillery barrage had done its work well. Within just a short time Vebber could see that many boats were already at the halfway mark and still no return fire from the Ivan's side of the river bank. And before an enemy shot had been fired over half of the assault boats were out of the water on the other side. The hauptmann let hisself relax ever so slightly, the first phase had gone off without a hitch!
The first Russian to recover was an MG squad on the far left, they cought 2nd lt. Musser's squad out in a lane between tree lines and one man went down wounded. His squad recoverd quickly and dispatched the MG before taking further casualities.
Sgt. Albrecht's squad was trapped between two NKVD boarder guard squads and suffered two wounded and one dead. It would have gone from bad to worse had not Sgt. Achtzehn's squad not come rushing though thte woods and routing both squads while only suffering one wounded. Next up on the far left was Sgt. Metzger's squad - they had been jumped by an Ivan ATR team and were running them down when they suddenly found them selves under fire of an MG bunker! Without skipping a beat Metzger's squad split into two groups and one tossed a demo charge into the bunker as the other picked off the ATR team!
A recon team that had delayed entering the river with the main groups started to work their way across the middle of the river and Vebber watched in helplessness as it was shredded by one of the Ivan's MG bunkers that had not been seen due to all the smoke and fire. Sgt. Wagner and his squad worked their way twords the bunker and caught another NKVD squad in the open. The Reds never knew what hit them as Wagner's squad exacted revenge for the hapless recon team.
In the middle of the bridgehead zone things were heating up really well. 2nd Lt. Kessler's squad approached a pillbox through some burning woods as cover. They hit the pillbox but could not take it out. Next Sgt. Kuhns squad had a shot at the same pillbox, they too failed to take it out. Next Sgt. Zimmerman's squad comming from yet a third direction tried it, they too failed. Just to the west of the pillbox was a rifle bunker and Sgt. Hudel's squad could not scilence it either. Capt. Hummel's squad was taking serious fire from the pillbox and broke.
Sgt. Achtzehn's squad tried for another mg bunker on the far right but is unable to take it out. Meanwhile Sgt. Stumpf's 75mm inf. gun is banging away at the bunker trying to keep the Ivan's heads down as Achtzehn's squad makes another go at cracking it. 2nd Lt. Schirmer's 150mm inf. gun caught a NKVD squad out in the open through a path in the smoke as they were working their way to the aide of the bunker Achtzehn's squad was assaulting. The Lt. called out corrections as he watched dirt and body parts sail though the air. A moment to be savored indeed!
Mean while some of the Recon teams that had been inplace on the Russian side of the river for several hours started moving and scouting out missed bunkers and pockets of Ivan's troops. Sgt. Kinkel's recon team spotted an mg bunker on the extream left of the bridgehead and manuvered in behind it, two grenades latter it was history.
2nd Lt. Musser unknownly stopped his troops almost on top of a Russian light mortar squad and they wasted no time dropping several rounds down onto his unsuspecting squad. A lone man from one of the recon teams had been moving with the Lt. A mortar round went off right behind the poor fellow and when the Lt. looked back up after hitting the ground. All that was left standing of the recon Sgt. was his legs from his boots up to where his knees had been!
Sgt. Kinkel's recon team rushed up behind the mortar position and took them out with two well placed grenades. But Musser's squad had taken quite a mauling by the time Kinkel saved the day.
Capt. Hummel nailed another rifle bunker but then immeditly came under fire from a HMG position. They were pinned and had taken 2 or 3 casulities by the time Sgt. Hadel's squad took them out. Some where to the right of the middle Sgt. Zimmerman's squad had been trying to take out a pillbox for three quarters of an hour and could not get inbehind the blasted thing. Just as it looked like they had a clear shot to the back of the pillbox his squad came under heavy fire from two differant directions and the Sgt. found his team pinned down tight once again.
On the far left 2nd Lt. Riedmuller was the lone survivor of his recon team and he positioned himself in some trees away from the river bank and proceeded to take four men out of a broken NKVD squad. Back in the center Sgt. Schneider's men took out one BA-10 AC and routed another one. Sgt. Kuhns squad finally took out the pillbox they had been struggeling to finnish off. Sgt. Briel squad bagged their second rifle bunker. Sgt. Spengler's men blew another mg bunker. And Sgt. Tychsen's squad jumped a BA-10 armored car.
At this point in time the center of the bridgehead was secure and the two flanks were being rolled up. As Wirth started moving the squads to the north in a careful leap frogging manuver Sgt. Ohman's squad came under heavy fire from a lone BA-10. His casualties started mounting by the time Sgt. Schneider's engineers turned it into a flaming pile of metal slag. The crew bailed but the engineers cut them down to a man. Fifty yards to the east another BA-10 busted out of the tree line. But they made the mistake of crossing to the trees to the other side and there waiting for them was 2nd Lt. Hitzelberger's ATR crew and they quickly brought the armored car to a steaming hault by putting two rounds right thourgh the engine block. As the car's turret slewed their way - they quickly unloaded another clip into it and the gunner in the turret never squeezed off even one round. Again Sgt. Schneider's engineers came by and tourched the happless Russian AC. But Schneider's luck seemed to have run out at this point as first they were ambushed by a HMG, two men were wounded before they could knock it out. No sooner had they done that - when they were being shredded by a hidden BA-10! Schneider's team was down hard and a good 50% were wounded. It was looking bad for the fearless engineers when Sgt. Kroll's men blind-sided the AC and left it nothing more than a burning hulk.
The engineers countinued to take out the remaining rifle bunkers, but by and large the bridgehead was secure at this point. However Command was not pleased with Vebber's performance. They informed him that he had not been agressive enough and his troops should have pushed farther to the north!
Vebber moved his C.P. across the river as he waited for the engineers to get a bridge across. He found Wirth by one of the burning BA-10's and proceeded to inform him of the scathing remarks command had passed on to him.
Neither was very phased by the line that command had taken with the days results. "Honestly hauptmann, said Wirth." "We secure their damm bridgehead for them with what I can only view as low casulities for the task we under took." "And command acts like we should have pinned paper bulleye's to each mans front and back and sent them running around in circles!" Vebber gave Wirth his half grin and nodded his agreement. "But by the same token Wirth, we are going to have to push the men harder on the next assignment" "The only way you and I are going to be able to keep these good men alive is by being in charge of them!"
[QUOTE]Originally posted by WhiteRook [B]6-22-41 22:00 hrs.
However Command was not pleased with Vebber's performance. They informed him that he had not been agressive enough and his troops should have pushed farther to the north! [/B][/QUOTE]
Interesting AAR, as I recently did this scenario myself and got a decisive victory on the first try.
I believe that the difference is in bypassing enemy bunkers when possible and the use of artillery. Although I left a number of enemy bunkers behind undestroyed, I captured all of the objectives. There a a few bunkers in the center than cannot be bypassed and must be destroyed to avoid having to make long detours with many units, but some on the flanks are not worth wasting time on. If you give the Russians time to recover after hitting them, you will have to fight them again, but if you keep moving forward and hitting them while they retrat, they are for the most part unable to return fire.
I also used my recon squads aggressively, which helped a lot towards moving my main force forward rapidly.
Artillery also plays a major role in this fight. I had chosen the option of two additional 150 mm offboard arty, and they certainly contributed greatly, although it is difficult to tell because of FOW. But when my recon units found over half a dozen Russian units in a town to the rear and sarting to move out, I hit them with all the arty I had, which probably caused them to become ineffective given their low morale.
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Joined: 4/7/2000 From: Ga USA Status: offline
I always pick Engineers as the 'extra' troops. Every time I have played it, I have gotten a DV, and destroyed every bunker. I actually made it more than halfway across the map! What kinda irked me was starting quite a ways back from where the previous battle had ended. I mean bunkers I destroyed were miraculously rebuilt, and ready to shred my troops! The **** troops in the castle fight like hell too. Honestly I have been getting probably 85% DV. Howabout everyone else? Is there a way to save scores by screenshot? If so, maybe Matrix could have a competition for General of GROGS!! The prize? An T-34/85 fully restored, locked and loaded!:rolleyes: ;)
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- Sergeant, what should I do if my parachute won't open? - Bring it back and I'll replace it.
I picked the extra engineers also. I have this ingrained habbit of the notion that I have to elimate every single bunker and pillbox I come across due to my experiances playing in the pacific! ;)
With this eastern front stuff I really need to learn the art of bypass. this is like the 3rd time I have started this MC! With all the upgrades and stuff. I too did not relish having to knock out bunkers I had toasted in the previous battle.
will have to due much better in the second battle.
Also sorry for posting in the wrong fourm, I was up way too late to be typing an AAR. Thanks to who ever moved it here for me! :D
Posts: 1213
Joined: 2/1/2002 From: MA, US Status: offline
Good AAR I liked it. You were able to develop some good excitement with it and it read well. I really liked the combat sequencing. The ground work at the beginning was excelent.
Now some suggestions. It was difficult to get an overall picture of the battle. I have played that senario four times so I new what was happening. But others that have not or do not have MC-LV I do not think would have know what was happening. One of the things you could do is take a screen shot of the map and post it to give the readers an idea on what the lay out is. A picture is worth a thousand words. Or so the quote goes. This was suggested to me on my AAR also. You can download Hypersnap for free off of the internet. Another thing that I like to do is explain to the reader my overall plan. I am going to try to flank here, break through here, concentrate my forces along this front and hold this area. And then explain the tactics I use in trying to perform the plan I suggested. Later I try to explain changes or results on how things worked out. Like why we were not successful in our assualt. What happened that keeped us from moving forward. Something like that.
I do not mean to be negative and I am not trying to dis you in anyway. I just wanted to be helpful and supportive. Like I said before I really liked your AAR. It was good, keep doing them.
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"Are you going to do something or just stand there and bleed"
Thanks Gary, no worries - I took it in the manner you intended it! I really should not have wrote that one as late in the morning as I did. I know better - but I had the bug and went for it anyway. I have Hypersnap and am going to fool around with it untill I am comfortable using it. Then I will for sure include a map shot. I like doing AAR's if I can take the time, writing is my second job. :D This is a long shot for me as I never play Eastern front stuff as a rule. All of my past AAR's were either WW2 pacific or Nam. As most of the folks here are big East Front battle fans, I am at the other end of the scale and stuck in the Pacific! ;) So that is why this is like totaly new ground for me, I think it is good to get out of your comfort zone now and then to keep from getting stale if ya know what I mean! :D
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