The Adventures of KG Derflinger

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> SPWaW AAR/DAR >> The Adventures of KG Derflinger

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The Adventures of KG Derflinger - 2/26/2005 4:24:32 PM

derflinger

Posts: 17
Joined: 12/24/2004
Status: offline

Back in 39, the Reich gave me 4000 Deutschmarks to build KG Derflinger. We thought the war would be short. It is now the second anniversary of that first bloody assault. October 1941, and we are facing another tough assault. This time it's in Russia.

In the two years since our first blooding, we have replaced nearly all of our equipment, with the exception of the Major's prime mover. Remarkably, most of the faces are the same. Well, not the infantry. We beat the Poles twice, the French twice, the British, in France and again three times in the desert. Then we were sent to the Eastern front. We've had two meeting engagements with the Russians. We counted 156 AFVs destroyed after the first battle, and 164 after the second. Those T-34's are tough, thank the gods of war they do not have very many of them.

This time the Furher has ordered a frontal assault. We are to prove the inate superiority of the Aryan race by charging into the center of the toughest defense the Russians can through up. We are instructed to not to stray from the road that crosses the battlefield by more than 800 yards, unless it is to pick up the enemy's standards. Those stupid bastards in Berlin, when will they learn? Well, we will follow orders...

Lt Gruber approached Maj. Derflinger, "Sir, here is the manifest of support equipment you ordered"
"Thank you lieutenant. Hmmmm. Damn it! Where are my Stukas? I see they gave me three extra batteries of 150's. And a battery of Rockets. hmmm, good thing they gave us an ammo dump. We're going to wear those darn tubes out. Well that will have to do." The Major examined the fine print.."No flamethrowers? And they call it a "company" of engineers? We are leading the assault, we should have priority! I'll bet that bastard Stransky is not short of flamethrowers."

"At least we got the whole company of assault guns, and they're the new E model sporting an MG34!" the lieutenant grinned.

"Yes, that is an improvement, but I can't believe they built the damn things without them in the first place. Lieutenant, have you the order of battle?"

"Yes sir. 2 plts PZIIIh, 4 plts PZIVe, 1 plt JPZ1b, 1 section each Stug B and Flampanzer. 1 plt sIG33 PZ1, 2 sections 88 Flak AT, 1 plt 76.2 AT, 1 plt 37mm AA, 1 plt 8-Rad, 1 secton 6-Rad. 7 SP morters, 3 Wurfrahmem, 23 251/1 and 3 250/10.
And 1 Co + 1 plt of SS and 2 plts of engineer. Our organic engineers do have some flamethrowers. And we have 2 plts of Spec Ops and 3 plts of recon."

"Very good Lieutenant, and don't forget about our ammo truck"

"Yes sir, and I must say sir, I still don't understand how you managed to trade all those mules for half tracks. That was a fantastic deal you made with that glue factory. I wonder what they were doing with all those 251/1s?"

"Yes, yes, lieutenant, it's time to get down to business. We have approximately five platoons of engineers, well, closer to four. We will load them on the Stugs along the front. 600 yards from the enemy lines. The front here is pretty blocked out so we won't see much of each other till we get quite close to their front lines. Good thing we got those extra three 150mm batteries - for a total of six! First thing a preliminary bombardment to turn over the mine field and quiet down the troops in the front line I think we will use four batteries, at the same time, we will put down smoke about 150 - 200 yards east of where we think the front line is. The Stugs will engage any enemy remaining after the bombardment while the engineers work on the mines. When we achieve breakthrough, the recon will lead the way followed by the SS riding on the tanks. Sometimes I wonder if those 251/1's are worth anything? We roll the barrage back over the Russians as we move forward."

"Piece of cake, Sir"

"Let's hope it's German chocolate, not Borscht."

"Uh, yes sir. Oh by the way Sir, what about all these 50mm morters you ordered? I think we've got 15 of them."

"Lieutenant, you've got a lot to learn. Suppression! We move the little morters up as close to the front as we can, and keep the Russian heads down while we clear the mines. Son, I don't know what to expect at dawn, but the Russian tanks we've encountered so far are better than the British, and with the exception of the 88 of course, they have the best AT gun around. I expect this will be our toughest fight so far. You best get a good night's sleep tonight Lieutenant, you won't be getting any tomorrow."

The Major retired to his maps and a small glass of schnapps.

So, I've got lots of morters and rockets on the board, and some big guns off board.
I have my doubts that any of my AT guns will be of much use in an assault. Nor the PZ1b, they are just too flimsy.

I have several tankers with experience over 100 and more than 40 kills each. My favorite recon got too close to a rocket attack in the last battle. Killed by friendly fire. And he had 8 kills. Well, just to be fair, I don't look (I try not to anyway) until the battle is decided...

Stay tuned for the next installment...

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RE: The Adventures of KG Derflinger - 2/27/2005 1:41:49 AM

derflinger

Posts: 17
Joined: 12/24/2004
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The pre-bombardment and smoke had the expected result. One Russian LMG opened fire on a Stug and managed to knock his rider off. But no other damage was recieved. After continueing the bombardment through the first and second turns, the engineers reported seeing many soviet units popping smoke and running. The engineers were well into the mine field when the 122mm howitzers found them. Luckily, most of them had managed to get under cover and loses were minimal. Not all went according to plan, the point squad came under fire from a pair of soviet rifle squads while in the middle of a minefield, Sgt Schultz attempted to rescue them with his Stug but ran over one of the few remaining mines. Somehow Sgt Schultz survived the encounter. If he survives the battle, we may reduce him to loader.

(in reply to derflinger)

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RE: The Adventures of KG Derflinger - 2/27/2005 2:47:49 AM

derflinger

Posts: 17
Joined: 12/24/2004
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A small hole was opened up on the 6th turn, three Stugs dashed through, the first was immobilized by mechanical breakdown. The only Russians in sight are hiding in their entrenchments. Of course, there is a lot of smoke. We open fire with everything, as close as I dare. We count 46 Russian squads retreating. We will refrain from shooting for a while.

The sniper on our northern flank spots 3 or 4 T-34s heading towards our break through.
By turn 9 the gap in the minefield is 250 yards wide the Stugs and recon move forward. The SS prepare to move out.

No sign of the T-34s on the north flank. We also spot another 4 T-34s on the south, they seem to be guarding the VH here. They apparently feel that they must use up all the gas they can, constantly driving in circles. The recon platoon on that flank is holding a pool to see which one will have a breakdown first.

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RE: The Adventures of KG Derflinger - 2/27/2005 10:42:44 AM

derflinger

Posts: 17
Joined: 12/24/2004
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Strongpoints should not be tackled from the front.

Stug E stumbled onto one - one step too many. The 152mm gun fired and my Stug was stuck. There was an engineer one step away, but he had already moved. The Russian proceeded to fire three shots before the Stug died. Each of the shots splashed heavy shrapnel on to my engineer, until they finally popped smoke and disappeared. The strongpoint and associated log bunker and mg nest were finally destroyed one by tank fire, the others by close assault. We took the VH in the center front. This seemed to signal the Russians to counter attack with T-34s. They came from three sides. The PZIIIh's took out two from about 500 yards. One PZIVe was destroyed while approaching one that had been suppressed with mortar fire. He found another one hull down in an entrenchment. The remaining four in the platoon poured on the fire until the Russian died. There are still several advancing on our position atop a rather large hill.

There are still VH north and south of the breakthrough, as well as east.

This is the first time that I've only seen T-34s. Still no AT guns. I expected a few at least.

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RE: The Adventures of KG Derflinger - 2/28/2005 4:07:13 AM

derflinger

Posts: 17
Joined: 12/24/2004
Status: offline

In the end, a rather disappointing showing by the Russians.

Although we only came away with a marginal victory. 8900+ points to 1900. We lost 156 men, 2 APCs and 8 AFVs. The Russians lost 1921 men, 24 artillery, and 13 AFVs.

I thought there would be more Russians than I found, and after the battle, I took a look at the map. Gee, there were plenty more Russians, but they were not moveable units and so far east of the VH, there was no way they would have any influence on the battle:
2 strong points, 5 log rifle pits, 3 log mg bunkers, 12 mg nests, 2 76.2 AA, 2 45mm ATG, 2 76.2 MM ATG, 4 12.7mm AA, 2 37mm AA.

A little better placement of these elements could have made this a little more costly.

There were a few besides these that briefly got into the fight. I didn't have to take them to end the battle, so I smoked them and ended it.

One very strange thing. After blowing up a strongpoint, there was a dazed and confused T-34 sitting in the rubble. Was it inside? I would swear that my Flampanzer saw only 1 target. And that was after my recon and an SS squad tried assaulting.

One thing I've noticed that will completely unbalance a battle - Wurfrahmen or Nebelwerfer units along with 2 supply dumps. Yes, they are not accurate, but if you set up with the Wurfrahams between 2 supply dumps, you can shoot a full load every turn. And 8 flame rockets each turn will destroy the best defense in no time. Of course, a human opponent will probably figure out where the launch site is and dump as much artillery as possible on it.

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Post #: 5

RE: The Adventures of KG Derflinger - 3/5/2005 3:39:05 AM

KG Erwin

Posts: 8981
Joined: 7/25/2000
From: Cross Lanes WV USA
Status: offline

Here's a utility I strongly recommend for using in the long campaigns: http://www.campaignwatcher.go.dyndns.org/

This program, designed by Arne Rossmanith, keeps track of the progress of your core force for you. It's a must-have.

_____________________________

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