Marginal Victory!
Turn 32
All quiet around G1.
Last flag turned on G2. No activity in the area.
Enemy artillery hit G3 again, inflicting light casualties.
I wanted those last three Sherman, so I went after them. First, I took a chance on the Sherman in the woods by assaulting it with a scout only having grenades and SMGs and it worked. That was the third one they destroyed in those woods. A Tiger moved forward and took out another Sherman, but couldn't get a shot at the last one. Core SS infantry fired and suppressed it, before one moved up and assaulted. The assault immobilized it. Next, I moved up one PzKw IVh and tried to destroy the Sherman on my turn, but failed. During the enemy turn, the Sherman fired at the assaulting SS unit triggering OpFire from my mark IVh and it killed the Sherman at that point. That M10 never did move again, so it survived.
Casualties
Friendly: Estimated 5 casualties
Enemy: Three M4 (Early) tanks destroyed and estimated 5 casualties.
Total Casualties
German
Men: 231
Artillery: 0
Soft Vehicles: 1
APCs: 14
AFVs: 3 (1x PzKw IVh, 1x Hummel, 1x SdKfz 251/2 GrW)
Americans
Men: 447
Artillery: 9
Soft Vehicles: 0
APCs: 0
AFVs: 32
Aircraft: 5
Score
Germany: 7206
USA: 1098
Final Comments
I did a little bit of math and figure out the difference between the marginal victory I got in this battle and a decisive victory are the following:
Two P-47s
Two P-39s
Two P-51s
Four P-38s
The American air force did a lot of damage to my force. Near as I can figure, they destroyed nine units and damaged at least another 11. That pretty much accounts for almost half of my vehicle losses. Two hits really hurt. The first one during prep fire because my units were still grouped together and the strikes where they saturated my defenses. Overall, my air defenses were adequate. It would be nice to be able to shoot down everything before they get a chance to strafe or drop bombs, but it's not realistic. This is the first time in the 37 battles of this campaign I've seen 10 planes hit me. The most I've seen before this was four. Of the 10, five were shot down and the other five damaged (I damaged that one P-51 and didn't know it). That was done by eight SPAA units and a host of AA machine guns on half-tracks. All in all, I think they did pretty well.
The other major source of damage I suffered was by enemy artillery. In assaults, you always get nailed by artillery. The way to avoid artillery is to keep constantly moving, which is something that is very difficult to do during an assault. With mine fields, fortifications and defenses you can't generally see until they fire, moving fast to avoid artillery just allows you to die a different way. Artillery ended up destroying seven vehicles.
I'm puzzled about the "soft vehicle" it said I lost, because I didn't have any. Near as I can figure, it counts an "ammo carrier" as a "soft vehicle". The SdKfz 252 LGM is a half-track with a closed and armored top. Everything else I lost were tracks, SPAs or a tank. Counting that "soft vehicle", I lost a total of 18 vehicles. Aircraft and artillery accounted for 15 of them. Of the rest, I lost a track and tank to Shermans and one recon track to a 57mm ATG.
Artillery and aircraft were two of the four things I mentioned the Americans had that were dangerous and they were responsible for most of my damage. I managed to keep the other two things under control. American bazookas didn't get any shots at any armored vehicles and the same goes for the M10s.
What I considered to be a short time for an assault turned out to be plenty of time. Normally, I find myself crawling across the last objective with less than five turns left when I have more time than I did with this battle. I suppose that's because I prefer to punch through along an edge and take the objectives from the rear. High visibility, terrain and a relatively short amount of time made me decide to hit the middle. That same high visibility, terrain and centered deployment made me more vulnerable to artillery strikes. Anyhow, this is probably the first time I've finished an assault with more than 20% of my time left. No matter, since you don't get bonus points by winning fast. If this circumstance comes up again, I'll have to think on how I can better protect my units from artillery and air strikes.
As far as the other American assets were concerned, they were about what I expected. Infantry and scouts destroyed eight enemy tanks as far as I recall. Most of the rest were destroyed by Tigers. I can think of four that were killed by PzKw IVhs. There might be a few more. The bunkers were easily dealt with as well, most of those destroyed by infantry. No real notable impression was made by the American infantry. They seemed pretty much like all the others I've faced.
What is my reward for winning this battle? I get another assault against the Americans again
This time visibility is relatively low(32) and the length is longer(51). What will make this different is it's a city assault. The AI loves to mine roads and a city has a lot of them. My tanks will have to slowly follow infantry into the town. I can't recall my last city battle, so I will have to give this one some thought.
I've attached the save just before I ended my last turn. Enjoy!