[Wiking]

Almost wrapped up the June fighting in the USSR. Some more thoughts follow:

I find myself being of two minds about artillery. On one hand, I know my men really appreciate it when I can do anything possible to reduce incoming mail, as the A.I. loves to hammer a location where it thinks you are. Sometimes it thinks rightly! And its not always possible to shift forces when you're bogged down in a fight and don't want to draw additional op-fire just to re-position away from artillery.

On the other hand, especially now that I'm on Der Ostfront, I find that the repeated infantry waves are best handled by pinning with machine-gun fire and then broken up with massed artillery. This takes time and shells that cannot be used against enemy artillery. So on a case by case basis, I have to decide what is the greater threat at a given time.

I must mention and re-mention how much I hate the Soviet 76mm "Rat's Tail." I loved using a platoon of these in my Soviet scenarios, but being on the receiving end is just too much! My one saving grace is that the computer usually puts them in the worst places for line of sight, and my mortars have racked up a lot of kills in neutralizing them.