Fifth Battle ( Pursuit the enemy mission - 42 turn - visibility 76 )
Pre-Battle:
After crushing the Russian the HQ has spotted a good opportunity to inflict a heavy damage to the enemy, we have been requested to pursuit enemy forces to break the front.
Our forces were at 80% approx. Our major concern was the At-gun losses, only 5 were left. Considering that we had found some T34 before, it wasn't a good thing.
Battle plan:
The enemy had chosen a good position to play a defensive battle. There was a river which cross all the map from north to south, it got divided in two sub rivers so if you started at the map center you need two cross two river sections, at the south there was a road with a bridge.
From previous battles we know that Russian often defend roads and bridges very well, so it looked like a hard way, but if we deploy our our forces at the north we must do a big encirclement or we must cross two river sections, also the terrain was plain with few vegetation offering poor cover.
Finally it was decided to deploy our main forces at the south, company A will advance in parallel of the road using the terrain to cover the advance. B on trucks and tanks will try to advance as fast as possible to surround the south victory objective to fast destroy the defenders, then proceed to the two north ones.
Company C will be deployed at the north, their primary goal was pin the defenders to not allow shift troops, their secondary goal was support the advance of B and tanks when they reach the enemy rear.
There wasn't reserve. So we played everything at the first shot.
Go:
Things went bad from the start. Enemy deployed many infantry squads in advanced positions, so company B had to unmount from their trucks after advance only few meters, even worse a lucky enemy artillery shot destroyed two AT-guns, lettings our south group with only one left.
At the north C advanced and made contact with the enemy, with artillery support it managed to cross the river, but as soon as they was at the other side, resistance begun to be harder and they were unable to kept advancing.
Meanwhile at the south A,B and T manage to reach the objective surrounding it, enemy armor was located far, our tank guns were absolute useless at such distances. Our remaining At-gun was deployed and knock them but a lot of time was lost. With the objective on our hands our men tried to advance through the enemy rear to reach the north objectives. Despite the efforts of C company the enemy was able to shift some forces, about 6 tanks and 8 or 10 infantry squads. Tanks were fast neutralized at short distance by our ones, but infantry took a hill and we were unable to clear it until artillery arrived to suppress them, more time lost.
Again advancing our tank force was ambushed by two at guns losing two thanks (crew was able to survive). Artillery was plotted over enemy At-guns and neutralized them.
Finally all remaining forces advanced over the victory objectives capturing it.
Marginal victory for us !!
Post Battle thoughts:
We failed to get a Decisive victory for only 200 points (approx.). I have played very bad this battle, recon force weren't enough and they didn't go advanced enough, also HMG couldn't keep the speed of the advance as consequently they weren't when most needed. Also the lack of reserve didn't allow to put more pressure when needed, but it was a well know risk.
Also some bad look, losing two at-guns from a fortune shot at the game start was a big problem letting the south advance really compromised since our tank guns proved to be useless in large distances, we were lucky that enemy lacks of heavy armor this time.
One note for the future, our battalion has heavy problems when fighting in open field due the poor effective range of our weapons, the worts is that there isn't anything in our country inventory which we can request to solve it.
Lets hope next battle will be better.