[Lancer]

I completed battle number five (Busk). I had fun. Another great map. Marginal victory - I think mainly because I lost eight tanks. It ended at turn eighteen. I thought it would take a lot more turns since I got so delayed and diverted the first few turns. But once the shell was cracked it all went rather easy. Was that the design? It seemed to match history for parts of the war at that time.

The lend lease companies went through the town easily and quickly. (lost the T-3 and an M4 to an unfound panzerscrecker towards the end) Once they took the intown objectives it seemed to start a chain reaction of other enemy units leaving their posts to head to the objectives in the town. It made things easier for the other approaches.

Most losses came from an approach I was going to ignore. (from north of the river) But then I did assign the starting aux tank co (plus the smg co) to take that approach. Smoke came late even with a priority hex nearby - all guns were concentrated on another approach for the first few turns. I did not intend to but one tank took out an enemy gun apc and another took out an atg in a duel. But other atg's destroyed both tanks. The enemy atg's got another tank a few turns later. (after the smoke arrived) Never found those atg's. Lost another tank to an unseen enemy smg squad w/panzerfaust. One of our smg platoons got hammered and pinned down for awhile by enemy artillery. One squad was almost destroyed.

The core force went straight for the town on this side of the river. This is where all the guns and smoke and katyushas were used for the first few turns.. The core got diverted to a more southerly approach by a nashorn that destroyed a tank (but not the crew!) The nashron destroyed another tank (a reinforcement) right before an IL-2 destroyed the nashorn. I sent all available aircraft after the nashorn, The first IL-2 destroyed it. As a bonus the second IL-2 found a panzer nearby and destroyed it. The third IL-2 found a stug but didn't get it. (a tank hunter eventually destroyed the stug and lived) I got the core set up where I wanted (covering a bridge) and was going to have the reinforement companies clear the area but there wasn't much fighting after the lend leasers took their objective hexes. The enemy came out of hiding and died easily. I think our artillery destroyed an atg and a smg platoon destroyed another. (I think all enemy artillery and aa was also destroyed)

Great job and many thanks!