OK so I swallowed my pride and reloaded from Turn 26 to see how things went with decent play. Besides it was fun and I wanted to continue the campaign. THIS time I was sober. (PWI--Playing While Intoxicated--is not recommended, as emotional surges play havoc with rational judgments)
. With the benefit of hindsight coupled with recovered patience, an MV was achieved.
--POSSIBLE SPOILERS, BEWARE FOLKS--
As can probably be seen from the saved game attachments (hope those were done right) everybody took the paved southern route. Mostly followed Ts4EVER's prescription:
"The trick is using your recon to uncover the enemy positions, destroy those closest to the road, direct fire tank smoke at the rest and then feed your infantry through. The defensive line is not very strong, but tricky to attack without heavy artillery. Use mortar smoke on it, then close assault with engineers and infantry. This time they don't have minefields ready, so that makes it easier to overrun the trenches."
However I didn't directly assault any trenches, but snuck around and came in from the rear. At a certain point the enemy would come out to reclaim their lost VH's, at which time they'd get blasted by a covering force (at least one tank and infantry squad). Everybody else would head north, behind enemy lines, and repeat the process.
Since the scenario is fairly long and artillery (mortars) are so important for both smoke and barrage, I turned off 1 or 2 tubes on every battery to conserve ammo. Once those tubes ran out the others were switched on. Near the end smoke--including that carried by the tanks--was practically gone but there was still plenty of HE, which helped against counterattacking infantry.
First time I played from Turn 26 (sorry that turn save was lost) I underestimated the size and fury of the German counterattack. The lone StuG was no problem, but infantry kept coming from nowhere and blowing up my tanks with panzerschrecks and -fausts. Couldn't see them at all, so a number of VH's were lost to "invisible" leg units.
Next go-round I was careful to preserve infantry for support, spotting most "bad guys" before they came close. As usual combined arms was the key.
Lotsa fun and quite challenging. The next battle appears even more intriguing. Thanks Ts4EVER.
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@Wulfir: Good on yer for the first scenario AAR.