BA in progress:
Thraeg (Allies) defeats Otthegreat (Axis) on Over the Hill
7-0 VLs
27-14 Casualties
6 Turns Left
This felt like a closer battle than the score would indicate – this seems to be a game where winning a couple of small engagements can create a local advantage in firepower that snowballs into a rout.
The map held three contested VLs strung from west to east along a central hill between the armies, with hedgerows, houses, and forests surrounding them. I took the central and eastern locations, and parked a Hellcat around a blind hedgerow corner where it was able to ambush a Panzer with point-blank shots into the weaker side armor. A counterattack of SS troopers coming through the forest, supported by suppressive fire from a few vehicles, forced my infantry to cede the central point, and wiped out one squad altogether. Both sides kept an eye on the western point but didn’t expose themselves by making a rush for it.
Things settled into a tense duel, with each side testing the other’s defenses without committing to a full-scale attack. On the east, a Panther tank used the narrowness of the terrain to present only its impregnable front armor and stop my outclassed Shermans cold. In the center, an open passage between a hedgerow and a forest was the fulcrum – both sides massed armor with clear lines of sight to the passage, and after an abortive German attack through the opening left a couple tanks destroyed, neither tried to press through. On the west, smaller forces took long-range potshots at each other.
Fierce house-to-house fighting eventually let my infantry retake the central VL and send the SS fleeing back into the forest. The German tanks on the western front came to the rescue by levelling suppressive fire against my troops there, but this proved to be the opening my own western flank had been waiting for. While the enemies were focused on my infantry, my Chaffee light tank was able to take advantage to charge forward and score two point-blank kills, opening the flank wide open and letting me take the western VL and then continue on to one of the German points. A Stug diverted from the center fought back hard and got two kills of its own, but was scrapped by a surprise infantry assault from the adjacent forest, as was a Marder guarding the center.
With victory locations tilted my way, the Germans had to take risks to try and get back to parity. A Panther charged through the central gap trusting to its heavy armor. But though it took a half-dozen shots from my waiting tanks, eventually one found its way through and destroyed it. Then with the center broken open, my forces poured through to outflank the Panther on the east flank, and all that was left was the mop-up.
