Section Leaders:
Fionn Kelly & Madmatt

Riesberg

American – Reisberg
Turn 5

For the purposes of this AAR, I have assumed the personality of Capt. Turner, unit A-0.

PASSWORD FOR MOVIES = fo4

Save this link for turn 5 movie file

Orders – Turn 5

Everyone who can see the enemy gun is ordered to stop where they are and begin firing at it.  Ten units including 2 mortars and 2 MMGs should quickly put it out of action.  Everything else is second priority.  I am confident of my troops ability to select good targets of opportunity after this is done.  While it appears below that the German is targeting Victor-2, Sgt. Palmer is reporting to me that he is still turret down and protected from it.  As I can’t be sure, I order him to halt and try to acquire while his wingman (Victor-1) fires smoke to cover him.  There’s no sense taking any chances with my tanks right now.  The other two tanks are ordered to continue firing at our objective building.

 This is why I’m not worried about the Germans gun we just spotted. All of this firepower should knock it out of action real quick.

I briefly consider asking Charlie platoon to take advantage of this opportunity to try to get to the first row of houses but decide it can wait a minute until Baker can join them.  So everyone else is ordered to sit tight and keep his eyes open.  Their time will come soon enough.  I am having our .50 cal and a mortar team relocate to slightly better positions though and I am moving up right behind Baker and Charlie. 

Action – Turn 5

 Well it’s now clear to me that the Germans aren’t going to give up this town without a fight but the battle is still going well for us though.  A direct hit from Cpl. Horner’s mortar knocked out that gun (an 88 I think) before he had a chance to do much damage other than to put Cpl. Earnhardt’s mortar out of action. 

Here comes an air mail special delivery (gray “oval” at the top middle of the screen), compliments of Cpl. Horner’s 60 mm mortar.

 Scratch one AT gun.

Unfortunately, before we could knock him out, Cpl. Earnherdt is about to get his own “package”. Part of the problem is that he was moving at the end of last turn so it took him 21 seconds to get his first shot off. This was the AT gun’s second shot at him. And Earnherdt leads a veteran unit.  I’m sure a green one would take even longer to set up.  The only good news about this is that we only lost man from his crew.

 We’ve found another AT gun too but this time they got the drop on us and he wiped out one of Charlie Platoon’s squads before we found him.  

This is the first indication that we had there was another AT gun out there.  Half a squad gone, just like that.  Note that we still don’t know where it came from.

 
Three shots later, the squad has had enough and is running away.

Mortar rounds continue to drop around Fox Platoon but they only lost one man this time.  It’s only making them keep their heads down.  Lt. Brown is doing a good job of keeping his green troops under control.

All in all, I’m pleased. Tank fire has brought down a building on top of at least one squad in there. Now that the AT gun is KO’d and we’ve had a look at those woods, I’m willing to risk bringing the tanks more into play now.  Our Arty has finally started coming down on those trees behind the town.  Everyone is rested.  We ready for the final charge into town.  The only unsolved problem I have is what to do about that other AT gun.  Well, one thing at a time.  I’m confident we can stay out of his line of fire in the near term.

 
A round from Lt. Jarad’s guns drops a little short, right near the abandoned gun’s crew.  Note the rubble objective “building” on the left.  That’s all that’s left after a little over 2 minutes of 75 mm HE from two tanks.

“Butcher’s” Bill