Sealing the Bulge!

[JB1979]

This turned out to be quite a struggle, but as its fresh in my mind I thought I might detail my account!

SPOLIERS below

First of all I had two previous failed attempts at this mission. On the first try I simply took the those forces on the west of the bridge into the forest and then up to the HQ and those on the East up to the first village. Both were soon reduced to numbers that would never be able to mount any sort of offence even if they retreated, rendezvoused and pushed up the one flank.

On the second attempt I decided to take all my units up the west flank through the forest and up to the HQ. Do the hard work first I thought and then mop up. I pounded the HQ with artillery and air support but that 88 and 75 were still well on my advance, I soon had a depleted force, the one line of pass into the HQ for my armour, and my lack of patience also resulted in further losses, when I finally came through a Tiger sat there and subsequently made mincemeat of my remaining forces.

So back to the drawing board. I had learnt two valuable lessons 1) patience 2) defences were so well set up I needed to keep my units together. I was concerned about how many times it would take to complete as I didn’t know that re-enforcements would arrive!

First of all I took the VP in the forest and took out the 75 artillery with Infantry, Engineers and Scouts and left them there with a Sherman to repel any counter attacks. The rest of the forces went over the bridge and joined up with the rest and pushed forwards to the first VP on that flank that was rather easily taken after it was first pounded with artillery, and the Stug quickly surrended to my superior tank numbers. Pushing onwards one of my shermans was hit by an 88. We quickly fell back and a lucky manoeuvre worked. I sent a 2 half tracks with engineers and infantry up to the 88 and quickly took the VP and destroyed the light resistance on the hill.

Now the 88 was gone my main tank force pushed into the central village VP after it had been hit hard in previous turns by bombing runs and artillery. I deployed an engineer unit into one of the buildings that would save my bacon. The next turn the King Tiger and 2 Panthers showed up, the engineers thankfully destroyed the King Tiger as it moved past to their hiding spot and they got it from the rear!!

At the same time on the west flank re-enforcements turned up. I have to admit here that on the first run the majority were destroyed by the HQ 88. I then re-loaded a save from the previous night and tried again, this time things turned out better with the aid of my existing forces that supported by moving up from the forest VP.

Now I had 4 VPs the forest, the first village over the bridge and the hill on the east and the central village. Further re-enforcements arrived and from there capturing the main road was easy, and I quickly took the HQ flanking from the rear and the front. Job done, but hard work and some heavy losses!

Great scenario and a real test.[/b]