Silly After Action Report Part 3- Training Day - Blind Bombers and Bold Bridgelayers

And also a visit from the alliteration police.  Weeks have gone by since I last regaled you with my shambolic attempts at playing this game.  This was mainly due to the fact that my electricity which normally purrs through my wires like a well behaved cat suddenly started spitting and jerking all over the place and in the process burnt out my internet connection to the despair of spam emailers everywhere.

Now I'm back and as I gaze across the map I realise that the me of a few weeks ago left the me of right now in a lousy position.  I hate that bastard.  Still despite the chronic incompetence of my earlier self I must carry on.  My flanking position on the right is looking more than a little frayed as such of my troops that have avoided minefields now find themselves scattered across the board.  In the centre a pair of bridgelayers prepare to lower pathways across an anti tank ditch and on the left a seething mass of troops cringing beneath concealment counters pile up in the last available cover and nervously contemplate charging across the open ground.

Time is running out and some difficult choices have to be made.  You may recall I noted that my last PzIV was parked pretty much underneath Ivan's antitank gun and was very obviously not long for this world.  I was right, Ivan's 37mm cranked around and blew the thing to pieces.  I didn't care, I barely cried.  I had other fish to fry.  While I was frying fish Ivan was frying tanks.  Reluctantly I dragged my attention back from supper to see what he was doing.  He managed to reman his anti aircraft gun in anticipation of my air support.  One of his 76mm guns took out a bridgelaying tank while my firepower didn't even disturb the seams of his soldiers uniforms.  With an almost brutal eagerness I ordered in my stuka but apparently he had difficulties finding the target, the ground wasn't big enough or something, and buzzed off back to a corner of the map.  Apparently any plan that required me to hit the enemy wasn't going to work.

Slowly grinding forwards amidst a litter of tank wrecks.

Despite this disappointing state of affairs I perservered in a triumph of optimism over experience.  I had finally gathered a few tanks on the plateau on the left and despite generally lousy rolls managed to finally break the crew of his atg.  Not to be outdone another tank rolled up and overran his newly remanned AA gun breaking the squad who was doomed to die for failure to rout.  Over on the right things were still going badly as a squad managed to get itself caught on some wire in the woods.  As at the time of writing they're still there like heavily armed scarecrows.

Just when I was cursing my bad dice (and Ivan was rolling his eyes and making :"here we go again" motions) one of my mortars stepped up to the plate in a big way.  I had dumped smoke on both his forward cupolas and with it due to disperse soon I felt I should gain some acquisition to make my subsequent fire phase easier.  Instead my mortar went on a stunning rate tear which resulted in a critical hit completely destroying a cupola.  Honestly compels me to admit that the very next shot activated his sniper which promptly broke the mortar crew who are currently cringing underneath their weapon weeping with fear but still a destroyed cupola will make the path forward easier.

My one surviving tank on the right bulled forward alone killing a squad and breaking another before being brought back to reality with a pair of consecutive stun results which left them no longer interested in proceedings.  Its fair to say my right is unlikely to take much more useful part in the game.  Over on the left my immobilised PzIV repaired its main armament (again) fired at the roadblock (again) without result (again) and then promptly broke its main armament (again).  This time the repair roll was a six and the crew hopped out of their now completely useless vehicle providing me with a little more expendable infantry.

Ivan skulked as much as he could in his turn trusting to time and his defences while my stuka once again proved that having a birds eye view of the battlefield didn't mean it could actually find anything to hit, it buzzed off impotently for a second turn.  I suspect I'm going to have to win this without much Luftwaffe intervention. 

More tank wrecks

My main infantry force is piling up on the left.  I'm pushing through now and have cleared away (I hope) the bulk of his outlying defenders.  Now the fort stands alone waiting to receive my attack.  Oh yes and I bridged an antitank ditch.  So one personal objective gained at any rate.  His 76mm shocked the first tank that tried to cross but it recovered the very next turn and a squad and machine gun armoured assaulted forward and into a trench.  I don't have much hope they will achieve much but they're another nuisance for Ivan to worry about.

The time has come for the final push, I still have a few tanks and a large mass of infantry, all I have to do is cross a broad stretch of open ground in the teeth of (no doubt) furious resistance.  As has happened with me in the past I think I've left it a little late but perhaps with some luck, and if the damned stuka can do anything at all I might make a genuine stab at it.  Ivan is obviously worried as he came up with some rubbish excuse about visiting family in the UK to give him a few weeks off to contemplate his situation.  I'll be waiting for you Ivan, I smell victory.  Oh no wait, I just burnt the toast.

Ready for the final push