After having been awarded Best Sportsmanship during the Operation Market Garden in Herning last weekend I teamed up again against Helge Macintyre, who, after my humble opinion, is one the best FOW players in Denmark, and also were in charge of the ETC Team Denmark.
But why am I making a fuzz about this. Well the point will clearer during this AAR 🙂
The Mission : Counter Attack
In this game against I became familiar with the two terms: Flamethrower tank and Never Surrender
Turn 1:
I must admit I didn’t deploy my troops very strategic but the Americans made a Recon-move on my left flank but luckily I had a command team slowing their advance.
The Americans move through the forest in front of me, and with the company of two flamethrower tanks, which during the shooting step made a mess of my flak and dug in fallschirmjägers, also his artillery started to make my panzer werfers a bit worried about what to come. I was one of the round in which the Germans took a lot of hits
During my turn I ordered a platoon of fallschirmjägers to advance towards the second objective, which meant I was in the open and a easy target for the Americans Tank Destroyer platoon. The German shooting step wasn’t something to write about, but I pined some advancing infantry on my left flank but let his recon platoon slip through my fingers.
The only positive thing was the arrival of my tiger platoon.
Turn 2:
The Americans kept on advancing with all of its armour arsenal, and the picture below shows my predicament in a nutshell.
He kept coming and I took a lot of hits, and his tank destroyer platoon didn’t pop his tank destroyers but kept firing on my fallschirmjägers.
This left his jeeps of his tank destroyer platoon right in the fire arch of the tigers and also his flamethrowers tanks was in range, which I couldn’t resist.
The result was one destroyed Churchill Crocodile and a Sherman
Turn 3:
The revenge came swiftly and his pesky AOP ranged in since my tigers came from the reserve line and weren’t in range of the defensive AA-fire. A combined fire bombardment resulted in a Tiger in flames. As if this was enough the Americans took out a lot of my Panzer Werfers and his infantry came closer to the objective.
My turn saw the use of my Flak platoon taking some kills and I used my MG platoon to take out a jeep from the tank destroyer platoon but unfortunately they escaped which left my Tiger in a difficult position.
Turn 4:
The Americans popped his tank destroyer platoon and got a few shots from behind but the Tiger withstood the fire, and also saw a heavy bombardment, but these tigers guys wouldn’t leave the tank and came through without any casualties.
The advance against the objective continued and taking out some hits on my teams including some assaults which I withstood.
My Tiger took out one of the M10s and a Sherman during a assault.
Turn 5-8:
My Panzer Werfers were flooded by the Americans and my infantry teams became diminished and I took a lot of pain but my HQ joined the assault and drove back the attacks and my remaining fallschirmjägers came in the nick of time and saved the day.
I was surprised how hardened the fallschirmsjägers are and how the withstood continuously assaults from the Americans. His artillery was a constant menace but luckily the Americans concetrated their fire against my lonely Tiger, which just laughed at the face of death and survived continuously bombardments without a scratch.
I also became more familiar with the concept of assault, which is one of the most difficult aspects in Flames of War, but also one of the most important since it’ll make or break the day.
Aftermath:
Some days like your birthday or wedding anniversary stands out clear in one’s memory but a difficult victory against Helge Macintyre will last forever.
It was a great game in which I was on my heels all game through and with many bad dices on important times I will cherish the victory but I figure I’ll get to pay for that and this AAR next time I meet Helge 🙂
The following pictures summons up the battle from start till the end.
