Evening battles 15th of June - 11 in total
Lebisey Woods
Stupidly I accept to be drawn into a duel between a Sherman Crab and one of my Befehlspanzers, well knowing that Ronsons lurking 57mm antitank guns most probably have line of sight on the hedge my panzer moves up to, which they did. So I loose a Befehlspanzer. So stupid of me and a bad start of a turn too.
Bretteville
Sleepville continues as such. We truce at battle-start.
Abbaye D'Ardenne
In this the 14th or 15th battle, we both focus on the same area. Sadly I have no real antitank weapons left, only 1 team with a faust and some teams with rifle grenades, so Ronson simply move in his Shermans and fire on all buildings - performing a devastating suppressive fire. My brave men are literally shot to pieces from all sides.
Watching the development of this terrible slaughter, I realise that I need to block the 3 gates in the compound walls, so his tanks cannot move into it. How amazingly it sound, this is the first time after all these battles, that I realise the gates needs to be blocked. It seems I am learning too slowly...but I am learning.
My deployment focus on defending the Abbaye
The slaughter at Abbey remove the bulk of my remaining infantry
Lingevres
Ronson succeed with a surprising local counter-attack, giving him back some lost ground in the south.
Tilly
Yet another entry with the Mark IV Panzers of the 12th SS Hitlerjugend.
My Panzer BG is still in fairly good shape
Ronsons BG showing more signs on depletion
It is obvious that I am loosing too many panzers in these entry battles
After having damaged a Firefly too
my best SS Mark IV is knocked out in this battle
Jugvigny
Once again in the same turn, I loose a panzer because of stupidity. I move a Jagd through a crossroad that I am pretty sure Ronson has line of sight on, with his antitank guns. He had. I lost the Jadg.
This must be the 11th panzer I loose in this campaign, from stupid decision-making-only. Thus 1/3 of all my panzer losses!
Carpiquet
Ronson make his first move into Carpiquet, where my Panthers from the Lehr are now to fight for their first time too. I cannot imaging his objective is to capture important ground, but only holding ground while wanting to draw in my precious panthers. However, I will not use my panthers to try and kick him off. Not yet. If he stays he stays. Thats it. I have lost too many panzers in this turn already, 5 in total;
1 Mark IV in Lebisey (a command panzer)
3 Mark IVs in Tilly
1 Jagd in Juvigny
Ronson moves in from Caen, now being in German hands again
My Lehr panther formation has not been committed yet, thus it is fully manned and equipped
Ronsons reinforced BG still in good shape
The result ends pretty much as I had expected, although with lighter losses on Ronsons side as had hoped for
Vimont
Ronson enters Vimont with his sledgehammer BG being fairly depleted and out of fuel too. At no point had I thought he would go for the exit to Cagny, so the buildings in front of it was defended only by 3 teams; 1 Schreck, 1 Command and 1 Rifle. Looking back now, I see how stupid it was not to deploy more troops up here, because of course he wanted to capture that exit. However, at the strategic map, although I understood the possibility of an encirclement, I still read the development of his bold pincer to force my panzers to battle.
Regardless, he got the exit and thus now he was in fact able to cut off my entire front south west of Caen. I think I need to read a book or two on strategy, because the fact I have let him come this far is a simply too stupid.
Ronson moves in from Troarn to Cagny.
My BG from the 346th is well manned and equipped
Ronsons sledgehammer, depleted in some types of units, is still a strong BG
A fairly good result
Troarn
Ronson moves in his infantry BG from Bois du Bavent. His objective clearly is to try and reach the exit to Vimont, while holding onto the village too. Sadly my Tigers was too slow to cross the railway and my infantry had to crawl most the way too. Thus before I had formed up a reasonable start-line of attack towards the exit to Vimont and the village it self, precious time had been lost. Eventually I had to throw in two Stösstruppe-teams in drops supported by a few Späh teams too, just to capture something.
Fortunately I managed to knock out both a Tank destroyer and a antitank gun too, that strangely is not listed as lost?
One of my Tigers got immobilised by artillery barrage, however, I managed to move in several teams around it at battle-end, in order for the crew not to abandon it. Thus in the next turn on the 16th AM, the Tiger was still available...phew.
My Tigers face yet another BG on Troarn
The deployment
Too slow a build-up for my assault on the village result in the exit to Vimont is out of German reach
The allied antitank gun not listed as destroyed - a bug?
Bois du Bavent
Ronson move in another infantry BG on Bois du Bavent. My Panthers had an easy battle here.
Ranville
We fight on for the flag in the field. Ronson made good use of smoke, multiple directions of attack and finally a barrage destroying my 88 Pak.
Total losses and situation debrief June 15th PM