[davidssfx]

Firefrost joined the campaign playing the German side, but will be on the Allied roster from now on.

We had three battles:
First was at Easy Red, where only a MG unit was left defending the map. Still took some losses trying to rush the bunker which concealed them, and also as other Allied units were moving into position to take VL's. Nevertheless the map is now secured ... tough last stand by Firefrost.

Next was Vierville Sur Mer.
I should have waited for a BG with tanks to arrive, before moving to this map ... the Allied deployment zone was one of the worst I've seen so far. But, I knew this ahead of time, and still went ahead with the attack. It was well defended also ... and the Allied BG ended up being disbanded with a total loss of map. My fault on this one ... sorry Allied team.

The Allied BG should have been able to retreat back to the beach map they just came from ... I guess this is a bug that needs to be fixed.

Lastly, off to Pointe Du Hoc.
After we both realized we each had only 9 men, with no command units, we both agreed to truce ... although I suspect the German side may have had the advantage.

Welcome to the campaign Firefrost.

[davidssfx]

Hooked up with RD_DD for a return to Merville Battery.
Again, this was only defended by a single German MG (I thnk). It ended as expected, with the Allied units quickly securing the map. It took five battles to get it done.  

[RD_DeathDealer]

Versus Davidssfx at Merville Battery

After a short firefight at close range, our final defenders of the Merville battery surrendered to the Americans.



Link to the Axis save:

Axis Save #58

[davidssfx]

had some battles with mooxe ... no time to write now, but will attach save

[mooxe]

Had a great bunch of battles vs David. I was Germans.

Hermanville - Started out with a depleted BG. Could not fill all slots. Main effort was to draw him into house to house and attempt to avoid tanks. That worked for the most part and I was able to inflict equal casualties upon his BG. Destroyed one Sherman, could not destroy the Cromwell that was eating my men up in the center cross roads.

Pegasus Bridge - I took DeathDealers deployment and expanded some more. Main effort was right hand side hedge rows. Battle started off shooting and Davids hedge defenders fell quickly. My 20mm car was destroyed by mortars. Battle results in morale failure for Allies and Germans gaining the two VLs shown in the North.

Gold Beach - Germans had two units. I placed my gun behind the center house in the hopes of getting a lucky one shot one kill on a tank. I did get one shot off, then naval came in and destroyed both my teams.

Strategic Moves - I quickly realized Germans were outnumbers BG wise. There is not enough units to keep a solid front. Not much movement in the North aside from FJ unit pulling out of battle and another unit attempting to disengage and make it to friendly lines. Disbanded Point Du Hoc as it had just a single infantry team left. Throughout the remainder of the center and South, BGs repositioned to defend supply depots, will take a few more turns to make this happen. Any unit not in action or moving was put on rest.

Azeville - This is one of my favorite maps from classic CC5. Main effort was to hold the line at the Allied Southern entry point. I placed four mg42s, 81mm mortar, panzerjager, kompanietroop and 75mm ATG down there with orders to hold only. Secondary effort was to contain and eliminate the Allied positions in the North. A stug, mg42 and a few infantry teams were brought up for this.

As the battle started it turned to Night, didn't. The weather indicator showed the sun with clouds. I immidietly started losing my troops positions to attack the house. My mg42 across the street took out most guys on the Northern edge of the house. The stug was firing indirectly. With my losses to the South of house it was looking bad. David suddenly pulled a bunch of men out of the house which was my queue for the mg42 team to cross the street. It took a few minutes to take control of the house after that, more losses for both. Along the East side of the map in the small house, Allies were dueling with another mg42 I had setup, mg42 was losing. I brought my stug around to take care of some rogue Allied infanty in a small shack at point blank range. In the East house along the edge of map an ATG gun lit up my stug. My two remaining men from the mg42 team assaulted the ATG, and with a grenade blew it up!

As this is all happening my mg42s are engaged in a static firefight in the South and winning. Minimal losses for those men, they inflicted max losses to Allies. An allied tank was lit up by my 75mm gun and shortly after my 75mm gun was destroyed by an unknown means. Game ended with morale loss for Allies, and they lost the map. Great result for Germans, helps stabilize the front lines. Major losses for this unit however in termsn of hardware (not soldiers), sometimes you have to eat up the losses to get rid of an enemy BG tho.

[davidssfx]

Yes, a great series of tough fought battles.

The Allies took too many losses while attacking, but held some ground at Pegasus against a tough BG.

At Azeville: one notable Allied mistake was backing a Sherman out of cover ... without checking for possible enemy AT, and moved right into a waiting ATG's sights. Biggest mistake though was dividing forces ... and another mistake was not moving a command team back to support morale of other units.
Allies lost the map, and suffered another BG disbanding ... due to the TLD retreat bug.
mooxe showed superior skills here.

Also lost a Sherman at Hermanville, after sending it around the perimeter of the map capturing VL's, without keeping an eye on it.

Well played battles by mooxe ... thanks for posting the AAR's and screens.

[davidssfx]

Battle 63 of the campaign ends an epic battle between two tough, evenly matched, Battle Groups (BG's) ...
The German 919/709 ID and Allied U.S. 502/101 AB.

The campaign started with these two BG's at St. Germaine de Varreville, and their final battle against each other ended with the disbandment of the 919/709 ID at St Marie Du Mont.

The first battle finished with both sides exhausted ... although against the AI. It was soon after decided, that no AI would be allowed.
Three more extremely hard battles between these two combatants occurred before an Allied decision to exchange BG's .. the 502/101 moved back to rest at Exit 2, and the 8/4 took its place.
The German 919/709 held off total defeat during the fifth battle and was moved to St Marie Du Mont on the next strategic turn, in order to try and reach friendly supply and support.
During the same strategic turn, the U.S. 502/101 was also moved to St Marie Du Mont ... to gain closer access to the front.
This turn of fate brought these two BG's together once again.

lorman vs davidssfx
Both BG's entered this map for the first time and deployed at opposite southern corners.
The Allied main priority was to ensure the Vierville exit remained in Allied control ... so as to block the German BGs' retreat.
Another concern was keeping a newly supplied Stuart from being damaged or destroyed. Cohesion also played a major factor, because only one command team remained.
Half the BG was sent to establish a foothold in buildings near the German deployment zone, while other units moved to protect the Vierville exit and scout/capture other VL's
Contact was made, as the two BG's met in the southern center of town. German MG's held back advances from within buildings. This required a cautious move forward with the Stuart, and a call to bring up units from the Vierville exit.
Two rifle teams had worked their way around the perimeter, and eventually met units defending the last German held VL. The advance bogged down under MG fire and mounting Allied losses, so the Stuart was moved further up ... only to go up in flames from an unseen enemy unit. Allied morale was beginning to break, but a final push was ordered as time ran down. This brought about favorable results for the Allies, but at high cost.

Excellent defense by lorman, as a final last stand ... a real nail biter.

1) Feb 04, 2010 davidssfx vs ai - major allied victory
9) Feb 22, 2010 davidssfx vs Priapus - major allied victory
26) Feb 27, 2010 davidssfx vs hOsTyLe - minor allied victory
40) Mar 04, 2010 davidssfx vs RD_DeathDealer - major allied victory
51) Sun Mar 07, 2010 davidssfx vs RD_DeathDealer  - minor allied victory
63) March 13, 2010 davidssfx vs lorman -  total allied victory

note: I haven't paid much attention to details of specific BG's, but took interest in these two.

[davidssfx]

Hooked up with hOsTyLe for a battle at Pont L'Abbe.
It was an all out fire fight from beginning to end.

[davidssfx]

Hooked up with mooxe for some more really hard fought battles ...

Dog Red - I lost control of this map as Allied commander last battle. So during the last strategic turn ... another more successful Allied beach BG was moved across to try and finish off the remainder of German defenders.
Although depleted of most units the German BG still had an ATG, a couple of MG's and another unit, perhaps command.

within the first few minutes, a Stuart was spotted and destroyed. The next 10 minutes was spent crawling Allied units into positions for recon and attack ...  mooxe was able to watch some TV and get refreshments
I had to be cautious though since this beach had humbled me once before.
Once several units were parallel with the German ATG (camped in a bunker like structure) ... some suppression was put on the gun and smoke laid. the attack failed though as the approaching units were lost.
Time was running out by this time and so a 81mm team was sent running across the beach through MG cliff fire. As they neared the gun ... an MG team, and Command Team were also sent moving fast. several soldiers got near enough for hand to hand combat, and the gun was knocked out in the last few seconds (I think). Not much left of the German BG now anyway. Will sure be glad to be off the beaches.

Hermanville - The most powerful BG I've seen so far entered the map from a central north deployment zone with 948 points.
I  was at about half of that so decided on defense only.
I had a couple of tanks at center of town in cross fire hidden angles. Most other units were at back side of buildings away from fire, except for a few in a separate location further west.
Four German tanks moved west across the fields with massed infantry, while going north to south was another tank with infantry support. mooxe carefully crushed the western forces, and then began recon by fire through most of the town buildings which were in front of the approach ways into town.
German infantry attacks were held back for some time, but an Allied tank left too exposed was taken out by precision AT infantry.
With less than a minute left, two German tanks appeared near the center town crossroads. I couldn't resist the chance to go for one, but when I inched the firefly out around its L shaped building cover ... it was hit by another schreck team with had earlier snuck across the road under smoke cover.
Morale broke, when the tank was lost ... and so another stupid move gave the German BG the center town VL's.
There is still plenty of ground left to defend though ... but a better attempt to keep the Allied armor fighting is needed.
Mooxe never had even one of his tanks in a compromising position, and let AT infantry do the major damage.

Pegasus - Allied forces held two VL's on their side of the bridge, as the German BG secured the rest of the map.

[davidssfx]

Regarding earlier mentioned concerns about German elite BG's being weakened by the point system, it seems the opposite is true ... regarding Hermanville anyway.

The German BG had 948 ... and with the points system, maximum allowed is 950 (five tanks in the active roster, I think).
The Allied BG had 468 ... and with the points system, maximum allowed is 500.

The Allies had two tanks in their active roster ... nine Sherman and two Stuart in their Force Pool.

just noting this for anyone following the points system topic.

[mooxe]

[Tejszd]

[schrecken]

[RD_DeathDealer]

Davidssfx...I would like to be under the 'casual' players listing please.
I understand that this will exempt me from making future strat moves- but it will allow me more gameplay.

Thanks-

[RD_DeathDealer]

Before I had this game, I made the post to be switched to a 'casual' player permanently.
I played as 'Allied' for this battle.

Versus hOsTyLe at Bayeux

The battle started as a meeting engagement between the Schnelle BDE and the British 231/50th ID. As soon as the bell sounded, German and British troops were sprinting for VLs through the narrow streets and connected buildings of Bayeux. Forced a crew bail-out of hOsTyLe's StuG by flanking it with a veteran Centaur IV during a 2-on-1 armored exchange. Both sides' infantry fought hard during the intense house-to-house firefights, but ultimately Bayeux ended up under British control.



Link to the Allied save:

Allied Save #68

It is now 'Movement' on the strategic map...

[davidssfx]

[davidssfx]

[Tejszd]

It really isn't meant for end users and affects all campaigns/operations started after it is changed so there is no option for it shown on any screen in the game.

It also only affects campaigns/operations started after the change, along with all the other options in the file, \Close Combat The Longest Day\DATA\BASE\campaign.txt.

# BGs retreat on rout (0 = disband on rout, 1 = retreat on rout)
0

[davidssfx]

[davidssfx]

The Strategic turn was taken, and another great series of battles with mooxe followed ... send re-enforcements
New Allied BG's arrived at the beaches during the morning of the 2nd day, as well as reports of an elite German SS BG.

Carentan Causeway - Both forces deployed on either side of a bridge, by which is the only way to advance. Since neither side was willing to face certain heavy losses in an attempt to cross it ... a truce was called.

St Mere Eglise - The Allied commander decided to swap BG's ... moving 505/82nd back, and bringing 8/4th to the front lines. Simultaneously, a German attack was underway ... thus, a meeting engagement. Deployment zones were diagonal across the length of the map, and Allied units moved to secure a central stronghold ... while several other units scouted/captured VL's. Beyond this, caution was used to bring the Allied armor into play, due to suspicions of hidden ATG's. Several small long distance skirmishes highlighted the battle. Captured ground will be used for further advancement next battle.

Vierville Sur Mer - A second attempt to gain a foothold on this map was carried out ... this time with two tanks. One by one the tanks moved up to positions where only one or two lines of sight could to used by either side ... while infantry units crawled and moved into hedges for cover, and as a base for fire. The opposing hedge had a dominant force of infantry spread across its length. Allied losses were mounting, even though a Sherman was able to reach the same Allied hedge and fire into buildings and hedges. A mortar barrage was laid on the German hedge, which did some damage and cleared some German units. An ATG was spotted further along and was knocked out. The second Sherman followed, but was found in the sights of a Marder that had been hiding behind a north west building. The Sherman went up in flames, but an Air Strike lit up the Marder. The first Sherman and infantry held their small gain of ground, and are better set to continue the advance.

Hermanville - The German 192/21 Panzer moved cautiously out of town center, towards the sea side of map, where the Allied BG was attempting to hold. By far the strongest BG of any so far in the campaign ... Five Panzer IV's and accompanying infantry dominated the battlefield against a couple of Shermans and various infantry/support units. While a single Panzer placed fire from a northern perimeter hedge, the others crashed through the central part of the map.
Eventually, two Panzers flanked the Allies on the southern most road while another drove right down main street. Two Shermans pulled out from behind cover to meet the advance ... one got off several shots at the two southern Panzers, but was knocked out.
Another German total victory, and the disbandment of a good Allied BG resulted.
No Allied BG will be able to hold back 192/21 Panzer (using the campaign points system), and will face total defeat within one or two battles. There's only one way to deal with this superior BG ...  

I didn't get "in game shots" ... so these will have to do

Attached is the Allied save