“They say fortune favours the bold, but they never explain what fortune is likely to do when both sides display equal boldness.” (T. Stone, 2023)
Turn 8 ended with the IS-2 and the Panther engaged in a bizarre myopia contest in the NW corner of the map. Keen to bring that contest to an end ASAP, both of the involved Comment Commanders put their faith in aggressive ‘hunt’ orders this turn. Circa T+5 the advancing behemoths spot each other. Neither tank has much gun laying to do. Realistically, the Panther is almost certainly doomed unless it fires first.
It does not fire first.
Held on North Bridge by a quirk of CMRT’s creaky WEGO order system (once ‘hunting’ AFVs stop to engage, they remain halted for the remainder of the turn) the triumphant Panther-slayer almost pays a high price for its immobility late in the turn.
At T+53 a shot fired from a spot close to Boleslav Bridge’s western end (e9) skims its engine deck before crossing the map’s northern fringe and disappearing.
The King Tiger is preparing to fire a second round when its commander notices another, more pressing (?) threat – a SU-100 at 2-o’clock!
The turn ends on several knife/cliff edges. The stationary King Tiger is aiming at the stationary IS-2 (buttoned, turret direction SW) on North Bridge, but has LoS to the SU-100 which is reversing into the alley at j11.
The Tiger is halted at f12SW with a narrow view northeastward across the river.
Because the two spotter planes circling Lodowice are having trouble following the movement of the foot units that have recently entered the map, from now on, teams won’t know the whereabouts of out-of-LoS enemy infantry. The locations of friendly infantry units will be disclosed in mess rooms only.
^ Rough guide to AFV movement
(Next turn deadline: Sunday night)
Ah, curses! Well this is very fair. Should have thought that the IS-2 will have no other option than to do the same as me. It seems that every tank lost in this fight was a casualty of impatience.
My hat off for my slayer.
But tell me, how many of my crew survived?
A salute to you as well—we deduced your trait after we put in our orders this past turn, and you did a great job at repeatedly spoiling our plans given that limitation.
It was certainly nerve-wracking waiting to discover the result.
The Panther was potted with an upper hull hit that killed the driver and assistant driver. Amazingly, everyone in the turret (commander, gunner, and loader) escaped totally unscathed.
Welcome to the ghost side of the Wehrmacht! 🙂