The French ATR team that bagged an armoured car last turn spend this sixty spooning rocks and hugging dirt. Despite the best efforts of the Gallic mortar team which uses all but one of its white-painted M302 rounds this turn, Bignon and his loader are pummelled mercilessly by the Panzer III on Mosque Mount.
Miraculously, although the relentless hail of 5 cm shells eventually causes the anti-tankists to break, the duo end the turn uninjured.
The assaulters south-east of the village are less fortunate. Led by Sergeant Vidalies, the seven-man squad on the left in the above pic, lose a man the moment they crest the rise. If the advancing halftrack and the static foes in H20 hadn’t turned their attention to another knot of feisty Frenchmen at T+40, Vidalies’ losses would probably have been higher. Instead it’s the ‘B-is-for-Bold’ portion of 2 Squad that get it in the neck.
By the time the clock stops, Corporal Gaubert’s five-man half squad has suffered three casualties, is displaying a red ‘PANIC’ label on its unit card, and appears to have lost all appetite for advancing. Under fire from the HT’s MG 42, its chances of survival look slim.
Other notable developments in the French arena, this turn? During the assault on H20, the enemy ATR team was spotted moving southeastward. If it maintains its current pace and direction, it could well be in a position to molest the shocked-but-orderable Carrier by the halfway point of turn ten.
* * *
Spectators that nip to the toilet or bar during turn 9 of the British contest don’t miss much. Before breaking LoF, the reversing Crusader proves too tricky a target for the German ATR team.
At T+16, Corporal Darling (2 Squad, B) gets into a brief firefight with infantry pushing south close to the village VL. The exchange cows the Jerries involved, but also leaves the Brits in E25 ‘taking cover’.
On the other side of the north-south road, a couple of Tommy units move up.
And, at T+57, a shout of “Enemy armour! Enemy armour!” alerts Team GB to the fact that the German halftrack has just trundled into view on the eastern flank of Mosque Mount.
If the HT keeps coming, its possible the Crusader, which from its current position also has LoS to the last known position of the PSW, might get a shot at it next turn.
(Next order deadline: Tuesday night)
Oh dear. I do wish we had our mortar close at hand. It’s the perfect time for our HQ to target the halftrack for them and drop some 2in delights their way. Maybe we can run them up and do so next turn.
As it stands, I want us to hug the ground and avoid the attention of the armored perambulator. Yet I want us to continue to suppress H19 until our team approaching K20 can drive them back.
Perhaps our AT rifle can get to H25 to supplement the fire of our tank in driving back the halftrack and covering the PSW.
I’m sorry sir, I should’ve had Baldrick already there ready to rain, I’ll try to do better
Ah, the MG42. With all respect to the early Gatling and Maxim precursors, there are three great machine guns. The Vickers, for when you just need to keep firing, the Browning M2 (in .50 calibre) for hitting hard and the MG42, for the elegant, reliable and deadly precision fire from light vehicles and heavy squads.
Sorry French team, but you should’ve known better.
My apologies, Francais, the wild missing by everyone made me assume the range was in our favour. I also thought the mortar was going to cover us, but I guess it can’t.
I’m on holiday, so someone take over, please. I would push into the house with the healthy squad and maybe pull the other back. Let the broken squad get away entirely. Just my thoughts, and I stand relieved.
My apologies too, for disappearing entirely last week: I got a bit distracted squeezing the last drops of summer out of the Peloponnese. Turns out not everywhere in Europe is totally miserable in October!
I’ll take over the infantry for now unless Gobser has some good ideas up his sleeve. Don’t take the losses too hard, I definitely wouldn’t have done any better. C’est la guerre, as they say.
I am completely okay with you taking over our infantry, I am in no shape to manage many things at once lately, even if rarely.
The only thing I’d advice is that, if the guys are even somewhat controllable, they should finish their movement, stopping in the open or reversing will spell doom for them. The guys that are not yet committed should stay in cover imo.
Let’s be conservative on this flank for a while, until we have a way to deal with the half-track. All our AT assets are elsewhere for now, so we should focus on freeing them from entanglement I’d say
@Tim BRITISH GB2 ORDER:
Please RUN Baldrick’s mortar as fast as his little legs will go to the right/east of Oneknown’s HQ unit (LT LYNDHURST) to a point about 6-7m to the east of him (at the bottom of the hill, to the west of the building at J24, 6-7m away from said building), thanks. I don’t think there’s any time left to target the Halftrack this turn (I am also unsure if he’s in range), but if so, please unleash Baldrick’s 2in delights on him now.
Please also FAST MOVE Noel Edmond’s Bren boys to a point about 9m North East from the J24 building – to the base of the hill there – and BUTTON up. The carrier should look like his front cogs are just slightly beginning to climb that hill at the very bottom, thanks. If Edmonds survives, let him know his latest supply of beard dye went belly up from a U-Boat attack in the Med, sorry Noel!
Are orders still due Saturday, or have we shifted fully to the Tuesday night deadline?
If the former, GB3 ORDER:
ATR team: run to the middle of the hillside at H25. Crawl/sneak to the top of the hill, hopefully establishing LOS to the halftrack to take a crack at it.
Crusader: target from the road east of the halftrack’s current position to Mosque Mount west of the PSW’s last known position.
GB 4 order: (Surprising no-one) Pilot to keep running until he’s at the south of the villa, once there it’s time for a rest and a well deserved ciggy
GB ORDER 1:
HQ: HIDE, TARGET ARC 100m
1B and 2B: Target the house at H19
2A (at K23): FAST to L20, CRAWL to K19 and HIDE. Target ARC 150m.
The squad next to the HQ (hopefully 1A): HIDE, TARGET ARC 150m
The other one at I25 (hopefully 3B): FAST to H21, just behind the building.TARGET ARC 100m.
3A: FAST to K24, TARGET ARC of 140m
Let’s suppresses that house, move up a flanking force, advance to the hotel, and avoid the halftrack. Next turn we turn up the mortar fire and occupy the big building.
As Team France don’t seem to have issued any orders yet, the order deadline is extended to Saturday night. (Each team only gets this dispensation once per match.)
I am extremely sorry, especially since I failed to warn you guys!
I had a lot of brain fog this week due to new psychiatric medicine I was prescribed. This will not happen again.
No problem at all, Gobser. With this sort of game, Comment Commanders occasionally going AWOL, or needing to step away permanently because of RL distractions, is to be expected . I hope you feel better soon.
I’m sorry to hear about the side effects, Gobser. May they pass quickly, and hope you feel better soon.
@Tim Orders FR Bren Carrier and mortar team.
Bren Carrier is to rotate to face K24 and to establish an overwatch arc from K21 to N22. Let’s hope that our brave gunner can jump between positions quickly enough.
Mortar team is to switch to HE and send a short barrage to entertain the Panzer further. If it is possible to designate that, I’d go for 5-6 rounds.
Then, if the wall is possible to scale with our mortar, they will move fast to J29. If it is not an option, they are to fast move to M32 first, then to M28.
@TIM FR1 & FR3 orders:
Crusader: A C24-C26 Shoot and Scoot, with eyes firmly on the Panzer
ATR (if orderable while broken): Crawl back down the slope to A26
Squad A (H column): Continue hunting to building H20
Squad B (I column): Doubt these are responding to orders, but if so, FAST to H20
Squad C (J column): HIDE
@Tim French F4 orders:
Stay put, head down.
I have just paid attention to the fact that ATRs, with their high-velocity ammo, tend to miss AFVs that standing still or moving very slowly completely and from reasonable distance too!
I am not really complaining, I am just wondering how realistic is that. Not because I want to slander the game, more because I want to understand the historical employment of the ATRs better.
One can argue that this may be due to stress of being under fire or in any combat situation, really, multiplied by difficulties of aiming through iron sights when you are stressed.
But it is something we should pin in our tactical minds for the rest of this mission, that’s for sure
@Tim Hi, I’ve been waiting to give my GB2 orders but I never saw any Combat Mission Olympiad Turn 10 article, are you ok? What happened? Or am I blind and have somehow missed it? Hope to hear from you soon! It’s odd that nobody else has said anything about it so I’m sorry if I missed something.
Tim has said in the comments to this post, that all of the French team, including me, collectively failed to issue orders on time, so he gave everyone an extension to this Saturday.
Now that deadline is reached I assume that he will process the turns at his convenience.
It has also been mentioned by Tim that each team gets to have such an extension only once.
Thank you and merci for answering! Yes, when I saw Saturday mentioned (as you say, in the comments) I thought he was referring to the previous Saturday before that, not the most recent one, hence my confusion. Anyway I am glad to see Tim is back again, I was a bit worried everything went belly up. Good hunting mon ami.