Combat Mission Olympiad: Turn 11

On balance I’d say Turn 11 was more punishing for Team France’s fans than its warriors, but both spectators and soldiery were made to suffer.

Beret-topped tricolore wavers were forced to endure two nailbiting duels this sixty. On the western side of the arena, the French Crusader clambered up the row 25 slope knowing it was do or die this time (After last turn’s unsuccessful shoot-and-scoot, captaincabinets had decided to go all-in).

Having spotted his target at T+35, amazingly it took the Crusader’s turretman a further seventeen seconds to open fire. In that bijou eternity, his German counterpart managed to loose two shots. Thankfully both were wayward.

What the Gallic gunner’s gunlaying lacked in urgency, it made up for in precision. At T+53 a 57mm AP round breezed through the Pz III’s upper hull armour. What it did after penetrating wasn’t communicated by the terse hit text, but judging by the fact that the Panzer replied with an accurate shot of its own a split second later, nothing vital was damaged. The Panzer’s third shot of the turn found a way into the cruiser tank’s turret, producing a short-lived ‘shaken’ icon, but no flames or crew casualties. Its fourth arrived on the stroke of sixty and hit the Crusader’s main gun without meaningful consequences.

In theory, the bruised French tank should fire first in turn 12.

East of the main road, the action was equally compelling. Assisted by supporting fire from the SE, for a spell it looked like Vidalies’ five man squad was going to prevail against the three heavily-armed Germans who counterattacked last turn. The enemy rump was reduced to two men circa T+15. However, rather unfortunately it was the rifleman who was neutralised not the bloke with the Schmeisser or the light machine gunner.

At T+21 Vidalies’ unit began to panic, and at T+58, after a short burst of CMAK’s evocative melee sound effect, it took another casualty.

When the clock stops, one of Team France’s thirteen remaining HE mortar bombs is arcing towards the halftrack (said HT spent the turn pushing south, attempting, not all that successfully, to suppress 3 Squad as it did so) and the short-handed Bren Gun Carrier is nervously eyeing the last known location of the enemy ATR team.

* * *

Are you sitting down, Team GB? I’ve got good and bad news to pass on today.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first. Disrupted by imperfect coordination, bad luck, and a mortar that refused to take direction from its HQ*, I regret to say your well-conceived infantry assault went slightly awry.

* Apologies, I hadn’t noticed that the mortar was still seven seconds away from being ‘set-up’ at the end of the last turn. This apparently insignificant delay meant it couldn’t be tasked by the nearby HQ during the order phase so sat idle for the sixty.

Very early in the turn Corporal Baldrick’s five man half-squad close to the village VL found itself fighting off a determined counter-thrust not dissimilar to the one Vidalies is dealing with in the French arena.

With early help from the bold Bren Gun Carrier, Baldrick’s men not only held their ground but, for a spell, stopped the counter-attack in its tracks.

Things were going swimmingly until a close-range ATR rifle shot, silenced the Carrier’s LMG.

Unfortunately, support from the right arrived a fraction too late to prevent this loss. Also unhelpful was the enemy HT which spotted, engaged, and depleted (by one man) the most northerly of the two flanking units, while moving southward during the sixty.

Sgt Bluett’s half squad – the five men meant to lead the assault into the H20 building – also found itself on the receiving end of the HT’s MG 42 this turn. The incoming caused it to hit the deck, meaning it failed to reach its goal.

Not that Baldrick & Co, needed any help to finish off the counter-attackers. With twenty seconds left on the clock, the remaining Germans in H20 attempted to bum-rush the unscathed British half-squad in H21 and paid dearly for their bravura.

If only the round fired by the Crusader this turn had been on target. At T+13, while ‘hunting’, the British tank noticed the PSW emerging from its hiding place and took appropriate if inaccurate action. Clearly spooked, the armoured car quickly retraced its steps.

At T+60 the British arena looks like this:

(Next order deadline: Saturday night)