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)
TEAM GB DISCUSSION
Good gravy, can I buy a hit? That isn’t entirely a joke; are the ICMOC ̶o̶r̶g̶a̶n̶i̶z̶e̶r̶s̶ organisers open to bribery?
Unfortunately, it looks like my ATR team is a bit out of position to engage the halftrack—more or less directly on the other side of the hotel. I could dash them over to the right a bit, but that risks drawing 1,200 rounds per minute of unwanted attention. Perhaps better would be to use the hotel as cover and have the ATR team take over the ‘spook the PSW’ role while the Crusader goes FAST dead ahead to get atop the hill (and likely get an angle on the halftrack).
We took out 10 enemy infantry at the cost of a soldier and a bren carrier. We have a solid claim to the vp location and the enemy halftrack can’t shoot at all our forces at once. I think we just need to Crawl our forces to safer stops and continue the fight.
I’m still scared of the PSW or AT rifle knocking out our tank. Our men are generally safe from the HT if they hit the ground, and that gives us time to line up a shot carefully. Maybe fast to the bottom of the slope and then a hull down command?
I do think our ATR should cover the PSW if we can. What’s the angle on that?
The ATR team hasn’t spotted the PSW yet (this might be because of the smoke the PSW popped in turn 10). However, it appears to have unobstructed LoS to its hiding place now, so, with an appropriate cover arc in place, it may get involved next turn:
https://tallyhocorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/olympiad11p.jpg
Obviously, the British mortar is now set-up. Via the HQ, it could HE (16) the halftrack or the house occupied by the enemy ATR, or thoroughly smoke (10) the halftrack’s keyhole.
@Oneknown as our CO, I will leave the final decision to you, but I would prefer to stick to my (cunning?) plan of mortaring the DAK ATR team to 1) keep our tank safe (VITAL), 2) revenge for killing Private Partridge in the Bren, and 3) to prevent the ATR team from gaining any confidence boost morale advantages from said previous Bren kill (to take their initiative away, ideally killing them outright). Yes the HT is important to kill but is the HMG on it really as much of a threat to our tank compared to letting the ATR boys get on a rising lucky kill streak? In which case:
@TIM BRIT GB2 ORDERS, please (finally?! lol) target and mortar the DAK ATR team / building they are in with HE and let them have it, thank you. As before, if Oneknown says otherwise, please follow his mortar targeting orders exactly to the letter, thanks. I’m not sure if the Bren carrier can still move at this point but even if he can, remain exactly where he is and don’t, thanks again. Btw, not sure if it makes any difference but please BUTTON poor Noel inside the Brenless carrier alongside Alan’s rotting carcass, thanks.
I think there’ll be inquiries into the official Jamaisfrappé tank ammunition as provided by the tournament organisers, not that they’ll ever see the light of day.
Mind you, very few people can say they got to fire shells shaped like half a rhombicosidodecahedron.
lol
Tim, I’m not seeing our ATR lads in the screenshots. Are they out of frame at A26? If so, do they still have the orders from last turn (to head east)?
They are broken and crawling southward (down the slope) in the SE corner of A25. In tactical terms, their race is almost certainly run.
Thanks Tim. They’ve probably earned a rest.
TEAM FR DISCUSSION:
Well, not terribly much to discuss, actually. At this point either Lady Fortune smiles upon us, or we’re toast. Either way, probably not much else in the way of orders to be given for the moment, unless you’ve got some ideas, Gobser.
No, my idea pool is dry at this point in time. Trying to finally bag the panzer and maybe hurt the HT (which I am glad my mortar decided to target) are about the only things we can reasonably hope to do, and we are it as we are.
I feel like we are in no shape to really continue any kind of offensive action.
@Tim FR Team, Mortar and Bren.
Continue what they are doing.
@Tim Rest of Team FR orders:
Same as Gobser’s men – just continue what they’re doing.
Since I’ve already thrown the merde at the fan, only option now is to step back and hope it doesn’t become face paint.
Since I am now exploring the world of WDS (ex-JTS) Squad Battles that is new-ish for me (it is the first time I have finally got in and got awestruck), I wanted to offer to try a communal game in it in some future time. It has almost all the bells and whistles of the CM, sometimes even more, except for the real-time WeGo structure and screenshot value.
The benefits are that the orders and their implementation by our esteemed umpire are easier (in terms of fighting against the weirdness of the system, not in terms of predictability) and that it would require a lot less fiddling on Tim’s end to make the situation clear for the players. I almost faint at the thought of how he was painstakingly drawing the maps and grid and then has to cross-reference them every time we issue orders.
And the variety of available conflicts and scenarios is astounding.
It is of course not a demand, but something of what people call “food for thought.”
GB3 ORDER
AT rifle team: target armor from A16 to A11.
Crusader: fast to the bottom of the hill on the G file, then climb enough for a hull-down look at circa H15 and the PSW’s last position. Target from about I12 to A16, aiming to cover both the halftrack’s last known location and the PSW’s.
Ah, I just woke up in the middle of the night and realized I’m late. Tim, can I take advantage of our one time delay to send orders in tomorrow?
ORDER GB1
Well sadly our mortar operator has more confidence in his aim than I do. With our troops a mere 25ish meters away I’m loathe to risk a stray round.
Mortar via HQ: smoke rounds on the keyhole between the halftrack and our boys. Roughly H18 to I18. Then HQ hides.
Northernmost flanking squad (K19, pinned?): clear any actions or target arcs
Western squads: Just let them get hidden by that wall after their FAST.
Squad next to the hotel: Stay put. The Germans might have another attack on the way.
Squad pinned heading towards the hotel: Cancel the FAST move and instead CRAWL west, aiming to break LoS with the halftrack as quickly as possible, then north to connect with the squad by the hotel
Squad currently pinning the AT rifle: Stay put, clear any target arcs