The situation was too poised to just leave it, so I ran another turn this morning, just before I tidied away. The Brits pretty much over ran the rest of the front line. They captured one HQ and loads of field guns. The tanks were starting to breakdown in numbers but their job was mostly done as the attackers dug in on the objectives.
This is the right end of the Corp's attack area. Both the German positions have been overrun. The Whippet unit has moved in to support the brigade on the position, but I'm not sure what tanks do in defence. (If either of the Drury brothers read these blog, perhaps they could tell me. I know Richard B is a technophobe, so I don't expect a response from him).
On the left flank the German right has completely caved in, and the Divisional HQ has been overrun, as has a lot of artillery. The centre has also been occupied, but the attacking brigade is down to half strength. It's got tanks with it tho'.
To get a proper result we would need to play through the counter attack, but I reckon the Brits are in pretty good shape as the Germans can't pull up significant artillery and, crucially, they have no tanks. These are essential if you're going to attach frontally (as they'll have to) when your opponent is dug in with MGs.
(BTW these pictures were taken with my new smart phone, a Samsung Galaxy SIII mini. I tried to do the full post using the Blogger app, but couldn't work out how to insert pictures on the phone.)
Tanks have no combat value unless with an infantry unit, so unsupported tanks have no defence value at all.
ReplyDeleteCounterattacks without tanks work best if you catch the attackers before they have deployed, so you need to be very quick. Against an established defence it is more like a counteroffensive (so needs tons of arty suppport).
Martin,
DeleteThanks. I sort of guessed that, but it seemed a bit harsh. The tank does act like a pill box in defence during the German offensives, but I can't recall anything in accounts of the 100 days of them beating off counter attacks.
I had missed the nuance of being deployed for attack and then re-deploying for defence, although it never came up in the game.
Trebian
What Martin said. Tanks & armoured cars make counter-attacking much more effective (as we've found in Russo-Polish 1920 games). Bear in mind that AFVs in the game represent handfuls of vehicles whereas 4 figs = 3 or 4 battalions.
ReplyDeleteI get it. We will be returning to Op14 over the next few weeks. Looking at it now the armour rules are a bit of a blunt instrument. The initial deployments with penny-packets look the same as the later usage with 5-6 vehicles per battalion where possible (although not along the whole front, obviously).
DeleteEven at the scale we're looking at I need more toys, particularly German infantry.