Sunday, June 18, 2017

AAR: BFP115 Turned Back at Tylicz

Ed Beekman

Slovaks: Ralph
Poles: Ed

Ralph has been playing DTO lately but I really don't like DTO so he went back to his previous concentration, Cavalry or killing horses as he calls it.  He selected BFP115 Turned Back at Tylicz and took the Slovaks because they have the horses.  The Slovaks need to control all the multi-hex buildings and the single hex church to win.  What makes this interesting is there are hills along both flanks.  I set up to fall back from my right to the left with my Guns with good fields of fire on the roads into town.  I put a few squads and my mortars on the hills.

Ralph set up looking like he would attack across the front with his mortars supporting from my left flank.  He tried to Smoke me on turn one with the mortars but one broke on the first shot and the other had no smoke.  His cavalry tested my flanks.  The cavalry charged the hill on my right flank but the defending squad got lucky with its residual FP and crushed the attack.  The cavalry on the left was also decimated by fire as they dismounted to form up for an attack.  One turn, no horses left on the board.  The Slovakian Armored Cars also pushed the flanks.  On the right, they moved up and threatened the church, moving right into one of my gun's field of fire.  Of course my gun broke on its first shot and was eliminated instead of repaired two turns later.  On the other flank,  the cars crept behind the hill with several squads of infantry, which took several turns to get into position.  Meanwhile, my HMG took out one mortar team and the spotter for the other mortar.  The church fell to the Slovaks when assaulted by Armored Cars, sniper fire and superior numbers of infantry. 

Here the attack stalled.  My mortars on the hill were dropping rounds all over the place, there was a MMG set to lay a Fire Lane along the entire right side of the town, the HMG on the left was going on rate tears until it finally broke and its victory building became susceptible to capture.  On the left hill, the armored cars and infantry pushed up the hill only to be taken under fire from a squad and my other gun.  Eventually all the infantry broke and the Armored cars destroyed due to intensive fire with the gun.  With time running out and no hope of taking all the buildings, Ralph called it a day.  

We did an after action analysis and think the Slovaks should concentrate their infantry on the Pole's left, using the hill and terrain to sweep into the rear of the town by mid game.  The armored cars probably should stick together if they can find positions where they don't hinder each other's fire. Keeping them together while using vehicular bypass freeze would work better since loss of a vehicle doesn't leave the other one stuck due to lack of a radio and an elite morale of only 7.  Also the Slovaks need to keep together in a swarm.  They have lower range and firepower compared to the Poles but far superior numbers.  Individual squads use the 2 FP column but two squads use the 6 FP column.  A swarm of 3 FP squads will be able to Fire Group on those 20 or higher columns.  An interesting scenario but a bit hard on the Slovaks, especially when the Poles dice get hot.