OVHS AAR (Early stages of first CG date only)
TankDawg
Haven't proceeded much further since my previous posts (as I was away on holiday's) being only at Canadian turn 3 but things are proceeding OK (I think ??).
I am VASL'ing our game (not live play) and I have found that the Canadian movement phases can be quite involved with 2,3 or 4 mailings for this phase required. I suppose this is moderate in comparison to an RB CG but I haven't played one on VASL to compare.
A quick synopsis is as follows (please note I'm writing from work and can't give you hex details) and note, to date we are without rain, thank god (otherwise it would be a blood bath):
Called in the barrages with one each side of the paved road and the last on the milk factory with all being 2 hexes in front of the ridge-line (and incorporating as many orchard hexes in case of HIP units/AT's). The milk factory barrage was a FFE1-2 (correcting every Prep/DF phase) and the other 2 were FFE1 (correcting only in my Prep).
My thoughts were to bring the bulk of my Kanga force behind the 2 paved road barrages and another 8 or so on the far left (for a board edge creep) and then a spread of shermans, Kanga's along the board edge in general to reduce the concentration of forces. I kept a force of 3 Kanga's in reserve with the expectation of exploiting any holes later in the game.
Started the game off with ALL barrages coming in early (all red carded, typical of the OBA-card bot) with 2 or 3 pre-game turns each. This was actually a huge blessing as they were able to rumble and break/reveal a few units/dummies/fortifications BEFORE I setup and it was generally to my advantage although the milk factory barrage which corrected more frequently accelerated away and really had no impact and did little to hinder the German fire. (mental note: Would in future put all barrages at FFE1 status).
I won't go into a lot of detail on the individual turns but be prepared to lose a lot of armour very quickly. Even with the use of sM, sD, staying in motion and especially the art of hiding behind flamed wrecks (which you will get a lot of with 88's racking up the kills) you are going to lose a LOT of vehicles. The art of this initial CG date is, I think, not to lose to many Kanga's and try and keep the Infantry intact. I am down to 3 shermans left (all the Firefly's are dead, mental note, keep 1 or 2 back till after the AT's are out of action).
Use the wasps and carriers aggressively as they can distract the AT's if you threaten to close on them. They are very hard to hit being +4 (small target & motion) and add the +2 hindrance from the barrage and maybe CA swing and it makes it pretty hard on the first shot.
This has worked well for me (but have still had 2 of the 3 wasps flamed but the resultant smoke is another hindrance to take advantage of) especially the dual smoke placement from the wasps sD, this is a good weapon for clouding the AT's fire.
I'm am currently in my move phase T3 and I am about to roll over the crest on the Canadian left and on the right, I have breached the paved road area and actually have a piat carrier at the paved road crossrads in the rear of the German lines with a sherman positioned half way along the hedge line covering the OG leading up to the forest and 2nd crest (where a pesky HMG/MMG nest has just been smoked by one of the OBA's.
The German AT status is 1 in Canadian hands (positioned on the first crest covering the paved road), 1 with a broken crew due to this turns barrage (stationed in between the 1st & 2nd crests on a slope hex and also covering the paved road), 1 on the far left flank is still operational but enveloped by OBA smoke (so +4 firing out) and hopefully I can overun it this turn. The last is smack in the center in front of the milk factory and is a real pain in the ass. I placed mortar smoke in it this Prep and I can hopefully close on him and take him as I have a wall of Infantry in front of him but still another movement phase away. A carrier is nearby so I will try to charge into the hex to limit fire opportunities.
The German OBA has been coming down on my Kanga's on the right but has had little impact as the number of hindrances is making it hard for the spotter to correct effectively. Also my sniper killed the initial spotting ldr and the german had to run another one back to continue the fire mission.
I think as Canadian you have to hope for the rain to stay away for at least the first 3 or 4 turns and endeavour to sneak your OBA spotters on late in turn 1 and then bring down the smoke on the AT's as quickly as possible (I say smoke and not FFE's as when the AT's start in trenches they are pretty impregenable with +4 on the IFT). Spread your force out and hope for loss of rof (although that hasn't happened for me and even the Intensive shots, of which there have been about 6-8 have not caused a breakdown).
I will post more info in due course but for a first up effort I am enjoying this CG immensely.