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This is a During Action Report of a QB attack I am doing against The Coil.  The Coil has agreed to do a DAR as well and we are on the honor system not to cheat.  Of course since The Coil has no honor, I am sure he will be reading this.  

the battle parameters are as follows:
CMAK - Italy - 1500 point Allied Attack - Oct 44 - Unrestricted force selections including quality - med map - standard rarity - dawn - warm - overcast - no breeze - rural - mod trees - small hills - no damage - full FOW - 35 turns fixed.  

I picked the settings and he picked axis - so I am attacking.

My purchase was as follows:

Reg US pioneer battalion - 1686 points
3 Green US Priests - 91 x 3 = 273
2 Vet US 81mm mortars - 37 x 2 = 74
2 Crack US sharpshooters - 28 x 2 = 56
2 conscript Brit LMGs - 5 x 2 = 10
1 Crack M10 Tank Destroyer - 151 points

Total 2250 points

Reasoning:

US pioneer battalion:  Pioneers are my favorite inf units (the US variety has 11 rifles, which are actually very powerful close range compared to every other nation's rifles); simply because their satchel charges are extremely powerful.  They are hard to use successfully, but when they do work it is just a lot of fun.  I will look for tanks (hopefully an expensive one) to use them on, or just area fire in woods.  The battalion also comes with flamers with 45m range.  Nothing stands up to flamers - which are also tough to use, but again so much fun when it works.  The MMGs will provide a little bit of cover, and the zooks will be my main AT asset.  60mm mortars also have just enough kick to pin troops while the inf close within satchel and flame distance.  They can also take out any pesky guns.

Priests  I will use these to clear out my tough spots that .  Lots of ammo and good rate of fire makes them murder on inf.  They have no armor worth talking about, so any guns or AFVs will make short work of them.    

sharpshooters - I rarely get these, but since I had just run some tests I figure I might as well get two crackers.  Thanks to POS sharpshooter test, I will never purchse reg sharpshooters as their range to kill tank commanders is much decreased over vets.  I will mostly use these as my eyes and look for a tank commander or two.

81mm mortars  - mortars are my favorite units.  I really wanted to get a couple of 3 in mortars since they pack a better punch, but they are slower and are about twice the price because of their ammo load.  These will be used to clear out a spot that the priests cant safely get to.

M10 Tank Destroyer -  I originally had 4 priests, and really didnt want to buy this.  But when I looked at my kit, the one thing I couldnt do was take out a tank from over 150m.  So even though I didnt want to, I grabbed the crack TD.  I dont plan on using him, but if the map is such that he has a tank stopping my advance from long distance, this crack crew will be called on to clear the way.  I am sure many people are thinking, "just 1 M10???  He might have a tiger or a panther and that is no match."  Well, I wasnt going to get any, so one will have to do.  Of all the units I hope dont get a quality deduction - this is the one I need to stay what I purchased.

The only other thing I seriously considered was taking a vet pioneer battalion rather than regular.  It was an extra 200 points and change.  I would have had to trade in two priests and some other stuff.  I seriously considered it since I expect my inf to be doing almost all the work.  But I figured this is a more balanced kit, and the regulars should do.

Nice force picks I agree you gotta have a tank killer. He may not have the armour points allowance necessary to pick a Tiger or Panther, but if he does then the defender can cause a lot of damage with just the one.

I took a look at The Coil's stats (something I always do when I start a game). 35 games posted here. .660 win % in the last 6 months (25 games). ELO of 2104. The only opponent that we have in common is 1 game against Zemke; a total victory for The Coil. That is very impressive because zemke is a very good player - but I have to wonder (no disprect intended) if Zemke didnt abandon the game since he is deployed.

So that doesnt really tell me much about what I should expect. And since he is somewhat new - at least to the blitz - I am thinking a pretty standard defense.

So I suppose I will take a guess at the forces I will be encountering:

Reg PzGrendier Company (4 shreks, 4HMGs, & 2 mortars - plus the powerful 2 lmg squads)
Vet Stug platoon - everybody loves stugs and these are -5% off the purchase price
2 Vet sharpshooters - since we have been testing them
2 Reg 75mm Paks
1 reg 150mm sIG
1 reg tank hunter
1 reg 105 spotter
4 TRPs
4 barbed wire
4 anti-inf mines
2 trenches

1500 points.

Now this isnt really close to what I would purchase. I will save that for a different AAR.

Looking forward to see hwo this one pans out... is Coil going to do one from his perspective?

I'd buy the Stugs, but there's no way I think I'd ever buy one of those PzGren battalions....

The Map

The first image is just a view of the map from my perspective (have to get a better gridline mod).


I mentioned before that I really hoped that the M-10 would stay crack.  Well it did - but - no Tungsten rounds -

This map shows my attack approach.  



I have 9 inf platoons.  The yellow dots shows the location I am going with 5 of them to be my base of fire.  I expect those 5 platoons to make it with minimal resistance.The red lines show the 4 platoons that will assault first into what I expect to be possible enemy positions.

All the AFVs will hang back.  There is a road that runs across the full length of my side of the map.  

I know it is very popular to load up one side or the other and attack heavy down that side.  I have never done that.  I pretty much always use the same attack philosophy - lead with inf to as close to the flags as I feel safe across a broad section of the map.  Look for weak spots in the defense and try to overwhelm with saturated fire and flank for the close assault.  Somewhat boring but very affective.  

Youch... you definitely need a new grid line mod... LOL

ok, that is fixed - lol

Not too bad a map...there's very little heavy woods around the flags for the defender. Scattered woods will not be half as good for him. Still some nasty open spaces to cross for the last hurdle...

To defend that far left small flag he really has to hold the woods (preferably with wire) that I have a red line going to. The problem with that is that it really spreads the defense out and would be almost impossible to redeploy them to the center if I decided to attack hard to his right - which I probably should do as I look at this closer.