Bulge 16.01s alt

[Plain Ian]

Turn 78 Allied- Dec 24th 4pm Dusk (vis 1 hex) - Mersch



Ok back from the sun to freezing weather. Not feeling great and plenty to do at work. I'm not sure I have all my notes from 2 weeks ago but here goes.

At Mersch I concentrated on pushing his 352nd VGD Bn back so I could begin evacuating valuable units before his 9th Panzer arrives. 

I used my one air attack (-19) plus 5th Division artillery (-15) to hit the hex then used the 2-11th to try and soften him up further....at a cost. 
I then threw the yellow fatigued 2-10th at the enemy hoping that this would be enough. Nope they bounced and suffered heavily. 
I then used the last of my artillery (-8) then went in with my tanks. The 735th tanks won the day and secured the hex. At last I had armour in the hex I wanted to protect the crossing even though the armour is Morale F with Fatigue 129 and still marked up as ISOLATED/LOW AMMO.

Incidentally I've just noticed that there is another 735th Tank Bn in the game? The M4 Tank Bn for the 26th Diviison at Magerotte is also labeled as this? One of them must be wrong?

After the assault I pulled out 5th Div HQ, 10th Rgt HQ and the Divisional TD Bn. (both below 5th HQ) I pulled back 1-11th and 1-2nd so they can either go on foot and ferry over or use the road/bridge to evacuate. 

I've left the 11th Rgt HQ over the river just now as I needed a unit in that hex. I've pulled back the 2nd HQ and hopefully this will get away next turn.  I've manged to evacuate the 155mm artillery Bn but still have the 3 x 105mm Bn's to limber up and try to escape.

The 1-11th was left to try to hold the north and 3-10th/2-2nd are my delaying units in the east although since both are dirupted I'm just really hoping to keep his advance to one hex. 

A second bridging Engineer unit has arrived on the river.

I'm a bit pessimistic about things here. If he shifts the 735th or the 2-11th then the road to the bridge will be blocked again. The enemy unit I pushed back lost over 100 men so it won't be returning to the front line soon.