Awesome stories

[Garwahl]

Yarr... I just wanted to share a story of a recent Firefight game.

So I'm a total nut, and decided to do a hard mission defending. A few squads against a butt load of guys basically. My defense objective was out in the open though, so I thought I was pretty screwed... but I turned this into my advantage. I pulled all my guys out, and left the objective undefended. I hid them behind anything I could, and made sure they had a good LOS on the objective and the surrounding area. What I saw next was insanity... A butt load of guys just sluicing in from the north, gleefully heading to their unseen doom. Aware that your guys can get pretty trigger happy when they see an enemy, I kept on cycling between my four squads and pressed the "cease fire button" which staved them for a while... but when the shooting started it was hell. 10 seconds in, I get SIXTEEN confirmed kills (dead bodies show up). Shortly after that it's just a bloodbath as my guys engage the enemy who I put into a very bad position, simply out in the open. But he stubbornly wont pull out and stays in my killing zone, while my guys are protected by forests and hedges. I think the fight lasted about half an hour. End result:

My forces;
18 killed; Out of 18 killed, 15 were killed by artillery. 2 were killed by small arms, and 1 was killed by MG. One was in the middle of surrendering, but I like to imagine one of my guys shot him before he could get to safety. Heh heh heh. The other 2 were killed because they were a flanking squad that was thrown out into the open to "herd' the enemy into the fire of the rest of my squads.
11 wounded;
1 captured;
34 survived.

Enemy forces;
61 killed;
0 wounded;
13 captured; This was the amazing part... my guys started capturing enemies in the heat of battle. Frabjous, isn't it?
13 survived.

My guys actually ran out of ammunition, and there were a few times when they got into what I imagine to be hand to hand combat. Heh heh, that was a fun 45 minutes well spent. Anyone else got good stories to pass around? I just started playing again so I'm sure someone else has something better.

[TheKangaroo]

Hm, it's been a while since I played but I had this campaign for New Zealand running. There hadn't been many missions before 'Hill 287'. Summer of 1942, somewhere in Tunisia. Little over thirty men, three squads of Infantry, a Vickers machine gun, a Matilda tank and the command group. There we were, hugging the sand dunes and scanning the ridges ahead for Jerry to come. Even command said this was going to be a though one...
We had waited for about five minutes when the first tank rolled into sight. Panzer IV, pretty damn big fellow. Just as that tank reached the top of the dune my tank crew came alive. Two shells in quick succession, the first one kicking up dirt and causing the Germans to raise alert, the second one penetrating and blowing the Panzer to hell. Quiet cheers go through our ranks as the smoke raises into the notherly winds.
Then nothing happened for quite a while. Five minutes passed. Then ten. I considered to realign my men as I thought the Afrika Korps might have flanked my position. Just then an enemy infantry squad came charging over the very same dune. The Vickers crew opened up at once and hit a few of them before they themselves got hit by artillery. Wounded they kept firing until the Germans came up on their position.
More infantry came upon us. As I had pondered they had also advanced on our flank. Both squads I had placed up front to overwatch the plains were ordered back. It was time to fight for the objective hill itself. My infantry formed a square, well aware of the Matilda tank which by now was hidden behind a dune with a field of fire on the hill. It would prove valuable in the following battle.
Soon bullets were flying all around us. Another tank had come up and nobody dared raising his head into its deadly machine gun fire. Their infantry was making its way. Sometimes they were at point blank range. The artillery started to pound our last stronghold. People got killed there.
Despair. The New Zealanders started to fight for their dear lives as Jerry just kept charging in, despite the Matilda tank still holding down whatever came within 30 yards of the hill itself.
It took another five minutes until the enemy figured out what the weak spot was: the Matilda couldn't reach our far left flank and the fighting got more intense. Soon more than half of our men were dead. Whoever wasn't was wounded for sure. The battle was lost. Hill 287 was about to fall into enemy hands.
The tank raced across the hill in an attempt to provide covering fire for the retreat, or was it just to buy some time? It weren't more than ten men who emerged from the burning sands as the bugle sounded retreat...

My forces:
16 killed
16 wounded
1 captured
0 tanks lost
0 guns lost
15 survived

Enemy forces:
21 killed
9 wounded
0 captured
1 tanks lost
0 guns lost
81 survived

(That was not a typo: they actually did have more than 100 men. After the battle, when all enemies become visible those dunes looked like an ants' nest.)

Hope you enjoyed the drama.

[Dunkirk]

I actually had a battle with no small unit shooting. I was armor-heavy, and raced up the left flank. I did set down artillery to suppress a field gun I observed, and was able to take the objective without otherwise firing a shot. There were no casualties on either side.

In another battle, in the opening minutes of the clash, a single enemy ranging shot landed on and destroyed a tank, and another killed or wounded an entire squad hiding in a farmhouse. I had lost the battle in under 3 minutes.

And, to confirm your speculation, yes, hand-to-hand fighting does occur. As mentioned in another thread, I have recently suffered "bayonette" casualties!

[Legacy]

I recently had a Japanese LMG of mine go through an enemy held town and fill up the kills box. For a long stretch, I never noticed him firing, so I'm guessing they have a combat knife or something in addition to their LMG. The rest of his unit did something silly and strolled into artillery I was using to cover them at a pretty good distance away. They really strayed. Eventually the LMG was wounded, carried on, was immobilized within the embattled town, and finally killed by a grenade once he was lying still. He should get a medal.

[T2K]

In a defense mission with me playing the Japanese, EVERY SINGLE MAN of mine was either killed or immobilized. Setting was "very hard".

The unit commander was on a hillside, immobilized, the other three men in the HQ group dead. He had previously popped off all but three pistol rounds at close range enemies.

An enemy soldier came right up to him (you know how short visibility ranges are on hills in this game) - he fired. Once, twice...last round!...and killed the guy.

[JeanBoule]

quote from Andy, in a previous similar thread

ive also seen this the other way round - a single enemy running into my squad, and rather than deliver a point blank kill , 8 guys get up and run a good 15 metres away from the other guy.

unquote

My incident -
A squad is advancing in line towards enemy in a village, without much support. I did not mean them to clear the village, just to stop an enemy counter-attack from that direction.They soon went to ground, and exchanged fire for a while. Suddenly one guy gets up and runs towards the nearest house. He arrives outside, and six enemy inside it surrender. He then runs back and takes his place in the squad ! ! !

[Knut]

That's awesome! I had one yesterday where (I was playing "mostly tanks") I had all my tanks knocked out but one, but it was immobilised (refusing to move forward or back or even fire) by an enemy ATG. My one squad had all of its men immobilized or killed but one, and I had to order a tank crewman from a knocked out tank to circle around and attack the ATG from the flank with only his pistol. The only way to keep the gun from blowing him up was by repeatedly ordering the single rifleman to fire at the gunfrom a distance, suppressing its crew. I had him fire off at least 30 shots in a row before the tank crewman was able to close with the gun and chase off and then kill the gunners, neutralizing the gun and finally allowing my tank to capture the objective!

[Andy Brown]

You can get stalled tanks moving again by using artillery smoke to block the line-of-sight to the enemy tank or gun that's causing it to freeze up.

Andy (NZ)

[Knut]

Thanks for the tip, Andy. As I like to play armor heavy or exclusive games, this happens too much. I think that this is a flaw in the game, and a provision should be made that the tank will respond to a pull back order out of enemy fire, if not any other orders. Or maybe a pull back to the bottom of the board order. Interestingly, they will respond to a "retreat" order, but then you can't ountermand it and are forced to lose the game!. I've had cases where 3 widely spaced tanks were all "frozen," as were the enemy ATGs. No one even firing! The only way around was to flank the gun with my command team.

[TheKangaroo]

Hello everyone,
I haven't been here for quite a while now, also hadn't played any of the games in ages, since I had a whole lot of other things to do. Anyhow, I today decided to get back to it, played a round of Firefight. My old campaign was still there and this is what happened:

October the 23rd, 1943. Our company had been stuck in Italy for a while already and despite the Italians' surrender there was no lull in the fighting. Our objective of the day was a ridge in front of an orchard, just above the town of Bussero.
Regiment said we could have three Sherman tanks in support to give us a bit of a punch, but only two arrived. One of the drivers said something about an engine breakdown, but I guess they just didn't want to admit that our recent losses weren't so easy to replace. Anyway, there was no use in complaining, so we took to the field at day's early light.
I decided to keep the two tanks in reserve around the hill I placed my command post on top of while the infantry would advance over an open field, through a hedge and onto the next hill on which some shrubbery would provide protection. This route was on our left flank, evading the main road and some high ground on the right that just literally smelled of 88s.
Shortly after three squads crossed the crest of the hill and took position behind the next hedge while the other three squads waited in reserve positions. The recon squad had already moved further up into an orchard and everything seemed quiet.
Suddenly, just as I ordered our heavy machine gun to reposition to the front line hill, gunfire erupted on our right flank. One man of 4th squad was wounded and the machine gun wasn't in place for covering fire, yet. I assumed this was just one squad of infantry waiting to delay me long enough for their artillery to strike, so I sent in one reserve squad to budge out #4 and one of the tanks to drive the Germans out of their position, while the other squads moved further to the left flank, through the orchard and some more shrubbery, finally ending up on the 90? flank of the objective itself. Just one small but high hill, twenty meters of open ground and the town of Bussero itself were between us and the objective now.
The tank and the reserve squad meanwhile managed to silence the German squad that had been waiting for us, unfortunately though squad number 4 suffered some losses due to artillery. Also the tank got hit by a shell fired from the hill I considered fishy in the first place.
Some ranged fighting across the large open plain of the main road ensued for a while until my flanking troops charged the small hill in front of Bussero. The second tank brought in for their support made sure the German squad there wouldn't put up much of a fight. The way was clear, two squads entered Bussero, which was completely undefended from that direction, another squad moved across town into the orchard behind the objective. The remaining reserves set up positions on the hills on the left flank to provide covering fire.
The stage was set and the final push could begin. Intense fighting broke loose in the Orchard, but losses were minimal, despite our squad not making any ground at all. The squads in the town quickly drove out the German defenders - with a little help from their friends on the flank hills.
One of the tanks took a lucky shot in the two artillery pieces set on the hill, I saw smoke rising from the area, so the way across the road was clear for the other tank which rushed in to break the stalemate in the orchard, simply by running into the German position at the objective. Thankfully that last Panzerfaust missed by a margin...

Our company suffered 12 dead and 19 wounded that day. The enemy ended up with 47 dead, two guns lost, 7 wounded and 5 captured. The battalion commander later took me to the side and congratulated me to the 'superb' performance. ?You quickly captured the objective and took few losses despite being up against strong opposition.?, he said. Strong opposition... Opposition has been strong ever since we entered Italy. Which he could tell some good news once in a while, like their defences finally crumbling.

So, hope you enjoyed the short story, I'm sorry for not providing pictures, but as usual it occured to me too late that I could tell the story. In fact given that this was my first spin since summer (or spring?) I was convinced I would get wasted.

[ilter]

I don't think my demo game is an awesome story. I am playing the demo of version 4, taking the Ghost Hill. If any one of your men within your company is killed in battle rating becomes disastrous. So I try to without any loss (even no wounded men). I used only 2 infantry sections and 3 tanks (2 M4, 1 Churchill). I didn't even move any of other units including HQ. In first few plays I observed there is a heavy gun in southwest of Warren Hill. So I captured the gun with a tank, if you don't stop anywhere gun will not be able to shot the tank before being captured. Than with help of one infantry section vanguarded by tanks (more units increase the risk of being damaged by artillery) I captured wood and hill on centre hill on west and house district on east. In this movement if any section is active I moved the section otherwise men will be killed under artillery fire. But sometimes men will be suppressed because of the first artillery fire, they won't move until they are killed or wounded by next artillery shots. Sometimes because of this damage I loaded the game. I used my artillery against ghost hill and captured the hill without any loss. 1 gun and 35 men killed with 3 tanks and 20 men (one section=10 men may be used but that will mean more time). Enemy didn't surrendered to tanks so not any one of them surrendered. Their anti-tank guns were ineffective may be because of fast movement.
Another way to win without significant lost is to move your troops on left then north and attack directly to ghost hill without dealing with defense on south.

[TheKangaroo]

If any one of your men within your company is killed in battle rating becomes disastrous.

Is that due to the particular makeup of the demo scenario or is that a bug?

[The Arbiter]

ilter, get the full version.Plenty of battles are waiting for you.

[ilter]

ilter, get the full version.Plenty of battles are waiting for you.

But that will surely mean game will consume my time out of work, it's fun for me but won't be fun for my wife.

[TheKangaroo]

Just find out which of the games your wife likes.