Hell's Crossroads Follow-up

Hell's Crossroads Follow-up

Hell's Crossroads Follow-up:
Thoughts & Reflections On A Battle Report
with Sean Goodison & Victor Pesch

In issue 320 of Wargames Illustrated, Sean's US Tank Company took on Victor's 521. Schwere Panzerjägerkompanie in a Flames Of War battle report. Using forces featured in Bridge At Remagen, the two combatants offer some reflections and thoughts on their experiences.

Learn more about Wargames Illustrated issue 320 here...

Victor's Thoughts
Well, that went pretty much according to plan! I’d originally planned to ambush my Jagdtiger platoon in the central forest which is why I had my platoon of Volksgrenadiers nearby (just in case Sean tried to assault them with his infantry) but his recon killed that plan. Other than that I was happy with how everything went.

I still learnt a few things that I’ll carry through to any future games when I am playing Jagdtigers, or any of the other heavy hitting German tank hunters for that matter:
Hell's Crossroads Follow-up
Watch Your Flanks
Jagdtigers, Elefants and Jagdpanthers are all pretty hard to defeat front on. They have massive amounts of frontal armour which will negate the majority of your the enemies fire. However, as Sean’s Pershings showed if you can get around the flanks the armour of these vehicles is nowhere near as impressive. On this particular table it was not a huge problem because we were playing lengthwise I had some artificial protection that gamey players can use to their advantage. If we were playing across the table it would have been harder for me, especially since I only had one platoon of infantry to limit the ability of enemy tanks to skirt round my flanks.

Below: Don't let the enemy take advantage of your weaker side armour.
Hell's Crossroads Follow-up
Don’t Get Bombed!
With Typhoons, P-47s and a host of other bomb laden aircraft around you cannot afford to have an Anti-tank 5; Firepower 1+ or 2+ bombs landing on your head. Careful use of Anti-aircraft protected my Jagdtigers in this game from Sean’s aircraft, and also performs valuable double duty to keep enemy infantry at bay.

Below: Keep your Anti-aircraft assets close to protect against those nasty Jabos.
Hell's Crossroads Follow-up
Knock Out Their Guns
With the Jagdtiger's Breakthrough gun special rule, you can snipe out enemy heavy artillery if your opponent does not have a hill to hide behind. Even if you only kill a couple of guns you will seriously hamper the ability of your enemy to hurt you. In this game I didn’t knock out any of Sean’s Priests but that was mainly because I was not short of tanks to kill which was a higher priority at the time.


~ Victor.
Below: Prioritise your targets!
Hell's Crossroads Follow-up
Sean's Thoughts
The one shot – one kill ability of the Jagdtiger meant that it was in a race to get around Victor’s flanks before he broke my company. Going into the fight my plan was to push my recon up the middle of the table to reduce Victor’s ambushing options; with tanks driving hard to close the gap, flank him, and kill him. I was also conscious that I could not afford to bunch up all of my vehicles as his ambush and reserves would be able to just shoot me up.

Below: Racing for the flanks.
Hell's Crossroads Follow-up
By splitting my force I hoped to split his fire and then use my artillery and P-47s to open the door by bailing or hopefully killing some of his vehicles. This would reduce the amount of incoming fire and allow the surviving vehicles to pass through and flank him. I only needed to roll-up on one flank and my infantry would be able to secure the town and woods in the middle of the table, effectively stopping any potential counterattacks.
Below: Don't bunch up!
Hell's Crossroads Follow-up
I did think about pushing up through the cornfields, but the reduction in speed would have meant that I would have been taking incoming fire for at least another turn; potentially increasing the number of casualties and increases Victor’s probably of getting reserves onto the table.
Below: Avoid any terrain that will slow the advance.
Hell's Crossroads Follow-up
In the end I gambled; and it did not quite work out as I hoped. Now that I have seen how nasty Jagdtigers can be I’ll be on the look-out for some suggestions on how to deal with them.

~ Sean.

Below: Don't gamble against superior odds.
Hell's Crossroads Follow-up


Last Updated On Thursday, June 19, 2014 by Blake at Battlefront