"CoC Bloody Bucket campaign Turn 4 & 5" Topic

Our 'Bloody Bucket' campaign for Chain of Command rolls on and the German pioneers struggle to bridge the River Our so that heavier support can assist the Volksgrenadiers dislodge the Americans. After two bloody repulses in the previous games, can the Germans start to drive the Americans from Skyline Drive? Full AAR of the next game here: Bloody Bucket Campaign Turns 4 & 5

Another great AAR but With the pre-game barrage stopping before it started the Germans really got this rough. When the random event barrage landed on his advance your opponent must've been splitting blood. Has he no means to deploy more smoke or SPWs to get the infantry through the killing ground?
Getting small units of green troops across open ground like this has to be the hardest challenge. What makes it worse is the few American casualties they inflict spring back to life! How can you exploit numbers to wear down the defence when you must attack one platoon at a time and the opposition simply resurrects itself after each assault, not to mention what must be happening to each side's morale.

Another great AAR but With the pre-game barrage stopping before it started the Germans really got this rough. When the random event barrage landed on his advance your opponent must've been splitting blood. Has he no means to deploy more smoke or SPWs to get the infantry through the killing ground?

No, he's got to rely on armour (PzIV or PzV) or the infantry gun. I think he needs to be more aggressive with the armour (now the river is bridged he has an unlimited supply). Perhaps he should take two PzIV and have the infantry stay in the woods as the firebase then roll the tanks right up to the crossroads. The Americans have a single bazooka as their AT defence, even if they take out one tank the bazooka team will most likely be wiped out by the other tank and/or the firebase. Then the other tank (if he's lucky both tanks) drive the infantry from their entrenchments or the house.

A ruse and a coup de main is another possibility. They can take a captured M8 armoured car. There's a 50/50 chance the first Americans to try and fire at it don't do it because they are not sure if it is an enemy vehicle or not. As a wheeled vehicle it moves very fast on the road and can move in the same phase it deploys (if it goes flat out with 3D6 and doubles it for the road, it can deploy 6" up the road and then could potentially move 6"+36" if the dice were extremely kind). Quite possible it gets to the crossroad in two phases and fast enough to close down the US jump-off-points (I thought about this after the game and should have put the minefield on the road to make this rapid move impossible).

After giving all these ideas away for free you'll definitely have to mine the road now (isn't there a roadblock support option?).

I have a plan!

Superb report as always.