The Costly Clipper - Axis - AAR Primer

 Welcome to the first AAR post of the blog. 

Today I am presenting my initial defense plan as the Axis player in The Costly Clipper scenario of the Westwall DLC. Looking at the battlefield, I think my Germans will be conducting a fighting withdrawal while awaiting day two reinforcements. That's a lot of American and British units.

I anticipate that the Allies will focus their attack on isolating and then assaulting Geilenkirchen from the southeast and west. Because of this I am focusing my reinforcing the town and keeping my lines relatively stable. Additional German units will begin arriving on Day 2 so my first day will be focused on tactical withdraws, keeping contact with the enemy and maintaining intelligence on enemy locations. During the night of D1 I will attempt limited counter attacks to fix the enemy. Lastly, the initial plan has D2 reinforcements swinging wide to attack the flanks of the Allies and to strengthen my position in Geilenkirchen. 

Initial German Plan. I will be posting an update every 12-24 hours at 0700 or 1900 each day. 

I have organized the battlefield into two area of operation (AO): AO Links (German for Left) and AO Rechts (Right), which includes Geilenkirchen, located on the left and right banks of the Wurm river, respectively. The blue dashed line shows the boundary between the AOs. Quick geography lesson: the side of the bank, left or right, is determined by the directional flow of the river. In this case the Wurm flows northeast towards the Rur. 

The AOs are the first level of organization on the battlefield. The next level is Battle Positions (BPs). BPs are the main concentrations of forces. BP Kreis (Circle) is in the forests north of Geilenkirchen in AO Links. BP Achteck (Octagon) is the town of Geilenkirchen and the immediate area around it. (P) BP Quadrat (Square), "P" for planned but not occupied, is a secondary objective that I have made for later in D2. BP Quadrat is the occupation of the east-west highway and limits lateral movement for the Allies, hopefully fixing them in unfavorable, open terrain. Lastly, I want to point out that solid line BPs are ready to go while dash-lined BPs need additional preparation. 

Before getting into individual forces deployments I want to explain the graphic control measures on the map. The circle with a + is occupy. The circle with a S is secure. Secure differs from occupy because it may require force to gain possession of the terrain (move vs attack order in game terms). T's are blocking positions where the assigned force attempts to stop or slow the enemy's advance. Dotted arrows with CA (counterattack) and P(F) (pass through own forward lines) will be discussed more in the next paragraph. 

D1 Mission: Maintain a stable withdrawal while fixing the enemy, enabling D2 counterattacks. 

Starting game orders for D1 are simple: don't issue any. This will keep soldiers in their entrenchments. I'll order units to move as needed to maintain a stable front line. I prefer to control my force at the battalion level but company micromanagement may be needed early on in the fight. I may attempt counterattacks overnight to enable CA-A and CA-B.

D2 Mission: Conduct counterattacks to strengthen BP Kreis and BP Quadrak and flow reinforcements into Geilenkirchen. 

The morning of D2 will see 10 Regt and II/10 hook around north of BP Kries. Concurrently, 9 Div and I/10 will attack in the south to establish BP Quadrak. These two attacks should hopefully push the Allies back to allow for the Germans to retack the objective towns. The attack in AO Rechts has the secondary objective of taking the highway and hopefully taking pressure off of Geilenkirchen. 104 Regt is held a strategic reserve and will be committed where it is needed most either as a whole or with its subordinates attached to other units.

D3 to end of Operation Mission: Attempt to maintain objectives (Earn points!)

Well, time to hit PLAY and see how poorly I planned this out.