Battle of Sambir 9/13 German side

[Lucky Shot]

Great battles tonight at the Village flag on Battle of Sambir tonight. I had quite a few people cycle through my squad, but one constant was our presence at that village flag. Yea, we lost it a couple of times, and saw more than our fair share of helicopters and bombers, but a great effort kept that flag German for most of the map. Props to Barracuda Magoo, Ares, Grandpa2, Moregooder, EO, and JMJ. At one point, the Germans were down by 100 tickets but through the magic of bleed were able to pull out a win by 12 points! The Ukranians were leading until the 20 ticket point, but through an excellent effort from the other squads we went from holding 3 flags to knocking them back to their UCB.

Final Assault regaining the Village flag...



Final positioning...


Great games!

Lucky Shot

[MoreGooder]

Cut-paste to Lucky's other AAR for 9/13

[JMJ]

Man, I was having fun on that map, I was thoroughly irritated when I got autoswitched to the other team from your squad. For the first time I had just started using that German support gun, that thing is nasty!!!!!

Had a great time defending that Village flag, it was a blast!

[Thanatos]

A report from the Ukrainian side:

I was SL on the Ukrainian side(#7 - LearnTG) - I had a solid core team with me who had carried over from the previous map. It took me a long time to load up this map for some reason, but when I got in, I was shocked to see that we had all of the flags, leaving Germany with only their UCB!

I can only remember the names of a few of my squadmates, so instead of singling out only 2 of 5, I'll raise a salute to everyone who was with me during the battle, you did an awesome job. For those of you who weren't there, here's how they did it:

I spawned at the West Farm immediately to link up with my squad who was already there, realizing that was the first point of contact for German forces leaving their UCB. If we could maintain a bottleneck and keep destorying / spotting advancing armour we could maintain the decisive advantage throughout the course of the game.

This tactic worked very well as we had two anti-tank troopers in the squad. I had them move up the hill towards the UCB and flank the road leading to our position. They had orders to immediately spot any armour moving in, but hold their fire until they could take a shot at rear armour. The rest of the team occupied positions inside the buildings with eyes on the flag and on the friendly armour spawn, occupying the tank whenever possible.

Spotting immediately but holding fire meant that our air support knew exactly where the armour was and when it was advancing so friendly air strikes were frequent and effective. I also started calling artillery spots in just in case, but I don't know if anyone was actually in the gunner's seat. If the air power was away, say in transit or reloading, then the AT rockets plus the friendly tank spawned at West Farm could do the job almost as well.

In time, the Ukrainians built a sizeable lead on the Germans as Lucky Shot said. However, a sneaky APC or transport helo slipped through our net during one of the more frenetic engagements and a few minutes later, 3 north flags had turned - this must have been LuckyShot's squad on the breakthrough as he mentioned they were holding position at The Village.

Suddenly, someone jumped in the commander's chair and issued me a move/attack order to fall back and take the Church. I complied, assuming the commander's strategy was to collapse the lines and concentrate our manpower on several closely spaced, key flags. Immediately upon our withdrawal from West Farm, it was taken by the German forces.

The attacks on the Church, while ultimately unsuccessful were very exciting. On foot, we advanced upon the Church from the west - literally running under the treads of lots of enemy armour along the way - a harrowing experience. We attacked a few times but could not get a firm hold despite friendly armour advancing from the east.

I then decided to try gaining an elevated position by occupying the large hill with the AA in the centre of the map, overlooking the Church flag. It turns out that the Germans had the same idea and large scale infantry battles erupted on that hill, with at least two squads from each side vying for contention.

By this time, the Germans had chipped away at the Ukrainian ticket lead as Luckyshot related in his AAR (we were up by over a hundred tickets for a long time).

I believe that removing the bottleneck from the West Farm was a decisive factor in this game - an opinion seconded by others in my squad. The commander who had initially issued my move-order had disappeared from the position shortly after that and as soon as we de-trenched from West Farm it could not be taken back. Had I questioned my commander's order we might have remained and held our ground effectively. We would have been overrun eventually because air support was not allowed to concentrate on a single CP with those north flags being hostile. The extra stalling action however, could have bought that extra 4 minutes the Ukrainians needed to win the game.

Going forward, if I do not recognize the team Commander then I will make sure to scrutinize orders more closely before accepting them and ensure I make suggestions if I believe my squad can better serve at another location. I am not at a point where I feel ready to take on the CO's responsibilities for myself however - I am a tactician still, not a strategist yet.

My squad was an effective weapon for this battle - they excelled on the defence and were tenacious and disciplined on the attack, well done.

[BigGaayAl]

Originally Posted by Thanatos

Going forward, if I do not recognize the team Commander then I will make sure to scrutinize orders more closely before accepting them and ensure I make suggestions if I believe my squad can better serve at another location.

Good plan. As a CO I always try to fit in squad requests as it is good for morale and because the SL on tacmod and POE2 has way better info then the CO. The commander also may explain his order, allowing you to fulfill the global plan better.
You have to help new CO's as much as you can. Especially when losing give many suggestions. This will tell the CO he is being taken seriously and make it more likely that he will stay

Originally Posted by Thanatos

I am not at a point where I feel ready to take on the CO's responsibilities for myself however - I am a tactician still, not a strategist yet.

With the utmost respect, that is bollocks. Poe needs more commanders, and if you can SL then you can CO. Heck we even take orders from guys without voip that visit the server for the first time! Yes sir!

[FBmantis]

I think things really started to turn in Germany's favor once I got a functional bomber in the sky. My gunner was popping targets all over the place and the UKR armor probably wasn't getting much done. The flags seemed to start falling our way as we took down the armor so our squads could move in.

Note that since the frogfoot's are one seaters there is almost always people getting those bombers in the air. Meanwhile if the germans don't counter with a functional 2 man bomber crew then they get slaughtered because our armor is falling but the UKR armor would not be. I've seen rounds on this map where the Tornado is roaming around with no gunner...

[Thanatos]

Originally Posted by BigGaayAl

Good plan. As a CO I always try to fit in squad requests as it is good for morale and because the SL on tacmod and POE2 has way better info then the CO. The commander also may explain his order, allowing you to fulfill the global plan better.
You have to help new CO's as much as you can. Especially when losing give many suggestions. This will tell the CO he is being taken seriously and make it more likely that he will stay




With the utmost respect, that is bollocks. Poe needs more commanders, and if you can SL then you can CO. Heck we even take orders from guys without voip that visit the server for the first time! Yes sir!

Hah! Maybe I will. I just read Preston's excellent CO guide. There seems to be no lack of opportunity seeing as the High Seat is empty most of the time these days.