CM:FB -- Baraque de Fraiture -- Fin

I did a brief write-up on this battle between Doug and myself a little while ago and, finally, it's come to an end.  The battles in Combat Mission: Final Blitzkrieg tend to be on the long side and this one is no exception.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but combatants can find themselves in situations where both are spent and have nothing to throw at each other.  With a full half hour to go, Doug told me he'd proffered a cease fire and I was in no position to disagree.

As is often enough the case in a double-blind battle, it's what you didn't know that is the most pleasant surprise.  In this case, it turns out Doug's boys had hot-wired one of Hobo's funnies and brought it a long to deal with the mine-clearing duties.  Problem was, he lost in the first five minutes of the battle.  Thus here, wide to my right, is this very expensive parking lot of immobilized monsters.  Interestingly enough, my boys saw the KT as a Panther; rather the inverse of what I would have expected.

 This is my personal hero, the now blazing tank that  took out so very much before being undone by a 'faust.

 A view of the carnage from up above.  Comparison to an earlier photograph taken from roughly this perspective is instructive.  My hero tank is at right.  On fire.

And looking the other way.  This is the main route of Doug's approach.  The little scrap yard at the outskirts of town, just off the bottom of this shot, was another surprise.  One of the sadder stories of this one involved the artillery spotter who hid himself for much of the battle right near the center of town to call in danger-close fire on the TRPs you see in this picture.  I pulled him back as the ranging shots began to fall only to have him shot up by a half-track I hadn't expected.  Ever so.

So how did we do?  Well, considering that this was Waffen SS against, essentially, the guys in Kelly's Heroes that didn't go on the heist caper, I'm all but pleased with a minor defeat.  As Doug himself said, though, if his tanks would have made it past the mines, this would have been a very, very bad day.

I observe before passing that Combat Mission's scenario writers really seem to be wrapping their heads around the tools presented to them by CMx2.  These are some great situations that go far beyond the challenge of "A Meeting at the Crossroads".  Makes me wonder what they'll have in store for the East Front as they slowly walk that part of the series back in time as well as West Front scenario packs.