Panzer Battles Normandy: Cristot

"Cristot, West of Caen: June 11th, 1944. The Germans were desperately trying to hold on to a small salient as the base for a Panzer counter attack to the coast. The British and Canadians were just as desperate to expand the beachhead and be rid of the salient. Two battalions of the Green Howards with armor support from the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards were tasked to take Cristot and Brouay, just to the east of them."

Also covered in GMT Games Operation Dauntless 

http://www.gmtgames.com/opdauntless/Cristotsample011511.pdf

"It was about noon. Suddenly with a terrific crash and roar our guns opened up! I had never heard or seen anything like it. In front where the shells were bursting, nothing could be seen but a huge wall where the world seemed to end."

Started this Panzer Battles scenario on a whim playing as the Germans and it has turned out to be quite a challenge trying to stave off the Allie armor assaults. 

One thing I noticed for the first time is that Whitman is in my battle and the game actually puts his portrait on the picture of the unit. Think of him like a rare hero in these scenarios. I thought that was a pretty neat touch. Of course I am talking about Panzer Ace Michael Whitman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wittmann

The first two turns were spent getting reinforcements up to the front. I actually had one unit of Marders holding the road to le Haut d' Audrieu for a while. They were slowly knocked out one by one and disrupted until only one vehicle was left and I was forced to withdraw it from the front. 

I slowly backed Whitman up from the town he was in up North while at the same time moving my Panthers East to West. They were very few, about 2 per stack, so losing just one could hurt. I managed to get them on the elevated terrain to start picking off Allied tanks. 

Whitman only has two tanks in his stack as well. By the end of turn 3 the Allies had tried to break through between le Haut d'Audrieu and les Hauts Vents but this was stopped by panzer grenadier assaults against their infantry (south). Near Audrieu some Allied armor made a dent in my lines and pushed in toward town but they were disrupted and held off. Up north in les Bas d'Audrieu the German SS infantry and Whitmn are fighting off Allied Infantry attacks. More to come!