Colonel Croesus: Turn 7
Chance of The Flare Path appearing today: 0-5%*. Chance that you'll nod off while reading the following turn tale: 40-50%. Yesterday's wanton bloodletting seems to have satisfied Connor's bloodlust for the time-being and cowed the Comment Commanders somewhat. In the sixty seconds of CM combat footage I've just watched, little ammo was expended and no-one - well, almost no-one - got hurt.
*Roman has promised me a Foxer
(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German units are computer controlled. Each daily turn covers one minute of WeGo action. For a scenario outline and accounts of earlier turns, click here)
The Montaretto Millionaires spend Turn 7 recoiling, reconnoitring, and rushing reinforcements into the labyrinthine submarine sett. Slightly stunned after losing their CO to a Panzer III's stuttering bow MG in the minute just gone, they place no waypoints in ZINC, a chamber that must be traversed if Steiner's getaway U-boat is to be assaulted from the south, and show little appetite for leaving LEAD, the gateway through which any northern attack force must pass.
Hopes that the Iron Crossed Irishman will advance eastward, exposing as he does, the flank of his Tiger substitute to a Sherman's 75mm M3 or a GI's bazooka, dwindle as the timer ticks down. The aggressive glory-hungry Connor of 1940-1 might have pushed on, but the edgy, disillusioned Connor of 1944 is happy to sit and wait.
The fact that the sitting and waiting is done with closed hatches probably explains why the remains of Croesus' HQ is able to retreat without difficulty, and the residue of 2nd Squad's B team survive the turn despite ignoring their movement order. Perhaps Corporal Wood made a difference after all.
Struggling to extricate herself from her alcove, Crabmeat 2 does little to aid Turn 6's whipping boys. Eventually, Nemchik's tank flings a token smoke shell into the NE corner of ZINC.
The Grim Reaper looks on disapprovingly until, fairly late in the sixty, a 2nd Squad BAR brandisher near Belinda spots and slays the ZINC LMG team's ammo carrier. This killing kindles a brief firefight.
A burst from a bipod-mounted MG 42 is answered with a rifle grenade (frozen in flight close to the Autoblinda's number plate in the above image) which lands short but persuades the German to start crawling back in the direction of SILVER.
1st Squad contributed this turn by scouting COPPER (empty), venturing, very tentatively, into the row 3 tunnel (No sign of life. The distant pillbox looks to be facing west) and by making room in LEAD for a tracked firebug with a turbaned crew.
