Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg - Tactical Phasing

I was testing a new Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg scenario when I recalled one concept from Robert Leonhard's Fighting by Minutes.

I shall name it "Stragglers Fest" because it features  just such troops taken from the scenario editor. In this early stage of the design, a light mortar (green icon group near the farmstead) has found a German patrol near the crossroad in the background.

In Leonhard's work, he divides tactical fighting in two phases: the defensive phase, in which similar weapon systems face each other (i.e. tank vs tank, infantry vs infantry, etc) and the dislocation phase, in which the effective combat leader throws dissimilar weapon systems against the enemy. During the dislocation fight one is supposed to use a particular weapon system at a maximum advantage (i.e. tanks vs infantry in the open, or infantry vs tanks in close terrain).

In this scenario draft, our mortar men are salivating at the prospect of a German patrol in the open (dissimilar weapons, mortar at an advantage against the infantry). The only problem is that because they don't have a spotter, they would have to move their mortar into a position within LOS.

Pulling that mortar through the open is not fun, but that low brick wall is a life saver.

Who volunteers to set up the light mortar?

Well better now than never, the helmets pop out from the safety of the brick wall and spots a halftrack. The gunner of the vehicle is killed within seconds!

The halftrack retreats, but the enemy dismounts stay put and start firing at us. The mortar is now deployed.

And once the light mortar opens its mouth, the sounds of carnage are deafening.

Not even the halftrack was spared some mortar shells. These produced no effect, but it was fun to push the driver farther from trouble.

Some remainder German troops made a brave attempt to move towards the mortar's right flank, but they were caught by a command team located in the top floors of the farmstead.

The result was 13 German soldiers dead, 10 killed by mortar fire. One US casualty was suffered during the deployment of the light mortar.

The fire of the US mortar team on the Germans has all the markings of a dislocation fight (light mortar against enemy infantry in the open). The defensive fight occurred while moving the mortar up into position. This was done under the cover of a brick wall and the deployment was a dangerous situation. For this action, which by the way is the so-called defensive fight, the US could have benefit from a combined arms approach (i.e. an infantry team).

But nonetheless the important thing is that as mentioned by Leonhard, the essence of the "defensive fight" is to secure the dislocation fight. In this example, there were not much fire during the defensive fight, which may seem a bit contradictory.

Cheers,