(Note: Historical liberties will be taken with this narration in the interest of entertainment.)

Richardson sat quietly in the back of the command truck holding the cigarette nervously in his left hand. The door burst open and General George S. Patton stomped into the room, Codman, his aide following behind. Things had not gone well at Hucheln Town and now Richardson was going to hear it.

"Goddammit, Richardson!” Patton snarled. "I give you a simple objective held by rag-tag group of sons of bitches and I find you here, and my tanks and men strewn across the battlefield!" He continued, "I expected to be on the move to Berlin, but now, Monty's probably serving tea in the Reichstag while I am here pissing in the Roer!! Codman! Get me that goddamn report!"

"Yes, sir.", Codman replied as he backed out of the trailer and shut the door...

RICHARDSON'S REPORT

The US forces to take Hucheln Town arranged themselves in the town south of the hills and woods all loaded in their M3 halftracks. The M5s started out on recon to the North and were able to spot a lone German officer in the hills to the northeast. After taking some artillery fire, the M5s were able to flush out and dispatch the German and proceeded north. The rest of the column followed the road to Hucheln behind the screening force of M5s. The screening force crested the hill just before noon with the rest of the force filling in. Hucheln stood quiet before us in the valley.

I sent the M5s forward to recon, at which time, what looked (and felt) like several 88s, but were actually 75mm and 50mm guns fired from the edge of town, destroying most of the lead tanks and forcing an entire platoon to head for the hills. I called for our own artillery to bombard the gun placements and I ordered a company of M3s with infantry and engineers to move out to the east and get to the light woods and another company to go west on the hill to the small hamlet above Hucheln, both in the attempt to outflank the entrenched defenders and prepare for the rush to take the town. Things went bad from the start. The artillery support was ineffective for the most part and was unable to shake the guns. The Germans confidently targeted the company moving east and was able to obliterate our platoon of Engineers. Every time I sent a platoon of tanks forward to screen, those guns opened up and took out several tanks before forcing them back.

The day wore on and we were sitting on the hill and in the woods going nowhere until I ordered the tanks to race around and attempt entry into Hucheln from the backside. 3 M4 platoons, an M4/76 platoon drove around the west side, 2 platoons of M4s, 2 platoons of M4/76s and an M10 platoon went east. We lost one platoon on the west side to AT fire but the rest made it out of sight from those AT Guns. We continued to drop artillery fire on the town but it looked like we could not hit any of the emplacements or cause any significant damage. Finally, I made the call to send forward the infantry and HMGs to begin our assault on Hucheln. Our tanks initially had some minor successes in disrupting the German 81mm mortar platoons and even causing severe damage to entrenched infantry just outside the west side of town. However, as our troops moved down the hill and over the muddy terrain, relentless fire from the defenders and constant artillery bombardment stalled our assault, including killing several of our junior officers. We were able to make it to the outskirts of town and take a hex or two, but ultimately, our western prong of attack was rendered useless and I call for a general withdrawal.

RESULTS

The loud sound you just heard was the sound of my @$$ being handed to me by Vince. This one went very badly, mostly on indecision on what to do with my combined arms and then committing forces over the entire line instead of focusing on a single point of attack - allowing the defenders to just sit back and fire instead of forcing them to move. In addition, missed opportunities for OP fire really burned me at several points (still getting used to each unit having 2 op fires instead of just 1). Also, when sending the units into assault, I moved my INF too far ahead of my HMGs and then could not continue to move them as my leaders were strung out forcing them to provide covering fire and effectively end their usefulness in the battle. Hopefully, the lessons learned here will translate to the desert. I certainly don't want to be sitting in the back of the command truck again... :)

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE COMMAND TRAILER

"...and that is what you will do, Richardson!” Patton finished as Codman opened the door. "Ike's on the line, Sir." Codman said as he held the door for Patton. Patton started for the door and just before exiting, turned to Richardson and said, "One more thing, Richardson... I said '...Make the OTHER poor, dumb, sonofabitch die for HIS country!'".