Devil 505's Aachen

On the battle of Aachen, Devil 505 wrote: "I logged on at around 19.00 GMT to find the current OIC just leaving and asking for a map oic replacement at which i volunteered little did I know my next 5 hours would be as hectic as they were.

The situation when i took over was that we had lost Maastrict forcing a hole in the line and axis were attempting to push elements of 33rd and 16th inf div through the hole to exploit the breakthrough by pressing on to Aachen Maaseik and Elsloo were also under assault as was Vise.

ARFR 1ere div was located all on the west side of the Meuse south of namur and axis had brigades from 16th ID in Andenne Boulliet and Namur whilst 33rd had its flags in wareeme tongeren boulliet and Maastrict It was initially decided to pin the tail of the axis donkey by AO ing namur to prevent them moving further east with that division and enlarging the gap in the maastrict area.

I had been well briefed by desouzaj whom i had taken over from and my intentions were to pull back the 1ere div to emplace it in nandrin ramet and the profondville area keeping 16th id pinned at namur. then attempting to close off the maastrict gap from vise and elsloo. whilst freeing up units in the S area to allow a possible assault on their weakest line of defence which was beaumont and push through to Mauberge At this point Axis were still moving units into maastrict and had not Ao'd Aachen at this point.

Eventually the situation in maastrict became such that it was inevitable with 3 brigades in maastrict that axis would not try and push further East and they made the decision to AO Aachen. At that point Aachens defence consisted of paras and 3 air units. I outlined the concerns around the key defence points of tha AF and spaawnables needing guards. however due to increasing pressure first the spawnable and then the AF fell effectively dismissing the defending units to training. I had already started moving northern units into a shorter defensive line in the Panningen area freeing up 75% of 12e div from Maaseik and Roermond areas to move south on timers to relocate in aachen if possible of if aachen fell its task was to disrupt axis LOCs and cut off the head of the snake had they pushed through.

The situation deteriorated in Aachen as the timers dragged on however due to some brilliant team play by certain unknown officers and players a 2 pronged attack was formed and we recapped both their only aachen spawnable the FB and the linked depot in maastricht whilst para toopers from Verviers were deployed over aachen It was touch and go as at this point we were down to having no link to allow defensive flags in and all ABs were axis owned , in fact we were at this point down to just one flag in Aachen!. we had by this time completely stopped the flow of axis inf into aachen and i had moved 12e hq and 106e to Geilenkirchen with the 12e armoured unit also in position at heerlen. ready to drop into Aachen we needed the 2 n depots back and the Abs if i was going to be able to move anything in I am pleased to say that the paras arrived from Verviers in an incredibly well and finely cut timing they recapped all abs and the n depots in short order and i was able to move 12e hq and 106e into aachen whilst moving the associated armoured unit 1 town further nw to bolster sittard . the time had flown by i had also managed to get the 1ere into nandrin in time to defend against a soft cap and i had also managed to emplace 1.5 dvis in position to attack Beaumont I handed over map oic to salador at 2359 Z after 5 hours of non stop unit movement safe in the knowlege aachen was secure and we could threaten Maastrict and Mauberge.

Devil505 3 Cdo CO"