Battle of the Ruhr Pocket – AAR

I once more climbed into the breach and attended the historic battle series run by a dedicated portion of the World of Tanks Community.

This time it pitted the Germans versus the Americans in a late war battle in Germany.

The Ruhr Pocket was a battle of encirclement that took place in late March and early April 1945, near the end of World War II, in the Ruhr Area of Germany. For all intents and purposes, it marked the end of major organized resistance on Nazi Germany's Western Front.

This didn’t mean that the Germans weren’t going to put up a fight!

Game Summaries

Since I was able to record the battles I will only briefly outline the games. I played as a Panther and was a little more aggressive than my team and was yelled at a couple of times for my enthusiasm.

All games start after 5 minutes of setup, so if you are watching the replays please fast forward to that point.

Game 1 (Download Replay)
I pushed up to the northern part of the map and played tag with several US tanks for the match around the church near one the deployment areas. I always seemed to find where the enemy Pershing was, and suffered the ultimate fate for it.

Game 2 (Download Replay)
We set up a tough defensive pocket in this one, and the Americans had a hard time cracking it. I again pushed out a bit on the flank this time and did better playing peek-a-boo with several American tanks for most of the match.

Game 3 (Download Replay)
This was the closest of all the matches. The heavy German TDs were not used. It played out much as the 2nd match did, but to a much closer result.

Overall

I had a great time again and plan on playing as many historical battles as I can. I would recommend them to anyone looking to do something a little different and maybe learn a little about the historical difficulties facing tank commanders of the day.

Until next time,

- Josh (Jinxx71)