Author	Fanghawk
Method	Solo
Victor	Germany
Play Date	2020-04-20
Language	English
Scenario	InoG001

This one was tough from start to finish for the U.S. Starting with the leader draw, they only received two leaders with combat modifiers, which was going to make coordinating fire difficult. The Germans on the other hand drew two leaders with 2 combat modifiers and every leader had a morale modifier. It went downhill from there. Despite having a 3-1 advantage in Initiative, the U.S. lost the first four initiative rolls outright, only won five of the twelve initiative rolls the entire game, and only got a double first activation once. Neither Engineer platoon came to fight and were among the first troops to Demoralize on the U.S. side. The Engineer in the south was able, on the final assault, to get into the fight but the Engineer in the north broke at the first sign of the enemy and remained Demoralized the rest of the game.

As the game began, the U.S. kept a stronger contingent to hit the southern entrenchment line but sent a reinforced infantry company and engineer platoon with heavy machine gun support to the northern entrenchment line. In the south, they were able to use the woods to get close to the southern German lines and began laying down small arms fire waiting for the HMG to catch up.

The Germans laughed at the sporadic, ineffective fire the Americans tried to lay down. German small arms fire in return sent the jittery Americans running back into the woods where it would take several precious minutes to cajole and coerce the troops back into the fight. From there, this game reminded me of my high school days when I played games with friends and usually had quite memorably bad dice. The U.S. was rolling 7s on combat rolls and 10s and 11s on morale checks all afternoon. The Germans were doing the opposite. The Germans were able to keep cracking the center of the American lines meaning the U.S. was forced to use single groupings of smaller firepower attacks and rarely got the opportunity to lay down concentrated fire attacks. Even when they managed to get 30FP attacks on the Germans, they never got more than an M2 result which the German’s shrugged off easily. With a steady ebb and flow of troops to the front, the U.S. was eventually able to wear the defenders down and as time grew short launched an assault that finally…albeit slowly…pried the Germans out of the entrenchments and off the road.

The northern assault never got off the ground. As soon as the U.S. troops got within spotting range, German mortars, off-board artillery, and long-range opportunity fire scattered any organized approach. As in the south, the U.S. had a difficult time concentrating fire and fire from the infantry was largely ineffectual. The U.S. was able to drop heavy artillery on the German positions and there were constant Disruptions and a couple Demoralizations among the German troops but they invariably recovered quickly. As time wore on and began to run out on the assault, the U.S. was finally able to temporarily break the will of the German troops in the entrenchment, pin the supporting, dug-in troops, and encircled the German positions readying for the final assault. The Germans won the ensuing Initiative, the German Sergeant called artillery down right in front of his own position, and the U.S. assault evaporated under the shelling.

I like the scenario as a great study in terrain usage, defensive positioning, and proper division of forces, and application of force for the attacker. As the German player, once the decision is made on where to position your troops and the entrenchments, there’s little else to do but shoot and hang on, but it could still be a tense, fun game for either side.