Author	treadasaurusrex (United States)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	United States
Participants	CavDo
Play Date	2023-01-29
Language	English
Scenario	GJ27001

At last, a combined arms fight to liberate some town hexes, against a well-armed, high-morale and resolute opponent - and with American air support - GLORIOUS!

This was a 3-session play-through with the steadily-improving, CavDo, leading the defending German side. I played the outnumbered, attacking Americans, and we used the FOW, consolidation, smoke/illum, excess initiative and extended assault optional rules in what was a very fun-to-play, fast-paced scenario, that was decided at in the last 3 game turns. Both sides initially drew fine sets of leaders.

This was a straight forward brawl, featuring 2 villages in the south and a bigger town in the north with plenty of fields and woods in between. Wisely, the Germans took advantage of their interior lines and concentrated around the town hexes, with a number of HMG platoons, and a diabolical PaK40, 75mm AT gun platoon covering the best available high-speed avenue of approach. The Boche armor was concentrated as a mobile reserve in the center of the battle map.

As others have reported, the US tried a multi-pronged approach and kept the infantry in their APCs for as long as possible, while initially moving toward the two villages. The US armor probed on the left flank and was able to coax the lurking Panther out of hiding by the 6th turn. This became a game of "stymie" with the Americans, as my clever opponent did his best to keep his force in motion to ward off the inevitable, once the US infantry had dismounted and their objectives became obvious. The right flank village was liberated first by close assault in game turn 8 after considerable, close-range, preliminary direct fire, in spite of the US air support being weather-delayed.

In the meantime, the aggressive Panther platoon was hunting Shermans and a couple of sacrificial M-3 halftrack platoons, while the Hetzer platoon deployed just a little too far forward and was eliminated by AT crossfires, an air strike, and several lucky throws. The Panther unit followed the assault gun to Valhalla two turns later, thank to the M-18, moving-and-scooting, and repeated set up shots by the slower set of Shermans. Both these tactical successes benefited from lucky US initiative rolls and the surprisingly good air cover. The second village fell on game turn 12.

The bulk of the US force then starting moving north to liberate the larger town. The Germans mounted a determined, but costly, counter attack that slowed this approach to a crawl and accounted for the loss of 2 US leaders and 2 infantry platoons. However, the German Comnander was also eliminated, which caused some major havoc & disorganization to the defenders. In time, relentless US pressure and a pair of successful air strikes cleared the way to the final town that was surrounded on 3 sides by the end of game turn 16. American close assaults began the following turn - and while these proved costly for both sides, the German garrison was finally overcome during game turns 19-20. This was a very close one, that easily could have gone either way.

At the end of the final session, the US had lost 21 steps & 2 leaders, and the Germans had parted with 26 steps and 3 leaders. There were 7 FOW-shortened turns in this play-through. The FOW materially benefited the defenders, though in the end, the Americans liberated all the towns and triumphed. Sgt. Poole & his tank crew went on the lead that Victory Bond Tour back in the states.

This encounter crucially hinged on correct utilization of tanks and was very tough to win as the American side. Without the relatively early loss of the German armored assets, this one would have been a German win. I give this scenario and enthusiastic 4!