This is a damage control scenario for the US. They are severely outnumbered and cannot hope to hold forward positions until their reinforcements arrive, as they are too few also. The US chose unwisely though, going for a forward defense to try and slow the Germans down until air and more OBA arrive later, with the small infantry and armor reinforcement. The Germans merely went around the strongpoints, allowing units behind the spearheads to engage them. The German tidal wave overwhelmed several US positions and were ready to meet the US reinforcements. The US units were badly mauled and could not hold the either east/west road. The Germans exited over 50steps and held both roads for the win.

This is the largest of the Aachen scenarios, a massive German presence, 45 Grens, 13 HMG's, Stugs and Tigers too. The Americans have a large amount too but are over shadowed by the German division sized formation. The Americans get reinforcements of OBA and aircraft halfway through and this can be very bad for the Germans. But the worse problem in my game was the Fog of War. Starting on turn 9 the average number of activations was 18 per turn compared to the need for 36 to 40 to move all the German units. This paralyzed 1/3 of the German units and caused the German attack to stall. This allowed the American reinforcements to arrive with the German units only halfway across the board. American artillery and aircraft then took control destroying 14 German steps with OBA factors of 42,42 and 36.

To the Germans credit they were able to clear the road for 1 and 1/2 boards but by the time they reached this point there was a string of disrupted and demoralized units struggling to regain good order. German Tigers were able to capture a town but it was too little to late. The Americans win a Major victory. In playing this one I recorded the unit kills to see what the spread of losses were. Most were by OBA 42 steps, direct fire was next with 18, assaults 15, double demoralized 8 and aircraft 5, bombardment 2.

The scenario was a good one, if you are looking for a large scenario. I believe the victory conditions are well balanced and historical. In my play the FoW rolls shortened the game and gave the Americans the win. It would be an interesting one to play if FoW is not as big a factor.

This big scenario has a large German combined arms assault force try to push through a smaller American force to clear roads and exit the map towards the besieged city of Aachan. As most PG vets will no clearing roads is one of the harder VC's to obtain and this with the US OBDA and to a lesser extent air power make this scenario a very difficult one for the Germans to win. Aware of this I decided to just try and go for a minor victory for the Germans by trying to clear just one road and exiting 35 steps, it was almost certain that the US force would take enough steps to meet their minor victory conditions but I thought a tie would at least be a good result for the Germans. I sent one force of German GREN mounted on Half tracks and STUG to flank the main US forces and begin to exit units asap, the main thrust went down the Northern road while a much smaller road went along the southern road to pin US forces. Initially the attack went well despite losing the German CO to a stray US shell on GT3, US forces were pushed back and casualties were about even at this stage, a US TD ambush on the leading Tiger II platoon failed miserably and led to the compete destruction of the 634th Tank destroyer Battalion. After two hours of battled the acting German commander was feeling quietly confident, funnily so was the US commander who had managed to conduct a reasonable good fighting withdrawal and had managed to reinforce the threatened northern sector with units facing the southern German thrust. He also knew he had reinforcements on the way, air support and increased artillery support promised to him. By now German units had reached the MLR of the American forces and were getting bogged down in assaults against dug in and determined US INF & MG. Although the promised reinforcements failed to arrive for the Amercians (GT 9 onward requiring a 5 or 6 to arrive these laggards eventually arrived on GT 23)the increased artillery support was slowing the German advance to a crawl and units went to ground (ie Dis or Dem results) after being shelled. With the main thrust stymied the German commander looked to the southern diversionary attack to succeed in clearing that road but to no avail as the US OBDA just switched targets to stall that move. When the US reinforcements finally arrived it was obvious that the German attack had failed and orders were given to withdraw back to the start line. Very tough on for the Germans to win however great fun in trying to manoeuvre such a large force without any logjams. This is my sort of scenario big and meaty and with different problems for both sides. The US player has to maintain a force while under extreme pressure from the German units and hope his artillery will do the job for him. In retrospect the German units which exited early would have been more use staying on the board though i'm not sure they would have swung the game. Highly recommended if you like the bigger scenarios and are not overly concerned who wins.