Cassino 44' Scenario 4 - Red Bull at the Barracks Again

Turns: 20 (starting at 0730hr)

Victory Conditions: American - Kill Germans, Gain control of Cairo, Barracks, and Points 56 and 213. Germans - Kill Americans, Maintain control of Cairo, Barracks and Points 56 & 213.

Set-up: Germans set-up strong defensive positions in the Barracks area and Massif, but not as strongly in Cairo. The Americans set-up with all HMG's, the FLM and 4 INF west of the Rapido to get some quick damage in and sustain any victories. The Plan is to rush as many troops to Cairo, take it, then maneuver to take the Barracks from behind.

0730 - 0800: With the morning sun rising (and 4 activations) a P47 spots movement on the Massif and flies in for a strafing run, destroying a step of GREN and demoralizing the remaining step. What a wonderful start! Two of the four smoke shells fired are ineffective but the two that worked screen the Allies from Op-fire coming from the Massif. The Majority of the troops already across the Rapido begin their dash towards Cairo, with only an HMG becoming demoralized from Op-fire. A small but heavy hitting force (INF,HMG,FLM) make their way alongside the disrupted and demoralized GREN's from the P47 attack, taking Op-fire from a machine gun nest, but sustaining no damage. The Stug draws first blood in the armor battle with a hit to one of my M4's preparing to cross the Rapido. Allies make a huge blunder in not discharging smoke in the river crossing hex as their last activation of 0730, instead, using their OBA on the HMG nests, which did not hit. German OBA is very effective on both of its activations, gaining a step loss on the ENG's as well as destroying the FLM unit. Lesson Learned! All on board artillery units fire smoke at 0800, covering the River crossing hex as well as the units trying to get onto the Massif. A little to late it seems, as the ENG's fail their recovery attempt and flees the River crossing hex. With 6 INF, 4 HMG's and 7 Leaders across, the Allies will attempt to take Cairo, with lots of smoke to shield them. Hopefully this will not only give my ENG's time to recover and return to their duties, but will also draw the units away from their dug in positions.

0800-0830: Firing smoke shells all over the place to shield my troops and ENG's is working well. I have a large force just East of the road leading up into Cairo consisting of 3 HMG's and 4 INF units. The smoke clears and I let loose a combined DF on the 45+ column, but due to the -1 column shifts for Mountain and against Dug-in units brings me down to the 22 column. Fortune shines as a 3 is rolled, gaining an X1 against the dug-in German troops on the edge of the Massif. Smoke is fired in after the attack, shielding that assault team but a dud falls on top of my ENG's , leaving them exposed. Randy does not hesitate, using his nest of 2xHMG's to fire into the ENG's hex, gaining only an M1, but which the already Demoralized ENG's fail miserably, losing their final step. So with my initial force +2 more INF that got across in the beginning, its time for Plan C, which is the same as Plan A, just no more reinforcements. Take Cairo! Some German troops begin to leave their dug-outs and start trekking across the Massif towards Cairo. The turn ends after the Allies disperse their units stuck on the East side of the Rapido. No sense in giving Randy easy shots to bring down my initiative.

0845-0945: Allies make their way towards Cairo under smoke. With a large combined DF attack in place just under the Dug-in units straddling the road, the allies are able to obtain a step loss on a GREN before smoke shields them from return fire. An assault team is sent forward after German units have used up all their Op-fires. Storming the HMG unit after the Demoralized Reduced GREN flees proves hazardous for the assault team, destroying 2 steps and demoralizing the remaining INF unit. Bringing in two HMG's the turn after the INF returns to Disrupted proves ruinous, destroying one step and demoralizing all of the remaining units. The Germans assault back, gaining a 2X plus another step loss due to compound morale failure. The assault is effectively ended when the Stug and GREN combo opens up and obtains a 1X, demoralizing the Leader and now reduced INF sent to reinforce the assault next turn. Only 2 full HMG units and a 1/2 step of INF with their Leaders remain in good order as they attempt to bypass the assault hex and reach the first town hex under smoke.

1000-1015: The reduced and demoralized INF flees the assault, somehow surviving the free shot, and the rest of the good order units, which now consist of only 2 full strength HMG's and 1 reduced INF unit, make their way forward under smoke. The smoke clears for a moment and German OBA fires on the HMG's , reducing one and disrupting both of them while the reduced and demoralized INF losses its last step to Op-fire after failing to recover and attempting to flee back to the Rapido. With only 1 full-strength unit in good order left, the Allied commander concedes with the town of Cairo within his site.

German Major Victory with 22 to 3 VP's.

Conclusion: To reiterate, never ever use resources able to fire smoke to fire at a target! Two/Thirds of my force were left on the East side of the Rapido watching their buddies get mauled by not following this #1 rule. A good game. A solid 4 out of 5, Allied SNAFU not withstanding.

This Scenario was over pretty quickly when the smoke over the river crossing was allowed to dissapate. This was disasterous for the Allies, as their one and only Engineer was reduced, demoralised, and a few turns later eliminated.

The focus for the Americans has to be to get their force accross the river, and to do so they have to protect their only engineer. Again, this scenario would probably be better substituting a regular engineer for the FLM, allowing two river-crossing hexes.

With the engineer destroyed, the Americans were outnumbered. Not a position you want to be in when needing to press an attack against a prepared defensive position. Over the next half dozen turns the American force was consistently dwindled away and eventually surrendered, when only a single full strength platoon (and a couple half platoons) remained at the foot of the slopes leading to Cairo. Germans suffered only 3 step losses.

This is my fourth Cassino scenario, and the fourth German victory on the trot. In this one the US forces have to expand their small bridgehead over the Rapido and also control various geographical locations. The US have tanks, aircraft and good artillery support however the attack is in daylight and of course under observation of the Germans entrenched on the mountains. The main German disadvantage is the need to spread the defense over the board in order to cover the victory condition hexes. The US commander decided to feint towards the town of Cario and then switch the attack to point 56 and the barracks. The attack got off to a bad start with step losses mounting quickly without any real ground gained, the tanks were stuck in the mud and unable to cross the river to assist the infantry. Game turns 5-10 were a real slog with the artillery on both sides pinning down the opposing side. Finally with the help of the flamethrower point 56 fell but the American's were unable to exploit this success and could not push on to the barracks. On the other flank a German counter attack was repulsed and a US company flanked some strong points and managed to get a toehold in Cario. With losses mounting on both sides the remainder of the battle became rather static until the attack was called off by the US commander. The result was a major German victory This was played solo and though only an average scenario in terms of excitement it does a great job of simulating how tough the conditions were for the US in this campaign.