A quick scenario -- I played it twice in one sitting.

On the first play, the Americans got a good leader draw (10-1-1 and 9-1-1), the Germans not so much (8-0-1 on the leader beginning on the board).

The grenadiers moved up to dig in alongside the forward strongpoint as the paras dashed up the road from the east. Opportunity fire failed to slow the Americans and they established themselves in the town adjacent to the strongpoint. They traded fire until the Americans took out the 3-4 strongpoint and demoralized the grenadiers.

The grenadiers fled over the causeway, closely pursued by the Americans. When the strongpoint in the objective town proved to be empty, the German rout continued out of the town. The Americans chased them down and annihilated the defenders in an assault.

On the second play, the Germans got a better strongpoint draw. When the Americans again eliminated the forward 3-4 strongpoint with Direct Fire, the grenadiers retired in good order and joined a 4-4 strongpoint in the town at the west end of the causeway. The paras managed to reach the town without loss, but were forced to assault at a disadvantage in order to take the objective. They lost a step in the assault, and the scenario ended with the victory hex still contested. A draw.

In most small scenarios, balance depends a lot on the draw. That's even more true for this one since strongpoint draw can affect it as much or more than the leader draw. Fortunately, you can play this one several times in one evening with different draws and different strategies. Looking at this one, there is still one thing I haven't tried with the Germans . . .

The U.S. paras braved enemy fire to rush the first strongpoint, which quickly fell. The paras then paused in 0409 to prevent German reinforcements from arriving. The second (Pouppeville) strongpoint turned out to be unoccupied, and the paras rushed the town. Several rounds of assault proved inconclusive, however, with no losses for either side.

An odd, yet interesting little scenario. There's not much strategy involved; it's mainly a test of intestinal fortitude for the U.S. player as he'll need to rush through enemy opportunity fire, plus spend at least a turn in the open 0409 hex to prevent the Germans from reinforcing.

The scenario instructions need to be errata'd -- Turn 10 is not the 1130 turn (it's 10:45). I played it as Turn 10.

Author	geofgibson
Method	Solo
Victor	Germany
Play Date	2025-09-28
Language	English
Scenario	Airb004

This was another good learning experience. The strategy seemed straightforward. Go right for the East side strongpoint, eliminate it, go to the West side, win. What could be easier, right? Well, first lesson. When you only have a unit and a half to accomplish the task, keep them together. The Americans decided to split up and one unit take the strongpoint and the other assault the German infantry in the town next to the strongpoint. A 3 rolled on the first assault defense and that step loss caused a disaster. OK. Regroup and head to the West side. The Americans wanted to occupy the East strong point so the German reinforcements wouldn't appear, but that shipped had sailed. Now the Germans caught up with all their infantry and the assault combat started agin. This time the Americans benefited from rolling a 3 and the Germans took the step loss. What was amazing was the number of 3s and 4s rolled during assault combat and then the number of low recovery rolls that allowed the disrupted units to get back to full strength. The Americans were lucky enough to wipe out three steps between combat and compound morale failures, but the 3s kept coming until their last step was killed. So, strategy for the next time. I think there is still potential to take the East strongpoint and hold until the reinforcement turn so they don't show up, then run for the West side and hope to eliminate it before the clock runs out. That might not be possible. The best bet might be to hit the swamp, get to the West side, take it, and then hold out till the clock runs out. Fighting off the reinforced German infantry might be hard, but not impossible. Guess I'll have to play it out both ways and see.

This scenario is pretty straightforward. Americans spotted the stronghold in 0409, noted it was not empty, and moved to approach on the town side. The grens moved into the town, failed to impact the American paras with opp fire, and the Americans jumped them in the town. The grens demoralized right away, and fled to 0412 as fast as they could run. The Americans moved on the strongpoint (turn 9) and assaulted to prevent German reinforcements. The 3-4 stronghold held out for an inordinate amount of time as the Americans could not inflict a step loss and it kept passing morale checks. The Americans finally eliminated it, but had the HMG and Col disrupt in the meantime. The grens couldn't pass a recovery check (to disrupted) until the Americans were entering 0412 (the 4-4 strongpoint failed to affect with opfire), and in the resultant assault combat the Americans lost one step while only managing to disrupt the defenders. Game ended on time with both sides heavily disrupted and still contending over the victory hex.

Until the step loss, the Americans never lost a column on the assault hex. Not a lot of decisions in this; must occupy 0409 on turn 10 or face overwhelming German force, must assault to get anything done. Germans can be a bit aggressive with grens when they have occupied strongpoints, and just keep falling back. If the strongpoints were empty, the Americans would have rolled the grens up. With two occupied strongpoints the Americans just lacked enough strength. Too much randomness with two strongpoints totaling 67% of starting German strength.