| German Frustration in the Morning | ||||||||||||||
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This scenario began with nearly unbroken series of 6 turns in which the French had the initiative. Immediate German losses included their sole platoon of combat engineers who were eliminated in their transport while foolishly exposing themselves in the open close to, but not in the north edge woods. Other early losses included multiple trucks destroyed (captured?) in a bold probing attack on the northeastern town by an intrepid French armored car platoon. As happened historically, the German Hauptman Felsch was killed in the same attack. The Germans secured all but one town north of the river by Turn 7 but were effectively stymied in their attempts to cross the river, having earlier lost their crucial engineer unit. The French slowly withdrew their disrupted and demoralized units across the river and into the town of Etalle. A second cunning raid by a French Panhard 178 armored car unit resulted in another loss of a German transport unit and also a change in occupation status for 5 town hexes north of the river. These were rapidly re-occupied by German combat units. Their armor reinforcement and 12-strength OBA increment arrived on time at Turn 9. French reinforcements arrived late on Turn 9 south of the river and promptly moved to enhance the garrison in Etalle. The French tenaciously continued holding their positions on the south bank of the river for the balance of the game in spite of repeated artillery bombardment and heavy machine gun fire directed at the two road-blocked ridge hexes. The same pesky French armored car unit was able to stay just out-of-range of being decisively-engaged and assaulted by German forces. With the initiative in the final turn, the same unit was able to claim 4 town hexes, force the sacrifice of half the remaining German armor to be able to re-occupy two of the four. Not enough for a draw, given the 7 German step losses that had accumulated by that time, The final scenario score was 25 to 17 resulting in a French Major Victory! More aggressive use of the German motorcycle infantry would likely have swayed the scenario if spoiling actions of the French armored car platoon could have been responded to promptly. |
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| 1 Comment |
| Panzer Grenadier Battles on May 6th: | |
|---|---|
| Edelweiss #11 - Ski Battle | Edelweiss: Expanded #14 - Sinking Skiers |
| Edelweiss IV #20 - Sinking Skiers | Road to Berlin #74 - Czech Mate |
This could be called a French rebuttal,but doesn't seem right as narrative of events are essentially correct. In my opponent's defense, I should point out that I have significantly more experience with PG than he does.
Functionally the Germans only have one group of significant firepower and that was used to good, if somewhat belayed effect. Keeping the PzI out of the primary action was a wise decision. In fact the only significant mistake, apart from offering such a nice shot at the truck carrying engineers, was not garrisoning the roads. As noted in the AAR. The motorcycle would have been quite good in that role.
This particular scenario is smaller than is ideal for a PG scenario, with each side having about 2 companies. The French have the wrong sort of force for proper defense, the Germans lack adequate force to properly exploit the situation.