An Army At Dawn, scenario #23: Hightower’s Attack

Besides watching a fantastic World Cup final game today, I played this scenario. The Americans start with three forces on the four maps including a smaller one that starts on map 78 with minefields protecting them but with no victory objectives, so I ended up during game play having them relocate to map 77 to try and protect some 40-meter hills. They also have a fourth battlegroup that enters later but didn’t arrive until turn 7. The Germans have two forces, one that enters on turn 1 and a reinforcement battlegroup that entered on turn 4.

There are many interesting victory objectives, so neither side can focus one but a big chunk are on map 76 and the Djebel Lessouda hills and also the town of Poste de Lessouda and a number of other victory objectives not to mention eliminating enemy steps. The Germans also control the airspace and get to pound some American positions with their air-force.

The Germans are on the offensive and their initial Reimann Battle Group slits into two groups, with one heading for the town of Poste de Lessouda including the Tiger Tank units, while the other half heads north for the hills of Djebel Lessouda.

The German easily destroyed a small group of Americans defending in the town hexes on map 79 but the group that went north really took some heavy loses and I started to think a made a big mistake but fortunately for them their Gerhardt Battle Group arrive early and attacked the Americans on the Djebel Lessouda hills from the north, which had focused their attention to the Germans attacking them from the south, sandwiching them in the middle.

In the South the German decided to ambush the American reinforcing 1st Armor Combat Group with Tiger Tanks and 88mm Anti-Tank Guns as this harvested more points for them than exiting units off the south edge of map 77. The ploy worked very well, the American armor suffered heavy casualties.

I pulled the plug on this scenario a bit early, as adding up the points, the Germans had 81 and the Americans had 47 giving the Germans a Major Victory. The situation at this time, would only have given the Germans more points.

With that said, it was a very fun scenario to play, deciding what strategies to use and what objectives to go after, for both defender and attacker. A nice mix of unit types to fight it out over 4 maps. Tigers are still king of the Battlefield and I would of hated to be in a Stuart or Sherman tank when facing them.