This was the scenario on the list for top scenarios for everyone to play in July of 2012 on PG-HQ but I had it on my must play list a few days before. Visibility is only two hexes unless the Americans fire Illumination shells. The German have two nice size infantry groups with JgPz IV/70s supporting one group and JgPanthers supporting the other and a large dose of off board artillery. The Americans have a mostly Infantry defending group with some 57mm AT Guns and a nice dose of off board artillery of their own but a little less than the Germans. Victory hangs on controlling the town hexes of the one map scenario, so most of the American units are positions there.

The game starts with two groups of Germans entering the map from east and south. The Americans first couple of Star-shells fail to go off and the Germans close fast under the cover of mostly darkness to the surrounding town hexes. I didn’t use most of truck counters, as with only one map and such close distances I didn’t see the point in risking fully loaded transports except with the 81mm mortar which was stationed in a different area. The Americans lobbed some deadly artillery shots among the Germans Infantry and some direct fire as well. After a few turns of this and mounting losses I started to wonder if the Germans could pull this off but at some point, the Germans had some nice shots of their own with off-board artillery and the double stacked tank destroyers of both Germans groups pulled up adjacent to the American occupied town hexes and support by Infantry started to reducing the American positions.

The battle really started getting bloody with mounting causalities on both sides, from off board artillery, which was a real killer in this scenario, assaults on the weaken American positions and adjacent hex Direct Fire combat. With the Germans having twice the Infantry, armor support and just a little more off-board artillery, they were able to push all the Americans out of the town hexes and control them within the 20 turns, giving the Germans the Victory. The casualties were very high for this size scenario: the American lost 13 steps and two leaders and the Germans lost 15 steps and two leaders with many disrupted and demoralized units on both sides but the weight of the Germans forces being twice the size under the cover of darkness was telling.

A fun scenario for play, no doubt! I had no idea who would win until the last quarter of the game.