Author	plloyd1010 (Germany)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	France
Participants	cjsiam
Play Date	2022-09-01
Language	English
Scenario	FaoF049

Old fans of Squad Leader recognize the title. First, the scenario parameters. This game was played double-blind and with my rewritten rules. Part of the reasoning for this scenario was to familiarize my opponent, with the horrible l'accent français d'Hollywood, with the mechanics of double-blind play. The German objective is to capture all the town hexes. (Squad Leader fans should know exactly where this is going.)

The German advance was primarily on foot. Not knowing where the French 75 is at this point, driving loaded trucks around would be a bad idea. The large town is quickly surrounded. Heavy fire is pouring into the southern section of the town. My motorcycles run through the small northern, just to make sure I don’t lose on a technicality.

Assaults on the south end of the town begin predictably. That is gain a disordered lodgment, then morph to a more effective infantry-HMG-armor assault team. Escadrons try to steady the French defense, and are partly successful. Mostly events are going the German’s way.

There is one sequence of events worthy of special attention. My motorcycles have taken position on a hill, overlooking the north end of the town. In the town below is a platoon of French reservists. A German assault begins in the hex just south of the reservists, which now splits the town into 4 sections. The French leader pulls the reservists to assist in the defense. The next round of assaults demoralizes the escadron and leader in the hex, the reservists remain in good order. The reservists are sent out of the assault hex, to the last French controlled hex in the center of town. The escadron rallies for a moment, allowing the reservists to get away without the free shot being used against them.

The bedraggled reservists sit in the center of the town with a tactically wise, but otherwise incompetent sous-lieutenant. An infantry platoon supported by an assault gun, bears down our Frenchmen. With a good & bad luck equation, they hold! The Germans call in an HMG to help. With worse and better luck, the assault gun is demoralized and the HMG disrupted, and the reservists are still there! The last turn has the Germans trying to rally the assault gun, in hopes they flee, but they rally (blocking reinforcements). The next, obviously weaker assault goes nowhere.

The game ends with the Germans controlling all but 1 town hex. That hex last is deputed by an angry French reserve infantry platoon.

Pavlov? Sgt Jakob Pavlov occupied an apartment building in Stalingrad with his platoon when the 6th Army attacked on Oct. 20, 1942. When the Germans withdrew, 2 day later, Pavlov and his men were still there, still interdicting the intersection they were looking over. History pre-peats(?) itself.