Author	wleonard1
Method	Solo
Victor	Draw
Play Date	2022-10-03
Language	English
Scenario	AAAD001

A US battalion tries to take a 3-hex town from a Vichy French Battalion. It's an infantry fight with a little artillery support for both sides, no armor or air support. The US Army has a long approach down the length of the board to reach the town of St. Cloud and assault the defenders, and with only 14 turns, subtle or indirect approaches are out of the question. France sets up mostly in the town, with two HMG outposts on the hills flanking the approach road, hoping that they can help the French artillery in disrupting the US approach.

The US enters, and starts a long march over clear terrain, taking occasional morale checks from the French artillery. Surprisingly, the US passes every morale check on the approach, and the US artillery disrupts or demoralizes both French HMG outposts. Just at the halfway point in the game, the lead US infantry elements come up adjacent to the town, and one infantry finally fails a morale check. The rest of the infantry piles into the town hexes for assaults, and both sides start rolling in the middle of the assault table, while the US support HMG's and mortars slowly lumber into range. The remaining elements of the French outposts finally do their job and slow down the approaching US HMG's, keeping them out of the assaults, but at the cost of several French step losses to US artillery.

On the last turn, a demoralized French infantry flees a town hex after failing to recover; assaults are still going on in the other two town hexes. Step losses are 10 for France and 1 for the US, but that still comes out to a draw.

Lessons learned: For France, it might be best to just pile everything into the town at the start. It would be nice to have those 8 factor French HMG's in the assault hexes to encourage the 3 factor infantry. For the US player, you need to find a way to get the slow HMG's and limbered mortars into action faster - may just have to see if they can stand up to the French artillery that will hit them if they march straight up the road.