Author	treadasaurusrex (United States)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Draw
Participants	CavDo
Play Date	2023-01-14
Language	English
Scenario	WiSo002

This was a 3-session play through with the clever, CavDo as the German Commander and me playing the scratch, undermanned and poorly-armed US side. We ignored the FOW, but used the smoke/illum, excess initiative and consolidation optional rules. As others have noted, this is a typical early Bulge attack with the Germans having the advantage of a serious amount of excellent armor. As is becoming routine in my online play, I was again serving personal penance for the souls in purgatory by having to play with only minimal, so-called armor (an M-18 "tank destroyer"), and with demonic, but essential, AT gun crews among the defending American troops in this hotly-contested 14-turn scenario. I was very lucky to end this one with a draw. One of the key factors in this outcome is that I drew an exceptional set of leaders, and the SS leaders were a surprisingly poor lot. Also, my opponent had the incredible bad luck of managing to throw a near-record 17 combat 7-die rolls -- almost all in critical situations that likely would have won the game for the Nazi horde.

The American forward defenses were in the immediate vicinity of Stuvelt. Being able to dig in the Americans in light woods was a pleasant change of pace. In our play-through, the Germans came on in a vigorous, combine arms frontal attack from the southern portion of Map 9 aiming at the critical bridge. This movement-to-contact quickly took to the woods on Map 12. A number of lucky US OBA and many successful opfire shots made this into a nasty experience for the advancing German wedge. I had to begin migrating US units from the north edge of Stuvelt to shore up the defenders on the southern margins of the town. A costly, and haphazard German attack took the bridge briefly, before a counter attack threw the SS back. The lone M-18 platoon kept moving through this play-through and got off the occasional shot at the marauding Panther tanks, eventually taking out 2 steps before the inevitable occurred and was destroyed in a well-setup crossfire during game turn 12. As the PG fates would have it, this sacrifice helped to protect the US flank for a number of turns and also contributed mightily to the defense of the contested bridge hex. The bridge was still contested at the end of game turn 14, by the then-very-few remaining US troops. All the SS halftracks were eliminated by the end, and only 3 steps of SS were able to exit the battle map. My gracious opponent offered the draw at the start of the last turn when it was clear that the relatively few remaining SS grenadiers would not be able to clear the bridge due to the very high casualties that they had absorbed by that point in the scenario.

I give this one a 3, but suggest that it is more suitable for solo play as the deck is too well-stacked for the German side. I was very lucky to be able to manage a draw against a quick-to-learn, hard-fighting and aggressive rookie opponent.