This excellent scenario has a German force defending a pass during the Kasserine campaign. The American attacking force has good armour support and reasonable OBDA however the VC's have the American commander having to decide whether to bypass the German defense's and go for exit VPs, or take the high hills overlooking the valley.
The battle opens with the American forces pushing east, the German units remain dug in on the hills, first blood falls to the American when accurate OBDA destroy the German MTR platoon, however the following turn the sole German tank platoon (PzIII's) engages in a tank duel with M4's and T20 and inflicts 3 step loss with any loss to themselves. This puts the German commander on the front foot and he (ie me) gets overconfident and advances forward to contest the wadi area in the middle of the board and a smaller ridge line in the south. A tremendous struggle starts over the ridge line with losses for both sides, although the US troops are pushed off the ridge, the Germans cannot afford the losses and now look very thin on the ground. After some desultory tank exchanges the American AFV's move off the board. The US artillery takes out the German 88's and in a very luck shot disrupt the PzIII platoon who were moving to threaten the US line of communication. The last few turns of the game are very pro US with INF destroying the German tanks and pushing hard for the Northern hills, however a German counterattack with really their one remaining good order unit stope the US forces from taking more than one small section of the hill. At the end of the game we had no real idea what the final VP score would be, and we had to count them very carefully. As it happened the German had amassed more VP's but not enough to claim the win.
Well this one was close all the way through with the battle ebbing and flowing very nicely. Old Treadhead managed his initial assault well but probably should have kept his tank units on the board to take hill hexes in the last few turns however he would have not got 6 VP's for exiting those units so it is a moot point. During out final session I nearly threw in the towel as I got DEM with my die rolls but struggled on to claim a draw. Good scenario played in great spirit, most enjoyable.
|
Indeed, this was a very "close run thing."
Shoot, I can remember when feebly managing to achieve a draw with the doughty & wily, Wayne Baumber, was the equivalent of a decisive victory for my inept, rookie self!