West Wall, scenario #6: Crocodile Rock

I have just set this scenario up. It looks very interesting and the victory conditions look like fun. The Germans have a small setup force of mixed infantry & weapon units but have strongpoints, terrain, mud, Off-board ART and most important two platoons of Tiger I's coming on as reinforcements at some point. The Americans have a large force Infantry, Armor and off-board artillery but also a British Crocodile Flame tank unit, plus the Americans have two Engineers, one FLM unit to help clear strongpoints and city hexes. To counter the German Tigers when they arrive, they have 3 x M4/76, 4 x M4, 1 x M36 and a 57mm AT gun to help with cross-fire bonus. Now the real problem will be with the time, 20 turns in the mud to slow movement a bit.

Posting #2

This was a fun scenario to play. The movement was frustrating at times, due to the Mud. I had to bring on the Americans and the British Crocodile units in two attack groups as the terrain and mud would take too long in a huge traffic-jam to try the one thrust approach. About half went down the road and the other half shirted the woods on the left flank with the clear terrain. The Germans put most of their defenses in the town hexes and a few units as road-blocks in the 40 level hills on the map before the town.

The German Tiger tanks did hammer a lot of the American armor but they could not holdup in the town hexes very long, once their own infantry got thrown out. The Americans just had too many resources in Infantry and off-board artillery but needed all twenty turns to achieve their goals. Tiger tanks do not standup in assault combat in town hexes against engineers, especially not the FLM unit where pardon the pun, they really got burned. The Americans won this scenario but I needed all the time to do it.

One thing I should have done differently with the German Tiger tanks, is forget helping out the German Infantry in the town hexes, but to just keep them back on the edge of the North-South road and wait out the Americans. It would have been a really close call then. Who knows?

This game required maps from Battle of the Bulge, American counters from Elsenborn Ridge and four from Cassino, German counters from Cassino and one British counter from Beyond Normandy. So it wasn’t too difficult to setup.

Very enjoyable scenario to try an solve.