strong textOBJECTIVES: Victory conditions in this one require players to hold the roads and keep or take control of the hexes of two 40-meter hills, one of which is in the northeast quadrant of the board and the other of which is in the southwest quadrant. Players also score VPs for killing enemy steps.

strong textTactical Situation: The Americans are on the attack here, and while they have superior numbers, they also have a substandard morale of 7, they're attacking a German force with superior morale and posession of the high ground, and they don't have much time either since the game can end on a variable-ending dieroll as early as Turn 9. Also, the American tanks are vulnerable to superior AT firepower from a PzIVH platoon and a German AT unit.

strong textGERMAN DEPLOYMENT: All of the above led me (as the Germans) to take a gamble and try to hold all the objectives on the board by setting up in a long, thin, east-west line across the northern face of the ridge. My reasoning was that I didn't need to kill the Americans--I just needed to slow them down with disruption and demoralization from bombardment and op fire so that they couldn't amass enough of a good-order force to take any hill hexes away from me before the game ended. So I deployed on both hills in roughly company strength, placed individual GREN platoons supported by halftracks on both my flanks in hexes 0703 and 0715 on the east-west road, placed an HMG in the north-south road at hex 0510, and scattered a few other units here and there to fill in gaps in the line. I placed my sole PzIVH tank platoon at crossroads hex 0709.

strong textGAME PLAY: Play progressed as follows:

Turn 1: Americans enter the north edge of the board, splitting their force in two to advance on both my flanks, with no forces coming down the north-south road. American Major leading advance toward the German right flank is demoralized by German offboard artillery fire.

Turn 2: Americans continue to advance on German flanks. Hauptsturmfuhrer commanding left-flank security force in hex 0715 is demoralized by bombardment fire and flees up to woods on southwestern hilltop. PzIVH platoon moves northwest from the crossroads into a firing position on American M3 halftracks advancing through northwestern woods.

Turn 3: US wins initiative by 6 and thus gets 3 free action phases initiative. Force attacking German right flank advances to assault position on GREN and halftrack holding road hex 0703, and German op fire from that hex scores a 2X result, eliminating a PARA MG unit. PzIVH then destroys two M3s in woods near German left flank, thus bringing American losses to four steps and dropping American initiative down to 2 (equal with German initiative). Turn ends early on FOW roll.

Turn 4: American assault goes in on the German right flank and kills the halftrack unit supporting the GREN there, but the GREN survives and recovers from disruption. Then American armored reinforcements arrive, with an M4 unit advancing toward German right flank. Americans bring another M4 in and move it to to hex 0306, near the line of Germans on the northeastern hilltop. But the fast M18 tank platoon remains offboard, and the Germans need complete intelligence on American armored force dispersal before they can redeploy their defensive line. So the Germans try to bait the Americans into bringing the last of their tanks onto the board by sending their sole PzIVH unit forward to road hes 0208, giveing the panzers firing position on the M4 unit in hex 0306. The Americans take the bait and bring the M18 unit onto the board; it moves into 0313 (where it can give the M4 a crossfire bonus), and fires once using its special move-and-fire ability, but misses the Panzers. A tank battle is now in the offing, with success on the next turn's initiative roll the key to victory.

Turn 5: Both sides are still equal on initiative, and the first initiative roll is tied. Both players roll for initiative again . . . and the Germans win the roll! The Panzers fire at the M18s and score an 11 + 6 - 2 = 15, destroying the entire M18 platoon in one shot. They then swivel their guns and take their second shot at the M4s, scoring a modified 10 to kill one step of Sherman tanks and disrupt the second. Then the Americans assault the GREN on the right flank again, and disaster ensues as the Americans roll a 1 to the German 6. Two American platoons are demoralized and a third disrupted, stopping the assault cold.

Turn 6: American initiative drops to zero due to last turn's losses, and the Germans win initiative and finish off the M4 near the northern ridge. The Americans use their one air unit of the game but it misses the target. At that point, the right-flank assault is completely bogged down, and German bombardment fire has disrupted half the American force that has massed in the woods near the German left flank. Therefore, the Americans capitulate, knowing there's no hope of a successful assault on either hilltop. The Germans are ahead 13VPs to 2 from step losses alone, and while control of both roads would likely be contested for the rest of the game, the Germans hold all the 40-meter hilltop hexes for an additional 14 VPs. At 27 to 2, the Germans score a Major Victory.

COMMENTARY: The Germans took a lot of chances here but the gambles paid off bigtime. Things could have been different if the Americans had won initiative on Turn 5 and had destroyed the Panzers rather than losing most of their own tanks in that engagement. However, the basic problem of a substandard-morale force attacking a higher-morale force holding the high ground remains, and Alan and I agreed that the scenario is unbalanced as written. He thought the Americans should have a morale of 8/6, but I disagreed given the green troops at their disposal and the trepidation with which they went into this engagement. However, using VP-based victory conditions is too harsh on the Americans here given the heavy losses they're likely to take in an assault on such a strong position. I would have preferred objective-based victory conditions somewhere along these lines:

The American player has the following objectives in this scenario:

1) Control all hexes of the 40-meter hill in the northeastern board quadrant at the end of play. 2) Control all hexes of the 40-meter hill in the southwestern board quadrant at the end of play. 3) Control crossroads hex 0709 and all road hexes north of it at the end of play. 4) Have at least ten undemoralized American steps on and/or south of the east-west road at the end of play (tanks count double). 5) Eliminate at least six German steps (tanks count double, trucks don't count).

American Major Victory: Americans achieve any three objectives (or more). American Minor Victory: Americans achieve any two objectives. German Minor Victory: Americans achieve only one objective. German Major Victory: Americans achieve no objectives.

That would force the Germans to mount a mobile defense in order to keep the Americans from infiltrating their lines, rather than just sit there and trade shots with the Americans as happened in this game.