Following my newly found desire to play each scenario to its final denouement I played a perfect example of why you should do that. A large pile of American armor with a company of infantry attached must attack an understrength German battalion with the ubiquitous StG platoon attached, and take a town (or as much of it as they can handle). There is, of course, the glutinous goo called mud to make the going so much easier for the Americans.

The Germans set up wtih a minefield along the road and their AT gun and StGs at the front of the town facing the Americans. The Americans decide to flush the guns and StGs by putting some tanks out on the road to highlight the shooting. This was a particularly bad idea as 4 steps of tanks are vaporized on the first turn. The M10s seeing this run out to take a couple shots at the StGs in the following turn. In the first four turns 6 tank steps and another four steps (several halftracks) are destroyed at a cost of three steps lost for the Germans (the Strongpoints turned out to be not so strong.

It would be at this point that a towel would generally have been tossed in. The victory point totals as of the end of turn 3 were a whopping 30-3 and the Americans hadn't a clue as to what to do. I was sorely tempted but I "soldiered" on and found that advancing through the fields gave me enough cover to pass the AT gun and the StGs while I kept overwatch with some M4/76s to keep the StGs from trying to peek under the covers at me.

Meanwhile the infantry with the remaining halftracks took the outlying town and began to move towards the main town. The town itself is too large for the Germans to hold in total and this began a path of small maneuvers which led to the Americans getting back into the game. After six turns the score was 25-17 and the fight seemed more worthwhile. Especially since the StGs had been dispatched by some point blank gunnery from a company of Shermans.

The final score was Germans 25, Americans 23 for a draw and a well earned one on both sides. This is a messy fight as the Americans do not have the infantry force to fight well in the towns but the Germans don't have the force to stand up with the American firepower in all those tracked vehicles. All in all an interesting little battle where the American has everything they need to take town hexes and nothing they need to hold any. I give it a "3".