Played over three sessions against Herr Hughes this scenario has a large combined arms American force battling against Volksgrenadiers and regular army units. The US have to take a town while minimizing their own losses for a minor victory or clear all town hexes and road hexes on all four maps for a major victory. The US have overwhelming forces, good OBA and plenty of time to achieve a minor victory, the Germans have terrain in their favour, weather (mud), strong points, mines and their minor victory condition are to eliminate 20 US steps. The US plan was a steady advance to the front and use fire power to whittle away the German defenses in the town before making any direct assault, the idea being not to lose 20 steps and claim the minor victory. The German units start separated from each other and the German commander then has to make a early tactical decision whether to reinforce the vital town or keep a reserve for a final defense to prevent a major US victory. The German commander in this case chose to try and reinforce the town, in fact very few of the regular units got into the town as they were met by US flanking units and were destroyed eventually in the woods to the North of the town. The US slowly surrounded the town, helped by a lucky artillery bombardment which disrupted some STUG's which were then destroyed by Sherman's. By then US MG's were combining to pour lead into the town however the Volksgrenadier's were refusing to retire and held their ground for several hours, all the while accurate German artillery fire kept causing US losses. Eventually superior firepower won out and the German front line crumbled and the US forces swept into the town, but as they advanced more losses meant that the German's has secured a minor victory, thus forcing the US to try and clear the whole board of undemoralized German units. However the US commander had already made some provision for just this eventuality and several INF platoons had been dispatched north to make a start of rooting out the scattered enemy units, tank units now moved quickly to support these units. The final phase of the battle was a tense affair as Vince tried to delay the advance by withdrawing down the road one hex at a time and using his artillery to disrupt leaders and INF as best he can, this very nearly worked and by the last turn a single 75IG still held out in the northern village, regrettably though this unit dismally failed a morale check and demoralized and as it had rallied earlier in the turn this gave the US a major win. A really great scenario in so much that it went to the wire, I only had two more shots at the 75IG to take when it demoralized, it only gets a 4 rating because the Germans will find it very hard to win a draw being the best result they can hope for. Vince was unlucky in some ways that FOW played little part in this one a couple of small game turns would have made it impossible to get units in position for the endgame. For myself I was pleased that the initial plan of attack worked well, using combined HMG stacks to pound the front line defenses while INF and M4's surround the town, is a solid tactic and if it was not for those stubborn VG units and the strong points supporting them the town would have fallen earlier. This was a tense exciting game highly recommended.