Ever since I first saw the M16's 24-7 DF I have been itching to use it to good effect. Unfortunately, up til now I only had it in offensive situations where the defender had some nasty AT capabilities so my M16s generally dotted the landscape as visions of fire scarred performance art. In this scenario, the M16s are in a defensive role and the attacker doesn't have any AT capability. Finally a chance to see what can happen.

One platoon of M16s, some artillery and a few infantrymen are defending a town against two companies of grenadiers with some HMG support. The town is six hexes large and the defenders cannot defend it all so success in "holding" the town depends on stopping the grenadiers before they get to the town, in this the 7 hex range of the M16s will come in handy. The Germans enter along the road and the first unit get destroyed upon entry (certainly a lucky "2" roll on the 22 column, but it forces the rest of the Germans to take a more leisurely stroll through the woods.

As the Germans approach the town the artillery performs its role beautifully disrupting some of the Germans while the M16 continues to chew them up. One platoon of Grenadiers finally gets to an assaulting position on the artillery but is demoralized and pushed away by the handful of infantry in the town. This incursion, however, causes one hex of the town to remain German "controlled" as the Germans were in good order when they passed through even though they are no longer in good order. The M16 could not recover the location as it would require an assault and they were pinned in place by the remainder of the German force.

Therefore the scenario was a draw even though the Germans lost fully 1/2 their force and the Americans took no casualties whatsoever. This is an interesting little situation but once set up there is very little for the American player to do but to roll the dice. Still, it is fun enough to rank a "3" even without a lot of maneuver.