Despite the critical sounding of the headline atrributing the loss to lack of quality leaders on the battlefield, this battle was lost due to the poor decision-making on my part and an unerringly inaccurate French artillery that was much better at hitting French troops than Germans. The French were tasked with taking Haut-Le-Wastia from the German Schuten regiment spread thin in town. It is rated as a balanced scenario and in discussion with Vince after the battle, a few different changes in tactical approach could have made this a much closer engagement.

SETUP

The Germans setup within the hedgerows just west of the town along with a company of Infantry defending the sounthern reaches in dug out positions. As the French, I debated setup to either skirt the fields to the North and approach from the rear or to group along the road and possibly strike quickly enough with the armored car platoons and the better moraled ESC units and possibly overwhelm the Germans before they could consolidate their position. I decided on the latter. I overrruled a conservative approach on banking that the shock of troops appearing in towns may throw off the defense and force them to move and leave their dug out positions while giving me more time to battle through town.

BATTLE

Winning initiative, The French sent several INF units to the fields to the north and ESC units down the road, still out of site of the German defenders. The Armored cars were sent straight down the road into the town at 0411 to try and setup a foothold in the town to await the oncoming French. The German units and an HMG unit counter-attacked the armored cars and entered an assault that would remain contested until the very last turn of the game. In the meantime the French continued to move their INF and ESC units around the north end of town to get into positions to enter. A small company of INF and the HMG platoons moved along the hillside to the south to probe the western edge of town to find a way through and ran into a several platoons of Germans in the hedgerows. After an hour in attacking, There were no less than 4 assaults raging in and around the town. As these assaults engaged, the Germans deftly maneuvered their INF units in a defense in depth that slowed the French advance and never allowed a significant incursion into the town. During this whole time, the French artillery would continually attempt to disrupt the German defense but always provided a tense moment as the shells dropped indiscriminately amongst the French and German positions. In the final moments of the battle, the French attempted one final push and were unable to penetrate, causing the French commander to concede.

AFTERMATH

The battle, despite the lopsided casuality count, was not so certain at the beginning. I had thought about approaching around the fields to the North and setting up into position to provide an advantageous position. However, I had talked myself out of that as it looked that it would take 4-5 turns before getting into position, at which time, the visibility would have exposed the French approach and allowed German response to maneuver. In addition, I believed that the turns used to get into position would leave the remaining time insufficient to gain a foothold. So with my decision to make a direct approach, I tried to coordinate the attack so that I could catch the Germans off guard and get the ESC units in town with the armored cars, and hopefully move through. Alas, plans are often more optimistic than reality and when executed, I had left the armored cars in the town with no hope for reinforcement for another turn. I think that the lack of quality leadership did contribute somewhat as I was already at a disadvantage in morale, but this was not the main reason. In many of the battles I have played, I have been able to play a fairly decent approach and though not all plays were wins, they were close. However, against Vince, the combination of his usually good plan/approach with my mental lapses (I can't think of anything else...:) seem to turn close affairs into routs. I console myself in the fact that I am continuing to learn by failure... :D. The rating of three was more my disgust with my performance rather than a reflection on the scenario, which I did enjoy and it was nice to see Vince back into the fray.