INTRODUCTION

THe 4th Cuirassiers are defending an area on the edge of the Mormal Forest near Le Quesnoy, the 15th Panzer Regiment approaching from the East. I played the French in this Skype game against Wayne Baumber, who had played the French in a previous play of this scenario. Having looked at the map and the victory conditions, and seeing that the balance was about even, I figured that I would be best served by defending the largest town area, sacrificing the smaller one to the south. By concentrating on the Northern town, I would be ahead in VP after the Germans took the southern one, with enough VPs to win on occupation alone (i.e. without any casualties counted). I also decided that I would place my AT Gun in the north as a deterrent to the Germans, in case they decided to be sneaky and send some of the lighter tanks from the north to sneak into town. I also spread the INF, ESC and HMGs across the town so that they were within supporting distance of each other. My ultimate goal was to defend and hold the northern town and then inflict step losses in enough quantity to earn the Victory.

BATTLE

The Germans split into 3 separate attack groups, a small armored group (2x PZ I, 1x PZ II) in the North, A small, combined probing force in the south and putting the bulk of his ground troops and his heaviest tanks directly east of the large forest in the middle of the board. They begin by entering slowly through the woods in the east and pushing north and south, searching for the hidden AT. In the South, the probing grouop made the town without incident and started to consolidate. In the North, the Pz Is and II came around the smaller woods to the north with a reduced S35 shadowing their moves further south. About 600 meters from the woods north of town, the 25mm began firing and destroyed a Pz I and forced the remaining units to beat a retreat back to the woods. Meanwhile, the Germans slowly moved through the woods and up from the South, always avoiding the 2 platoons of S35s patrolling the area south of town. Wayne tried to get me to chase down his units, trying for the easy kill, but I decided to stay close and not chase, considering that he had to ultimately push into town to have a chance at a draw or victory. At one point in our cat-and-mouse manouvering, he had lined up a crossfire shot with a group of PZ Is on one of the S35s, and I had a choice to fire on a PZ 4 and possibly take it out, or move and eliminate the crossfire bonus. I chose to move. Finally, after several turns of trying to reduce the French DRG and ESC units in the southern edge of town facing the woods, The Germans launched their assault in the South, while at the same time, moving the PZ I and II in the north into the town, after the reduced S35 moved to the south to support the assault. The assaults were fairly successful for the Germans but the French were able to stave off enough of the attacks to maintain a small VP lead at the end of the game. French 23 VP, German 21 VP - A Draw.

OBSERVATIONS

I had decided at the beginning to defend only the Northern town, and had decided that I was not going to run around and chase the smaller units, no matter how tempting, as I had figured that I would be able to concentrate mostly when he had to approach the town. I believe I made a tactical mistake moving my reduced S35 south to support the defense. At the time, it seemed like the way to get extra firepower in the mix, but in hindsight, it opened up a gap right down the road which allowed the Pz I and Pz II to run down the road and capture several town hexes that I had to peel off some units to try and force them out (succeeding in all but one hex). The reduced S35 did not contribute to the defense in the south and had I left him in the north to prevent the mad dash, it would have saved the extra hex for the minor victory. In all, this was a very interesting and fun scenario, finished in about 5 hours.