| Artillery from Hell | ||||||||||||
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Or so the Germans thought. Used WS rules regarding the winter-variants of fields. German set-up fairly similar to previous AAR. The 20mm + 2 GRENs were in the western-most light woods in the north (part of the strategy here was to use these GREN units to harass or attack the US flank and, especially, any ENG units); the 75/41 dug-in overseeing the road from the western hill light woods. Mortars were stationed there also. Remainder of Gren/HMGs in Lutrebois. US eschewed exploration of the northern board. Center attack force was 2xINF; 4xHMG; 2xENG; and the two M4's (basic idea here was to use heavy DF fire to hold/soften the two western town hexes). All the rest (all INF) went for a right hook to approach Lutrebois from the woods/hill to the south. What made this a rout was extremely effective US OBA/mortar attacks (despite the defensive col shifts) in the first three turns. The two westernmost town hexes were hit by very effective artillery fire, not only with the attack rolls, but horrid morale checks (11's and 12's). This allowed for a rapid US approach to adjacent squares whilst the SS had to use activations to make morale recoveries. The two GREN units attacked southwards to the west of the fields - this drew the attention of two HMG units: the Grens survived the OF (one US HMG recovered from DIS due to German artillery) to get adjacent, but US won initiative on subsequent turn, killing a GREN step and the leader failed his casualty roll. As some of the HMG DF was drawn by this attack, the US armor rolled up the road and into a field hex to bombard Lutrebois from the NW prior to the assaults going in. This drew the SS AT fire, which missed, rolling a natural '4'. US OBA's counter-battery fire killed this dug-in AT gun with a '3' on the 30-col. The US took subsequent heavy casualties in the house-to-house fighting, but the Germans were severely outnumbered and they had been unable to hurt the US during approach (German artillery fire managed three platoon disruptions, but these were quickly recovered). Hard to overrate a good forward artillery observer. |
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| 2 Comments |
PY,
Enjoyed reading somebody elses play. This one had quite an exciting ending in ours as the under-pressure Germans launched some seriously damaging counter-attacks in the final turns. For me as the Germans, my downfall came with not getting my defensive shots in before FOW kept kicking in. I like to hold it until the enemy can not use a sucker move to move adjacent after I've fired (if they have an initiative advantage), but I rarely got the chance. Alan's advance was a good quiet close to contact.
Like our play it appears your Americans took punishment at the end too, but still run up as winners. Despite 2 losses in this one, I still think the Germans can win (despite my own failure).
Vince,
I agree vis-a-vis the possibility for German victory here. There was simply some horrid (from the SS perspective) die rolls: US rolling 3's and 12's on bombardments onto town hexes shifted down to the 16-col but followed by an '11' and '12' on two sequential moral checks. Even with recoveries, this allowed the US to rush the western approach with their heavy weapons group (see above). This, together with the AT shot missing (and good counter battery fire which precluded a second shot) and a fortunate initiative for the US (which gave the US a second shot at the GRENS attempting the flanking counter-attack) I think made the outcome inevitable.
The Germans need to hurt/delay the US advance, then grind out the town assault combat. Lacking the first, I think the US advantage in numbers and having armor support for the assaults makes the outcome favor the US.
So even though my play lacked the sense of drama regarding the outcome, it was an enjoyable scenario from the perspective of options for attack/defense.