This scenario looked promising for the Americans for the first 10 turns as the paras were able to quickly recover and organize from the intial drop before too many German reinforcements arrived. A lot of paras were also able to recover to full strength after taking up defensive postions but soon the floodgates opened with the German reinforcements around turn 20 and once again, even as defenders, the paras were easily overwhelmed by strength and numbers.

German units were able to brush right by the defenders and not only take hex 0411 but were also able to successfully dig-in there without any casualties or failed morale checks from opportunity fire. This objective hex for the Germans was never seriously threatened throughout the battle. Unfortunately this scenario started to drag on after halfway through 55 turns and I finished it before the conclusion of turn 44, as there was just one, lone American Major left, running and jumping through hedgerows frantically to evade capture, along with one 57mm AT gun and a Jeep unit. All other units and leaders were either eliminated or captured at this point.

The expected American reinforcements at 07:00/turn 17 were a double disappointment as only a 57mm AT gun and the Jeep survived the drop. The other 57mm, along with the 75mm (the only American indirect fire unit) and both steps of the PARA ENG units all perished. To make matters worse those step losses also reduced the American intiative significantly and the Germans would be able to get a lot more activations in before the paras could react.

I still give this one a "3" rating for my solo play as I really enjoyed the first half and towards the end I realized there were other options for the Americans than just waiting to be attacked. Possibly, since German units really do just start trickling in until about turn 13, a better strategy in hindsight maybe would have been to send half of the American forces into small attack groups to ambush German units as they entered the map instaed of just waiting for them to gather strength. Many times, at the three different entry areas, just one German unit would arrive, and could of been easily overwhelmed by a small band of paras. So I think I just played this one out without much imagination and could of perhaps at least had it end in a draw or even a rare American victory if I thought outside the box a bit more. I also believe that 55 turns is too long a time for this scenario to run and that 30 turns, like it is in the 'Airborne Remastered' scenario book is more appropriate.