Defending The Westwall : An End Of Series Review

[vince hughes]

THE SCENARIOS

In the losses column INF = any foot troops that are INF, GREN, ENG, FLM, HMG etc. OFF = Leaders and GUN = all ordnance including 81mm mortars. AFV and APC are self-explanatory. All losses are shown as steps and not counters (except leaders of course). When speaking of ‘sessions’ of play, they amount roughly to 5-6 hours a session.


(1) A BITTER IRONY – 13 SEP 1944: (played against Wayne Baumber) A small introductory scenario gets this module underway that fails to warn the German player of the impending pressure scenarios that follow. Set just outside Aachen, the battle takes place on a large hill on a single board (25). Outnumbered German forces are tasked to having at least one undemoralised unit on a road hex by game end. The scenario is a delightful one session 12 turn game in which our one went right down to the final dice rolls. In the end, the Germans desperately clung on with mortars and a grenadier platoon that were coming under severe American pressure. I see in other AAR’s the closing acts have been close affairs too. German Victory. LOSSES – US: 4 INF, 1 OFF : GERMAN: 7 INF, 1 GUN. MY RATING 3

(2) RECONNAISSANCE IN FORCE – 13 SEP 1944 (played against Wayne Baumber) This is where it starts for the German defender in terms of too many enemy forces. Schmidthof is the town under attack and a mobile American force complete with many tanks and no less than 21 x M3’s are asked to kill the enemy, take entrenchments and town hexes across boards 22 & 25. The Germans are allocated minefields, tank-ditches and wire, but need to place these on a broad front. Victory is decided by a points count. For me, this was one of Wayne’s best ever attacks I’ve been on the end of. He tackled the fortifications well and kept a good command/control of his forces. For a good while I was left pondering whether I had set my fortifications up terribly wrong (mainly linear). However, when looking back, the move of the game was a 50-50 encounter that Wayne instigated when he threw his tanks in at my StG’s that had been holding things up. With initiative equal, the firing stage would come down to the initiative roll and unfortunately for me, he won it. Superior in numbers, his tanks blew through the StG’s and opened the way to victory. German losses were high in men, whilst the Americans lost machinery. Major American Victory over 2.5 sessions of gaming. (can’t find the points totals on this one). LOSSES – US: 8 INF, 24 AFV, 13 APC : GERMAN: 27 INF, 7 OFF, 4 AFV, 6 GUN. MY RATING 4

(3) IF ONLY HE COULD COOK – 15 SEP 1944 (played against Wayne Baumber) Another two boarder (22 & 23) and a generally bloody affair over 2 sessions. The Americans are committed to attacking the area of Mausbach where they find defensive positions laced with entrenchments and strong-points. Both sides have a comparable number of infantry. The trick for the Germans on this one was to severely draw down and in on the area they had to defend (as mentioned in post.1). I think they basically shrunk down into around a third of their defensive area but which held by far the majority of points. The Americans came on in two main groups where one group was stopped dead in its tracks with heavy losses. The other group eventually made some headway past the first defensive objective, but they too were soon stopped hard and dead. I also remember benefitting from a very good leader on one of the flanks where his morale bonus and firing bonus outweighed any US OBA efforts. Main point here to victory for me was the pre-game decision to contract the line. Major German Victory. LOSSES – US: 28 INF, 1 OFF, 2 AFV, 1 APC : GERMAN: 20 INF, 3 OFF, 2 AFV, 2 GUN. MY RATING 4

(4)FILLING THE GAPS – 16 SEP 1944 (played against Wayne Baumber) This one, for those of us playing Siegfried type scenarios came as something of a respite to the German defend mentality. Here the German 12th Wild Buffaloes Infantry Division is unleashed in the area in a one session scenario. This one has them fighting for the town of Verlautenheide in a balanced scenario in terms of game-play and forces allocated. A one- boarder (11), this scenario developed into what I think both Wayne and I found an exciting little battle. By the end of the 12 turns it was the Germans that gained the advantage after a stuttering start and it was the Americans who had to do all the running to salvage a draw. Good scenario! LOSSES – US: 8 INF, 2 OFF : GERMAN: 7 INF, 1 OFF, 2 GUN. MY RATING 4

(5) DUELING FOR THE HIGH GROUND – 16 SEP 1944 (played against Wayne Baumber). Boards 25 & 22 supply the ground in which US troops once more have to assault German positions. VP’s are awarded for killing the enemy, controlling entrenchments & towns, and holding or capturing 40m hexes. The US advantage comes in its 15 x M3’s, OBA and 10 tank platoons. Against this, the Germans own a Panther platoon, high ground and entrenchments. This scenario shows how the German tanks, rather than being used can instead, work a big advantage merely by presence. Frightening the M4 crews into holding back as the VP loss for them would be crucial. In this battle, the German network of defences seemed to confound the American efforts from all angles as the defenders concentrated their forces, trenches and tanks into one area of the high ground and then extracted a high toll on the US attack. The game was over within one session. Major German Victory. LOSSES – US: 7 INF, 12 AFV, 9 APC: GERMAN: 2 INF, 1 AFV, 1 GUN. MY RATING 3

(6) CROCODILE ROCK – 22 NOV 1944 (played against Alan Sawyer) : BotB provides the terrain with boards 9 & 10 placed in a long battlefield end-to-end. For the next 5 scenarios the weather now favours the Germans as West Germany is swamped with mud and movement gets very slow indeed. The Germans in my opinion are seriously outnumbered in this one and are forced to defend a town and high ground. Under-moraled Volksgrenadiers carrying a deficit of 2 pts on initiative and outnumbered more than 2:1 in foot troops, 6:1 in AFV’s and 6 APC’s also add to the US OOB. The US again has good OBA. Now the trick here is to remember the US needs to clear all town, 40m and road in 20 turns. So the German tactics were to make sure they had enough to hold a piece of town by game end. The Germans get two Tiger platoons, but these will be forced to use road and town as mud slows them otherwise to a 1 hex movement. Here again, their presence is more powerful than perhaps their committal as they hopefully fend off US armour from taking part in the attack. Two more factors have to press German priorities. The US has 2 x ENG platoons, plus fire in the form of a FLM platoon and a fearsome British Crocodile flame-throwing machine. To win, there is no doubt these US assets will have to be held back by the Volksgrenadiers. The battle saw the US held up on the road for sometime and then outside the town, German fire did enough to hold off assaults in any strength. No flame shots could be fired and the Tigers frightened off US armour. This was a win that I was very pleased with as previous battles on PGHQ had been US wins. German Victory. LOSSES – US: 8 INF, 1 OFF, 2 AFV, 1 APC: GERMAN: 9 INF, 1 OFF, 3 GUN. MY RATING 3 (but it felt like a 4 with the win).

(7) LOHN TOWN – 22 NOV 1944 (played against Alan Sawyer): 3 x boards from the eastern front sets are used in this one and once again the mud pervades throughout. Here again, the Germans are numerically challenged and asked to defend a number of features of hills and towns to gain points at the end of the scenario for control of them. Half the German force are VG and therefore ‘7’ morale. There is a trick available to the defenders though. The Americans, if not in town or woods have to set up 6 hexes away from the nearest defenders and 4 hexes otherwise. The brave minded defender can set his VG’s far forward thus, using the mud to his advantage, gain three turns of time where the Americans have to move up to get them anywhere near the German start points. My plan, using this tactic was then to have the VG’s retreat back to the VP features, albeit harangued by the horrid US OBA and join other German troops there. Through luck, only 1 step loss was suffered and the Germans ended in good shape to defend. To be fair, the Americans became demoralised in their whole attack and it was never thrown in with any zest. German Major Victory. LOSSES – US: 8 INF, 1 OFF, 1 AFV: GERMAN: 3 INF, 1 OFF. MY RATING 3

(8) MAKING HAY – 23 NOV 1944 (played against Alan Sawyer) Old favourites boards 24 and 25 are the scene for another mud fest. Germans outnumbered 3:1 and deficient by 2 in initiative defend hills and towns again. By this time, the mud seems to have got into my opponents brain and he was sick of it before the game began. Despite this, he set his attack off and struggled logistically trying to get troops forward cohesively in the slush. The Germans can not pester the advance too much with only 1 x 16 OBA. The Germans set up to defend the town of Putzlohn with only screens on the two adjacent hills. Things looked rough for them until the Americans tried to close. Some horrible opportunity fire cut down a fair few of them and soon after the US attack again fell flat, allowing the Germans to keep Putzlohn. Major German victory. LOSSES – US: 8 INF, 1 OFF: GERMAN: 2 INF, 1 GUN. MY RATING 3

(9) HUCHLEN TOWN – 24 NOV 1944 (played against Tony Langston) Two boards (22 & 24) are placed end to end. Again the Germans were placed to defend the main town of Hucheln and didn’t bother with trying to hold any of the forward settlements. The Americans comprise of a very much all-arms force and as a newish player , Tony probably struggled to get his American force to act in unison with each other properly. As they tried to close on the town, the Americans struggled with how to keep losses low and advance over the open ground. Casualties became heavy and disorder was rife in the ranks. German AT guns had a field day and US losses were far too high. Major German Victory. LOSSES – US: 13 INF, 3 OFF, 11 AFV, 9 APC: GERMAN: 3 INF, 2 OFF, 1 GUN. MY RATING 3

(10) LIKE A DOSE OF SALTS – 25 NOV 1944 (played against Wayne Baumber). The largest scenario in the pack in terms of boards with 4 of them required. The usual outnumbered German force of which half or more are VG’s with a morale of ‘7’ and trailing in initiative by 2 are asked to fight a regimental size American force. VC’s in this one are different to others. The US are asked to capture town and road hexes, and dependent on how many they do capture, a minor or major victory is awarded. The Germans are asked to take out 20 enemy steps or hold a town hex on board 10 or 23 as well as a road hex. A very patient methodical US advance set the tone for a very slow grinding down of the defenders and as explained previously, the Germans need to soak up attacks before doing anything themselves. In a very exciting battle, the US lost too many men and as a result then threw everything at the defenders as the only way to win outright rather than draw was to clear the boards of the enemy. With too many forces against them, the Germans had to hope for FOW to draw a turn or 2 to a close. This failed to materialise and on the very last turn, the US grabbed a major victory condition against a German minor victory in a nail-biting end. Net result, US Minor Victory. LOSSES – US: 16 INF, 4 OFF, 4 AFV, 2 GUN: GERMAN: 27 INF, 10 OFF, 4 AFV, 9 GUN. MY RATING 4

My overall impression of this module is a high one indeed and a series rating by me of 3.40 shows that it was massively above the average when compared to my average grading of 3.08. That equated to 7 x 3 ratings (standard) and 3 x 4 ratings (good). In other words, none of these scenarios were below par IMO. The series of battles has been put together well and despite the results shown above, other results on PG-HQ will show that differing results are more than possible. In fact, some of the results here came very much against the grain when compared to previous plays. That shows a lot of playability and worthy of head-to-head play for scenarios 1-7. Scenarios 8, 9 and 10 were experiencing their first plays so there was nothing to compare these against. Another nice touch is that I hardly remember any errata ? Of any errata I found, three of them were merely the town names that were named erroneously in their spelling. Hardly deal-breakers (though a couple of times it caused me to struggle to find them when searching on google maps ). Does this game-pack give you a feeling and sense of the travails that both sides had to go through on the Westwall? I’d say it does! I certainly felt the arduous requirements of trying to hold a lot of objectives with what seemed too few troops. And the American players must have felt the difficulty of pressing forward against determined ensconced defenders (and in one player’s case, the mud!). So any prospective Westwaller reading this summary, I hope you keep a note of the battles and losses and perhaps somewhere down the line in years to come, somebody will be comparing like-to-like with this effort. In closing this summary I’ll draw one incident to your notice. I am sure that somebody like Peter Lloyd or Poor Yorek will recall the exact details but it goes something like this. At the time, a jingoistic American newspaper article noted with supreme optimism “The Westwall should fall easily enough. It is manned by nothing more than old men and boys!”. One American soldier was quoted in response with words to the effect of “It might be defended by old men and boys, but these fuckers are still stuck behind six-feet of concrete armed with a heavy machine-gun!” This scenario pack gives you a taste of that. Try it and see for yourself!