|
This was an epic 6-session play-through with the formidable, Wayne Baumber playing the French/Moroccan Commander. We used the optional smoke, consolidation and excess initiative rules and dispensed with the defense-favoring Fog of War rule -- much to the annoyance of my worthy opponent. Displaying more of his playful side than usual, my opponent called me all sorts of names even while we were setting up, and surprised us both by selecting the attacking French side on the basis of a die roll.
I say attacking, since the Germans seized the initiative at the outset and aggressively advanced both left and right flanks of the weaker German force past the north-south railroad and onto the western portion of the map. This allowed the rapid occupation of all the town hexes west of the railroad line on both maps 31 and 32, and created a small maneuver area, and kill zone, in the center of the combined map boards. Some noisy feints by the German’s light panzer company, helped lure the single French 47mm APX, AT gun and a strong ESC platoon to deploy too far forward, where they were both subsequently destroyed by accurate German OBA and HMG fire. By the end of the second game turn there were already 4 French step loses. This was barely accomplished before the French right (southern) flank advanced en masse to give the Germans a scenario-long costly lesson in cold steel close assault tactics in the vicinity of the southern town. During the second session, the French expanded their close assaults to the center of the battlefront, while the Germans mounted a 2-company probe on the north margin of the northernmost hill in the NW corner of the map. This action attracted the majority of my wily opponent’s available reserves during our 3rd session (game turns 4-7).
After the quite a bit of fumbling, the Germans slightly improved their odds in the two southern most assault hexes (Hexes 32-0406 town and 32-0507 adjacent woods) as they were able to support their sparse force with some light armor. Nevertheless, French/Moroccan elan was such that they pushed the German right flank hard, and in game turn 4 – and again in turn 10 – added an opportunistic probing attack in the center of the map trying to both take a town (Hex 0604) and get within spotting range of the north-south sunken railroad segment adjacent to the town. Fierce fighting ensued in this vicinity and both French probes were driven back. In game turn 7, a new center sector threat emerged as the French launched a central thrust with a reinforced company that waltzed across what turned out to be a decoy minefield and aimed their attack at the center town on the battle map (Hexes 32-0501 and 32-0601). This attack was beaten back by HMG and accurate German OBA fire. The final French AT gun was dispatched at the end of the 9th game turn, and their reinforcements were delayed two turns.
Eventually, the French came close to taking the sunken railway where the Germans had been taking advantage of their central position and the available roads to shuttle tanks and other units to threatened sectors and to reinforce their effort to hold the southern town (Hex 32-0406).
Both sides threw seven, 7-die combat rolls in the 2nd session and the Germans threw eight 7-die combat rolls in the subsequent session. During our final session, the Germans again threw seven 7-die combat rolls, to only 2 for the French side. As a result German OBA fire and adjacent-hes DF was notably inaccurate in game turns 13-15.
As the play-through wore on, French close assaults slowly collapsed in the north, in the face of reinforcing Axis armor and HMG units. However, the French made slow but steady progress in the south, and periodically threatened the center sector. By the end of our 4th session (game turns 8-10), French step losses were 21, and German were 13, hence the Germans had already eliminated sufficient French steps for a minor victory and had reclaimed several woods and hill hexes west of the railroad.
German armor-heavy reinforcement did not appear on time, but showed up on game turn 8. They strengthened the existing Germans flank attack in the north margin of the battle map.
In the end, elements of the German 3rd Panzer Division held slightly more town and woods hexes west of the crucial railroad right of way, resulting in a minor victory. However, the French had eliminated 23 German steps, while losing 39 of their own, and had a minor victory of their own.
As the German Commander had been playing for a draw from the beginning in this rather unbalanced scenario, against a numerically superior force with fine morale and enhanced initiative – it was a pleasant surprise when the French Commander Offered a draw during the 15th game turn.
As others have reported, this was a hard-fought, costly meeting engagement scenario for both sides, with many decision points and constricted room for maneuver. I give this very exciting and challenging scenario a solid 4.
|
DiMa002 
