On our quest to play divisional games, Vince Hughes and I played another 9th SS scenario with the division. After playing major roles in the Normandy campaign and the Arnhem defense, the unit was tapped to support the "Wacht am Rhein" offensive. Although being battered and beat up, it could still fight and was positioned to receive the first actions that would be the counter attack on the bulge. For the Americans it would be the 82nd Airborne leading the attack, whom the 9th SS meet in Nijmegen.

In this scenario the Germans are holding two towns in the south end of the board and the Americans must take the towns and destroy units. The 9th SS must hold the town and inflict as many casualties as possible on the paratroops. The Germans have a good amount of troops to cover both the towns plus armor in the form of PzIVH as well as mortars, including a 120mm beast and decent OBA support. The Americans have more troops with five companies plus PMG's and 81mm MTR's. The big weapon for the Americans is the OBA with VT fuses. This can wreak havoc on the German units if they are caught in the open. Leader selection slightly favored the paratroops with several leaders with bonus and good morale. Overall morale is better for the paratroops than the SS.

Setup had the Germans well entrenched in the towns. Heavy machine guns covered the approaches for the south eastern town and tanks and machine guns covered the road approach on the north western town. SS Grenadiers were positioned throughout both towns with key leaders posed to help whomever needed it. One lone SCHAR was positioned on picket duty on the road junction at hex 0910. For the Americans, they are setup in the woods to the north. Mortars and PARA's to the east of the road, HMG's and PARA's on the road and PARA's to the west of the road. There advance will be down the road as well as through the woods as soon as possible to try to get OBA on the Germans before night falls. After that they will move on the towns and assault the defenders.

As the Americans moved down the road the SCHAR, called in German OBA that reduced a PARA platoon, not a good start for the Americans. But right after the American OBA scored itself a kill and reduced a GREN in the north west town. American PARA's started to fan out into the woods east and west road to find the best approach to the towns as the German fire on the road advance was deadly. Another round of German OBA took out another half of PARA's during this advance. The Americans pressed on with a Major leading a reinforced company of PARA's down the west side of the board. Using the cover of the hills and braving OP fire from the town they were able to position themselves for an attack on the west side of the northwest town. American DF and OBA score a demoralization on the defender and they are forced to retreat after a failed recovery. The PARA's take advantage and capture the first town hex.

More units race in to join the advance on the weakened flank of the Germans. Another town hex is assaulted and locks in German units with their mortars effectively removing there fire. The SS tanks take action to cover the weakening center and they occupy the middle town hex but fail to push the Americans out of it. American OBA continues to cause casualties for the Germans as another GREN is reduced and the town is heavily contested.

To the west the Americans probe the south eastern town with a company, but pull back as the German HMG's show that they are too powerful to attack by a lone PARA company. The Americans setup a line to prevent the Germans from moving to reinforce the north western town. But any movement out of the towns by the Germans with bring the the wrath of American artillery and VT fuses, so the Germans are locked in the town.

Back to the battle for the northwest town, American artillery scores its biggest kill with the loss of the German 81mm MTR and reducing a GREN. In the fire the German OBSTBFR is killed leaving the Germans stunned. American PARA's followup and assault the remnants, destroying them. But the Americans still need to deal with three contested town hexes with quite a bit of powerful SS to deal with.

Meanwhile a SS STBNFR has escaped out of the other town and finds a opening to get to the American mortars. Using the cover of darkness, he gets by the American pickets and move to fire OBA on the mortars. In a desperate chase, he is able to position to get two OBA kills on the mortars before blown up by overwhleming American OBA. But the damage had been done.

The final push on the town by the Americans has the German tanks being the focus of the attack. After weathering the Germans attempts to assault the Americans the PARA's are positioned for the attack. Charging forward with bazooka teams the PARA's are able to take out a 75mm AT and reduce a PzIVH, but with casualties. After some shifting of fresh troops into the attack the Americans take out a full platoon and then finish off the reduced. More American assaults in other hexes take out more SS units, until there are two contested hexes and three American controlled. In the end the Americans are able to get a Major victory for themselves and further deplete the 9th SS of veteran troops.

The keys to success for the Americans were their high morale and large amount of OBA with VT fuses. The morale kept the units fighting even after M1 an M2 checks, while the artillery did the damage as well as kept the Germans from reinforcing one town with units from the other. Although no VT fuse attacks were rolled it keep the Germans at bay.

This game was played against Alan Sawyer over two sessions via skype voice. Alan chose this one and did so as to further the 'mini-series' of Hohenstaufen v Brits we had been doing from Black SS. He wanted to use them in the Bulge theatre as well as go towards his completion of that module. Once again, and for a third consecutive time, it gave us an attacking force about twice the number of the defenders with a mission to take one or two villages. Pretty standard stuff really. It was pitting the high moraled 8/8's of the 82nd AB versus the constantly engaged in battle 9th Hohenstaufen 8/6's. Here's how it went. Hope you enjoy.

At 1600 hours, the two battalions from the 82nd Airborne Division began to trudge forward through the deep snow. Their morale was high, for at last they could now get a chance at hitting back at their enemy after the previous 11 days of battle. They would be well-supported by OBA and numerous local mortar support. Their objectives were the two villages to the south, manned by the tough troops from the SS Hohenstaufen. To defend these two villages, the Hohenstaufen had about a battalion of troops backed up by a couple of PzIV platoons and accompanying mortars. Their dispositions were standard doctrine for just such an attack and therefore, though they realized the exchange would be tough, they were confident of holding their ground.

The start of the battle kicked off with some very accurate OBA from both sides. An SS Scharfuhrer spotted for his guns from a forward position and had in short time damaged two Para platoons. The Americans had also hit an SS foot platoon on the west of the larger village taking out half that platoon’s number. Despite this, the defenders held their positions and the Americans kept advancing. By 1645 hours, the Americans had come within infantry fire range of the villages and gun-fire began to be exchanged between the two sides. The German commander couldn’t help noting the rather ‘Zulu’ attack doctrine nature of the American formation, with the butt of the head holding German troops in the village to its front whilst two ‘horns’ flanked round the extremes of the two villages.

About 1715 hours, as the night-time gloom began to set in, both sides were well engaged in these gun-battles around the village with neither side budging. An American leader in this vicinity called in an artillery strike on the west-side of the larger village, little knowing he had just begun the process of the most pivotal moment of the battle. It seemed to me pivotal at the time and events would bare this out. What happened ? Well ...As the bombardment landed on the platoon and a half of SS Grenadiers, the impact on these troopers far exceeded the actual damage. These grenadiers, veterans of the continual 6 months of battle from the D-Day campaigns in Normandy, the battles across the flats and bocage of Northern France as well as the Arnhem campaign that erupted and fell upon them during their RnR period in Holland inexplicably broke down completely and suddenly when hit with this bombardment. Initially their officers believed they could rally them in the cover of the village, but they ignored these calls to recover and to a man, they all fled in the face of the enemy and deeper into the village. The west side of the village was now bereft of any German troops and the US Major leading the US right ‘horn’ could not believe what he had just seen. Was this a trick, or was it real. The Major ummed and arred for some minutes, first looking through his binoculars at that part of the village, then back at his waiting men, then back through the binoculars. Was this part of the village REALLY clear of the enemy he kept asking himself. After a lot of vacillation due to his disbelief, he finally led his Paras into this part of the village to secure a toehold, fully expecting at any minute multiple bursts of MG fire to cut his men and he down. It never came. One in the village, they then pushed forward into the next blocks of the village and engaged the defenders there in house-to-house assaults.

At this stage, the local German commander feared not. He had his two platoons of panzers to oust these Ami soldiers and as such, the panzers were immediately sent into the village where their ‘punch’ would inflict high casualties on any would be American attackers. Or would they ? Over the next two hours or more, these tanks, despite their potential hitting power, failed to seek out the paras effectively, and instead came off second-best as the paras used bazookas and fresh troops to gain a battle winning advantage. That said, it had been a tough scrimmage here. In fact, about half the time of the whole engagement (9 turns). Whilst all this was going on, the American paras had delivered large numbers of troops into assault battles all round the village.

The struggle that was occurring in the larger village was putting a huge amount of pressure on the beleagured grenadiers there. Where were any reinforcements? Well despite there being around 6 untouched SS platoons of grenadiers, MG's and an AT platoon in the smaller village a kilometre away, it was impossible for any of these SS platoons in the neighbouring village to come to the aid of or offer support to the main fight as they would simply have been cut to ribbons by VT fuse OBA. Movement in the open was not an option. The battle had swung the Americans way for good.

As stated, with the eventual loss of the panzers and about 60% of the village, the battle could be claimed a major US win. As a side show, the US mortar teams lost half their number to enemy artillery fire, and though it neutered these as a force completely, it had little if no effect on the main village fight.

By game end, the Americans claimed 28 pts for 3 village hexes (12 pts), 4 tank steps (8 pts) and 8 other steps. The Germans could only muster 14 victory pts consisting of 3 village hexes (6pts) and inflicting 8 steps of casualties.

An enjoyable if somewhat standard scenario situation. For me, I think it is probably totally balanced and despite my loss here, it is certainly one the Hohenstaufen can win. How did they lose today according to my autopsy ? Well, the sudden and complete collapse of morale on the west side of the village really was the killer blow for the German defence as it immediately let the Americans into the town unopposed by any fire or indeed even an assault ! But the Germans did offer one more hope for me in the guise of their panzers. These had been kept available for just this situation. But alas, they flattered to deceive and for all their fire-power numbers, they probably only achieved 20% of the damage that they could have inflicted on the enemy. This failure by the tanks to seek and destroy the limpet-like 82nd paras was the final page in this particular village's defence for the Germans. A good game, rated '3' for me.