Sherman Tanks Scenario 1: In the Mood

Background: The Germans hold some villages, the Americans are trying to throw them out. The GIs have air support but the Germans have the numbers and Panthers.

Setup: There are a couple small villages to the south, a larger town to the north, and fields and woods in between. I set up a couple companies of Grenadiers to cover the villages, hold the town with the HAmGs and an additional company of grenadiers, and set the 75mm ATs up to cover the open area south of town. The Panther and Hetzer set up in the middle of the map, behind the fields and woods.

Summary: The American infantry and halftracks head for the towns, while the armor tries swinging around to the left. The Panther heads them off, and thus begins a cat and mouse game between the tanks, as the Americans try and get a good attack position and the Germans use their interior positions to frustrate the US moves. This scenario has special weather rules, and initially the Yanks cannot get their air power onto the board. Through the first several turns it is slow going. The Americans clear a small village on their right but little else.

Using their speed, the M18s finally get a firing position on the Hetzer and the US wins the initiative to start the next turn, and they take out s step. The Panther and Hetzer exchange positions and the American armor is again pinned down, but now the infantry is starting to pick its way through the villages, and the German line is starting to creak. The M4/76s eventually knock out the Hetzer for good,and then American planes begin to show up. A P-47 takes out a Panther step, and now the M4/76s move in to risk a kill shot. They succeed on turn 13, and the Americans start to shake loose and head north.

At this point I made a careless error. The Sherman’s flanked the town and one platoon drove straight into the middle of town. Here there were three HMG platoons lead by a very effective sergeant. The assaulted the Sherman, rolled a two and took it out. This ended the only serious US attempt to take the main town. The Americans cleared the villages but were too disorganized to make the final assault.

At the end, the US had lost 22 steps and the Germans 21. Town control was nearly an even split. Final score 36-34 United States. A draw!

Analysis: This was a tough, violent battle with plenty of firepower on both sides. It’s all about the tanks; if the US can knock out the Hetzer and Panther their chances to win go up dramatically.

I put the Tiger in the town at the center of the maps. It is in the center of first possible hex row for German counter placement. I placed 2 too many inf or MG units in the eastern most town. On turns that the German's roll a die and on a 5 - 6 visibility is 12 hexes max. US also get a random selected plane. That made me cautious about moving in the open between the W to E towns.

Bruce brought all unit loaded on APCs. Armored vehicles stayed off board the first turn. Took me a few activations to realize that the APc had ATF defense of 0 and the Tiger is an 8 - 8. So at 6 hexes that is -1. So + 7 to the die and the Tiger is efficient. Took out 3 APc in the forst two turns. Then my dice went cold. He scurried to get to 9 hexes away. He brought his M 18 Hellcats. Move 7 mos and still shoot once. Had to hide in the nearby fields.

During the last 8 turns he 3 planes. That is of course when I starting moving counters one to a hex using a lousy leader. His planes shredded my personnel units.

Won since he could not get the Western town. The on the east edge was 7 hexes and gave me lots of points.

Things to remember Hellcats lose their shoot and scoot when reduced. M/f or F/m

One has to parse the rules figure this one out. Planes making a DF on a Closed Top AFV get to inflict a one step loss on a 2X or 3x result. Note the DF table states 2X or 3X results causes M check for AFV. Rule 15.4 only states that one step is lost, if the attacking player desires.

It is the AFV table that states that a M2 check is made if a AFV takes a hit.

Author	treadasaurusrex (United States)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	United States
Participants	CavDo
Play Date	2023-01-29
Language	English
Scenario	GJ27001

At last, a combined arms fight to liberate some town hexes, against a well-armed, high-morale and resolute opponent - and with American air support - GLORIOUS!

This was a 3-session play-through with the steadily-improving, CavDo, leading the defending German side. I played the outnumbered, attacking Americans, and we used the FOW, consolidation, smoke/illum, excess initiative and extended assault optional rules in what was a very fun-to-play, fast-paced scenario, that was decided at in the last 3 game turns. Both sides initially drew fine sets of leaders.

This was a straight forward brawl, featuring 2 villages in the south and a bigger town in the north with plenty of fields and woods in between. Wisely, the Germans took advantage of their interior lines and concentrated around the town hexes, with a number of HMG platoons, and a diabolical PaK40, 75mm AT gun platoon covering the best available high-speed avenue of approach. The Boche armor was concentrated as a mobile reserve in the center of the battle map.

As others have reported, the US tried a multi-pronged approach and kept the infantry in their APCs for as long as possible, while initially moving toward the two villages. The US armor probed on the left flank and was able to coax the lurking Panther out of hiding by the 6th turn. This became a game of "stymie" with the Americans, as my clever opponent did his best to keep his force in motion to ward off the inevitable, once the US infantry had dismounted and their objectives became obvious. The right flank village was liberated first by close assault in game turn 8 after considerable, close-range, preliminary direct fire, in spite of the US air support being weather-delayed.

In the meantime, the aggressive Panther platoon was hunting Shermans and a couple of sacrificial M-3 halftrack platoons, while the Hetzer platoon deployed just a little too far forward and was eliminated by AT crossfires, an air strike, and several lucky throws. The Panther unit followed the assault gun to Valhalla two turns later, thank to the M-18, moving-and-scooting, and repeated set up shots by the slower set of Shermans. Both these tactical successes benefited from lucky US initiative rolls and the surprisingly good air cover. The second village fell on game turn 12.

The bulk of the US force then starting moving north to liberate the larger town. The Germans mounted a determined, but costly, counter attack that slowed this approach to a crawl and accounted for the loss of 2 US leaders and 2 infantry platoons. However, the German Comnander was also eliminated, which caused some major havoc & disorganization to the defenders. In time, relentless US pressure and a pair of successful air strikes cleared the way to the final town that was surrounded on 3 sides by the end of game turn 16. American close assaults began the following turn - and while these proved costly for both sides, the German garrison was finally overcome during game turns 19-20. This was a very close one, that easily could have gone either way.

At the end of the final session, the US had lost 21 steps & 2 leaders, and the Germans had parted with 26 steps and 3 leaders. There were 7 FOW-shortened turns in this play-through. The FOW materially benefited the defenders, though in the end, the Americans liberated all the towns and triumphed. Sgt. Poole & his tank crew went on the lead that Victory Bond Tour back in the states.

This encounter crucially hinged on correct utilization of tanks and was very tough to win as the American side. Without the relatively early loss of the German armored assets, this one would have been a German win. I give this scenario and enthusiastic 4!

Sherman Tanks, scenario: In The mood

I have been meaning to play this for a long time, well that time finally came. I like the increased armor value of the Sherman tanks from a 3 value to a 4 value. This scenario is pretty straight forward, with town control and enemy steps eliminated and visibility for air-support and ammunition shortage rolls for American artillery added in for a little more spice.

The Germans setup with about a 1/3 of their units defending in the southern town and the other 2/3 defending in the large town in the north with a platoon of Panther tanks and mortars in the light woods between the towns. The Americans enter from the south with their armor leading follow by their halftrack mounted infantry. The Germans hit them at first with a 75/41 anti-tank gun units and a Hetzer platoon making short work of the American M18 tank destroyers but the American recover and the battle of the southern town is on and takes almost half the scenario to conquer. The American regather their forces and head recklessly to the northern town and engage Panther tanks and Anti-tank guns, surely Sgt Pool died after this, as by the end of the Game there was only a half-step of Sherman tanks left.

By the end of the scenario, the Americans had only a foothold in the northern town and after 20 turns, the Germans had 39 points to the American 35 points, resulting in a Draw by one point. A pretty fun scenario to play and with only 20 turns, the Americans must keep attacking, no rest. I like the added armor value for the Sherman tanks.

Too bad the US was not "In the Mood" for this scenario, the increased armor on the Sherman did not help all that much, the dice Gods or Goddesses were not kind to the Americans.