This scenario is just about the exact opposite of the one I played last from Elsenborn Ridge, same board and all, just Germans defending against US troops. Germans set up one entrenchment next to the road at the southernmost point of the hill and the other one in the light woods near the crossroads, with 2 elements dug in, one on the road and the other adjacent forcing the US troops to fight quickly and eliminate each position to avoid a German unit running out at the last turn to achieve a victory - Germans win if they have one undemoralized unit on a road hex anywhere, and on either road. Leader draw for Germans was fair, the draw for the US troops was on the poor side with only 2 affecting combat and none affecting morale. I use the lowest morale leader usually for a unit that will likely not be directly involved in combat so the 7-0-0 LT lead the two Mortar platoons while the sergeant provided flank security for the Major and 2 groups formed with a captain and 2 LTs to work their way around the flanks of all the German positions. OBA played little part in the game, disrupting but never more a couple of times when a US stack stood in the open to complete an encirclement of one dug-in position. The southernmost entrenchment was surrounded early in the game and eliminated by point blank fire from all around. The stack that had taken all the attention of that German force was able to stand and work on the morale of the demoralized and disrupted platoons, while the rest moved forward and surrounded the next dug-in position, killing it the same way as the first. Again, little damage was done to the US troops as they eliminated the German force. On to the next dug-in position, and now the infantry and mortar in the northern most entrenchment are in range and visibility to start adding their fire, but it's not enough and the last dug-in force is eliminated and the US troops work their way around the last entrenchment. In the end, the Germans lost all the leaders and all but one step of infantry to only 3 steps lost of US troops. I had thought that, as the German, I would start pulling back from each position to strengthen the others and avoid these losses, but as the US commander, the encirclement seemed to be the best approach to the engagement and worked well, keeping Germans from being able to leave their positions and ensuring losses even to the surviving leaders who found themselves surrounded. This game gave me a lot of practice in fire and maneuver, and showed me a few things about where not to place my defenders. More overlapping fire and less isolation. Woods are nice but they block line of sight for the defender and make massed point blank fire more deadly and more likely.

Author	Fanghawk
Method	Solo
Victor	Germany
Play Date	2020-04-20
Language	English
Scenario	InoG001

This one was tough from start to finish for the U.S. Starting with the leader draw, they only received two leaders with combat modifiers, which was going to make coordinating fire difficult. The Germans on the other hand drew two leaders with 2 combat modifiers and every leader had a morale modifier. It went downhill from there. Despite having a 3-1 advantage in Initiative, the U.S. lost the first four initiative rolls outright, only won five of the twelve initiative rolls the entire game, and only got a double first activation once. Neither Engineer platoon came to fight and were among the first troops to Demoralize on the U.S. side. The Engineer in the south was able, on the final assault, to get into the fight but the Engineer in the north broke at the first sign of the enemy and remained Demoralized the rest of the game.

As the game began, the U.S. kept a stronger contingent to hit the southern entrenchment line but sent a reinforced infantry company and engineer platoon with heavy machine gun support to the northern entrenchment line. In the south, they were able to use the woods to get close to the southern German lines and began laying down small arms fire waiting for the HMG to catch up.

The Germans laughed at the sporadic, ineffective fire the Americans tried to lay down. German small arms fire in return sent the jittery Americans running back into the woods where it would take several precious minutes to cajole and coerce the troops back into the fight. From there, this game reminded me of my high school days when I played games with friends and usually had quite memorably bad dice. The U.S. was rolling 7s on combat rolls and 10s and 11s on morale checks all afternoon. The Germans were doing the opposite. The Germans were able to keep cracking the center of the American lines meaning the U.S. was forced to use single groupings of smaller firepower attacks and rarely got the opportunity to lay down concentrated fire attacks. Even when they managed to get 30FP attacks on the Germans, they never got more than an M2 result which the German’s shrugged off easily. With a steady ebb and flow of troops to the front, the U.S. was eventually able to wear the defenders down and as time grew short launched an assault that finally…albeit slowly…pried the Germans out of the entrenchments and off the road.

The northern assault never got off the ground. As soon as the U.S. troops got within spotting range, German mortars, off-board artillery, and long-range opportunity fire scattered any organized approach. As in the south, the U.S. had a difficult time concentrating fire and fire from the infantry was largely ineffectual. The U.S. was able to drop heavy artillery on the German positions and there were constant Disruptions and a couple Demoralizations among the German troops but they invariably recovered quickly. As time wore on and began to run out on the assault, the U.S. was finally able to temporarily break the will of the German troops in the entrenchment, pin the supporting, dug-in troops, and encircled the German positions readying for the final assault. The Germans won the ensuing Initiative, the German Sergeant called artillery down right in front of his own position, and the U.S. assault evaporated under the shelling.

I like the scenario as a great study in terrain usage, defensive positioning, and proper division of forces, and application of force for the attacker. As the German player, once the decision is made on where to position your troops and the entrenchments, there’s little else to do but shoot and hang on, but it could still be a tense, fun game for either side.