The Americans are faced with an interesting dilemma in this one. The victory conditions make it clear that they are to take towns and hills. Unfortunately for the Americans the towns are in one of the two mapboards while the hills are several kilometers away. Therefore the Americans have to choose to go after towns or hills first. Either way they will have to face considerable AT gunnery (a Panther, a StuG and a 71mm await). The Americans, on the other hand have a lot of tanks and tank destroyers and enough infantry and support weapons (including M3s) to have a firepower advantage should they decide to use it.

My Americans decided to pursue a two part battle strategy. In the first part of the game they took over the towns and put some very careful M4s on the smaller of the two objectve hills to begin to remove the Germans. This was accomplished primarily with the infantry component of the force with the tank destroyers and upgunned Shermans taking on a defeating the Panther.

At this point, the Wild Buffalos had arrived and were swarming over the larger hill. The Americans began advancing from the town and were seeking cover in the light woods at the eastern edge of the hill. Seeing that the Americans were aiming to provide support to the M4s which were in position to fire on the remaining German entrenchment on the small hill, the Wild Buffalos sent a strong force to flank the Americans and keep them from that objective. Unfortunately for the Buffalos, they became statistics quite quickly. Artillery slammed home and caused losses and demoralizations and then the infantry force stopped off to permit the destruction of the Buffalos to proceed. The counterattack was over before it really started.

At the same time as the counterattack was being sliced and diced, the StuG blew its cover while slaughtering M3s. This led to some M4/76s getting the range on the StuG and making sure that its one fire activation was the only one it would have in this playing.

On the penultimate turn the Americans were able to reduce the entrenchment on the small hill and with the 10 point swing in the victory calculation, the Americans pulled out a hard fought win. This was a lot fo fun with multiple decision points for both sides. I give it a "4".

This game was played face to face against Wayne Baumber in one session as only 10 of the scheduled 24 turns were played out. Yet another in the Westwall series as the continued slugging match by the two determined armies of America and Germany continue to batter each other relentlessly. Both of us agreed that with the sparse initial German troops and wide area to defend, this initially looked like a US win in all probability. Knowing that such a scratch German force, even if it included 1 x Panther platoon, would not be enough to defend the far flung high ground and towns over two boards. Therefore, I decided my defence would be to opt to simply stand and hold the largest 40m hill complex to the east. The idea being that these 9 hexes would be the same point value as the 4 x town and 5 x hill given up to the Gi's, but he would still need to come at us, entrenchments and all to gain the points for a win but at least my small force's firepower would be concentrated. By hitting him hard with casualties, I hoped to drive up enough points for the win and hold out until my reinforcements arrived on turn 9 or after (roll a 5 or 6).

An American infantry battalion from Task Force Lovelady of 3rd Armoured Division supported by 10 platoons of tanks and adequate OBA had launched an attack around Weissenberg about 1030 hours (turn 1) expecting to clear the heights and the pillboxes. The Americans discovered that the outlying villages had been left all but empty and that the remnants of Germans from the 9th Panzer had concentrated around the highest ground in the distance. This was being defended by very strong pillbox and trench positions and also stiffened by a platoon of Panthers and StGIII assault guns. The villages were advanced through without molestation by a small tank and recon force of M3 halftracks. The main body of US troops advanced frontally towards the heights (along board 25). For 30 minutes things were pretty quiet, but at 1100 hours, an entrenched German AT platoon revealed itself just outside the empty villages by burping out shells at an M4 platoon knocking out 2 of the vehicles (1 step). The rest of the tanks and halftracks rounded on this discovered enemy expecting small resistance. However, within minutes, a number of M3’s were left burning (2 steps) as the Yanks moved in closer and were assaulting from close range. The AT crews, though never in good order, continued to hold their positions. Meanwhile, on the main advance, some GI’s were taking casualties from artillery and mortar fire as they attempted to advance towards the heights (2 more steps).

Over the following half hours (turns 4 & 5), American infantry and halftracks were becoming casualties at an alarming rate. (6 steps). The dug-in Panthers were obliterating the thin-skinned M3’s, German OBA was demoralizing and reducing the infantrymens ranks at a worrying pace. The American commander therefore decided to make an aggressive thrust at the enemy armour on the hilltop. At 1145 hours, US armour started to go forward and lost a platoon immediately. However, 6 platoons of M4’s and M10’s had pushed in close to their enemy. The tank battle was swift and bloody. The 2 platoons of German tanks soon accounted for 10 American tanks (5 steps). The Americans in their turn managed to reduce the StG platoon. But the US losses were too much when added to their infantry and M3 losses. The carnage continued for another 15 minutes as American armour was all but wiped out.

At 1230 hours, the battalion strong Wild Buffalo reinforcements from the German 12th Infantry Division arrived and found the Weissenberg area had already been held comfortably with minimal loss. However, it was at this moment that the Americans enjoyed their best period. They finally captured the AT platoons trench and also inflicted losses by hitting an HMG platoon from the German reinforcements. But it was simply too little far too late. The Americans, seeing the day was over for any chance of gains, retired.

With 1 x trench (2pts), 4 x town (12pts), 5x hill (15pts) and inflicting on the Germans 2 FOOT steps, 1 AT step and 1 StG step (5pts), the Americans accumulated 34pts. The Germans held 5 x trench (10pts), 9 x hill (27pts) and had inflicted 7 FOOT steps, 12 AFV steps and 9 APC steps (40pts), the amassed 77pts. It had been a consummate vicory for the German defenders.

What was so strange about this game was that despite the huge American casualties, neither of us could really sense it coming, nor indeed understand how it had all come about. There was no obvious mistakes by the US to point at, save the large AFV attack later on when so many were wiped out. But that attack had been made in response to the heavy losses already inexplicably building up. I suppose if we had play-back, we'd see it, but at the time, such a defeat did not seem the likely outcome .... even when it was happening ? This was a good win for the Germans. They will always find this tough, and, having only experienced 10 of the turns, I can only award a standard '3'. Enjoyed myself today !

This will be a very quick AAR as I am still reeling from this defeat, I don't really mind being beaten but I do mind being beaten in less than 10 turns and so utterly completely. The US have to take a well fortified piece of high ground before German reinforcements can be rushed to the scene. The US have lots of armour and good OBDA to assist them, furthermore the German defenders have to be set up in their entrenchments three hexes from each other. The German though has a Panther platoon which outmatches all of the other AFV's on the board and in our game had better leadership. My plan was not to ignore the Panther as best I could use cover and then overwhelm each entrenchment in turn with superior firepower I did expect Vince to use a more forward defense and I also expected him to as least try and defend the town hexes, he did neither which may have led indirectly to my defeat. What I should have done was raced down the road on board 22 and outflanked him he would have had to respond to this threat and moved his two Tank platoons which may have left them more vulnerable. Instead I stuck to my original plan and only used a small flanking force which got hung up trying to take out a single A/T gun platoon. My main advance hit the first strong-point and stalled there, Vince's Panther dug in and on high ground then had a field day taking out M3's he also had a couple of lucky DF shots which resulted in step losses, realizing I was losing this battle I tried to swarm the Panther with my Sherman's trying to get a cross fire bonus, this was a gamble it failed I lost. As I have said this was a BIG loss and has Vince has said in his AAR I did not see it coming, however by GT7 the game was lost, yes I was unlucky that when I got my 22 DF shots v the first entrenchment I did not get a X result but even if I had the result though closer would have been the same. It was a great set up by Vince, oh well back to the drawing board