My force was a bit weaker this time thou so it was going to be a hard sell. The American Force had a Roadblock Strongpoint (CV, 4 teams), Engineer Combat Platoon (CV, Full), Armored Rifle Platoon (CT, Full), and an Anti-Tank gun platoon, I took 57mm guns instead of the towed tank destroyers as that is what I had.
Here is what remained of the German Kampfgruppe.
Remember the Stugs represent Grille artillery guns, and the AA trucks are Wirbelwinds.
So here we have the US deployment as prescribed by the scenario. The road block is up at the German entry point, with the bridge mined, Armored Rifle Platoon defending the vilage mostly from inside the buildings, and anti guns throughout the village. The Engineers are way in the back defending the crossing, and they have the ability to blow the bridges. I felt these guys were stuck out of position but wasn't really sure how to make them effective.
The Germans brought on a platoon of infantry, some Panzer IVs, and the Wirbelwind, plus piper. The infantry assaulted my roadblock in half tracks doing a mounted assault, but they got pushed back by some lucky defensive fire. This killed a team and set the transports to the rear. Then the tanks tried their luck and made short work of the small teams.
On my turn I decided to try a shot with the gun in the woods and managed only to bail a tank.
My Engineers decided to head toward the other side of the river and get ready to blow the bridges. With everything but the road being slow going due to snow I wasn't able to really move them fast.
The Germans then brought in a bunch of Panthers and the artillery and pushed the first wave towards the town. The SS Infantry decided to leave the half tracks behind. On my turn my guns had much better aim and managed to kill a pair of Panzer IVs.
But the Germans kept turning up the heat and brought even more stuff on and really pressed into the town. They destroyed 2 of the Anti-Tank guns and sent a few tanks to head down the back road. Meanwhile I decided to fire instead of being gone to ground, my Bazookas in the 2 story house got a Wirbelwind, and the rifle men and light machine guns cut up the SS reducing them to two teams. They passed their motivation thou and hung on. The Panzer IVs were lucky and got accross the mines with no ill effects.
The Germans continued to hammer the town but to no great effects, and they brought a platoon of Panthers right up to the building. At this point I decided they were giving me a free chance to collect a few panthers, so I launched a sortie from the houses. I had 2 bazookas and an infantry team from the big house, plus another bazooka from behind and the commander from the small house. Unfortunately I was visible to 1 of the Wirbelwinds, and had miscounted how many shots they would cut. So they end result was that my assault failed and I lost most of those teams. But I figured it was worth the chance.
Seeing that the tank gunnery was not having much effect on the town the Germans rolled in the Grille infantry guns, which are large caliber guns and thus have bunker buster. This means that each hit on a house will kill every team in the house as it is blasted to smithereens. This had a big effect on my Infantry platoon as they lost 4 or 5 teams and then failed a morale test and ran off.
But I finally remember to try and roll for the bridges and managed to bring down the central one. But those three panzer IVs that slipped through the mine field were now getting dangerously close to crossing the other bridge.
In my last turn I sent a few of the engineers with bazookas on a kamikaze mission to try and destroy the 1 Panther south of the town, and another 3 teams to try and block the road. I got my Panther but the cost was high as the German army surrounded the platoon in the open and pelted the area with machine gun fire. This killed all the guys on that side of the river and caused the platoon to break. Leaving no Americans on the table. But I did get in some good damage so hopefully it's enough for me to stop them on the last table. With 8 Panthers left thou I am a bit worried.
Here are the German casualties:
Panzer Platoon - 3x Panzer IV - 2 Destroyed by Anti-Tank Guns
Panzer Platoon - 3x Panzer IV - No losses this game
Panzer Platoon - 4x Panthers - No losses this game
Panzer Platoon - 4x Panthers - 1 tank destroyed by Bazookas
Schwere Pzner Platoon - 2x King Tigers - Previously eliminated (although this is now disputed as I moved my jeeps to fast last game)
Joachim Piper - 1x Panther - No losses
Fallschimjager Platoon - 3x Infantry team + Command - No losses this game
SS-Panzer Grenadiers - 4x Halftracks, 2x infantry - 5 teams lost to various machine gun and rifle fire
SS-Panzer Grenadiers - 4x Halftracks, 7x infantry - No losses
Mechanized 15cm Artillery (Grille, represtnted by StugGs - No losses
Mechanized AA Platoon - 1 Wirbelwind destroyed by Bazookas
There are a few platoons now with a very small number of teams, so we may want to consider consolidating them.
The last table has a much stronger American force so that should be interesting, tune in next week!
Thanks;
Mike
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