I chose a strong Armour RCT with Sherman's, Stuart recon tanks and a large number of armoured infantry in M4 halftracks together with an Infantry CC supported by some more Sherman's and some M18 Hellcat's.
In the recon in force scenario the defender places nine potential objective markers for the attacker. Five are 'real' objectives and the other four are dummies. To win the attacker has to capture three of the 'real' objectives.
The terrain was fairly open and Andy placed most of his objectives in terrain in the last two rows of the table with some closer to the Americans which were probably dummies unless it was a cunning double-bluff! The defender deploys first concealed so while I could see where Andy's forces were I had no information on what was where.
It was apparent that he had held most of his force back with a few isolated units further forward to try to break up my attack. I deployed my Infantry CC on the left and the Armoured RCT on the right:
Both commands advanced expecting to take out the isolated German units quickly. These units proved to be Volks Grenadiers, poor in attack but stubborn in defence as they proved here by putting up stiff resistance:
The American plan was to push forward hard with the Armoured RCT, split the German forces around where the river ended on the right and, at the same time, send the Infantry CC to attack on the left and left-centre:
The initial American attacks didn't go well with some lacklustre attempts to finish off the German advanced screen (One Volks Grenadier can be seen still surviving in the middle of the American force!) and little progress being made:
After a while the Americans began to get their act together and started to attempt to push past the two German held hills with potential objectives on them prior to assaulting the hills themselves:
In the centre the push to split the German army in half was making progress slowly. So far the Americans have ignored the two potential objectives on their right and, as a result, the Germans have thinned their forces out in that area to support their centre:
In the centre the Americans have now split the German army in half and isolated the Germans on our right flank from their supply line. However, the American forces have taken a lot of damage breaking through:
On the left the Hellcats have also broken through the German lines and mopped up some second line formations. However, they are now isolated and being counter-attacked by German armour. They hold out against the initial counter-attack but are almost spent. The Americans have also made a few unsuccessful assaults on the two hills and the gap between them without making much progress:
It was becoming very apparent to the Americans that the assault on the left was not going that well. There might still be an opportunity on the right though where the Germans were isolated and few in number. The Americans quickly switched the axis of their attack but many of their elements were damaged from the previous fighting:
On the left the Americans were finally starting to make some progress driving the enemy back between the two hills and on either side. The Germans holding the hills were still strong though and there was not much daylight left:
With night approaching it became obvious that the Americans could not achieve their objectives. At best they might be able to take the two objectives on their right but this wouldn't be enough. As a result the Americans decided to withdraw and concede defeat to the Germans:
Another fun Rommel game where in all honesty the outcome of the game wasn't really in doubt at any stage. Andy placed all his 'real' objectives in the last three rows of the table in terrain and garrisoned them with enough units to hold them. He was not distracted into making pointless counter-attacks (apart from at the Hellcats where he did need to).
I'm not sure what, if anything, I would have done differently apart perhaps from choose as much heavy artillery as possible to support the attacks on the objectives.
The Late War German army is powerful on defence with cheap Volks Grenadiers and SP guns that are effective while defending but less so while attacking. They also have the ability to put down six field defences which makes it even harder to evict them from terrain. Rather like the Desert War Italians though they might struggle when attacking.
The game did look good and considering the amount of effort I put into painting them the Americans look nice.
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