Rommel Late War Americans v Germans

Last night saw the final game in Andy and I's mini Rommel campaign. The Americans had won two of the previous three games so another win would give them victory in the campaign while Andy's Germans needed a win to draw the campaign.

One interesting thing is how the campaign has progressed, in the first two games with Mid War Americans I felt I would be better off defending as most of the American army is rated 'Green'.
With the Late War list though attacking is an option and for our last game I thought I'd go for a high quality army with an RCT of elite Paratroops and an Armored RCT including the mighty Pershing tanks.

With a 12 point difference in the army lists in Andy's favour he selected the 'Breakout' scenario. We've played this one a few times now and it is always an interesting one.

Although in theory the Americans are attacking in reality they have to take a single objective then defend it until nightfall while moving more than a quarter of the army off table so really it is more like a defensive action for them. Given that I'd picked a very attacking list I wasn't sure it would go well when asked to defend!

Initial deployment saw two lots of flanking Germans awaiting the American breakout with further German forces scheduled to arrive later in the day:

Most of the American force quickly advances and secures the objective before the Germans can react. Having armoured infantry and the paratroopers being motorised is a big advantage in this scenario due to their mobility:

The American artillery and a few other units are left to defend the supply line:

The Germans quickly move to cut the American breakout from it's supply line. They will have to hold out while being isolated which makes moving more difficult and prevents units being re-organised to reduce damage. Previous experience suggests that attempting to keep the supply line open is a huge drain on forces and leaves the units too spread out to defend in a coherent way so being out of supply is a price its best to accept:

The Americans hold a wide perimeter around the objective and fight off the initial German attacks:

The Germans attempt to break through on the flanks. The Americans siphon a few units off table as they become damaged and vulnerable in combat:

The Americans are suffering badly from the German heavy artillery so some Paratroops are dispatched in a rare counter-attack to try to neutralize one isolated German battery:

The German reserves arrive, a strong force of Panthers and motorised infantry. Around half the day has gone:

The Germans have spotted the risk to their artillery and supported them with some Volksgrenadiers. The Paratroopers attack anyway:

The attack is beaten off and the artillery survives:

The German attacks are gradually weakening the American forces deployed to defend the objective. More depleted American units leave the table but some are destroyed before they can exit:

The American position now consists of just the objective hill and the town and area on either side of it plus a couple of M18's, the rest of the American breakout force has either left the table or been destroyed:

The Americans have now moved enough units off table and have to hold out until nightfall to win:

The M18's have been destroyed and the remaining American tanks are under attack. The German reserves mount an attack on the objective but the defenders are at full strength and night is approaching quickly:

The Germans manage to wipe out the American infantry holding the wood and have almost finished off the remaining American armour. However, the American infantry holding the objective repulse all attacks on them and night falls giving victory to the Americans:

As ever we both really enjoyed this game and for a while I thought Andy might capture the objective from me before nightfall. He picked a lot of artillery (that's one thing we have both learned over the campaign) and his attacks did a lot of damage allowing him to wipe out some units before I could withdraw them from the table.

The American armoured infantry are a huge advantage in this scenario allowing me to take the objective on move one (I don't think you'd be able to do that with motorised or leg infantry) and the Pershing's paid off giving me an armour advantage in all the tank battles. I think abandoning the supply line is probably the best thing to do. I could have used the units I left behind defending the supply line and artillery better though I, late on in the game I advanced them in an attempt to cut the German supply lines and if I'd done it a few moves earlier it might have worked or at least forced Andy to divert some effort to stop them so that's another lesson learned.

With the campaign over we plan on playing more games and perhaps looking for some scenarios like the 'Juno' one as that gave a good game and I'd like to use the Sherman DD's again!