The table was another tough one for the Americans with the Germans defending several houses and a church with a number of stone walls to hide behind. The Americans have little cover to deploy behind and the tanks have to arrive on the road where it will be hard to support or be supported by the infantry:
None of our group had a church. I looked to buy one at Warfare but couldn't find a suitably sized one so Gary said he would think about building one. After only a week this is what he produced, amazing as ever!:
A US squad deploys behind the hedges at the back of the table on over-watch:
The first of the Sherman's arrives and also goes on over-watch:
The Germans respond by bringing both Marders on. One of them is disguised cunningly as a Panzer II but is, in fact, a Marder. Is there no end to these shabby Nazi tricks?!:
A second US squad deploys nearer the village. This proves to have been a mistake as they immediately come under fire from the Marders:
The troop command Sherman joins the lead Sherman. The Sherman's and the Marder's can't see each other and neither seem keen to let the opposition have the first shot!:
Having been on the receiving end of numerous panzerschrek and panzerfaust disasters earlier in the campaign the Americans try to take advantage of their own bazooka team and, having a double phase, open fire on the nearest Marder. They miss. In the second phase they fail to activate and are left isolated in the open. Oh dear:
The Marder fails to machine-gun the bazooka team so a German squad deploys behind the house and guns them down:
The third Sherman has arrived. The Americans are finding it hard to come up with a plan of attack and so decide to push all the Sherman's forward and hope for the best. The difficulty of achieving mutual support for the American armour and infantry is very apparent:
One Sherman is brewed up by an ambushing Panzerfaust team. The troop commander attempts to cut down the ambushing team but even with a heavy machine gun at close range against two men in the open manages only one ineffective shock on the Germans:
American force morale is dropping quickly while the Germans have lost nothing. The Sherman troop commander fires at the Marder on the road. It misses!:
Having gone this far it seems pointless to stop now and the Sherman's plough forward. One of them manages to hit and destroy the Marder on the road so at least that won't be available for the next game!
A panzerfaust team, a panzershreck team and the remaining Marder all fire at the lead Sherman. The infantry all miss but the Marder hits and wrecks the troop commander. The Americans are down to a single command dice now!
The surviving Sherman surprisingly fights on and even manages to hit the Marder. Unfortunately it does not destroy it:
In an attempt to cause a few more casualties before inevitable defeat the final US squad deploys in the open and fires on the Germans hiding behind the house. They kill a couple but are shot to bits by the return German fire ending the game:
I don't think I made many wise choices in this game. Deploying the bazooka team in the open with no support was a big gamble that didn't pay off and previous experience should have told me that charging forward with the tanks would end in disaster against the man portable German AT ability, let alone the Marder's.
Having said that it's hard to see a viable plan, ideally I'd want the Sherman's on the left behind the hedges to support the infantry who could then mount an attack on the houses. The big problem with that is they would have to expose their flanks to the Marder's and Panzerschrek while trying to get there. The other option would be to deploy the infantry in the open with the tanks on the road and attack the church but with the Germans in hard cover either in the church or behind the stone walls I don't see that going well.
The Americans will try again on Thursday. At least this time I'll only have to face one Marder having destroyed the other one (which was my minimum aim in this game: ideally win, next best destroy both Marder's, at worst destroy one!).
The pressure will be on the Americans though as they can't afford to lose another game in the campaign with three tables still to clear.
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