After Andy's narrow victory in our last refight of Juno Beach this game saw my Americans taking on Andy's Germans in a vaguely 'Battle of the Bulge' refight.
In this scenario a quarter of the attacker's force is trapped in an isolated 'pocket' holding an objective and has to be relieved by the remainder of the force establishing a supply line by nightfall.
Having played this scenario a few times it is always interesting and there are a number of ways you can approach it. Being the attacker this time I went for a force consisting of some paratroopers from the 101st Airborne to hold the pocket objective and a strong 52nd Armoured CC together with a weaker 104th Infantry CC to attempt the relief supported by as much artillery as I could manage to really beef up my attacking options.
Initial deployment with the Americans 'hidden' and the Germans spread out across the middle of the table:
The American forces are revealed. The plan is to use the 52nd CC to push through on the left while the 101st holds the objective and the 104th CC acts as a reserve and defends the artillery:
The 52nd CC begins to move to the left in some cagey early turns:
The initial attack by the 52nd CC is disastrous with the Germans inflicting severe losses on the attacker:
A German counter-attack finishes off a couple of the damaged battalions:
The Germans also attempt to assault the 101st but are thrown back with heavy losses. This persuades the German commander that it isn't worth taking the tough paratroopers on again!:
The 52nd CC continue to push forward to achieve the breakthrough and are succeeding in thinning out the German defenders:
The push is going well now with the German defences weakening forcing them to commit more troops from other areas of the lines. The 104th infantry CC is still uncommitted, soon I'll need to decide where to use them:
The Germans re-establish their lines with the units drawn from elsewhere. This fight is going to be close!:
The 52nd makes another attempt to break through:
Success! The 52nd is battered and bruised but through the German line and has the beleaguered 101st in clear sight. The 104th has finally been committed to support the remnants of the 52nd:
Can the 52nd hold on against German counter-attacks?
Observing the relief column the 101st moves out to help the relief force and keep the gap open:
German forces are weakened, scattered and have issues with different units being mixed up. None-the-less they still think they can defeat the almost equally weakened Americans and viciously counter-attack where they can:
The thin line of Americans holds on though, sometimes by the narrowest of margins:
After three additional turns night falls with the Americans holding on to their objective and opening a supply line to it giving them a victory with heavy losses on both sides:
As ever a cracking game which sort of went down to the wire in that right up until his last move Andy almost broke the supply line I'd developed on the left making the last few turns very tense.
However, as often happens in Rommel, in the heat of the fight we both became fixated on the efforts of the 52nd CC to break through in an intense battle. Andy threw more and more troops into the fight from the rest of his lines and by the end most of his force was involved in the fight. In my case I was probably a little tardy in using the 104th to support the 52nd.
The result of this was that Andy had inadvertently allowed a supply line to be created on the right of the table by withdrawing too many units leaving big gaps in his lines so, even if he had stopped the 52nd, I'd still have won anyway which I'd realised a couple of turns before the end and was desperately hoping Andy didn't notice!
For me the plan I had worked well, though I think I got the roles on the 52nd Armoured CC and the 104th Infantry CC wrong in that I made my initial attack with the fast moving 52nd and left the slower 104th in reserve when it would have been better to have more mobility in the reserve where it was needed. My initial plan had included the possibility of drawing most of Andy's Germans on to the 52nd then advancing up the other side of the table with the 104th (which was partly why I committed them so late) but in fact they just wouldn't have moved fast enough where the more mobile 52nd would have had a better chance.
Andy will choose the next scenario we play and I'm looking forward to what he comes up with!
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