AAR for the ASL for Fun #3 - "The Storming of Tauroggen"
by George Kelln from Lone Canuck.
It was played as a team event by four players (two on the Russian and German side each) at Grenadier 2016.
It can be found for free download here:
http://www.lonecanuckpublishing.ca/The Storming of Tauroggen.htm
Having had not much time to play ASL this year let alone to prepare for a tournament, I decided to play some „friendly“ special thing at Grenadier 2016. As I knew that there would be three other players not taking part in the main tournament, the idea came up for some team-play and the choice fell on Lone Canuck's „The Storming of Tauroggen“ of the ASL for fun series. It features a large and nice map and massive forces on both sides.
The Russians have around 70 squad equivalents (including 14 crews), 10x MMG, 8x HMG, 8x ATR, 4x 50mm MTRs, 4x 82mm MTRs, 4x 45L ATGs, 4x 76*mm INF Guns, 3x GAZ-4M-AA Trucks (16FP), 2x 37mm AA Guns, 10x BA-6 ACs, a Field Phone for a 76mm OBA (HE/SMOKE), 8 Leaders (two of which may be exchanged for Commissars). In addition, the Russians have MOL capability and a pool of 150 Fortification Points to buy all sorts of Fortifications & Dummies from a total available pool of 220 Fortification Points. As the Germans enter from offboard, the Russians will be concealed. ELR is 3, SAN is 2 (but can be raised to 4 by purchase). 48 of the Russian squads are Conscripts, which is probably the only weakness of their OOB beside the scarcity of leaders. Important to note is that a bit less than half the Russian force will enter as reinforcements, while the „larger“ half needs to be distributed among three „sectors“. If guns are among the reinforcements, then they are towed in by Wagons. The reinforcements will enter into their respective „sector“ but these restrictions aside, the Russians may move where they want. There is a certain random element when and where the Russian reinforcements enter, but each sector will get its share. With 10 to 12 turns of play, the Russians have enough time to move their forces where they want them after entry or initial setup.
The Germans have a completely motorized, mechanized and armored force. It counts 31.5 squad equivalents (including 4 Crews and 6 squads of 8-3-8 Assault Engineers/Sappers. The force is borne by 18x SPW 251/1 and 11 Opel Blitz Trucks. SWs are 2x HMG, 6x LMG, 5x ATR, 5x 50mm MTR, 4x FT, and 8x DC. There are 9 Leaders (one of them a 9-2) and 3 ALs. Furthermore 2x 81mm MTR, 2x 37L ATG towed in by Kfz 1, 1x SPW 251 sMG, 8x Pz IIIG, 2x Pz IVD, 4x Pz IIF, 4x PSW 231(8R). Finally, the Germans receive a 1/3 chance for 1 to 3 Stukas with Bombs per turn that remain on board for 1 turn and a module of 105mm Batallion OBA (HE/SMOKE). Half of this force enters on turn 1, one quarter in turn 3 and the rest in turn 5. ELR is 4, SAN is 2. Opposed to the Russians, the Germans can enter anywhere along the southern board edge and are not bound to sectors.
The objective for the Germans is to „amass greater or equal to 4 VP of Bridges“ arcoss a deep stream at game end. Of these, two were wooden bridges (one at each flank) worth 1VP, a RR-Bridge worth 1VP and three stone bridges in the town worth 2VP. The VC are a bit ambiguous on how these VP can be „amassed. We convened that this means to Control the Bridges. We banned intentional destruction of the bridges (DCs, Stukas, ...) by either side though allowed collapsing of the wooden bridges by overweight.
Looking at the German options, it appears that mounting a Schwerpunkt attack along one of the flanks is necessary as to avoid at least 1/3 of the Russian force for some time and stampede everything in its way. The problem with this is, that the wooden bridges at the flanks are only worth 1VP. This makes it basically pointless to attack (or defend) them at all, because the Germans would have to divide their force and yet have to enter the town for a stone bridge anyway. Dividing the German force would, of course, play into the Russian hands.
In the VP value as given might lie one of the fundamental (and easy) opportunities of improvement of the scenario: We unanimously advise to raise the VP value of the railroad bridge from 1 to 2VP. An alternative would be to have the German capture a number of bridges instead of a number of bridge-VP. That way, the Russian would be forced to hold a flank instead of forfeiting the defence of the wooden bridges in the first place, set up the „flank-sectors“ as close to the central „city-sector“ as possible and then move excess forces from the flanks into the favorable TEM of the city as soon as possible to form one giant massive blob of Russian defenders that the Germans will never have a chance to root out. In our game, the Russians were so kind not to follow this tactic but to spread out a bit in the flank sectors, too, adding a about three turns of time to redeploy to meet the German Schwerpunkt.
For the above mentioned reason of Bridge-VP value, the Germans decided to attack through the center. This does have some serious disadvantages as some wooded areas channel an attack through the middle for a motorized/mechanized/armored force. And of course the Russians will realize this and cover the bottlenecks with nasty surprises from the Fortification purchases and his weaponry. Furthermore, the Russian forces set up on the flanks will convene to the center-sector more quickly to counter the Germans. On the positive side, the distance to be covered is shorter, the Germans can receive better TEM quicker, and – most importantly, there is no point in attacking the 1VP wooden bridges (AND holding them in the face of Russian reinforcements, which would draw from the German force).
The basic battle plan was as follows: One German player would attack west of the X20-X30 paved road, the other one east of it. The Germans would push through the U20 to Y22 gap mostly ignoring the FF21-JJ19 gap where a gully (partly with brush) further impedes progress and the unpaved road offers too tempting opportunities to hide some AT mines, etc. After reaching the T21-W19-X20-BB18 road, the Germans would continue the push to conquer the W15-W19-W20-BB18-BB14-AA13 city block, through which the attack would continue and the reinforcements would follow up. To secure this city block, the Germans would secure the flanks by conquering the T15-T20-V19-V16 area on the west and the CC14-CC17-DD18-DD14 in the east. The next phase of attack would conquer the T13-T14-W15-AA13-AA11-Z11-Riverline city block while extending flank protection to the S12-R14-T15 area in the west and the BB12-BB13-CC12-CC11 city block in the west. The final phase would conquer the T12 and Y10 stone bridges for 4VP and to establish a defensive bridge-head north of the river in the S10-X8-riverline area. There the Germans would build an „Igel“ to hopefully hold on until game end.
Sure enough the Germans ran into obstacles in their bottleneck in the form of AP-mines in Z22 and AA21, S18, and T18. Especially in the first two turns, the Germans are yet guessing what the concealed and hidden Russian assets in their way might be. The problem is, that basically any Dummy could be a MOL-toting unit putting a quick end to any tank or loaded OT halftrack in a wink. The German halftracks are vulnerable to a plethora of Russian weaponry: MOL, MGs, ATGs, AA Guns, INF Guns, ATRs, MTRs, and what not. Yet if the Germans don't move quickly, then the huge „blob“ of Russians will be in place and the Germans will be going nowhere any longer. We found that the Germans suffer from a lack of Infantry, while the Russian hordes can fall back with unconcealed units and advance concealed ones to the front-line. Rinse & repeat. To mount some firepower against that, the Germans need the halftracks in the dense terrain of the city, where they are very vulnerable. We contemplated abandoning them with Crews+LMG, but then the halftracks can shift faster and maybe drop some vehicular smoke grenades. In any case, losses will result among the halftracks and it will become increasingly difficult to keep the momentum with IFP.
My personal advice for adjusting the scenario would be to take away the MOL-capability from the Russians, though one of the Russian players does not see the need to do so but would rather lower the Russian ELR from 3 to 2. Unanimously all four players agreed that the German infantry is too scarce. At the very minimum, an additional platoon of German infantry, likely more, is in order. The Germans generally must avoid any CC because they cannot risk losing scarce good quality infantry vs. their low quality abundant Russian counterpart. A further difficulty of the scarce German infantry is that it can hardly afford to assign anyone to guard prisoners (which would be very likely and abundant with the high percentage of concripts among the Russian infantry). As a consequence, the Germans likley cannot help to declare no quarter, which in turn will forestall Russian surrender. Bad thing because even Russian brokies can form a „wall of bodies“ (though it is possible to move through Locations with disrupted enemy units).
German Turn 1:
At the end of German turn 1, the eastern force had reached the area of Y22, Z23, AA23, AA24. Yet there was no possibility to spread out. Some German forces „feigned“ into the direction of F22 and the F22-JJ19 gap. The western German force reached the T24, U23, V23, W23 area. The Germans decided that unloading the majority of the infantry of the halftracks was necessary in the face of the Russian defences around the W19-X20 crossroads. No Stukas arrived.
(to be continued)