CTKnudsen
Senior Member
For the last few months Neil Andrews has, once a week or so, with patience and good humour, been teaching me all the ways I had previously been playing ASL totally incorrectly. Our latest scenario was OA26. I took the attacking SS, and he the defending Dutch. To win, I had 6.5 turns in which to remove all of his MMC from a 2-hex radius of the hex next to the bridge, while also ensuring that he had no MMC on the east side of the river that could draw LOS to that same hex.
To accomplish this I was given a company of 4-6-8 SS with 3 leaders, some MGs, and 3 Armoured Cars. He had 8 squads, a couple of leaders, a whack of SW, some dummy counters, and an 80mm OBA with an offboard observer. Keep that last one in your mind, it would become important later! As well, any Dutch could start the scenario entrenched if the terrain allowed.
Here is the situation at scenario start, before my setup:
Looking at the Dutch setup, I planned my assault. The ACs would Armoured Assault up the middle with 3 squads, looking to clear the long woods running from Z10 to M2. 2 HS, my 9-1, and my MMG and HMG would provide covering fire for this movement from the woodline at J8. The remainder of the force would use the cover of the forest to basically conduct a left flanking attack onto the objective, having used mass and firepower to clear the Dutch out of the forest first.
Knowing Neil, I figured he would put enough troops forward to slow me down a bit, but leave the lion's share of his strength (and his SWs) in the objective area. Fine by me, so long as I was able to get through his speed-bumps quickly.
Next - I learn to my dismay how OBA works.
To accomplish this I was given a company of 4-6-8 SS with 3 leaders, some MGs, and 3 Armoured Cars. He had 8 squads, a couple of leaders, a whack of SW, some dummy counters, and an 80mm OBA with an offboard observer. Keep that last one in your mind, it would become important later! As well, any Dutch could start the scenario entrenched if the terrain allowed.
Here is the situation at scenario start, before my setup:
Looking at the Dutch setup, I planned my assault. The ACs would Armoured Assault up the middle with 3 squads, looking to clear the long woods running from Z10 to M2. 2 HS, my 9-1, and my MMG and HMG would provide covering fire for this movement from the woodline at J8. The remainder of the force would use the cover of the forest to basically conduct a left flanking attack onto the objective, having used mass and firepower to clear the Dutch out of the forest first.
Knowing Neil, I figured he would put enough troops forward to slow me down a bit, but leave the lion's share of his strength (and his SWs) in the objective area. Fine by me, so long as I was able to get through his speed-bumps quickly.
Next - I learn to my dismay how OBA works.