DB078- Demolition Men

Mike205

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For Christmas my wife got me an iWatch and throughout this scenario it would record my spiking bloodpressure and repeatedly remind me to breathe in a futile attempt to restore my mental tranquility.

May 25, 1944, tasked with a Fuehrerbefehl direct from Berlin, a battalion of paratroopers descend on Drvar, Yugoslavia to
capture Tito's jacket.
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Set on rows R-GG of board 57 this quick playing, 4&1/2 turn scenario depicts once segment of Operation Knight's Move, when Kurt Rybka, the commander of Battalion 500, sent a company of glider borne paras to capture a suspected partisan communications center just west of the main drop on Drvar.

Drawing the Germans, I would command this motely band composed of inmates released from the SS penal camp Danzig-Matzkau and volunteers from Waffen SS divisions. Their target was the X2-X3 overlay:
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By SSR, prior to set up I rolled to see if each wooden building was reduced to rubble. Each roll also had the possibility of generating shell holes on the nearest road location next to the rubble. Likewise, Blazes can also occur, with drifting smoke. Basically, the entire town was rubbled, with only R2, T1, U2, X1, and Z5 buildings still standing when the gliders began to float down on the crossroads. Y5 & R3 locations were on fire, with smoke drifting SW per wind direction. Shellholes riddled the road from V3-X5.

Doug's defending partisans consisted of 6x3-3-7s, 2x5-2-7s, 4x?s, a 8-1 leader and a 9-0 commissar (per SSR), and 2x Italian lmgs traded by some wayward deserters in exchange for safe passage through the mountains. These guys would be fanatic while in the X2-X3 building.

My assault force comprised 3x5-4-8s, 4x4-6-8s with underscored morale, 2x9-1s, a 9-2 leader, 3xlmgs, and 4 DCs coming in on 7 gliders.
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The VC called for the Germans to control the X2-X3 locations within 4&1/2 turns. Looking over the scenario card, I knew I'd have to push fast and play aggressively to acheive them.

The wind change threw a wrench in my plans, since the wind turned out to be coming out of the NE, whereas I was hoping for a nice northwind to open up lots of landing possibilities. I briefly considered an audacious plan to attempt placing gliders with the 9-2, a 9-1, and some DC toting squads next to the target building but scrapped it since Doug had established a concentrated defense around the crossroads that would have left them taking multiple point blank shots, if they even managed to land in their ILH. I also considered the AA8-DD7 landing area but worried about how the trees would effect landing. In the end, I opted to land 4 gliders in the grain southwest of the objective and 3 more in the grain directly east of it. The plan was to hammer and anvil the thing by keeping fire teams working it from the south while my assault force led by a 9-2, a 9-1, and 3xDC squads would come in from the east to kick the defenders out. To hedge my bets I held the final DC squad back with the southern force.

Everyone got down ok, despite two gliders overshooting by a hex. In the grain to the southwest, it turned out Doug had positioned 5-2-7s with lmgs in W5 and U4, and their defensive fire cost me half a 5-4-8 by the end of the turn one. Otherwise, the rest of the boys cut and kicked their way out of the gliders and started advancing north and west.

Its been awhile since I played ASL and I was way too agressive throughout this game. For example, end of T1 I moved a 5-4-8, lmg, and 9-1 adjacent to the guys in U4. While I managed to soak up a 12 FP shot without breaking, this only fed my agression. After eliminating a dummy stack in CC3 in T2, I ran a 9-2 and a DC carring 4-6-8 into Z2:

Follow My Tracers


The only thing standing in my way was a 3-3-7 in Z3.
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As Doug pulled the concealment counter off of it, I remembered thinking "Unless I roll boxcars, I've got this." He rolled a 3 on the IFT and I indeed boxcarred the leader and the squad. The rest of them died when he hit them with final defensive fire, and I rolled yet another box car. These partisans would bedevil me all evening and pulled off a truly heroic stand.

By the end of Turn 2 my attack had stalled, while Doug started circling concealed partisan around my southern flank, keeping me distracted. The following turn the guys in Z4 weathered some point blank hate and managed to stop another attack, pinning a 4-6-8 and cas reducing another before finally sucummbing to fire and dying as they tried to low crawl back towards the HQ.

This catastrophe in the east forced me to shift the center of gravity to the south, where the 9-1 and a 5-4-8 broke trying to creep from shell hole to shell hole across the road. That leader would later boxcar a morale check in the Turn 4 rally phase.
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Honestly, I wanted to throw in the towel at the top of turn four. Although I managed to break a 5-2-7 as well as two out of three fanatic 3-3-7s and the 8-1 in the target building I was out of time and desperately ran my remaining 4-6-8 DC and 9-1 into Y4, where they died in another point blank low roll and a couple of box cars. And just like that... it was over.
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Despite my shellacking, I think this is a goodscenario- fast playing with a tight board area, interesting units, and lots of replayability due to the wind direction and pregame rubble generation. Its also a fantastic way to learn or brush up on glider rules before moving on to tackling AA in one of the larger Crete or Varsity scenarios.
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Actionjick

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As far as I am concerned it's better to be too aggressive than too timid. Especially in a short airborne scenario. Sounds like a very fun and entertaining scenario.
 

Mike205

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It was a good one- lots of options in terms of attack and wind/rubble variation. Definitely encourage folks to give this one a try.
 

jyoung

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It was a good one- lots of options in terms of attack and wind/rubble variation. Definitely encourage folks to give this one a try.
My opponent and I gave this a go on Saturday, and it was a blast ;). Everything went right for my attacking supermen, gliders came down with no problems, and my dice ran hot for a few turns. And then... beautiful tactical routing by the partisans forced a broken 548 and 9-2 to rout adjacent to what I was sure was a dummy, but turned out to be a concealed 127 which ambushed them and wiped them out. All the partisan 337 squads were eliminated, and at one point I held three out of the four required locations, just a commissar and 527 in one of the upper locations, but then my 548 in the bottom floor broke and routed, to be replaced by the other 527. In my last turn I broke him, but I couldn't get into the hex and two operably placed DCs couldn't bring the building hex and the upstairs defenders tumbling down, so the partisans held on for a narrow but well deserved victory.
Thanks for the recommendation, lots of fun, I would definitely play this one again.
 

Mike205

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That game sounds tense- you got a lot closer than I did! I think this one has a ton of replayability, between the random rubble/shellholes and glider approaches. Very manageable in an evening too, especially for introducing potential new rules or shaking the dust off of your chapter E knowledge.
 

jyoung

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For sure - I hadn't looked at the glider rules for years (ok, probably decades), and was surprised they weren't like panjis or rice paddies, especially without the inconvenience of AA fire. I'm inspired to give DB077 Speed Shock and Surprise a go and learn how to land paratroopers.
 

Mike205

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Yep! They’re really not that bad and add some really interesting dimension to the game. Looking forward to more glider scenarios.

I have my eye on DB077 but we’ll need to refresh on the paradrop rules first.
 

Actionjick

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For sure - I hadn't looked at the glider rules for years (ok, probably decades), and was surprised they weren't like panjis or rice paddies, especially without the inconvenience of AA fire. I'm inspired to give DB077 Speed Shock and Surprise a go and learn how to land paratroopers.
May the paratrooper spirit of The Grofaz be with you in your quest for Airborne knowledge and paratrooper prowess.

Obviously the paratrooper scenarios were of great interest to Fish and I enjoyed them also.

Fish said the Airborne motto was " good to the last drop ".
 

boylermaker

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Fish said the Airborne motto was " good to the last drop ".
In my (very limited) experience, it's more like "good to the last drift die roll that takes them completely out of the scenario", but maybe I just need to be better at picking drop zones!
 
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