von Marwitz
Forum Guru
J154 Cradle To Grave - AAR
This scenario looks very promising as the attacking Germans have an interesting mix of vehicles and an Infantry force with a punch to obtain its objectives. The Allies are a mix of Americans and Partisans that do receive some further reinforcements by US troops with a pair of gyro-stabilized M4A1's. The tactical objective for the Germans is to capture more stone building hexes than Partisan VP remaining in the game. As the German force is required to enter split into two forces, the idea behind the scenario is obviously for some of the Germans engaging the Partisans, while the rest tries to capture the stone buildings in the village.
For the game to play out as envisioned by the designer, I believe that players should mutually agree to limit one of the entry areas for the German forces to the northern edge of board 10 and scratch the possibility for them (and maybe the reinforcing Americans as well) to enter on the northern edge of board 18. Furthermore, when doing so, the setup area for the Partisans should also be modified to the general woods area of northern board 10.
If left unchanged, the scenario has issues. I will discuss these in this paragraph, so if you want to play this and with the above tweaks, you should omit this paragraph and maybe this AAR altogether until you are done playing.
What will make the scenario extremely hard for the Germans to win is if the Allies forfeit the Board 10 Woods and set up as close to the village as possible. At the first opportunity, they rush into the village and disperse there. In +3 Stone Building TEM, they will be very difficult to root out, especially, as there are many Row Houses around. Their MOL capability will make them dangerous when the Germans have to cross streets and it poses also a danger to the German AFV within the village. Very likely, the Germans will run out of time clearing the village/killing Partisans under these circumstances.
At the same time, if the Partisans set up in the Board 10 woods area, as the Germans it might be best to simply ignore them. Make the 'Eastern' group of the Germans stronger and have the 'Northern' group haste along the Board 18 road to reach the village ASAP. You might be able to hinder some partisans falling back into the village and arrive there before the opponent does. The at start Americans alone cannot hold up the Germans.
Situation at Game Start:
My opponent elected to set up the Partisans in the bd10 wooded area much to my relief, so I felt I would have a chance not to lose this one outright. Despite the Partisans lurking in the woods, I still had concerns if I could prevent them from falling back into the village in force before I had reduced the American garrsion there. So my basic plan was to push up (westward) from the bottom (eastward) agressively into the village and fill the void left behind by the German 'eastern' group with what arrived from the German 'northern' group (right). The 'stragglers' of the 'northern' (right) group would at the same time form a rear guard against the US reinforcements which might chase them entering on their Turn 3 also from the North (right).
If it weren't for the Partisan MOL capability, I might have considered punching through the Partisans in the woods - which is probably the design idea of this scenario - but I wanted to avoid being sandwiched between Partisans and US 'northern' reinforcements. Note, that MOL can't be used, if the attack is through an orchard or woods hexside (i.e., a hexside shared by two orchard hexes or by two connected woods hexes) [EXC: across a road hexside vs unit on the road] per A22.611.
My two Panthers were to spearhead the attack from the east (bottom) as they basically did not have to fear anything frontally except Bazooka deliberate Immobilization or the M10 Tank Destroyers finding APCR. If they did, it would be bad, because losing the Panthers would be a grave loss.
Situation at the End of German Turn 1:
I spent quite some time and thought on how to best enter my bottom (eastern) force and arrived more or less where I intended. An annoyance was the fact, that somehow the US halfsquad on the hilltop contrieved to survive all fire unharmed and in Good Order, denying my Concealment and being in the way.
For the right (northern) group I was quite afraid that some of the Partisans might be hiding somwhere on bd18, but to my relief none made their appearance as I charged towards the village.
Situation at the End of Allied Turn 1:
In the Allied Turn 1, as was to be expected, the Partisans immediatly fell back from the woods. To my surprise, most to them did not directly head for the village, though, but into a south-easterly direction. The 9-2 Partisan Leader Cpt. Clin somehow overlooked that the hill he was moving up to was covered by Germand fire and a MG burst sent him wounded to the ground to limp back into the woods from whence he came.
In the south (left), the pesky halfsquad on the hilltop which should already have been dead, proved to be a very irritating nuisance. After being shot at, it rolled snakes for HoB, Battle Hardening to 1st Line and creating a hero. The 'Dummy' on the hill proved to be another halfsquad which also survived unscathed. These units were now blocking my advance.
The walled village center 10Y5 held one of the M-10 Tank destroyers as expected. I shelled it with my MTR halftrack using spotted fire without being able to harm it. In turn it fired back at my Spotter. To my delight, LOS existed from my Panther in 18AA8 to 10X1 through which a US HS with a BAZ tried to pull back. The HS was cut down by the Panther's MGs leaving the BAZ out in the open up for grabs.
To be continued in subsequent post...
von Marwitz
This scenario looks very promising as the attacking Germans have an interesting mix of vehicles and an Infantry force with a punch to obtain its objectives. The Allies are a mix of Americans and Partisans that do receive some further reinforcements by US troops with a pair of gyro-stabilized M4A1's. The tactical objective for the Germans is to capture more stone building hexes than Partisan VP remaining in the game. As the German force is required to enter split into two forces, the idea behind the scenario is obviously for some of the Germans engaging the Partisans, while the rest tries to capture the stone buildings in the village.
For the game to play out as envisioned by the designer, I believe that players should mutually agree to limit one of the entry areas for the German forces to the northern edge of board 10 and scratch the possibility for them (and maybe the reinforcing Americans as well) to enter on the northern edge of board 18. Furthermore, when doing so, the setup area for the Partisans should also be modified to the general woods area of northern board 10.
If left unchanged, the scenario has issues. I will discuss these in this paragraph, so if you want to play this and with the above tweaks, you should omit this paragraph and maybe this AAR altogether until you are done playing.
What will make the scenario extremely hard for the Germans to win is if the Allies forfeit the Board 10 Woods and set up as close to the village as possible. At the first opportunity, they rush into the village and disperse there. In +3 Stone Building TEM, they will be very difficult to root out, especially, as there are many Row Houses around. Their MOL capability will make them dangerous when the Germans have to cross streets and it poses also a danger to the German AFV within the village. Very likely, the Germans will run out of time clearing the village/killing Partisans under these circumstances.
At the same time, if the Partisans set up in the Board 10 woods area, as the Germans it might be best to simply ignore them. Make the 'Eastern' group of the Germans stronger and have the 'Northern' group haste along the Board 18 road to reach the village ASAP. You might be able to hinder some partisans falling back into the village and arrive there before the opponent does. The at start Americans alone cannot hold up the Germans.
Situation at Game Start:
My opponent elected to set up the Partisans in the bd10 wooded area much to my relief, so I felt I would have a chance not to lose this one outright. Despite the Partisans lurking in the woods, I still had concerns if I could prevent them from falling back into the village in force before I had reduced the American garrsion there. So my basic plan was to push up (westward) from the bottom (eastward) agressively into the village and fill the void left behind by the German 'eastern' group with what arrived from the German 'northern' group (right). The 'stragglers' of the 'northern' (right) group would at the same time form a rear guard against the US reinforcements which might chase them entering on their Turn 3 also from the North (right).
If it weren't for the Partisan MOL capability, I might have considered punching through the Partisans in the woods - which is probably the design idea of this scenario - but I wanted to avoid being sandwiched between Partisans and US 'northern' reinforcements. Note, that MOL can't be used, if the attack is through an orchard or woods hexside (i.e., a hexside shared by two orchard hexes or by two connected woods hexes) [EXC: across a road hexside vs unit on the road] per A22.611.
My two Panthers were to spearhead the attack from the east (bottom) as they basically did not have to fear anything frontally except Bazooka deliberate Immobilization or the M10 Tank Destroyers finding APCR. If they did, it would be bad, because losing the Panthers would be a grave loss.
Situation at the End of German Turn 1:
I spent quite some time and thought on how to best enter my bottom (eastern) force and arrived more or less where I intended. An annoyance was the fact, that somehow the US halfsquad on the hilltop contrieved to survive all fire unharmed and in Good Order, denying my Concealment and being in the way.
For the right (northern) group I was quite afraid that some of the Partisans might be hiding somwhere on bd18, but to my relief none made their appearance as I charged towards the village.
Situation at the End of Allied Turn 1:
In the Allied Turn 1, as was to be expected, the Partisans immediatly fell back from the woods. To my surprise, most to them did not directly head for the village, though, but into a south-easterly direction. The 9-2 Partisan Leader Cpt. Clin somehow overlooked that the hill he was moving up to was covered by Germand fire and a MG burst sent him wounded to the ground to limp back into the woods from whence he came.
In the south (left), the pesky halfsquad on the hilltop which should already have been dead, proved to be a very irritating nuisance. After being shot at, it rolled snakes for HoB, Battle Hardening to 1st Line and creating a hero. The 'Dummy' on the hill proved to be another halfsquad which also survived unscathed. These units were now blocking my advance.
The walled village center 10Y5 held one of the M-10 Tank destroyers as expected. I shelled it with my MTR halftrack using spotted fire without being able to harm it. In turn it fired back at my Spotter. To my delight, LOS existed from my Panther in 18AA8 to 10X1 through which a US HS with a BAZ tried to pull back. The HS was cut down by the Panther's MGs leaving the BAZ out in the open up for grabs.
To be continued in subsequent post...
von Marwitz
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