JR Brackin
Cardboard Challanged
Played OS-13 The Route yesterday. I had the Americans who are trying to hold on against a strong German counterattack to retake the Vossenack church. The Germans can approach from 3 sides and have 3 modules of OBA (2 x 70mm, and the killer 1 x 150mm).
The US has an ELR of 2 and is mostly 2nd line and Green troops. They also need to cover a large area since the Germans can win by having 60 VP (calculated as EVP) on level 2 in an area just south of the church. If they take the church the Germans win immediately. I read my forces covering all approaches and stayed out of the steeple since that 150mm could start targeting the only high spot on level 2 in the scenario. Also I decided to not HIP my radio operator so that I could move him around without popping out of HIP.
The Germans have an issue getting the 60 VP since they have a fair amount of OG to cover and only have available 82 possible VP of their own forces. They do have a double edge sword in killing US tanks (8) that are not to enter until T7 of 8 or if they get too close to the church. Note they are only worth 4 its each since their crews do not count.
The game was brutal with US troops breaking and ELRing. However, CC was working well for the Americans in that they seemed to be very difficult when things were in close. For instance 1 Green squad held out in CC for 5 turns causing the German to slowly lose more potential VPs as he fed more troops into the fire. At one point there were 5 CC's going on with the US breaking even or causing more casualties than they lost in all of them.
Bt the top of T8 the Germans had lost 31 potential VP and still had a couple of units broken who would not attain the victory areas. The US lost one tank to the 150mm OBA, but the others were safely out of harms way from OBA and all of the German nasties. It helped that I had rolled 6 of my tanks with Gyros out of the 8 possible. Motion is your friend. So the Germans needed to either make a dash for the church or kill 2 tanks. They started after a couple of my flanking tanks only to find a pair of crisscrossing fire lanes, 1 from a heavy the other from a medium. These stopped that threat. The there was a made dash to get to the church with weak resources against a pair of squads in the rubbled portion of the church (note this means in Objective Schmidt that this is still part of the objective. The dash failed and the US held onto the church despite the still strong German presence in the southern portion of the town.
This is another of those tough PMC test for the defenders - and at 1 point where my dice were not being friendly I changed them up and then at another I did lose my cool with them. Also, being spread apart and not having much of the 6 FP squads is a test since now there is not the normal overwhelming FP that US units can muster.
Still an interesting situation and a challenge to both sides.
The US has an ELR of 2 and is mostly 2nd line and Green troops. They also need to cover a large area since the Germans can win by having 60 VP (calculated as EVP) on level 2 in an area just south of the church. If they take the church the Germans win immediately. I read my forces covering all approaches and stayed out of the steeple since that 150mm could start targeting the only high spot on level 2 in the scenario. Also I decided to not HIP my radio operator so that I could move him around without popping out of HIP.
The Germans have an issue getting the 60 VP since they have a fair amount of OG to cover and only have available 82 possible VP of their own forces. They do have a double edge sword in killing US tanks (8) that are not to enter until T7 of 8 or if they get too close to the church. Note they are only worth 4 its each since their crews do not count.
The game was brutal with US troops breaking and ELRing. However, CC was working well for the Americans in that they seemed to be very difficult when things were in close. For instance 1 Green squad held out in CC for 5 turns causing the German to slowly lose more potential VPs as he fed more troops into the fire. At one point there were 5 CC's going on with the US breaking even or causing more casualties than they lost in all of them.
Bt the top of T8 the Germans had lost 31 potential VP and still had a couple of units broken who would not attain the victory areas. The US lost one tank to the 150mm OBA, but the others were safely out of harms way from OBA and all of the German nasties. It helped that I had rolled 6 of my tanks with Gyros out of the 8 possible. Motion is your friend. So the Germans needed to either make a dash for the church or kill 2 tanks. They started after a couple of my flanking tanks only to find a pair of crisscrossing fire lanes, 1 from a heavy the other from a medium. These stopped that threat. The there was a made dash to get to the church with weak resources against a pair of squads in the rubbled portion of the church (note this means in Objective Schmidt that this is still part of the objective. The dash failed and the US held onto the church despite the still strong German presence in the southern portion of the town.
This is another of those tough PMC test for the defenders - and at 1 point where my dice were not being friendly I changed them up and then at another I did lose my cool with them. Also, being spread apart and not having much of the 6 FP squads is a test since now there is not the normal overwhelming FP that US units can muster.
Still an interesting situation and a challenge to both sides.
