SASL HC Barbarossa Mission #9 (Winnable?)

[Ahriman667]

Howdy fellow ASL'ers.

Re Mission #9 of Hans Mielants Barbarossa campaign, and the three artillery strikes he gives the RU in lieu of 1/2 of the Advance attitude S? counters. Is this SASL HC version of the mission winnable? I contend that it is not, because of the VP Schedule below...


With three artillery strikes and I would say average rolls, you will have a lot of casualties on the GE side. (Let alone bad ones, like my first play through where the RU amassed 30VP, I had zero, was chased off the board, and lost two leaders and all but one full MMC). And that is not accounting for other EN fire phases, so right off the bat they will be getting VP. Unless you can spawn fortifications on the River Board, or activate Guns/AFV from the Hold S? and Advance S?, you will not generate any VP at all. You can have a cleared bridgehead area, but you will still lose on VP on average I would say. And this is all do to the randomness of your die rolls and absolutely zero to do with tactics (unless you want to spread out all your forces across the length of the river to avoid bunching up). Maybe the mapboard configuration (pic below shows beginning of GE Turn 2 when they just landed) I used requires spreading out, but then you risk activating upto 15 S? across the board without the combined FG strength to deal with them most likely. Hardly ideal.

I've played through the first few turns of this mission three/four times now, and only on the last one did the artillery prove less effective, but still the EN has 7 VP and I have bubcus, and we are only at turn 3, when the EN S? begin to enter the map. That means I have to pray for an AFV (at least two or even three I would think), which I then have to kill to get more VP then the RU without incurring anymore losses. Bearing in mind I only have ATR's to deal with any armour...hopefully I don't get KV's.

What do you think? Is there any other experience with this mission you guys would like to share? How did it turn out for you?

 

[Ahriman667]

Nobody else has played this mission that can offer any insight?

 

[TopT]

I never got that far in the CG. I thought the first 4-5 scenarios were too easy for the Germans and gave up. It just was not enjoyable, I guess.

I am going to soon start the 194th Infantrie Regiment CG but personal issues have kept me from working on anything substantial.

I would really like to join you in a play test of your CG with RO/ RB when you get to that point though.

 

[Ahriman667]

Roger that, I think we can arrange the RO/RB stuff.

I also found the first scenarios easygoing, except for that Pursuit one where I tactically screwed the pooch.

I'm currently doing another playthrough with vastly different results, so this might be doable. Recording it now and will YouTube it tonight and tomorrow.

 

[Barking Monkey]

I haven't played this particular variant of this mission but I've played 'Bridgehead' as published a few times. The vanilla mission is already plenty challenging enough (it's one of the few missions I have a losing record against: 1 win and 2 losses.) Having played a couple of Mr Mielants custom missions ('Path Clearing' and 'Lash Out') I wouldn't find it surprising that he'd taken an already tough mission and pushed it into the unwinnable category. ("Lash Out' left me leery of playing more of his custom missions. I think 'Path Clearing' is in the tough-but-winnable-at-least-sometimes category.)

As you say, even the published mission depends on your getting lucky and either generating a fortification that's easy enough to be beatable but tough enough to be worth some decent VP or else generating some ENEMY AFV that're light enough to be taken out with whatever LATW you may have available. From this perspective reducing the ENEMY advance attitude S? could actually hurt your chances a little. Three fire missions of OBA is pretty scary. The way ENEMY OBA works at least one, and maybe all, should drift off target and not do any damage, but it only takes one FFE on-target to do some serious harm, and once they find you they're likely to keep going. Given the river crossing nature of the mission this is actually a likely candidate for not just an auto-loss but has a fine chance to be a campaign-ender considering what could happen with FFEs hitting you mid crossing.

One possible, though gamey, work-around might be launching a few half squads ahead and away from your main crossing - remember that ENEMY FFE placement works it's way back from the closest FRIENDLY unit to the EBE, and MMC on boats/rafts don't have to take command rolls. The down side of this is you'd likely have to delay your crossing by a game turn which gives you that much less time to secure the bridgehead before the advance attitude S? start to roll on. In any event this is just a guess - like I said I've never played (or even seen) this particular variant of the mission. [Edit: I double checked the rulebook and ENEMY OBA targets units with a usage # of 3+, so you'd have to commit entire squads to this, making it a less attractive option.]

I'd encourage you to post your playing and viewpoint on the ASL Scenario Archive for the 'Bridgehead' mission, with a note about the specific mission variant involved.

 

[Ahriman667]

Thanks for the input Barking.

If your willing to delay the general crossing some turns, you could always sacrifice three squads to land the enemy side, draw down the artillery, and then move the rest. I think what really hit me hard (pun in intended) was that all three FFE's were 120's (24 FP on the IFT)...that's a lot of hurt raining down. Another way, though not recommended with the 4 NVR, is to spread your forces out and land individual squads rather than kill stacks. Unfortunately, this way you might actually lose more due to EN DFPh while you're still in the boats.

I've been uploading my mission playthroughs to my YouTube channel, rather than break them down here, but should probably do both. At any rate, running through this mission a 4th time, it might ACTUALLY be winnable. Comes down to a couple of close combats in the bridgehead area between an AFV and some squads, but as of now haven't lost anyone this time around (yet) though I did roll 70+ OBA for the three arty strikes and they all landed off-target this time.

 

[Ahriman667]

Commented on the mission on the ASL Archive.