The battle of Lanzerath

Wayne

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...I liked the Longest Winter also about the I&R Platoon that made a stand against the German Paras. There is a scenario about it but it’s old. All hand picked soldiers for the platoon based on soldier skill, marksmanship and intelligence.
Here is another account of the battle of Lanzerath: The Heroic Stand of an Intelligence Platoon

That account is closely echoed by this too:

See also: Wikipedia
 
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21Z5M

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This is done as a scenario in OAF. To me it looks about right but I would up the leadership on the American side to 10-2 and 9-2. Give the Americans a fire control team with at least 8-1. They also had a dug in armored jeep with a Ma deuce.

I don’t know about the Germans because they were under employed ground crews with a small cadre of combat experienced NCOs.
 
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Wayne

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This is done as a scenario in OAF ...up the leadership on the American side to 10-2 and 9-2. Give the Americans a fire control team with at least 8-1. They also had a dug in armored jeep with a Ma deuce.
OAF Journal #7
Scenario DW1: The I & R Platoon
AKA scenario OAF 122.3 (same title)

I've not seen the card. Nor could I find it online.

This historical action would be a tough thing to convert into ASL, I believe.

Seems their foxholes were effectively ASL pillboxes, that their SW complement was extraordinary going on lavish, and that they were stocked w/well over a typical unit-of-fire (re ammo on hand) -- enough for three battles that day, anyway.

Given that 9x of the 19 men were decorated for heroism, one could almost go a bit design-bonkers and make a HASL-ish case for
9x ASL Heroes (!) in the OB plus
(given their way-atypical training) 3x Fanatic Infantry Crews [or 2x Elite HSs w/a Self-Rally capbility via SSR and an adaptation of a Walking Wounded SSR from some HASL]
in lieu of squads/HSs.

Heck, one could even spin up an inherent FP ROF SSR for the units.

Or some imaginative soup of the above and more - multiple bore sighting? - given some accounts of US head-shot kills, maybe a high SAN "just because" ?
wikipedia said:
Several attackers were killed trying to climb over the 4 feet (1.2 m)-high barbed wire fence that bisected the field, often shot at close range with a single shot to the heart or head.
I can think of other outside-the-box ASL tweaks but will give it a rest.

Such numerous and radical departures from ASL scenario norms certainly would make for a "scenario w/a difference," but that I&R "platoon" was way different from anything close to "typical" US infantry, is my reading.
I don’t know about the Germans because they were under employed ground crews with a small cadre of combat experienced NCOs.
They were pretty well equipped though and (at that date) likely kinda hyped? Maybe a brittle ELR...

[Given the (probably inflated?) historical German losses, I can see a case too for the (ever-unpopular) optional BI rule being tried?]

Anyway, just supposing... bottom line, this action seems kinda beyond the boundary of ASL.
 

Actionjick

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OAF Journal #7
Scenario DW1: The I & R Platoon
AKA scenario OAF 122.3 (same title)

I've not seen the card. Nor could I find it online.

This historical action would be a tough thing to convert into ASL, I believe.

Seems their foxholes were effectively ASL pillboxes, that their SW complement was extraordinary going on lavish, and that they were stocked w/well over a typical unit-of-fire (re ammo on hand) -- enough for three battles that day, anyway.

Given that 9x of the 19 men were decorated for heroism, one could almost go a bit design-bonkers and make a HASL-ish case for
9x ASL Heroes (!) in the OB plus
(given their way-atypical training) 3x Fanatic Infantry Crews [or 2x Elite HSs w/a Self-Rally capbility via SSR and an adaptation of a Walking Wounded SSR from some HASL]
in lieu of squads/HSs.

Heck, one could even spin up an inherent FP ROF SSR for the units.

Or some imaginative soup of the above and more - multiple bore sighting? - given some accounts of US head-shot kills, maybe a high SAN "just because" ?

I can think of other outside-the-box ASL tweaks but will give it a rest.

Such numerous and radical departures from ASL scenario norms certainly would make for a "scenario w/a difference," but that I&R "platoon" was way different from anything close to "typical" US infantry, is my reading.

They were pretty well equipped though and (at that date) likely kinda hyped? Maybe a brittle ELR...

[Given the (probably inflated?) historical German losses, I can see a case too for the (ever-unpopular) optional BI rule being tried?]

Anyway, just supposing... bottom line, this action seems kinda beyond the boundary of ASL.
Very, very nice! Another book I have to read now and I am already three books behind.

In another thread someone ( memory for names sucks ) mentioned using existing rules to modify scenarios instead of new rules. He called them OB levers and this sounds like a perfect chance to stretch the OB lever envelope. It seems as if this group of soldiers deserve envelope stretching to the max!

Battlefield Integrity. Not popular IIRC but perhaps appropriate for a scenario depicting this action.

You should throw this idea into the Designer's thread and see if a designer or two has the gumption and creativity to make it the scenario it deserves.

While you are at it mention Bucholz Station and have someone design Battle At the Boxcars! I love that as a scenario title.
 

Actionjick

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The Germans did several frontal assaults and hit a farmer’s fence. An experienced NCO took over and flanked the position
And that is why those individuals are so important.
 

21Z5M

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I think the early Northern Bulge scenarios are great.
 

bendizoid

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The Germans did several frontal assaults and hit a farmer’s fence. An experienced NCO took over and flanked the position
Then they met the guy who took them prisoner in a bar after the war.
 

Jwil2020

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Even better: according to Rushiecki (author of The Key to the Bulge: The Battle for Losheimergraben) 1Lt. Lyle Bouck Jr. (the CO of the I&R platoon), met that NCO, veteran paratrooper Vince Kuhlbach, in 1969 during a battlefield tour/reunion of American and German veterans of the battle organized by John S.D. Eisenhower in conjunction with the publishing of his book on the Ardennes campaign, The Bitter Woods.

It was Eisenhower's book that first made public the account of how an understrength platoon held up what amounted to a whole paratroop regiment for the better part of a day and threw Joachim Peiper's Kampfgruppe irretrievably off schedule.

Mysteriously, Hugh Cole, author of the monumental The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge, the U.S. Army's official history of the Ardennes published in 1964, never mentioned it.
 
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Hutch

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From the Wiki:

Due to lost communications with battalion and then regimental headquarters, and the unit's subsequent capture, its disposition and success at delaying the advance of the 6th Panzer Army that day was unknown to U.S. commanders. First Lieutenant Lyle Bouck considered the wounding of most of his men and the capture of his entire unit a failure.[4] When the war ended five months later, the platoon's men, who were split between two prisoner-of-war camps, just wanted to get home. It was only after the war that Bouck learned that his platoon had prevented the lead German infantry elements from advancing and had delayed by about 20 hours their armored units' advance. On October 26, 1981, after considerable lobbying, a Congressional hearing, and letter writing by Bouck, every member of the unit was finally recognized for their valor that day, making the platoon the most decorated American unit of its size of World War II.
 
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21Z5M

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Lt Bouck’s PSG was in the running to be the first Sergeant Major of the Army. The man must have been amazing. Bouck enlisted in the National Guard at 16. He had 5 years of experience before he was captured. He also taught defensive tactics in a stateside school house for other officers.
 
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Hutch

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Looking at the map provided by Wayne, to recreate an actual attack SSR, the Germans would have to first make 2 frontal attacks on a slope with 4.5 hexes (200yds) OG with a barbed-wire fence (P3) in the center. This against the 30cal in the foxhole plus the 50cal on one of the Jeeps.
 
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Actionjick

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Looking at the map provided by Wayne, to recreate an actual attack SSR, the Germans would have to first make 2 frontal attacks on a slope with 4.5 hexes (200yds) OG with a barbed-wire fence (P3) in the center. This against the 30cal in the foxhole plus the 50cal on one of the Jeeps.
Sounds doable!😉
 

Wayne

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I found too this low-res satellite image markup on some traveler's website:
21971
No telling, re markup accuracy, but seems likely to be close.

Searching "Lanzerath, Belgium" in Google Earth gets me almost the same view, plus ground elevation info (though such elevation info may be wonky, I'm discovering).

There's some Google Earth Street View value there too, though nothing =too= great. E.g., this Street View below is roughly the sight line up slope and along the lower-most white makrup arrow above:
21972
[The 3x flags just upper right of center in the Google pic above mark the war monument, I presume.]

Hand-drawn 1981 sketch I posted several messages above was by a US participant, noted also re his cartography skills. I suppose memory from so many years will have introduced some variance. Even had he drawn it contemporaneously, there'd be the "problem" that eyewitness accounts generally differ. Still, short of going there, seems improbable there exists a better source.
 

Actionjick

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I found too this low-res satellite image markup on some traveler's website:
View attachment 21971
No telling, re markup accuracy, but seems likely to be close.

Searching "Lanzerath, Belgium" in Google Earth gets me almost the same view, plus ground elevation info (though such elevation info may be wonky, I'm discovering).

There's some Google Earth Street View value there too, though nothing =too= great. E.g., this Street View below is roughly the sight line up slope and along the lower-most white makrup arrow above:
View attachment 21972
[The 3x flags just upper right of center in the Google pic above mark the war monument, I presume.]

Hand-drawn 1981 sketch I posted several messages above was by a US participant, noted also re his cartography skills. I suppose memory from so many years will have introduced some variance. Even had he drawn it contemporaneously, there'd be the "problem" that eyewitness accounts generally differ. Still, short of going there, seems improbable there exists a better source.
Nice!
 
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