A BRIDGE TOO FAR
CGIII
JP playing British
19EVE
After a tough 19PM game in which both of us lost more than we wanted I am planning on having a quieter game this time. My plan is to take Block ‘D’ and ‘F’ by dropping 150mm arty on each block combined with 120mm arty as harassing fire on the same hex thus forcing him to stay and take the hits from the 150mm or run and take the 8FP in the open from the harassing fire. As I learnt from last game my 1 ELR means I need to be very careful about where and when I expose my troops to his fire. Block ‘F’ will be the 1st to feel the wrath of this plan while in the eastern side of the board I will just aim to put as much firepower onto any Upper Level Brit I can find and I will not be advancing more than the one hex needed to ensure he doesn’t get Block ‘N’ for free.
Basically this game is just a firefight with little or no manoeuvring, to increase my firepower I have bought a MG and an arty section for Block ‘C’ and an ART section for Brinkman as well. Off board I have a depleted rifle platoon and a full strength engineer platoon ready to enter and take Block ‘F’ at the appropriate time. While the onboard troops in Block ‘C’ will be tasked with taking Block ‘D’ after the OBA from ‘F’ has shifted and worn them down somewhat.
I will be happy killing 6 squads a game from here on as that will leave him with about a dozen for the final game.
Turn 1
My 150mm OBA hit Block ‘F’ on target and caused some serious breaking despite the emergence of two fortified hexes but unfortunately my harassing arty was off target thus enabling them to rout out of Block ‘F’ and into Block ‘H’. I had a massive amount of firepower aimed at one very unfortunate half squad in Z14 and after my 4 MG, 2 ART, 3 AFV and MTR fired there wasn’t much left of him, although he did absorb a lot of firepower. In my movement I just sent a few squads from Block ‘U’ into Block ‘N’ as a flanking support for my Panther and Pz IIIL, which are moving down the road to U1.
He dropped 80mm OBA on my 150mm ART and my 81mm MTR in Block ‘C’ an obvious action on his part as the block is overcrowded but there is not a lot I can do at this point. Interestingly he has started moving big stacks out of Blocks ‘O’ and ‘P’ and running them into ‘H’ which will make my job easier in the future. He seems to have only put 2 stacks into Block N’ and, although my original plan was to just have a feint in that block I really must try to take it given how few troops he has in there. Unfortunately I don’t have many troops to do this with but I can get a scratch force of half a dozen squads in there along with a StuG, Pz IIIL and a HMG HT. Movement puts two squads into the fortified hexes that are under the 150mm OBA in Block ‘F’ which worked perfectly for me as they were both broken in defensive fire. I can not praise the 150mm OBA enough, even with the +5drm it can get a NMC on a roll of ‘8’ and can cause rubble or flame on rolls of ‘5’ or less – that’s enough of a threat to make any Brit duck for cover and I am sure it will influence his setups for the following games. I also CR’ed one of the squads in Block ‘N’; with that unit and the one he is stacked with routing out of the block (he voluntarily broke and even took interdiction!! A sure sign that he is aware of his losses) – only one stack left to go in that block.
Turn 2
I adjusted my OBA to start attacking the area around Block ‘D’ and moved a couple of squads into the front row of ‘D’ – not sure why I did that at this point but it just “felt right”- he has lost a squad and a half from the OBA in block ‘F’ and my troops took it without loss so I guess that I am letting him know that it is Block ‘D’s turn now and, I feel that he will do Defensive Fire and then move out of the block, he is starting to realise that his squad losses are mounting up. Another indicator of his reticence to get heavily engaged in Block ‘N’ so this is a bit of a pre-emptive bluff as the 4 squads I was going to assault with are still in Block ‘A’.
In Block ‘N’ I manoeuvred to get a 16FP attack at the 2 broken guys that had routed out (killing Brits is always my prime directive – kill enough and the blocks will fall cheaply) I also have three squads ready to advance adjacent his last stack in Block ‘N’ which I hope will be enough to kill him. Down in Block ‘R’ I am moving into the block further than I wanted to but I need to get to BB16 in order to be able to put fire on the road AA13 – AA15 thus preventing him from charging a unit into Block ‘N’ and denying me the block at games end. I also moved the last of my off-board reinforcements into l0 this has given me a line of fire down the road M1 to S4 and, given that my Panther in U1 has acquired a 9-1 and a 648 in their foxhole in Q2 I am hoping to kill them with firepower alone as they seem to be out of routing options (other than taking interdiction) and will just have to sit tight and pray. His OBA and snipers have taken a toll though, so far I have lost 2HTs ,a 37mm HT and 2 leaders (a 10-2 and a 9-1) while his losses have been 2.5 squads and 1 crew.
Turn 3
I took some heavy losses from his OBA and his snipers were especially good this turn. The guys that moved into Block ‘D’ got creamed by a defiladed fire group of 2x 648 each armed with a LMG and accompanied by a 9-2 leader. With this in mind I started to assault Block ‘B’ with the intention of creating a flanking attack on ‘D’. He exposed an AT gun that caused some serious damage to my troops and I pulled them back in Rout but have the resources available to lay down a smoke screen and take the block next turn.
Overall I am surprised at his lack of desire to make me take losses, he seems to be more interested in keeping his troops alive and taking little bites out my force when they attack rather than standing toe-to-toe. If he had chosen to counterattack Block ‘C’ with his 80mm OBA punishing any routing Germans I could have been in all sorts of peril.
Turn 4
I have run a platoon of engineers into the north end of Block ‘H’ (a building collapsed onto the street from my 150mm OBA thus giving me cover all the way across.) The engineers are there to start fires in the church to deny him the elevation advantage for his OBA spotter and lay down some serious fire on the Brits in the Q2 foxhole (the ones that are bracketed by the Panther on the other side of the board). A snake eyes from my OBA on his foxhole at J5 destroyed 2 crew, a squad, a 51*MTR, a 76*MTR and an 57L AT gun when the random selection came up as all 2’s!! That was the big morale booster for me and I then knew that my new plan would work and he would just be ground down over the CG.
I also re-assaulted Block ‘B’ this time under the cover of a smoke screen and was able to take it easily and start putting fire on to one of the rear hexes of Block ‘D’. I also drove a Tiger into the road and put an area acquired onto the hex next hex along the rear row. The next 2 hexes in that row were a Blaze and a Flame so he now only has one hex left to put troops and that is in the LOS of my OBA observers so my confidence is building.
Turn 5
I am concerned about my engineers being stuck in Block ‘H’ but I really want to kill the Q2 guys so I will Prep Fire and take a chance. His 9-1 leader died in that hex while a hidden AT gun adjacent scored a deliberate immobilisation on my Panther and the crew bailed out. I also consolidated my hold on Block ‘N’; it would be suicide for him to try and get a man in there now. This has been a great turn for me and the easy way I took the (in my opinion) second most important block on the board has buoyed my spirits no end. With Germans in Block ‘N’ then Blocks ‘O’ and ‘P’ are guaranteed to fall next game with Block ‘R’ after that. I really need some of the troops and vehicles from Graebner and taking the bridge is my 20PM goal. My engineers in Block ‘H’ found a HIP MTR and crew and were able to destroy the MTR and kill the crew with their FT. The squad in Q2 also CR-ed.
Turn 6
Its time to run away!! I finally killed the Q2 squad and my engineers will voluntarily break in his rout phase and rout out of ‘H’. I adjusted my OBA onto the church where it caused a couple of his squads to break but did no damage to my engineers (yes, I dropped 150mm OBA on my own troops – it is that desperate!) This now allows me to move an SS Rifle Squad and an engineer adjacent to the broken guys in the church and cause havoc in the Advancing Fire as they will take the shot and then have to rout into the rest of the OBA.
It was after my prep fire that Legion offered his surrender.
Final thoughts
He played well and avoided taking losses but still lost 12 squad equivalents as well as an AT gun and 3 mortars. Changing my plan to the historical way the battle was fought guaranteed me the win, and I can not praise the 150mm OBA enough, it has a +1 on the ammo roll so will never be scarce, and if you buy the pre-reg hex for the extra black chit it is a guaranteed (well, almost) killing machine. Using both OBA in the same area/hexes caused him untold deaths and was a great tactic.
His 57mm guns caused a lot of tank losses and by the end of the game I hardly moved my tanks for fear of losing them, I strongly advise any German to try and destroy the AT guns as early as possible. Likewise his mortars were a nuisance with the way they dropped SMOKE on my big fire groups/tanks it was only after I started deliberately targeting the mortars that I was able to get a superior weight of firepower on to his troops.
Overall an excellent game, it has been a long time since Legion and I have had a CG that lasted this long and I enjoyed it immensely.
We played Battlefield Integrity and my ELR reduced to ‘1’ after the 17N game, and I attacked too early in the 18PM game taking heavy losses; without these setbacks for the Germans I very much doubt that the game would have lasted as long as it did as it seems to be very biased towards the Germans. (Was nice to get a win though, Legion is a better player than me and I learned a lot in this game and am happy to accept the surrender!)