J85 – PTICHIN’ IN
Legion defending as the Germans
Gus Waters attacking as the Partisans.
ROAR (P:G – 22:11) – 3rd June, 2008
Played with 31 VASL logfiles (June 2008)
For my first game against Gus we had a limited selection to choose from but in the end we decided to play this interesting little tussle. It is on a small board and pits a large Partisan force against a poor quality but well dug-in German force. As Gus is the newer player I chose to take the Germans figuring my experience will balance the apparent pro-Partisan bias
Initial Thoughts
Well ROAR certainly doesn’t give me much to hope for with this scenario. However I am probably a lot more experienced than Gus and will be defending so I am banking on these 2 things to make this an interesting game.
The Partisans out-number the Germans by 2:1 until the reinforcements arrive and even then they will have a numerical advantage. Leadership is identical. The initial defenders are of poor quality but at least the German can multi-hex firegroup, the Partisans cannot.
In terms of SW the Germans have the edge however with 2x 20L AA, MMG and LMG vs 2x LMG, ATR, 2x DC.
One of the biggest advantages the Germans have is the late arrival of 2x SPW 251/1, a FlaKPz 38(t) and a pair of unarmoured/ unarmed vehicles with 5x 467. This means that the Partisans must attempt to crush the Germans defending the bridge as quickly as possible and then prepare for the counterattack and the only effective weapons they have against the AFV are the ATR and Molotov cocktails.
The terrain works either way. Obviously the Bridge is the vital landmark and the Germans must ensure that they either Control any of the Bridge hexes/exit points by the end of Turn 5, or that they have 13CVP or more of the reinforcement on the Western side of the River by the end of the Scenario (Turn 8). Either way it promises to be a tight and torrid struggle as the superior German Weaponry is set against the Partisan’s numbers. The Eastern bank of the river is heavily wooded while there is a hill on the Western bank which is strategically important.
German Setup
I have gone for the all-out defence of the bridge as my plan. The reason for this is that not only is Gus’ inexperience is likely to work in my favour but the terrain can also be used to either provide a nasty killing field for either long-distance shooting or close-in work. For this reason I wanted my defence to be mutually supporting. I get free entrenchments which will be unseen by him until he enters LOS of their location and this allows me to again place my defence as central to the bridge as possible.
I have placed men on the hill more to deny it to him than to use it as a fire base. Likewise the Wire has been placed to force him to waste time should he enter from the West (he is allowed entry from any map edge!)
40H0 236, 436 2S Foxhole
40H9 Wire
40I9 20L FlaK 30 126
40I4 20L FlaK 30 126
40I8 447, 8-0
40J0 237, 447, MMG, LMG, 7-0 2S Foxhole
40L7 237, 436 2S Foxhole
I made a stupid mistake and forgot to place my AA Guns HIP. This has given Gus a huge advantage.
The Game
TURN 1
He is attacking from the North, South (9-1, 7-0, 10x 337, ATR, 2x DC) and West along the 3 roads. The Northern attack has their concealment stripped by my 40L7 units. The Western attack immediately stumbles on the Wire and finds itself having to climb the heavily wooded hills thus gaining CX. He does manage to get adjacent to me in these wooded hills, but is CX which gives me the initiative.
Even though his men on the hill are CX I cannot afford to either shoot at them or CC them, so I withdraw some of these Western units. I will need him to either show his hand or get within range of my massed FP before I take him on with any of my few men. I can still slow him down though as time is a factor here.
TURN 2
He just edges along, he doesn’t want to drop his concealment either… all his Units are only an Advance away from my lines and some of them (at least the ones with concealment) do Advance into my LOS, but otherwise this game is still developing and not much is happening.
I finally open up with my MG stack against a juicy looking stack of units coming at me from the South… it turns out that they are dummies… sigh… and I didn’t get ROF. My men continue to edge around though this time I am moving with a view to getting my Conscripts (due to their 3MP) within AM range of his men. I can no longer afford to back up and must start to fight it out now. He opens up from the wooded hills against my AA Gun position and misses malfunctioning a LMG in the process. I shoot back with the 20L AA for a HE TH on the ITT (slightly better odds than a 4FP IFE attack) and I get a CH! The RS (3x ‘1’) means all 3 units suffer the results and then the dice come up super-low again to K/1 this stack; he loses his 8-0 and a HS while the other 337 is broken. I Advance on the hill to surround his biggest stack with German troops, if I can crush this attack then I shall be well ahead in this game and he has no more leaders up here. The CC Phase exposes his Northern attack as only Dummies.
Partisan Losses: 127, 8-0 7x Dummy
The lucky Germans try to bluff the Partisans on the hill while the larger force prepares to attack in the West
TURN 3
As expected he pulls back on the Western hill in the face of my numerically inferior and less powerful attack. This shows how difficult it is for a less experienced player to gauge the right moment to attack. In essence I had just played a huge bluff and he fell for it. If it was JP (or any experienced attacker) he would have steam-rolled over me, or at least held his fire and waited for the CC Phase in which to attack me with Concealment. Down on the Eastern bank he is closing in on my Bridge defenders and generally keeping his concealment by just AM-ing forward but this doesn’t save a pair of 337 being broken by my IFE AA, one of them is CRed through luck and the high ROF Gun. Advance sends him into CC with my 426 on the hill but I manage to Ambush him despite his Partisans (we were both Concealed) and I withdraw while he loses his concealment on the stack of 3x 337, LMG. On the other side of the river he has put a combined stack of concealed and non-concealed units adjacent to my MG position.
Again Gus gets a Fate result in Rally and that finishes off one of his HS. Then for the 4th time this Turn he ends up with a 6,6 result from a MC as the withdrawn 426 joins with a 247 to punish the stack who tried to CC him; he has a unit CRed and ELR-Disrupted and another broken. The MG stack on the other side of the river gets another excellent DR and this smashes the 3x 337, 2x DC stack next to him, the AA Gun then smashes the same stack to gain another 2x CR results. Gus felt that this game was done and surrendered right here!
Partisan Losses: 3x 127, 337
The Partisans Surrendered
GERMAN VICTORY
Conclusion
Normally this is the kind of game that I would not bother writing up for an AAR but in this case I think there is still something to learn about the attackers tactics vs. an experienced defender. Also, with the game obviously being so heavily pro-Partisan from the ROAR results I am not too sure I would find anyone who was in a hurry to play this one.
The fact that the Partisans cannot firegroup is a negative for them. But this very fact forces the Attacker to play his men differently.
I think that Gus had the right idea with his attack; there were 3 thrusts at the German lines with the one from the North being a dummy attack. The dummy attack was a good idea, it held down roughly a third of my mobile forces and if it was timed to meet my lines at the same time as the Southern attack then it would have been a lot more effective. The Southern attack was always going to be difficult due to the narrowing of the terrain next to my MG nest and his moves to get Adjacent to me turned the game into a craps-shoot – the leader and 3x 337 with LMG should have anchored the attack, possibly from 32Y3 or 32Z2 while the others moved in for the kill.
The attack itself, on both the Western and Eastern banks should have been with individual 337s swarming all over the Germans positions. They are on roughly equal footing with FP attacks due to the Germans superior weaponry, ROF, range and defensive advantage, but the Partisans have an overwhelming advantage in terms of quantity and all they needed to do is get into CC and let the dice do the rest. Most CC will end up Melee which effectively takes the German unit out of the battle and allows the Partisans to bypass the position and deal with defender later if necessary.
Luck played an excessively large role in this game’s result and while the balance of the game had definitely turned towards the Germans through the continual low attack DRs I really don’t think it was over yet.
There is not much in this scenario to allow me to recommend it for play. The Partisans should be able to wipe the German initial forces off of the board in no time and then it is a simple matter of waiting for the Mobile reserve to blunder into the waiting guns. I really like the idea for the game, I just don’t think it is balanced enough to make it playable.