Myself and Russ were the Yanks with not much in the way of anything apart from gullible troops who were told to 'hold at all costs'. Ian had all the good stuff - STuG's, King Tigers, a whole regiment of engineers and assorted other stuff. He had to capture our hills and road junctions in 18 turns. We had to stop him doing so.
At our disposal - some minefields and the opportunity to blow some bridges. But the tanks could cross the frozen streams and so we could only stop the trucks by blowing bridges. So we decided to focus on blowing just one bridge and mining the roads.
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| The Panzergrenadiers move up the road and over the first bridge. |
The only mistake we made was not to mine the right flank. We thought he'd send his tanks that way and so it proved. With his engineers otherwise engaged we could have taken a few of his tanks out. We instead had mined the area in front of our foremost infantry unit.
In terms of who was where, Task Force Able (6 rifle platoons, a HMG and 2 crappy anti-tank guns) hid on Hill 101 overlooking a bridge. Task Force Baker (4 rifle platoons, an 81mm mortar, 2 Scout Cars and 4 M10 tank hunters) was sitting on Hills 503 and 504 in the middle of the table. Task Force Charlie (3 Engineer Platoons, 3 Rifle Platoons, 2 M16 MGMC, 2 105 howitzers and a jeep) hid in a wood alongside a bridge and across from Hill 502. Task Force Delta (8 rifle platoons, 2HMG and an M7 Priest) were dug in on Hill 501 overlooking the main road. Task Force Easy (9 rifle platoons on M5 Halftracks and 3 M5 Stuart tanks) were on the road between Hills 302 and 301. Our only real strength was Task Force Fred - a medium tank battalion of M4 Shermans.
Coming there way was Kampfgruppe Peiper, 1st Panzer Division. You'd better hide behind the sofa before reading this lot. The 501st schwere SS Panzer Abteilung (heavy tank battalion) with a Tiger II HQ and 2 Tiger II's per company. Oh, and Veteran's as well. Mummy!
With them, the SS Panzer Grenadiers Regiment 2 - gepanzert of course, reinforced with 3 Stug IIIg (1 Veteran, 1 Regular).
And to add to the fun, the 1st SS Pioneer Battalion (all Engineers, all Veteran).
Ian assumed he would sweep us from the table. So did we.
Just so you know, the special rules were that tracked vehicles could cross any stream but wheeled vehicles had to cross the bridges. So we could slow him down by blowing bridges but - given the prevalence of engineers on the German side - the chances of blowing bridges were slim. We instead put our faith in minefields on the road.
In terms of victory conditions, the Germans had to capture hills and road junctions. The more they gained, the greater the German victory, the less points, the greater the American victory.
The Battle
The Germans rolled forward along both roads. The Pioneers came down our left and the Panzergrenadiers on the right. The heavy tanks came up behind and up the middle. The Pioneers made good progress - and immediately found a minefield. In such a rush to get up the road and take objectives, Ian lost a few trucks stuffed with Engineers and had more Suppressed. They soon got up to the bridge which was rigged for blowing and protected by Task Force Charlie.
Task Force Able lay in wait on Hill 101 overlooking the second bridge, over which came the SS Panzergrenadiers. As soon as the first vehicles came over, the anti-tank guns opened up and took out a couple of vehicles.
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| Task Roce Able after killing a couple of German vehicles. Note that the ATG's were too weak to kill anything with armour. In the distance, the bridge protected by Charlie which the Pioneers were crossing |
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| Further back - more Panzergrenadiers, and big tanks. |
Of course, Able were now exposed and took the full fury of German counter-fire. Luckily, this meant Ian throwing dice so they survived long, long after they should have been wiped out.
The Pioneers caught some hell from Charlie. The howitzers fired over open sights and took out a truck each of Pioneers as well as an APC.
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| Charlie guarding the bridge - they've just obliterated a couple of Pioneer trucks. |
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| More and more Germans rolling through the Ardennes. Blow the petrol dump! |
So the Pioneers rushed at Charlie in the woods and a tremendous firefight took place. We found them almost impossible to kill but for every turn we held them up, it was another turn without Germans getting objectives.
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| Pioneers and Charlie get it on! Meanwhile the mined road is cleared. |
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| Traffic jam as the Pioneers try to clear the bridge. |
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| The big scrap continues. |
Also holding on, miraculously, were Able. No infantry were tempted to take on the MG and dug in troops and Ian was reluctant to test his tanks against them either (just as well as the minefield would have taken a toll before they even got near).
So he gambled on MG's, mortars and big guns to do the job from a distance. Able pretty much was powerless to do anything but keep dug in and take it. Of course casualties were inflicted but - the same as Charlie - they were holding up the German advance.
Or at least some of it. Ian decided to roll his tanks and Grenadiers either side of Hill 101. They were held up by the stream but not much else.
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| Able hold on as the Germans try to go around them. |
Able were now getting an absolute pounding. But they were still there. And we had already used up 5 turns. But both ATG's had been killed and it wouldn't be long until the coup de grace was applied. Tanks, mortars, MG;s and everything else opened up on Hill 101.
Easy were now in place on 502 - and were spotted. We found we had to get the Stuarts down off the hill immediately as the panzers were close - if they stayed there, they'd be blown away. The M5 APC's were also abandoned as troops dug in before being blown up.
By Hill 101 the Germans had bridged the stream and started getting vehicles across.
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| Bridge over the stream - and the way is open to bypass Charlie's bridge. |
However, much time had passed. 4 of our units had not even been engaged and the Germans had yet to take any objectives. Note that our tanks had not been in action. The reason for this was that they were on a flank march, aiming to appear on Turn 10 to the right of Charlie's bridge. The idea had been for us to blow the bridge (which was mined on the exit) thereby holding up the Germans on our left. We thought they'd just be getting over the bridge by then - so our tanks would arrive just as they were engaging either Easy or Delta on their respective hills.
If the German tanks (which had gone down our right side as we suspected) had got to Hill 504 then Baker could hold them up - and our tanks could roll on and take on the Panzers on the flank.
But our plan was off schedule. The Pioneers still hadn't crossed the bridge and were only just getting past Hill 101. We were in danger of shooting our bolt and the Shermans would hit thin air.
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| Easy on Hill 502 - the first 'objective' hill. The Stuarts soon made a run for it as the Panzers appeared. |
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| Able finally give up. Hill 101 is clear but they've help up the Panzers and panzergrenadiers for 7 turns. |
The view was that as most of the objective hills had Yanks on them and half the turns had gone, the Germans would struggle to win. His big Panzers were reluctant to take on dug-in infantry on the hills alone, but huge chunks had been taken out of the Pioneers and the bridge was still ready to be blown (and it was mined as well). So the Germans on our left still had a long way to go - and were also about to be hit by a Sherman whirlwind.
However, the Panzers similarly had not much to hold them up - and if they got through Baker then there was nothing to stop them.
So we could call it a draw - but we know the Americans won really!
Thanks to Mark for putting it all on. I've missed Spearhead and it was a cracking scenario. Trouble is, we only seem to have a few hours to get a battle on during Club nights - and we'd also discussed the Tarawa campaign which had taken some time.
All in all though - great fun.