I was able to play out the last few games of the WW2 solo campaign this weekend. Here are two quick summaries of the games which saw the Guards defences succumb to the advancing Panzer Grenadiers units.
The penultimate action has a small and well armoured German force advancing upon a small Guards force before it was able to retire as ordered. Air support had been called in and was available.
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| Air support arrives early and quickly deals with some armoured infantry outside of AA cover. |
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| The Guards ground forces are easily dealt with as air support has a final attack run. |
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| Campaign map showing the above action circled in blue. |
The campaign map below shows the new positions after the above action. The Guards defences are struggling to hold back the advancing Panzer Grenadier forces. As usual the Guards make their orders before the German moves are determined. They chose to split their forces to cover the two nearest threats.
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| Guard orders |
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| Panzer Grenadier moves |
The Panzer Grenadier moves, all dice driven, consolidate a couple of forces and push forward south displacing a lonely AA unit. The final action has a Guard's tank troop, armoured car section and mortar section making a last ditch attack.
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| Units deployed on the tabletop. |
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| German armoured infantry push up on the flank. |
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| The Guards tank troop respond to the flanking move and the German tank troop advances to become involved. |
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| The Guards's tank troop is eliminated, but not before inflicting damage to both the armoured infantry and tanks. |
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| The German tank retires to a defensive position. With only an armoured car section and mortar any attack on the remaining tank would be futile. |
So the Panzer Grenadiers have successfully broken through the Guards defence and can advance into open country side. But how strong are their remaining forces?
Looking at the available Panzer Grenadier units they could certainly push ahead with their tank troops, but without many infantry lack the ability to hold any gains. Remaining units:
- 2 mortar sections
- Mobile AT section
- 2 AA sections (one being an 88mm)
- 2 tank troops
- AT section
- 1 armoured infantry platoon
During the course of the breakthrough as they pushed southwards. Over half of their units were lost or rendered ineffective.
A win for the Panzer Grenadiers who had to breakthrough. The next post will cover the rules used and any other thoughts on what worked and did not work in the campaign.
Your campaign was very enjoyable, Peter. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jonathan. A fun campaign which lasted about the right length, not too long and not too short.
DeleteYes, enjoyed it also,thanks
ReplyDeleteThanks Norm. The campaign certainly provided a series of small enjoyable actions to be played.
DeleteThis has been an excellent series, thanks Peter.
ReplyDeleteAlso useful to see how the dice driven 'enemy' can create such havoc.
Looking forward to the post game analysis.
Thank you. It was surprising how effective an opponent dice driven moves could be.
DeleteUnfortunately the writing had been on the wall for a bit and v. Würfel is no doubt polishing his shiny new Oak Leaves for his Knight's Cross. So how do we stop adding some Swords as well?
ReplyDeletePersonally I felt that doing the movement sequentially meant that the Guards' plans were rarely enacted as envisaged. How about making movement simultaneous, i.e. if the you order a unit to leave a square that the enemy enters then both move uncontested unless of course they're passing in opposite directions along the same road. If they do clash in that way you could allow the side with initiative (i.e. who won the last game) to decide in which square the action is fought in; v. Würfel would, I assume, always choose to advance in the case of the campaign just played as he is the attacker. This is just shooting from the hip so I guess you'll probably be able to shoot holes in it.
Thanks Rob. Once there was a gap in the Guards defence line it was always going to be difficult to recover. I tend to agree with your thoughts on simultaneous campaign moves.
DeleteLooks very nice, love the pic with the plane, splendid!
ReplyDeleteThanks Phil. It is always nice to see the air force in a game.
DeleteThat was a very fine operation! In games of this type, I generally try to 'program' the defender (probably because I like to attack, when possible - don't like being on the defensive). But from what I've seen here, maybe I'm missing something!
ReplyDeleteThank you. I am not sure why I took the defender's role. Possibly it was the way I read the Chapter in Wargame Campaigns had put in the mindset of being the defending Guards.
ReplyDelete