JunoBear After Action Report

Tradition demands that on the Queen's birthday holiday weekend a select group of men abandon their families, forsake home and comfort and gather at Paddington RSL to play Advanced Squad Leader.  This grizzled band of veterans, each one scarred with the marks of cardboard battles won and lost talk quietly among themselves in a jargon unintelligible to outsiders.  Terms like "HIP", "infantry critical" and "low crawl" are tossed around in a lingua gamer apparently designed to exclude outsiders.

Before long it was time to begin and eyes narrowed as a dozen men squinted myopically at tiny slivers of coloured cardboard covered in even tinier writing.  Hands palsied only slightly with age and drink rattled cups containing dice worn with use and, with the bellies of experience resting comfortably on the thighs of endurance the first shots were fired.

All four scenarios in the tournament were set in and around the city of Bobriusk in 1944 as parts of what the Soviets called "Operation Bagration" and what the Germans originally called "What the hell was that?" but on reflection renamed "the Destruction of Army Group Centre".

Break In

 

The first scenario saw a powerful force of Soviets, eleven elite or first line squads backed up by three T34M43 tanks assaulting a spotty force of three German squads, as many half squads and a single 75mm anti tank gun.  To redress this somewhat lopsided odds ratio the Germans were provided with a plethora of fortifications; six wire counters, twenty four factors of minefields, four trenches and three pillboxes.  The Soviets gained two points for each pillbox captured and one for each trench for a total of ten.  Germans gained points for the ones they could hang on to.

 

My opponent was David Bishop who took command of the vengeful Soviets while I had the Germans.  I had come up with what I thought was a rather clever plan (subsequent events would show it to be babbling idiocy but that's anticipating).  I set up my fortifications in layers, first wire, then minefields then trenches and finally pillboxes.  With my front as I thought secured I set up the anti tank gun to protect against a flanking attack.  As it happened I needn't have bothered.  David simply smashed through my front.

 

You see I had forgotten about the smoke.  On the first Soviet turn a shroud of smoke blanketed my positions and made it impossible for my troops to see.  The whole point behind a layered defence such as mine is not to stop the enemy but to give your guys plenty of opportunities to shoot them while they struggle through it.  With the smoke blinding my troops David simply charged forward unharmed.  The wire delayed his infantry and he cleared the antipersonnel mines by the simple expedient of driving tanks over them but his force reach my trench line pretty much unscathed except for a single lucky shot from the ATG which managed to blow the tracks off a T34.  There were some tough close combats and I managed to kill another T34 with a panzerfaust (the burning wreck providing him with yet more protection from my fire) but David got into my trenches and disposed of my entire force for a complete victory.

 

 

Break Through

 

The second scenario saw another, somewhat tougher force of Germans attempting to defend a roadblock.  The onrushing Soviet hordes, commanded by Paul Haseler, had to traverse a wood, the road was the only practicable route for their armour and the Germans had a roadblock on it.  The Soviets had to smash their way through the roadblock and exit vehicles and troops off the edge of the board.  They had three AFVs (two light tanks and an armoured car) plus three squads of cavalry and a pair of half squads.  Each AFV exited was worth two points, each squad was worth one.  Additionally five squads of partisans arose from the countryside to give the Germans more of a headache.  The Germans, unfortunately commanded by me, for their part had four squads, an antitank gun, a Marder self propelled gun, a trio of half squads and a small mortar.  All of them had to set up within three hexes of the roadblock. 

 

One option for setting up the roadblock was at the very front of the woods thus allowing a clear shot for the various anti tank weapons as the Soviets approached.  I considered this and rejected it.  It allowed the partisans to deploy in the German rear and effectively surround them.  I took the second option and deployed well back with my rear and one flank covered by the edge of the board.  The Marder and the ATG were deployed to bring fire down on the roadblock and the bulk of my infantry, leavened with dummies was spread in a semicircle covering my open southern flank with a ring of steel.  The mortar went to the rear to deal with any partisan infiltration.

 

My plan fell apart in the first turn.  Paul deployed his partisans to deal with my infantry while his vehicles and cavalry rushed down the road before halting around a bend from the roadblock.  This is really an infantry scenario, the armour is too precious in points to risk until you've already won the game.  The partisans eagerly came to grips with my infantry who collapsed like wet cardboard.  At the end of the first turn a huge gap had been torn in my southern flank while his cavalry had dismounted and were deploying in the north to deal with the Marder.

 

With defeat assured false hope was then provided as my surviving southern troops tied down his partisans in interminable close combats.  This caused Paul to move circumspectly but eventually he got his northern troops in a position to do bad things to the Marder.  The Marder is a great tanker killer, as an infantry killer it leaves a bit to be desired and most of its infantry support was locked in close combat with partisans.  A half squad of Soviets died getting close to the Marder but then it was gone.  Meanwhile other infantry had blown up the roadblock.  I actually won a close combat or two in the south but by then his infantry was swarming forward.  My only real success came when Paul apparently got a bit impatient and tried to find my ATG with his armoured car.  He succeeded and a single shot was sufficient to reduce the car to scrap.  With my last ace revealed however his infantry rolled over it and the way was clear for his surviving forces to exit.  Not quite a complete victory, he got seven points, I got three.

 

 

Break Out

 

The third scenario was set after the encirclement was complete and the Germans were doomed.  In desperation they grabbed everything left in their vehicle park and threw it at the encircling Soviets in an attempt to escape.  Naturally this was the one where I was attacking as the Germans.  The Germans have a light tank and a collection of nine half tracks and armoured cars carrying everything from machine guns to mortars and a 75mm gun.  They started at one end of the board and had to make it off the other.  The Soviets, played by David Longworth, had a .50 cal machine gun, an anti tank rifle, an anti tank gun and would be reinforced by a pair of self propelled guns of various types and troops toting demolition charges and a flame thrower.

 

OK, David is a good player and placed his troops well but basically I had no idea what I was doing.  My plan (to give it a title it didn't deserve) was to split into two forces and try therefore to ensure the survival of one of them.  I rolled passed his defended forward buildings (I'm not a complete fool, I did try laying smoke but it wasn't successful) and moved onwards leaving them to shoot at my rear.  Halfway across the map was a stream, with no bridges, which meant everybody was going to get wet and possibly bog.  My light tank splashed through the stream and out the other side but an armoured car which tried to follow bogged.  A second half track was shot in the rear by the troops I had bypassed and destroyed.  An armoured car I had moved to the centre was destroyed by the .50cal and small arms fire took out another half track. 

 

Now splendidly alone my tank gunned forward to be ambushed and destroyed by a well placed ATG gun and a newly arriving ZSU-37 killed another vehicle.  This was turn two and I was six vehicles down facing an unbroken defence.  I gave up which isn't exactly glorious but was a fair indication of how the game had gone.  Others did better which indicates that the fault essentially lies with me.  Having been crushed like a bug and having garnered three point from a possible thirty I faced the final scenario with trepidation.

 

Break Apart

 

With the encirclement complete and the Germans crushed all that remained was to moved against their desperate and shell shocked rear guard holed up behind medieval walls in the city of Bobriusk itself.  This time I would be the Soviets commanding nine squads of troops ranging from good to excellent, backed up by demo charges, a flame thrower, the SU76 self propelled guns and some of the best officers ever to be seen on a Soviet order of battle.  The Germans had seven squads ranging from good to poor, a medium machine gun, a panzershreck and the thickest walls you've ever seen.  There were ten objective buildings with a point for each building.  Peter Palmer was my opponent. 

 

My approach options were limited by the wall, you either had to go around the wall or through some narrow and easily shot at breaches.  Peter had set up his main defence in the centre with an outlying force in the west to cover my set up.  The east yawned empty of defending troops but was a long way away.  I decided to send most of my force west where they could be supported by the self propelled guns who turned up from that direction and push the remainder of my troops (toting flamethrowers and demo charges) through a breach in that wall in the centre.

 

The first two turns were almost an anticlimax in the centre as my troops uneasily aware of the fact that they were carrying packages of high explosives and multiple gallons of flammable substance into a firefight made them creep as discreetly as possible.  To keep his own concealment Peter largely forbore from shooting at them.  The result was that I was huddled in rubble on the other side of the wall with few casualties taken and none inflicted.

 

By contrast over in the west it was a murderous deathfest.  Open topped AFVs aren't the safest things to tool around the streets of a hostile city in but my troops needed the punch they provided.  In two brutal turns two of my three AFVs had fled the scene with terrorised crews but not before they had virtually crushed all resistance in the west.  Led by the remaining SU76 my largely untouched infantry swept around to the north.  In the centre Peter pulled back from his forward positions to consolidate his defence and I followed up detaching an officer and squad to dash east and seize the undefended buildings there.  Creeping into his forward building I let my flamethrower loose and not only incinerating his troops but started a flame in the building hex.  Uneasily aware that if the place caught fire with him as the last in residence I wouldn't be able to claim it I advanced boldly in.  The building promptly burst into flames around me and my broken troops fled out faster than they arrived but the building was officially mine.  A second flamethrower squirt wiped out another stack and suddenly Peter had run out of troops.  With my unemployed soldiers running around grabbing empty buildings and nothing left to stop them Peter conceded.  So I ended on a win; fairness insists that I point out that everyone agreed this scenario was hard on the Germans.

 

Much thanks to Mark McGilchrist who organised the competition, designed the scenarios and then had to tolerate endless queries from the collective of rules lawyers who played them.  Thanks also to all my opponents and particularly David Longworth who had to put up with my nervous breakdown in the third game.