Yet Another Silly After Action Report

By March 1945 the Second World War was heading towards its inevitable close.  Over on the eastern front (not now very far from the western front) the German army was still fighting ferociously attempting evade the consequences of its actions.  In the west however a good proportion of the German military was focusing more on beginning their self exculpatory memoirs and auditioning for supporting roles in Kelly's Heroes.  Nevertheless the Allies still had to advance and the Germans still made increasingly perfunctory attempts to stop them.  Around the small town of Broich the advancing Americans met some semi organised resistance from a portion of the German army presumably untalented in literature or acting.  This is ASL Scenario A69; Broich Bash which sees me commanding scout elements of the US 4th Cavalry Group attacking the somewhat heterogeneous garrison of Broich.

Jeremy Dibben was my opponent for this game and to hold on to this little piece of the Reich he had seven and a half squads, divided between first and second line, three officers including a formidable 9-1, a heavy machine gun, a light machine gun, a small mortar, a panzerschreck plus a truck and a halftrack mounting a 37mm gun.  My forces were seven first line American squads (poor on morale but awesome in firepower) a bazooka, two medium machine guns and a mortar.  Providing mobility and firepower were a truck, two M3 halftracks and two Chaffee light tanks mounting 75mm guns.  My objective was simple; there were a number of stone buildings within the village, three single storey, one two storey and one three storey.  Each storey of stone building was worth a victory point so there were a total of eight on offer.  I had to capture five.  Jeremy got to set up in the village itself, I had to advance onto the board.  Jeremy got to set up first then I had to select an entry side (north, south or west) but once selected Jeremy moved first thus getting the opportunity to correct any errors in deployment.  The picture above shows the playing area more or less with the target buildings conveniently marked with sinister black acquisition counters.

Jeremy's original set up focused on defending the two large buildings (I needed one of them to win) and defending against an attack from the north although he had his truck, halftrack and an infantry stack covering the crossroads in the extreme southeast.  However I looked at the north approach and decided there was too much open ground, ditto the south so I decided to advance from the west which had some cover and the advantage of being quite close to my destination.  My plan was to send a small force of about two squads to try and seize the woods and wooden building in the northwest, mainly as a defensive position.  Slightly further south I would enter the two tanks and position them where they could conveniently plaster his two strongpoints with smoke and/or white phosphorous.  Four squads, the mortar, the bazooka and the 9-1 leader would try and sneak through trees to capture the target buildings in the southern part of the village while further to the south the truck and the M3s (one carrying an infantry squad) would enter largely as a flanking/diversion force to split his attention.

The rules stated that while Jeremy set up first I had to then position my troops where I wanted them to enter and then Jeremy moved first thus giving him the opportunity to correct any errors in deployment.  He swiftly loaded his southeast squad into his truck and moved it up to a patch of trees just south of the main group of buildings and also pulled some of his north facing troops back to increase the garrison of the large stone building (worth two points) in the middle of the village.  Below you can see the results of his hasty redeployment and my troops lurking offboard waiting for the stage managers call.

My turn started with a mild "success"  I ran an empty M3 past his halftrack.  Jeremy obliged by opening fire and killing it.  I then moved the squad carrying M3 past, covered by the newly created wreck and unloaded my squad next to the southmost of my objective buildings.  What's more the crew of the destroyed M3 survived the wreckage and trotted towards his halftrack.

Unfortunately that was it for good news for a couple of turns.  I advanced as cautiously as I could using trees, buildings and tanks as cover, it didn't matter.  Jeremy's dice were white hot and his strongpoints literally shot my force to pieces.  Seven sniper checks in the first two turns didn't help much either.  At the end of the second turn I had about two and a half squads out of seven still functional.  The only ray of light was one of my morale checks had generated a hero which was good as I was desperately short of infantry.  To make matters worse I had apparently left all my smoke shells at home.  The tanks had the capacity to fire both smoke and WP, they had neither.  The mortar could also fire WP, it didn't have any either.  At the end of turn two I was left with a bunch of shattered squads and absolutely no covering smoke to ease my way forward.

Nevertheless I did not despair dear reader.  Once Jeremy had coaxed me from my foetal position and persuaded me to come out from under the table I was ready to continue.  I had two priceless advantages, firstly my tanks were both intact and could prevent Jeremy from pressing his advantage against my infantry and secondly, American squads rally as easily as they break.  They were down now, they would be back soon.  In the meantime I let metal do the work.  No matter how much stone they hide behind no infantry is going to stand up forever against a pair of 75mm guns firing high explosive.  For the next couple of turns I simply pounded his two strongpoints with my tanks (conveniently just out of useful panzerfaust range) while I focussed on rallying my infantry and improving my position somewhat with the little I had left.


My freshly minted hero joined my southern flankers and were reinforced in time by a bazooka toting halfsquad.  I menaced with my hero, Jeremy took the bait and advanced a squad into close combat.  Neatly ambushing him I withdraw along his retreat path.  When my squad broke him he had nowhere to go and promptly surrendered.  He brought his halftrack up to threate my rear but I was too busy going forward to worry.  I tried to get cute with another intact squad dropping infantry smoke into street to try to advace on the large stone building but I had moved too early and smoke notwithstanding his hmg post broke me and drove me back but nemesis was coming.

Firstly a critical hit from a 75 shattered his hmg position in the rearmost building, then a perfectly normal hit broke his strongpoint in the larger building.  With some freshly rallied troops moving forward I attempted the infantry smoke trick again and with enemy firepower greatly reduce seized a foothold in the larger building.

The picture above shows the scene just prior to this joyous occurrence, his squad has just surrendered and my hero is already moving forward in search of new prey.  His forward strongpoint has been broken (the stack adjacent to my hero are all broken save a 7-0 leader) but his hmg still reigns supreme from the rear, for the moment.

Now it was Jeremy's turn to see a flood of broken units pouring to the rear.  To his credit he didn't flinch but started preparing a new defensive position based around the rearmost building.  He thought he had just enough points to deny me the win, consolidating my hold on the large forward building had left me with just one turn to seize at least one more points worth of buildings.  Even with his straightened forces I could expect any attempt to attack the rear building to meet with a bloody repulse but fortunately I had another option.  If you look closely at the picture above you will see a small stone building in the bottom right hand corner.  Now, remember the vehicle crew who survived the wreck of the halftrack?  Well while all the fighting and dying were going on they had been ambling up a treelined road conveniently covered from all fire to emerge just a few hexes away from that building which at the time was garrisoned only by a broken squad.  The squad fled and my unlikely heroes took the last building I needed to win.  At which point Jeremy conceded.  Now it was him who had to send reduced forces across an open street against American firepower.  The odds were not good and the hour was late.  I heaved a sigh of relief and made a mental note to execute the quartermaster who sent us to capture a village without any smoke.