Silly After Action Report

Oberst Gerhard Wilck stared around at the reception area of Hotel Quellenhof.  Half the ceiling had collapsed, holes were punched in the walls and a pair of charred corpses decorated the floor.  Easing his way among the rubble Wilck signed to his adjutant to be on the alert.  Ringing the bell didn't seem to produce any results so he ventured up a staircase littered with broken brick.  Opening a door at random he leapt back as a six foot American soldier lunged at him with a bayonet.  Slamming the door in a hurry he fumbled for his room key.

The room was open to the sky as a mortar round had taken off part of the roof.  A burst pipe had saturated the bed and most of the floor.  Strangely the complimentary chocolate on the pillow had survived unscathed.  Wilck eased off his greatcoat and unwrapped the chocolate, while he was chewing a tall SS colonel stuck his head around the door.

"Just wanted to tell you that Himmler's given me orders to have you shot if you surrender," said the colonel with a cheery wave.
"Thanks for your support," muttered Wilck.  "Why don't you take your troopers and launch a counterattack?"
"Will that help?" asked the colonel.
"It'll help get you a safe distance away from me."

As the colonel left to collect his soldiers from daycare Wilck turned a disillusioned eye on his adjutant.
"Hotel Quellenhof huh?"
"I'm sorry Herr Oberst, it had good reviews on TripAdvisor."

We'll leave the good oberst pondering his accommodation choices and take a look at todays scenario.  I'm playing Scenario WO 27 - Checking Out.  Having recaptured his own headquarters Oberst Gerhard Wilck launches his (to use the term loosely) SS troopers in an attempt to recapture the remainder of the neighbourhood or possibly just an attempt to get that SS colonel killed.  I'm commanding the Germans, eighteen squads of elite SS seconded from the Leibstandarte itself.  This walking war crimes conviction is led by four officers including an impressive 9-1 and has a medium machine gun, four light machine guns, a panzerschreck and a demo charge.  My task is to end up with more multihex buildings in the American set up area than the Americans.  Opposing me is Ivan Kent who commands a dozen elite American squads with three first line squads making up the numbers.  He too has four officers led by an even more impressive 9-2 plus a pair of bazookas, a pair of medium machine guns and a solitary Sherman tank which I can only assume took a wrong turning somewhere.  Early morning mist gives what would become an intensely irritating +1 LV hindrance to all concerned.

My entire force sets up in the hotel which at least means I have few tactical decisions to make.  Experience has taught me that the fewer of those I make the better.  I planned to make my main push in the south using a kill stack in the hopes of smashing his forward troops while other forces, led by the occasional HS tried to sneak forward and grab territory.  What actually happened was a halfsquad toting the panzerschreck got killed in the street leaving my most potent piece of AT weaponry unattended.  Another half squad was captured.  In the north I had a smaller force, guided by a deeply expendable 7-0 to try and clear out what appeared to be a secondary defence.

Ivan traded space for time (did I mention this scenario is only six turns long) which allowed me to creep some units forward despite the disappointment and set myself for a repeat experience in the second turn.

Moving forward but no real harm to Ivan's defence

Turn two saw me with toeholds in a couple of victory buildings but no indication that I would be able to consolidate any of them.  Due entirely to the mist of course I wasn't really hurting Ivan too much and I decided it was time to take some desperate risks (I know, only a third of the way through the game, that's a new personal low).  Ivan's tank decided to get involved and dropped some WP on what I hoped would become a useful firebase for my next attack.  Instead my troops there would spend their time shaking burning bits out of their uniforms.  In the north I had troops in a couple of buildings and was engaging in some mutually murderous close combat.  In the south foolhardiness reaped an undeserved reward.  I had pushed a squad forward to menace (well, pretend to menace) his kill stack.  Ivan responded with what turned out to be a 44+2shot.  My guys survived and broke all three squads plus the leader in the next defensive fire phase.  It is a measure of Ivan's good temper that a slight sigh was his only indication of irritation (as opposed to the hysterical shrieking that would have issued from my mouth).  For the first time I felt on the front foot.

Can I screw it up from here?  Read on

In a desperate attempt to buy time for his sacrifices to the dice gods to take effect Ivan then buggered off to England for a couple of weeks.  When he returned we recommenced but something had changed.

In the south I felt confident of being able to take advantage of his temporary weakness to sweep up a couple of buildings, take out the Sherman and position myself for future attacks.  In the north I was less bullish but felt a steady progression would bring me victory.  The mist would cancel out FFMO penalties and I had elite eight morale troops.  That number eight has a significance.  It was the average I rolled on morale checks for the entire rest of the game.  When you consider that I passed a couple you can tell what the rest were like.

Things are looking good, briefly

My troops just fell apart.  If Ivan waved in their direction they broke.  If a door slammed near them they broke.  If somebody failed to break them they pinned.  And then broke on subsequent fire.  At first this didn't concern me.  Sure I had a squad broken as I pushed towards the in the southwest but since most of my approaches were covered I managed to surround the building and also ring the pesky Sherman with troops.  It would take me four attempts to find a panzerfaust but eventually I blew the metal monster up in a sheet of flame.  Which didn't stop Ivan shooting through it to break troops sheltering on the other side.

Things were looking good.  I stepped out from the centre building with a newly rallied squad and it promptly became a newly broken squad.  Still that allowed my troops already in the open to sneak through the orchard and grab a toehold in another building.

Up north things were going ok as well.  Close combat, normally the curse of my existence suddenly started smiling on me.  In vicious hand to hand combats I cleared out one building and established myself in another.

Running short of troops

But that was it.  Thereafter every time a German squad took fire it broke.  One squad broke after taking a 4+4 shot which was just insulting.  Such positions as I had gained couldn't be reinforced.  By the end of turn five I actually held more buildings than I was capable of defending.

This is where I gave up

At the end of turn five I had about four functioning squads and my personal morale had joined that of my troops.  I conceded as even if I had captured the remaining building I needed there was absolutely nothing I could do to prevent Ivan retaking them.  Frankly I'm lucky he didn't capture the hotel.

Oberst Wilck gazed across the rubble strewn road.  Everywhere he looked SS troopers were curled up in foetal positions weeping hysterically.  Spotting the colonel who had stuck his head around the door earlier he waved.

"I'm just about to call the Reichsfuhrer with a status update.  I'll tell him you said hello!"