Major Horea Stansinacu stared with naked distrust at the Luftwaffe officer standing before him.
"Seriously," the German said with what he thought was a winning smile. "You guys go in and we'll hit them from above." He gave a snappy salute and strode off to where a fieseler storch and a long haired dachshund were waiting for him. He greeted them both with a disturbing amount of affection. Stansinacu rolled his eyes, at least the Luftwaffe liaison officer had turned up to the briefing. The artillery had simply sent a gift card and apologies. Stansinacu sighed, he was too well known to successfully desert so he might as well get on with it. Gathering his officers he pointed at the village crouching under a layer of snow.
"Get in there, get the big buildings any way you can. And if you see any aircraft, duck!"
It was my turn to choose the scenario Mike Sexton and I would play and I made my decision by simply turning over the scenario card I had been playing with Dave and picking the scenario on the other side. This then is scenario FT 191 - Romania Victor. It is set a day after my debacle in the Crimea and apparently I haven't learned my lesson because I'm doing it again. To win I have to hold more non rowhouse multihex building than Mike's Soviet defenders. My at start force consists of six elite squads, two officers a good 9-1 and a mediocre 7-0. In support there is a 47mm antitank gun, an 81mm mortar, two heavy machine gun, two light machine guns and a pair of foxholes. On turn one I get another five elite squads, a half squad with a mmg and an lmg plus a 60mm mortar and an antitank rifle. On turn three I receive another three elite squads, led by another 9-1 with an lmg and a demo charge. For comic relief I have 100mm offboard artillery (first two chits were red, so much for the artillery) and a pair of fighter bombers (who would surprise me by turning up).
To hold this little town Mike has nine and a half first line squads, two officers (including a 9-1) a pair of mmgs, a pair of lmgs a 50mm mortar and a 45mm antitank gun (I'm not sure why). He also has a pair of foxholes. On turn one he would get a pair of Stuart tanks. I checked the scenario card carefully, he definitely gets two.
My at start force sets up in the west, separated from the village by an uncomfortable amount of open ground. Mike naturally had a mmg and halfsquad set up in the village church steeple and dealing with that was my first objective. For a brief period all seemed to go well. My mortar (manned by reliable Romanians not those crappy Germans) dropped a smoke round on the steeple and blinded his mmg team. I had stacked both hmgs with a pair of squads and the 9-1 and these plus my 47mm effectively swept away such forces as Mike had been foolish enough to leave in my line of sight. The remainder of the onboard force moved east using shelter where they could and positioned themselves to take my first victory building. My turn one reinforcements assault moved onto the board and the only fire they took resulted in the generation of my very own hero (I would have two by game end).
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| Things are, very briefly, going well |
In his turn Mike brought his two Stuarts on and sent them to bolster his in the east (bottom) while the Luftwaffe stopped fondling their dachshunds long enough to put a pair of fighter bombers into the sky. One of the tanks, whom Mike had fondly christened Piotr, gained acquisition on my recently minted hero stack but that was the most he would do.
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| End of Soviet turn 1 |
At this point it has to be admitted that while I was unfortunate with my artillery (again) and I had some bad luck in various dice rolls the simple fact of the matter is I messed this scenario up. My turn one reinforcements oozed slowly towards his defenders at the bottom of the screen covering the ground at a speed normally associated with glaciers. Such of my at start force as had moved did indeed capture an undefended multihex building but there was an entire village between them and the rest. My two forces would fight separate battles and lose them both rather than combining.
None of this would do Piotr any good. Deciding that a Romanian hero was too rare a beast to lose the Luftwaffe dropped a bomb straight down the hatch of the offending Stuart and blew it to pieces. Sadly my other fighter bomber would miss the other tank and their subsequent strafing runs would be ineffective.
Bereft of viable targets my hmg squads would risk hernia attempting to lug their immensely heavy support weapons a little more combat adjacent. The 47mm gunners would likewise start shoving their weapon through the snow. I think I did this as much to keep them occupied as anything else. Certainly the game was over before they got anywhere useful. Meanwhile Mike's other tank was proving that concealment counters were no barrier to beating the crap out of the Romanians and my centre force was floundering before it really got anywhere.
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| Things are bad and getting worse |
With the bulk of his defenders in useful positions there was little Mike's troops had to do except polish their weapons (not a euphemism) and wait for the Romanians to present themselves for slaughter. This the Romanians obligingly did. Doubling down on failure I brought my final reinforcements on in two groups. The 9-1, DC and a single squad I assault moved next to his defenders. The other two squads I brought on closer to the centre in a belated and unsuccessful attempt to link up my two forces. My at start forces pushed forward from their recently captured building and despite missing an obvious line of start (goodbye to another squad) the survivors managed to surround a Soviet squad and wipe him out in close combat.
The reinforcements I had brought on directly in front of his tank fared surprisingly well, only a half squad was killed leaving me with a concealed 9-1 and a halfsquad facing a squad with an lmg. I pretty much had to advance into CC otherwise I would have been killed in the open. After all I had a 9-1 officer and a concealed unit, surely that would compensate for being outnumbered? Nope, so back to the drawing board.
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| The current picture flatters me |
With three turns gone and little appreciable progress made I made a determined push and paid for it dearly but first a brief moment of unalloyed pleasure. With the smoke gone from the steeple my mortar attempted to drop some more but had run out of smoke. No problem it scored a critical hit with HE and then rolled snake eyes on the effects dropping the entire building into a pile of rubble and taking out his mmg position with it.
My hero finally achieved something, guiding my mmg team to take out the squad that had slaughtered my 9-1 and a squad ran straight across the front of Mike's surviving tank to grab the building. Attempts to support it would end in bloody chaos. A recently rallied halfsquad did sneak out and retake my long abandoned mortar.
Time was running out, I had two turns left and virtually no one in useful positions. Attempts to gain useful positions resulted in carnage and I'm ashamed to admit broke my personal morale. Not even the generation of another hero could raise my spirits. Perhaps I could have scraped together enough forces to achieve a win. My hmg squads had finally arrived and were in a position to challenge for a victory building and some scooting and a little bit of previously absent luck might give me one or two more. On the other hand it turned out that I had launched my main assault exactly where Mike had his heaviest defences. I had a single squad clinging on to a victory building and no way of reinforcing it that didn't involve running through mortar, mmg and 45L gun fire. I decided enough Romanians had died this day and conceded.
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| When I decided to give up with one turn to go |
Well that was a bit of a mess. Congratulations to Mike who fought a skillful defensive battle. I am now going to undergo a lobotomy to remove the recollection of this battle from my mind.
Major Stansinacu stood to attention staring at nothing in particular while the general shook his head in disbelief.
"Got beaten again didn't you" asked the general.
"Yes sir."
"Relied on the German artillery again didn't you?"
"Yes sir."
"Does your family have a history of failing to learn from experience?"
"No sir, I'm an only child."
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