Major Jubilation T Cornpone looked around as grim faced GIs moved purposely forward. Here and there teams struggled with flamethrowers and satchels of demolition charges. Ahead the semi ruined town, littered with suspicious looking question marks waited for them with an almost malevolent silence. Cornpone shouted encouraging words as he almost imperceptibly moved himself towards the rear. His subtle but inexorable progress was halted abruptly when he ran into the colonel. Cornpone raised his hands in surrender but swiftly changed one of them to a smart salute as recognition dawned.
"Not leaving us are you Cornpone?" asked the colonel, the good humour of the words belied by the acidic tone.
"No sir," lied Cornpone. "Just making sure everything is ready for the attack."
"Good to hear, what's your plan."
Cornpone looked around in desperation. His troops appeared to be a little bunched up on the right and inspiration dawned.
"Attack down the right flank and circle round behind them."
"That could work," replied the colonel in some surprise. "Better get up there. They'll need their best officers at the front. And you might as well be there too."
"Yes sir," muttered Cornpone.
"By the way, have you got somebody reliable on the horn to the artillery?"
"Yes sir, he's my cousin."
"This must be some new definition of "reliable" I haven't encountered before. This is your last chance Cornpone, don't screw it up."
Cornpone saluted and very slowly made his way back towards the front.
"Today Cornpone!"
Cornpone increased his pace very slightly. The colonel's aide approached his superior.
"Is it really fair to sacrifice a good regiment just to try and get him killed sir?"
"I would happily sacrifice a division for the pleasure of seeing that idiot eat a German bullet."
And there you have my military career in a nutshell. Dave Wilson and I played ITR 19 - The Narrow Front which pitted elements of Roosevelt's SS - the 30th Infantry Division against the greyhounds of 116th Panzer. The 30th suffered from the distinct disadvantage of being commanded by me. The 116th in Dave's sure hands had no such handicap. My Americans are attempting to seize the city of Aachen the capital (insofar as it had one) of the Holy Roman Empire (insofar as there was one). Before Charlemagne's palace could be taken this little speed bump along the way had to be captured first. This is a straight out city fight as I have to go through or around a bunch of heavily armed Germans to capture three buildings somewhat in the rear. Standing in my way are buildings, rubble, debris, a dug in tank and quite a lot of heavily armed Germans.
To capture the three buildings I have a spectacularly impressive force. Twenty five firepower heavy American squads stand ready to do my bidding. Five second line, fifteen first line and five elite. Commanding them are a mighty 10-2 and five other officers. In addition to their small arms my force has two flamethrowers, three DCs, two .50cal machine guns, four medium machine guns and four bazookas. I also have a radio that connects me (at least in theory) with a battery of 100mm artillery. Lest this seem inadequate the colonel has dialled in armoured support in the form of three Stuart light tanks and two Shermans. This force is led by a 10-2 armour leader. Said armour leader can also hop out of his tank with a radio and guide the artillery should my other radio man prove to be out of place.
That it has to be said is an incredible amount of firepower. How could I fail to be successful? People familiar with my other AARs might not feel the need to read any further. Burrowed into the stone and rubble of this forlorn signpost on the road to Aachen are Dave's panzertruppen. He has seventeen squads; six elite, seven first line and four second line. They are commanded by five officers led by a not inconsequential 9-1. They have a heavy machine gun, two mediums, five lights and a panzerschreck. Dug into the rubble is a Panther tank, immobile but very heavily armoured. Arriving on turn three are a pair of very mobile PzIV tanks. Dave also has artillery in the form of an 80mm battery and a 75mm antitank gun. He also has twenty three concealment counters.
Incidentally I feel morally obliged to give a shout out to Al Capp since I shamelessly appropriated the name of Dogpatch's very own military hero for my lead character.
Inspired by the name of the scenario I found the narrowest front I could identify and threw the bulk of my force at it.
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| At start set up |
As you can see I set up the bulk of my force on the left to infiltrate their way down the left side of the board and circle into Dave's rear. Three of my tanks were also directed on this route. For the rest a 7-0 with the radio was on the first floor of a building in the centre and I had a line of squads staring across the road at their concealed opposite numbers. I would allocate them a Sherman in the hopes that it could throw some smoke to aid their advance (nope) and generally keep the troops opposite them occupied while I cleaned up his flank. To start with I hoped massed firepower would smash enough of his front line troops to help in my initial jump forward. I had deployed as many of my second line squads as I could to lead the charge and generally act as bullet magnets.
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| End American turn 1 |
Thing didn't go too badly in the first turn despite malfing one of my flamethrowers on its first shot. Massed machine gun and rifle fire swept away a goodly part of the German front and my force pressed forwards. For just a brief moment it looked like the Cornpone Manoeuvre might work. Over on the right the position took the look it would retain for much of the remainder of the game with concealed German squads skulking back in their turn and advancing forward to present an unbroken wall of question marks. Casualties had been taken but this was war goddammit and bizarrely my 10-2 had not yet been killed by a sniper. Incidentally there isn't any palm debris, we just couldn't find regular debris counters.
I pushed along down his flank and also through the rubble hoping to gain some space to move. My narrow front strategy was causing serious traffic jams. I grabbed a couple of rubble hexes whereupon Dave revealed his dug in Panther directly in the path of my troops. A 9-1 officer and a pair of squads with mmgs fled after being subjected to 75mm fire, cowards. We both attempted to call in our artillery but the spotting rounds were spectacular in their inaccuracy and the god of war would spend most of his time drinking in the green room waiting for the call.
On the theory that it was better to get in close rather than sit under a rain of HE shells I plunged into CC with the Panther and its escorting squad. This battle would rage for a couple of turns and I would need to reinforce the melee to replace the troops shot to death by their opponents but eventually the cat went down and the mice danced in the streets, very briefly before fleeing a hail of bullets.
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| End of American turn 2. Look Mummy, I found a Panther |
With the Panther occupied brutalising the troops that had the temerity to advance into its hex I tried to move past it with my remaining force. Over on the right my Sherman stubbornly refused to find rounds for its smoke mortar. Move past I did and swung around to capture the first of the victory buildings. It sounds impressive but actually Dave was trading space for time, pulling back his troops in the building to thicken up his remaining defences. I had a moment of blind panic when Dave's sniper accurately targeted the hex containing my 10-2 but fortunately an 8-0 carrying a flamethrower was also in the hex and he bravely threw his body in front of his more valued colleague. Of course that did leave me with a virtually immobile flamethrower.
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| End of American turn 3. I have captured the first victory building which is a mark of good tactics but not necessarily by me |
My tanks broke the shackles and plunged southwards in preparation for the arrival of his PzIVs next turn. As has been obvious throughout my playing career I am hopeless with armour. I fully expected to lose every vehicle to his two PzIVs but hoped that by positioning my tanks in wait their destruction would at least delay the German armour hitting the flank of my attack. Up on the north east flank my solitary Sherman continued its parade of impotence by failing to find any WP rounds and settled into sullen quiescence.
Things didn't look too bad if you were of an optimistic persuasion. One of three victory buildings was mine. My flanking troops were queueing up to push forward and even the broken troops (whose numbers were growing) were starting to rally and come back into the fight. My 10-2 (surely not Major Cornpone) having acquired a concealment counter from somewhere was bringing his kill stack slowly forward encumbered as they were by the weight of their .50cals. I parked my Stuart with the 10-2 armour leader where it could menace Dave's new front line and Dave responded by promptly moving slightly to the rear.
The artillery took a coffee break as Dave managed to break both his radio and my radio operator. The god of war got out a deck of cards and started playing solitaire. With the artillery thus unsatisfactorily taken care of I moved forward. I parked a Sherman and a Stuart in anticipation of his armoured reinforcements and brought the other two Stuarts up to menace his building defenders after first dismounting the armour leader to take over radio operation duties. I needn't have bothered. That left the Sherman far to the north, tired of trying and failing to get smoke I decided to use it to trail my coat. I swung it around the corner keeping a couple of hexes away from his defenders and hoped to entice him into dropping concealment for a panzerfaust shot. I guess you could say I was successful. One German squad did indeed drop concealment, found a faust and promptly fried the Sherman despite firing at a moving vehicle at two hex range from inside a building. Finally my Sherman was producing smoke. In the next few turns it would produce fire as well. A halfsquad with a DC made it across the street but would get no further.
Down where the action was my wounded 8-0 dropped the flamethrower and hobbled forward to shout encouragement from the rear while more impressive leaders guided impressive looking stacks of question marks to the front.
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| The ring is slowly constricting |
I frequently bemoan my utter incompetence at using armour (while not actually doing anything to try and improve) but just on this one occasion the armour gods gazed benevolently upon my hapless flailings. Dave brought on his PzIVs circling one around behind my parked Stuart and sending the other to challenge it front on. The Stuart spun its turret round and killed the PzIV approaching from the rear while a combination of fire from it and the Sherman immobilised the other and sent the crew fleeing for the spurious safety of the outside where they were promptly broken. In one turn I had effectively destroyed Dave's armoured support. Which was good as things hadn't necessarily developed entirely in my favour elsewhere. Up in the North an ill advised attempt to rush across the street had resulted in ghastly casualties with the result that Dave actually managed to advance a unit forward in an attempt to destroy my position completely. This worked partially and the only reason why it didn't work completely is with most of the action happening in the South we kept on forgetting that the damn thing was there. My first attempt to test his victory building defences was thrown back in bloody rout but on the plus side I did learn where his 75mm gun (which I had completely forgotten about) was located.
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| My brief moment of glory against Dave's armour (Don't look at the North) |
I followed up my armoured triumph with an act of far more typical stupidity. Dave had advance a 9-1/mmg stack out into the street preparatory to pulling it back into the final victory building. I decided to risk a Stuart by rolling around and seeing if I could kill them in the street. It was foolish because I parked a hex or so away and tried shooting at them and Dave promptly fried them with a faust in defensive fire. Since I was committed to taking the risk I should have tried for an overrun but instead I lost a Stuart for no good purpose. In better news I had managed to break his hmg position which to be fair had threatened more than it produced and I seemed well placed for a final push against the second building. What could possibly go wrong? Oh yes, artillery.
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| Despite having foolishly lost another tank things don't look too bad |
I had finally got my 10-2 led kill stack to where it could do some good and that plus my new flamethrower team in an adjoining hex obliterated his defences in the second victory building. In return Dave finally connected to his artillery and dropped 80mm HE down onto my troops and his surviving broken units alike. My troops in the building itself protected as they were by stout stone walls didn't suffer too much but the support troops moving up through the debris were shattered and fled the metal rain screaming. Oh wait a minute I was the one screaming, my troops fled in proud silence.
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| Somebody woke up the artillery |
This left me with a bit of a dilemma. I had a couple of decent kill stacks in the second victory building which was essentially mine (although it would take another turn or so to make it official) but I was now desperately short of troops to charge headfirst into fire to capture the third. Time was also on the point of running out. Dave had finally pulled his troops in the North back to reinforce the third and final victory building and the tattered remnants of my force up there followed at a respectful distance and tried to make it look like they were pursuing a beaten enemy.
So it all ended in the usual mad scramble as I attempted to make up for the time I had inadvertantly wasted. I actually thought out my attack carefully (something I should have done seven turns ago but still). I still had a lot of valuable assets and I used them all (except the artillery, I was now so close there wasn't any point. I had managed to chase off his radio operator and I had no desire to advance into my own 100mm fire).
My remaining Sherman covered itself in glory by figuring out how to work its smoke mortar blinding some of his defenders. My 10-2 stack (now with a green halfsquad in possession of a German hmg just for laughs) made it across the road and settled into the rubble. A Stuart defied the panzerfausts to sleaze some more defenders and then my flamethrower team and whatever remnants I could scrape up plunged into the cauldron. It all went disturbingly well. My flamethrower team broke their opponents and his troops in the smoke hex declined to wait for close combat. Dave was now clinging on to three hexes of the building and I had one turn to turf him out.
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| The final push begins |
In his turn Dave frantically filtered troops around the rear towards the victory building. I would like to say I stopped him or at least inconvenience him. It would be more accurate to say I watched him but I cared not for numbers. I had taken a bite out of the victory building and in my final turn I intended to swallow it whole. Well I almost did. My 10-2 led kill stack wiped out one group of defenders despite hindrances, concealment counters and stone rubble. Dave dropped an artillery mission on to his own head and broke the 10-2 but by that time the damage was done. I rammed a Stuart forward into the debris to cover any attempts by Dave to reinforce. Then I drove the other Stuart into another building hex to lock down his troops and pushed forward. Despite this it all ended slightly tamely. I cleared out a couple of hexes and wound up in melee in the third but the deciding moment came in the hex with the tank in it. His boys ambushed me and promptly withdrew thus assuring themselves of a building location that I had no further time to capture.
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| Endgame, not quite good enough |
So I stumbled at the final hurdle. Those who know me will be astonished that I reached the final hurdle, I was a little surprised myself to be honest. Dave played a canny game delaying me just enough but always withdrawing before I could bring my firepower to bear until he didn't have a choice. As for me, well it certainly wasn't the worst game I've ever played. Grotesque mistakes were few (ordinary mistakes were far more prevalent) and I don't think my initial plan was a bad one. Many thanks to Dave for the game and can I just say how much we are enjoying playing the ITR scenarios. They always seem to produce a great game regardless of outcome.
"It is with deep sorrow that I must report the death of Major Cornpone who fell at the head of his troops. His loss will be felt by the entire regiment and his noble sacrifice will inspire others to final victory. I can only hope that when the entire division hears of this loss they will be as motivated as I am this day." The colonel finished reading and looked up, "What do you think?"
"It's very nice," said Major Cornpone, "but I'm still alive."
"Yes," replied the colonel with a smile best described as carnivorous, "about that."
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