Silly After Action Report - Penny Packets

 "It's not fair," muttered a surly looking soldier as he peered through the falling snow from behind a half track, "I'm not a nobody.  I'm a gefreiter for God's sake.  I deserve to be mentioned by name."

"Don't get upset about it," replied his companion, "after all most of the people who get mentioned by name in these blog entries don't exactly do well."

"It's about recognition," snapped the gefreiter, "an acknowledgement of our value and the fact that we are individuals with names, personalities, hopes and ambitions.  I am not just 'a gefreiter' I have a name!"  He gave his companion a challenging look, "Do you know my name?"  Caught off guard his companion hesitated.

"Um sure, I think.  Aren't you, ahh no, sorry, no idea."

"My name is Hans-Adam Ketterl," shouted the gefreiter at the top of his voice and stomped off towards the front of the line kicking occasionally at the snow.  His attention drawn by the sudden noise a leutnant poked his head around the rear of the halftrack.

"Who the hell is making all that noise?"

"Oh just some gefreiter."

At this point you could be forgiven for thinking I've run out of intros for these after action reports.  I like to think of it as giving the rankers their day in the sun or rather snow.  At Dave's request we played scenario J142 - Penny Packets which sees a somewhat random selection of German armour plus the brave volksgrenadiers of the 26th advancing against American positions near Bastogne.  The Americans scramble to throw whatever they can get their hands on in the path of the Germans.  Snow is falling and in the distance can be heard the sound of a terminally underappreciated gefreiter muttering to himself.  Victory is measured by CVP and in addition to hurting Americans the Germans also gain VP by exiting off the west edge of the board.

I have an all arms (and quite a few legs) assault force consisting of a dozen squads evenly split between elite and first line urged on by a trio of officers including a capable 9-1. They have a heavy machine gun and a pair of mediums plus three light machine guns and two panzerschrecks.  On turn 3 I would receive six more first line squads as reinforcements.  Joining the volksgrenadiers on turn one is a mess of light armour including two armoured cars with 20mm guns, two halftracks carrying 75mm guns and a halftrack with a halfsquad of passengers and an unassuming AAMG that can be unloaded as another HMG.  On turn 2 these are backed up by a PzIVJ, a pair of StuGIIIGs and a Wirbelwind tank with quad 20mm producing a staggering 20 IFE firepower.

Dave for his part is thinly stretched at the beginning with only six squads, three first line and three second with a pair of MMGs and a couple of bazookas.  He also has a pair of Sherman tanks and three M7 SP guns.  By SSR if Dave so chooses he can at the start of his Prep Fire phase remove concealment from said M7s and place a TI counter on them.  In return he gains 2CVP.  Dave decided he preferred to keep concealment.  Dave also gets three groups of reinforcements; a clutch of M3 halftracks along with six more squads, another group of halftracks (including a pair of M16 meatchoppers) and finally on turn three four M5 light tanks.

Below is the at start set up.  My motley collection of halftracks and armoured cars would enter (cautiously) on the north east edge.  I was uneasily aware that the large concealment marker probably indicated a Sherman (correct) but there was nothing for it.  As you can guess from the below I had the bulk of my force set up hoping to plough through the northern woods for an exit victory while a smaller force in the centre would see what they could do to occupy Dave's attention in that region.

Set up.  Dave can be blamed for the lack of atmospheric snow setting

I pushed my infantry forward, the guys in the north creeping through the woods and their compatriots in the centre spreading out and trying not to make targets of themselves.  Then came the vehicles where I attempted the difficult feat of bringing on a group of vehicles while simultaneously avoiding the line of sight of the Sherman gazing down the board.  There was one exception, a halftrack mounting a 75mm which I risked sending across to support my centre infantry.  Dave took a shot and the mask was dropped, there was a Sherman in all its glory.  He labelled it Kickass which was unfortunate in retrospect.

Most of my vehicles are lurking on the sidelines terrified by a single Sherman

In his turn Dave took a bold move.  Seeing the gaggle of light armour milling about at the other end of the board he roared Kickass forward in the hopes of inflicting mass slaughter on the thin skinned vehicles.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  The 20mm cannon on my PSW 234s qualified (just barely) for deliberate immobilisation.  In my next turn I offered up a prayer to the dice gods and attempted to immobilise Kickass.  I rolled snake eyes and suddenly Kickass's crew was fleeing their crippled tank before the unbelieving eyes of my light armour who had already started letters to their families.  On a somewhat saner level Dave moved his M7s behind a hedge sheltered by his infantry to create a gunline which would cause me serious issues.

With immobilising his Sherman as a starting point my second turn went well, my infantry in the centre pushed forward and I sent the halftrack with the hmg over to help out.  My troops in the north pushed cautiously through the trees while down in the south my pair of StuGs rolled on to deal with the other Sherman which had rolled forward to take up a position behind a convenient hedge.

End of my second turn

Little did I know that the seeds of my defeat had been sown.  The simple truth was I was being too cautious.  Mindful of the CVP rules I was edging slowly forwards fearful of risks, particularly in the north but also in the centre which gave Dave's reinforcements time to arrive and bolster his defences.  Already by the end of his second turn his halftracks had rolled on to thicken out his gun line and give a little more backup to his infantry.  

I was finally gripped by a sense of urgency.  I rolled a couple of support vehicles over to help my infantry in the centre which had so far achieved nothing except avoiding getting killed.  Once there they succeeded in driving American infantry from their defences leaving my infantry nothing to do except move forward and mop up.  Well move forward through the concentrated firepower of M7s, halftracks and such of his infantry as had survived  This proved problematic at best.

 

So finally starting to get somewhere

I was finally taking the chances I should have taken at the beginning when the Americans had much less firepower on the board.  As a result I took the commensurate casualties, a 75mm halftrack was destroyed by an M7 as it crossed the road and my wirbelwind contributed to the Allied cause by rolling boxcars on its first shot of the day.  I was going forward but Dave's main defences hadn't been scratched and now my casualties started to mount.

I've waited too long and the mountain is getting harder to climb

Things weren't helped when his remaining Sherman scored a possible shock on one of my StuGs which in the fullness of time became absolutely shocked, unconfirmed killed and most definitely killed.  A whole bunch of German reinforcements came on apparently for the sole purpose of proving that they wouldn't be able to get anywhere useful before the game ended.  To be fair the game ended a little earlier than they were anticipating.  

Now somewhat desperate I pushed my PzIV forward in the north.  Dave had brought on one of his M5s to bolster his infantry defences.  I looked at the armour on my PzIV and thought I could take the risk.  Dave proved me wrong by promptly immobilising the thing.  Furthermore he immobilised it in a position where it was unlikely to take any further part in proceedings.  The crew fled the vehicle and were promptly gunned down.  That was pretty much it.  My armour had been reduced to a single StuG and a dwindling number of very thin skinned support vehicles and Dave's defences were very much intact.  Not even my surviving StuG taking revenge by killing his remaining Sherman could counter the general situation and I gave Dave the concession rather than suffer a long, lingering death.

The end, both Shermans are gone but that's about it for good news

I have to admit I was disappointed in my performance in this scenario.  Which is one reason why it took me over a month to write this AAR.  Certainly after Dave ran one of his Shermans into harms way early on in the piece the scenario was there for me to win and I botched it by simple cowardice and refusal to take risks until too late in the day when the risks had become decidedly greater.  Congratulations to Dave who (one Sherman related piece of insanity notwithstanding) played a skillful defensive game but serious demerits to me for not even making the game competitive.

A gaggle of disconsolate German prisoners barely looked up when an American soldier ordered them to their feet.  The exception was a sole gefreiter who leapt up eyes gleaming.

"I'll bet you want to know my rank and my name," he said eagerly.

"Nope," replied the American.  "couldn't give damn.  Just get your ass to the rear with the rest of them."

The column of prisoners, including a bitterly sobbing gefreiter, marched slowly westward.  From a nearby hill a pair of German officers watched it through binoculars.

"Hans-Adam seems a bit upset," commented one to his comrade.

"All the Ketterls are a bit temperamental," replied the other.  "Runs in the family I believe.  Everybody knows the Ketterls have a low boiling point."