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Eric Visnowski and I played AP35 “A Lesson for Lehr†at the July LA Game Day at Gameology. We diced for sides; Eric got the Americans, I took the Germans.
Eric set up his defense about as forward as he was allowed, with forward strong-points centered 54P3 and 54P6, and on the 55P8 and P9 buildings. His other positions, slightly behind these, covered the three north-south roads.
Looking at the board and arrival of reinforcements, it’s obvious that the Germans need to get into the buildings next to 54T2 by turn 4 and force the Ami’s to counterattack with their infantry reinforcements that would arrive in the vicinity by the bottom of turn 4. Four turns through hedgerow country is not a lot of time. The Germans need to hit quickly and hard. I suppose it might be tempting to load up the halftracks and send them straight up one road with guns blazing and “Flight of the Valkyries†playing in the background. But with 4 BAZ and a 57L AT gun, that kind of move could only end in a flaming disaster.
I decided on a plan that might be a little more prudent; I split my force, loading up the halftracks with one 838, five 467, both MMG, and the 9-2. The rest of my force came in on foot. The HT force was to make an end-run, unloading around 54L3. This group would push for the 54S4 crossroads. After unloading, the HT would head toward 55N8 and link up with my on-foot column coming up board 55 and lend their massed firepower against Eric’s P8-P9 strongpoint. The AC’s would act as “wing men†for the Panthers when they came on, and be available to exploit any breakthroughs or die gloriously in VBF.
As it turned out, these Ami’s were much tougher than they looked. Eric’s strong-points around 54 P4 and P6 held up my flank force trying to cross the N4 and O9 open fields. I pulled up the Panthers in 54L5 and 55L5, but their firepower was ineffective against the Ami’s covering the roads. Around turn 3 I noticed another problem that wasn’t obvious in my initial plan. The Germans have 3 leaders. I had all of them pressed close to the front because I needed the firepower modifiers and extra movement factors in the hedgerows. As a result, I had a gaggle of broken MMC in the rear (much like what generally happens with a large group of Russian squads on the attack.) The terrain seems to have just enough woods and buildings to force broken units to rout one or two hexes and stop; just far enough away to be out of reach of a nearby leader. By the end of turn 3 I had actually only lost one or two HS as casualties, but I had another 2.5 squad equivalents broken without leaders in the rear. Of my initial ten 467 only about 6 of them (plus the two 838) were actually still in the fight.
By the top of turn 4 the Ami reinforcements were closing in on the buildings around 54T2. My infantry force had fought its way about to roughly along the N and O hex row. I had four HT surrounding Eric’s 55P8-P9 strong-point. I had one Panther with a broken MA and another with a broken CMG. I had lost one JdpzIV in a firefight with an M10 and lost a PSW to the 57L.
I knew that the Germans had to get across the 55Q8 – 54Q10 road and into the T2 buildings on turn 4. By the bottom of turn 4 the Ami reinforcements would be in them in force, and I simply didn’t have enough firepower left to push them out. It was time for the full court press. I used HT to VBF the P8 and P9 buildings (bloody but effective). The 838’s got smoke in the street at 54Q10 and O2. I pushed one Panther and the JdPz IV up to the crossroads into point-blank positions around 54S4 along with the AC and one last HT. Then the 467’s went forward, with Eric’s Ami’s shooting with everything they had. By the Advance Fire Phase the second-line Ami’s along the line finally started to break. When we finally pulled off all the fire-markers and residuals, the Germans were in 54R4 and building 54R1 in force, supported by the armor, but almost all the remaining German infantry was broken or tied up in melee. It was obvious to me at that point that I couldn’t hold the Ami reinforcements out of the T2 buildings, nor could I expect to scrape together enough of my remaining firepower to blast them out before the Shermans arrived on the scene to support them. And even if I could get them out and get my squads in, I really didn’t have enough of a force left to stop the Shermans from heading to the rear and cutting off the road. So I called it quits on the bottom of turn 4, just before the store closed.
Eric played his usual fine game, and as always when we play together, we had a blast regardless of the outcome. Certainly, for whatever reason, this was not one of my best ASL performances. Given that the Germans have only 3 leaders, it was unwise to spread my attack out as widely as I did; by turn 4 I had an 838 and 1.5 squads attacking all the way over on the edge of board 54, with the nearest leader (the 9-2) fighting around P3. That’s just a poor allocation of resources. Ditto the broken MMC’s in my backfield. Sure, I needed the leaders up front to drive the attack home, but I should have been more vigilant about keeping my leaders and broken squads closer together.
Perhaps the German should be less concerned about early losses and be more aggressive with the AC’s and Panthers.
I’m not sure about that; the M10’s have APCR and will certainly get the first shot on the Panthers, probably from a hull-down position. Plus, in hedgerow country, side shots and deliberate immobilization are a real possibility, especially if the Panthers get too far ahead of the infantry. We (me, Eric, Dan, Candice and Rob Stai) did a scenario postmortem before picking up. We couldn’t come up with a viable strategy in improve the German outcome. I’m always hesitant to declare a scenario tough on the side I just lost as (especially after only one playing), and I certainly don’t want to take anything away from Eric’s fine play, but the consensus among our small group was it appears to be hard on the Germans. I wonder if maybe we’re missing something. Chas, did you playtest this one? I would be very interested to hear about some German victories in this. That said; it is a fun scenario with interesting forces and lots of excitement. Thanks again to E.V. for a great game well played.
Regards,
Jim
AP35, ” A Lesson for Lehr” is a chess-like scenario, with staggered reinforcement entries,various specialized units and a somewhat deceptive field of combat. Playing bocage rules can throw off ones' sense of timing and with its many restrictions can shred a battle plan with one lucky or unlucky throw of the dice. Non fully tracked vehicles are mostly relegated to the roads and you can bet thats where the ATGs will be sighted. Meanwhile your infantry will be slowed by the costly 3 MP charge for crossing a bocage hex side. Add all the complications of wall advantage claiming forfeiting etc and you have your hands quite full.
All this said, Jim and me were comfortable with the rules for WA and bocage with little referencing of the RB. Jims ' mission was to wrest 7 building locations adjacent to the road net and maintain his line of communications to the rear. As attacker , Jim had immediate access to 3 building locations that were outside the Ami set up boundry,this left him with 4 more to capture and hold on bd 54 by game end.
My battleplan was to slow down the Germans long enough for my infantry reinforcements to get to the victory locations,then retreat surviving at start units to reinforce them. I did not intend to duel my initial AFVs [2 M 10s] with Jims Panthers so I sent them to covered positions to my left and had them go after one Stug and several infantry that were threatening that sector. I was lucky and whacked the lone stug and neutralized [ mostly] the infantry threat.The rest went as per Jims' description. However Jim left out some pertinent data. For a couple turns Jims' dice were just miserable, on a key DR Jim malfed a Panther MA, then sucessively broke the MGs on BOTH Panthers also, for a critical phase Jim broke several squads on NMCs with a spate of 10 11 and 12 Drs.This proved costly as Jim
did not have any SMCs to rally them with. Al in all it seems that the German has to press hard and fast through the bocage
in order to have half a chance to win. As our post mortem of the game hinted at, I think
one must be in a”bocage mode” of thought to prevail here .Thats all for now, Eric Visnowski
Great AARs, guys! The scenario OBs look interesting and the AP4 maps are very appealing, but I think from my very limited time playing ASL that the game length for this one given the task for the Germans means that a very aggressive style of play is needed. In all my previous games of SK ASL, the attacker seems to be required to press forward at a steady pace, or to be able to quickly exploit an opening in the defense. A slow and steady style of advance doesn't seem to be the way to go.
Older scenarios such as those in BV have longer turns and larger numbers of forces on average, so bad rolls don't matter as greatly as they do in the scenarios popular today. I''m not complaining, as right now I want to get in two games per game day.
Jim, sounds like you got some seriously bad dice that game. Also, thanks for the ride that day! I had a blast.
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