Amercian River Assault
Ruhr Valley, near Witten, Germany
April 1945
Elements of the US 75th Infantry Division have been tasked with securing a crossing over the Ruhr River, to enable the swift seizure of the Ruhr industrial region. Capturing this region will ensure a rapid end to the war in western Europe, as the Germany army will be unable to re-arm and re-equipment its troops.
Scenario – River Assault
This is a set-piece attack with the aim of crossing a major river obstacle. The Americans has twice as many points as the Germans, and may purchase air and artillery assets. Suitable bridging or amphibious equipment has been made available to the Americans free of charge as part of the scenario. The Germans deploy on one side of the river, and may purchase artillery assets and fixed defences. The Americans deploys opposite using static deployment, but may not use the flank deployment rule.
The objective for the Americans is to get as many units across the river as possible; the objective for the Germans is to prevent this! The Americans will achieve a minor victory if they get 25% of their units across the river, and a major victory if they get 50% across. Suppressed units count as half. The Germans will achieve a minor victory if they inflict 25% casualties and a major victory if they break the American battlegroup. The Americans has 12 turns to achieve their goal, and move first.
The game was played as a demonstration at the Colours show, held at Newbury Racecourse, 13th September 2009, alongside a 15mm early war Poles v Russians run by Keith Flint and Steve Johnson. The Colours show is a quite good, with loads of traders, demo and participation games, and tournaments. Our location was quite good too - decent amount of space, right next to the coffee (and very near the bar), and had a great view. :)
US Forces
CO
Infantry Battalion
HQ
8 Infantry + M3 halftracks
2MG + M3 halftracks
1 3" mortar
Infantry Battalion
HQ
8 Infantry
2MG
1 3" mortar
Engineer Battalion
5 Engineer + trucks
Tank Destroyer Battalion
HQ
4 M10
2 M36
Artillery Battalion
FAO
3 105mm SP (Priests)
1 Caliope
Wehrmacht Forces
CO
Grenadier Abteilung
HQ
8 Infantry
3 MG
1 81mm mortar
1 120mm mortar
1 75mm PaK40 ATG
Schwere Panzer Kompanie
2 Tiger 1
Artillerie Abteilung
FAO
2 105mm batteries (off-board)
1 150mm battery (off-board)
Defences
2 x 20cm trench
6 x 20cm section wire
4 marked minefields
3 pillboxes
Map
Germans on this side, Americans attacking from the far side. Top left and bottom left are wooded hills, rail bridge on the left, road bridge in the middle. The table is 4 ' wide and 5' deep. May have been better the other way around, but then the German defences might have been too thinly spread. We actually ran out of room for the 4 minefields! There is wire along both sides of the river.
Deployment
Germans:
View from the American side (1 infantry platoon in the depot, an MG platoon in the factory, and another infantry platoon in the house next to it. 3 infantry in each trench section and an MG in each pillbox.)
All the Timecast houses were very kindly loaned by Keith Flint. The other houses are either Faller or Kibri (I can't remember!) N-Guage railway models. The road bridge is a scratch-built using two girder sections I found (possibly Airfix pontoon bridge bits), and the railbridge was an eBay purchase, and tarted up....
The depot is a mix of N-guage railway sheds, the Pendraken checkpoint (GR57) and a home-made fence. The factory is another railway model (in need of some renovations).
View along the Ruhr (3 infantry in trench, MG in each pillbox, then another 3 infantry in the second trench.
German mortars in the town. The CO is in the depot,and the FAO is in the attic of the house on the right.
Off-board artillery (1 150mm, 2 105mm) A pillbox with the PaK40 can be seen in the background.
American:
Mechanised battalion and TD battalion on the left, other battalion in the village, with the engineers on the right.
The Game
(some of this may be a bit out of sequence, as in the heat of battle I made very few notes ....)
Rob started the game with a smoke barrage on the T-juction in front of the village to screen the advance of his foot sloggers, and moved the mechansied elements forward through the woods using the railway to good advantage. The engineers moved around the village, but where they ended up was in perfect sight of my FAO (they were the only units he could see) and at the end of turn 1, the engineers were no more - all 5 trucks got caught in the stonk - 10 dice, 3 hits each - say no more....
Rob's screening smoke
This is were the engineers used to be... (between the two houses)
Overview turn 1
Turn 2, 3, and 4 not much happened, as Rob's Americans decided to lurk in the woods, and admire the Medieval architecture in the village. My Germans just sat and waited....My preplanned smoke in turn 3 caused Rob to voluntarily pull back the foot battalion, who had ventured out of the cover of the village.
More screening smoke, and the TD battalion take up position at the edge of the woods
US artillery strike suppresses some of the defence
By turn 5 I had manoeuvred both Tigers into more threatening positions, but Rob very rudely knocked out both with massed fire from his tank destroyers. This means that my only long range anti-tank capability left was 1 PaK40...however, Rob got it into his head that this was still a problem (it was in a bunker) and kept his armoured forces in the safety of the woods for far too long.
Dead tigers!
Americans massing for the big push...
Turn 6 saw me suffer two command blunders - not bad considering I only had two command elements......Rob also had a merry old time shelling my entrenched infantry with his TD's but after he had knocked out three and was moving on to the MG in the a pillbox, we remembered that he couldn't see them as they were hidden (dug-in troops can only been seen once they have fired or moved), so we put them all back again....
Turn 7 Rob finaly ventured out of the woods and across the rail bridge, and lost 3 halftracks doing it (combined efforts of the PaK40 and artillery). He in turn took out one unit of infantry.
Turns 8 and 9 litereally nothing happend as we both failed our command rolls....
Rob looking like he needs some inspiration....
Turn 10 Ron finally advanced with his foot infantry, only for me to roll double one on the artillery call, and I managed to kill 3 infantry stands and suppress their HQ and his FAO! Bwahahahaha :-) At this point I was on 4/8 and Rob was on 14/22, so he could still pull it off, although he was rapidly running out of turns to actually get across the river....
Notice the big hole between the suppressed HQ on the left and the rest of his troops... I did that! :D
Turn 11 it all went very pear shaped for Rob, as I managed to knock out a further 10 units with opp fire and commanded fire. He had decided to rush the road bridge, but his infantry stalled half way across (not a good place to be) .....
Charge!
Turn 12 saw Rob duly fail his break test (on -2). However, as it was only 2.30, and as we had another couple of hours left in the day, we decided to carry on, and use the obliterated foot infantry as a reinforcement mechanised battalion. This didn't help the assault much, as they suffered from failed command rolls, and so never really got anywhere near the river. What was left of the mechanised force stopped half down the slope leading up to the rail bridge, in Panzershreck range... We played another 3 turns (including turn 12), then decided to call it a day, as we both wanted to have a mooch about the show, then pack up and go home.
US reinforcements arrive.
Finally made it across..
...only to run into Panzershreck armed Krauts! Goddammit!!
All in all a good day :)
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