Sunday, November 28, 2004

Red Barricades with Chris Garrett

Chris and I are on our fourth session of the first Red Barricades (Stalingrad) scenario, and I need to start writing a summary. I think we might finish it soon, and it has been a real back and forth battle. I want to post the historical narrative now to get this going....



And the historical aftermath of the battle...



More of the battle soon...

Finally...the AAR.

Finally, a continuation of Olboeter’s Escape. Scroll down if you haven’t already read the previous post regarding the setup for the scenario.

Jeff did exactly what I didn’t expect. He committed a rather substantial part of his forces to a southern approach through the orchard area (see bottom of the graphics file from the earlier post). That area was covered by a few lightly armored carriers and one Sherman, which happened to be facing the wrong way to cover the central approach. About all I had going for me was the Fireflies on the hill providing overwatch, as well as the 80 MM Artillery I could call down when he got near enough. The in-season orchards made for terrible line of sight until he got into the village proper, so it was going to be one intense fight in the village.

On the positive side, he did commit half of his forces to a northern approach through the wooded road, coming into my hidden PIAT placements. That was going to help.

First up, he advanced his Wirblewind up through the northern grainfield, heading for the woods. This vehicle scared the hell out of me, since I’ve faced them before and understand the devastating firepower they can lay down on infantry. Take a look. Fortunately for me, my lead Firefly got a bead on it as it passed through the grain, and I took a shot. Luck was with me, and the wirblewind went up in flames. Big relief right off the bat, and the Germans took their first casualty.

The Northern advance went off without too much trouble after that, as he raced to the edge of the forest and prepared to enter the road passing through the woods. He did send a halftrack through the narrow grainfield pass, driving right next to my hidden Sherman, but I destroyed the halftrack with another Sherman on the orchard hill in the middle of the map. The goal was to create chokepoints of wrecked vehicles wherever I could, and any other heavier vehicle passing through here would come under fire from the hidden Sherman.

In the south, I had a little luck. The second Firefly managed to take out another halftrack on a fortunate roll as it passed through my line of sight in a break in the orchard. A second halftrack charged my concealed Sherman, and I was forced to break concealment and take a shot, cranking the turret around to face the right way while leaving the read of the tank exposed. I managed to kill the track, but a follow up wave of panthers sent my Sherman up in flames. The two carriers tried to maintain concealment, but I ended up taking a few flank shots on thinned skin halftracks as they rumbled past. Unfortunately, it had little effect.

Back on the Northeast hill, the Fallshirmjaegers advanced onto the map on my flank, overwhelming a suicide squad positioned primarily to delay his advance. I had three squads committed to keeping this force pinned down and hampered, long enough to allow my hilltop forces to concentrate on the advancing armored column. It ended up going pretty well, and I didn’t really have to abandon the hill until late in the scenario, but more on that later.

The second German turn presented me with some hard choices. He positioned a halftrack with an onboard 81 MM Mortar in a position that would let him lay smoke on my Fireflies, blinding them to the armored advance. In addition, he had a panther positioned for a long range dual with the same Fireflies, giving him a very high probability of scoring hits. Fortunately for me, his second shot resulted in a malfunctioned main gun, so I decided repair probability was low and shifted my attention to the mortar halftrack. Both Fireflies fired and one scored a hit, sending the halftrack up in flames. That was a major blow against him, as laying smoke would have notably changed the progression of the game. If the Fireflies can’t see, they have to move, and moving tanks are not the best shooting platform. He had far too many tanks for me to come down and mix it up at close range.


The Southern Advance continued, leaving my two carriers as burning hulks as the column swung north and began to work it’s way through the wooded region south of the village. I had one Sherman again facing the wrong way on the road, concealed and waiting for an advance through the village center. I could move and loose concealment, or leave it parked to the last possible moment and try to appear more threatening than I was. I elected to hold concealment.

The north side advance was a bit of a nail biter. At one point he had my hidden Sherman surrounded with squads, one of which had a Panzerschreck. I held my position and watched the squads break around me and move on each side, leaving me hidden in the woods. I let the first two vehicles drive by my hidden PIAT, engaging them with a PIAT in the small wooden building by the road. The goal was to block the exit hex with a wreck while doing the same with the trailing vehicle. Fortunately, the lead vehicle went up in flames from the PIAT, and the .50 cal machine gun from the hill top stunned the crew of the second halftrack. The second hidden PIAT came to life and claimed the trailing panther. By the next turn, four wrecked vehicles were strung along the road, leaving one free tank on that flank. I have to say I was very pleased with the way that went down. I bloodied his nose there, and the enraged German infantry boiled through the woods to attack my Poles.

Going back to the malfunctioned panther, he repaired the gun in his next fire phase! I cringed, fully expecting one of my Fireflies to die. Fortunately for me, the dice God laughed at him and he malfunctioned it again! In my fire phase, I put a round through the cursed tank just to make sure it didn’t come back and harass me. It burned, providing much satisfaction.

The southern advance reached the tree line, and he ran yet another halftrack into my concealed Sherman, forcing me to reveal my position. I fired at the offending halftrack and immobilized it in my hex. Unfortunately, that locked my firing range, as the rules don’t allow you to ignore a vehicle in your own hex. So until I killed it, I was stuck. Not that it mattered, since I had two Tigers bearing down on me, one with a 9-2 armored leader. As a matter of fact, within about three minutes my Sherman was a smoking ruin.

Now that he was rolling into the village, I had targets for the Off Board Artillery. I executed a fire mission and brought the 80 MM down on the two Tigers. This resulted in the strangest OBA mission I’ve ever seen. I rolled insanely low, blowing the track off a halftrack, and killing both Tigers with extremely lucky rolls! Jeff had to pause and take a personal morale check, but as expected, he passed. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed him fail one. I know I would have a hard time carrying on after something so improbable, and potentially game changing, but onward we went.

By now, the Germans had taken quite a pounding. As the southern force, or what remained of it began to press into the Village, the Northern advance was putting pressure on my hill top position. I had to relocate the .50 MG to cover the oncoming Germans, and my two remaining harassing squads fell back and moved up the hill to whack the Germans as they advanced. It’s hard to whack SS, even under the best of circumstances.

My ambush PIAT squads went down in close combat with angry Nazis, but they went to their graves content with the knowledge that they extracted a high price for their lives. Posthumous medals all around with a nice folded flag to each family.

On the next Fire Mission for my artillery, I drew my second red card, resulting in the loss of battery access. So I fired off exactly one mission, resulting in the death of two Tigers and an immobilized halftrack. I have to say it was efficient! Unfortunately, I could have used it for a few more turns.

My hidden Sherman wasn’t doing any good, as the Germans had went right by without giving me a high value shot. So I made the first major mistake and blew my position, firing up the tank and moving it toward the village to provide some backup. I misjudged the speed and position of his tanks, and before I knew it, hungry panthers had pounced on my Sherman from both directions, resulting in a dead tank in short order. On the hilltop, a squad got within range for a Panzerfaust attack on one of my Fireflies, and I decided to fire the main gun at them in an attempt to ward them off for a little longer. As you might guess, the gun malfunctioned, leaving a defenseless Firefly. I tried to pop a smoke dispenser, but my crew couldn’t get it working for whatever reason. A ‘faust shot later, my first Firefly went up in flames. It was bound to happen.

My remaining Firefly scooted off the hill and raced down into the Village, gaining a tight angle shot on a German tank. Jeff missed the line of sight, and in my next fire phase, another German vehicle went up in flames. By now, despite inflicting heavy losses on the Germans, I wasn’t feeling very good about the scenario. The Germans gain victory points for dead Poles, and now that he was infiltrating the village, the inherent Panzerfaust capability of the German infantry was placing all of my tanks at considerable risk. In rather short order, four of my fire Shermans were burning, giving the Germans big boost in victory points.

As the scenario began to wind up, I drove my last remaining Sherman off of the map, since it couldn’t do much more good and it was worth too much for him to kill. The Firefly backed itself up to the map edge, but soon drove off as well when the infantry got too close for comfort. Hand to hand ensued all over the map, and the SS was simply deadly in close combat on this day as Jeff wracked up some points for dead squads. He had occupied most of the village, and despite the heavy cost in vehicles (14 of the 18 German vehicles had been killed by this time), he had the points to win the scenario. We took the time to do the math and there wasn’t any way for me to stop him from getting the last few needed points. It turned out to be incredibly frustrating, since for the first time in a long time, I was smacking Jeff around, yet I couldn’t win.

I ended up conceding the game when people starting arriving for the general gaming session that night. In retrospect, I made many mistakes in exposing my Shermans toward the end, since they represented one third of the needed points for a German win. If I had pulled the tanks off map when the German armor had been crushed, I probably would have won. Also, when the Germans seemed to be crumbling, I changed my tactics from a falling defense to a stand fast defense, almost counter attacking in places. There was no need for that, and it put the Germans right back into the game. Too bad.

Like all Schwerpunkt scenarios I have played, this one was one of the most entertaining scenarios I’ve played in the past year. I would highly recommend it.

For future AARs, as I had mentioned before, I’m going to make a habit of including more images so as to illustrate the action. I hope it enhances the readability, especially for the non-ASL players that I am trying to lure attract to the game.

Thursday, November 25, 2004

Still working on AAR

I am still going to give a good write up of Olboeter's Escape, I've just been sidetracked on another project. I did manage to figure out a way to give some more visual clues on scenario set ups. While this isn't perfect, it should help give a sense of what is going on. Click this here to get an image that should help. Right click and select 'save as' to open it in an image program and be able to zoom in close. In the future, I'm going to provide links to my VASL files so you can really look at what is going on.

More narrative of the scenario to follow soon.

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Olboeter's Escape - Schwerpunkt SP109 from Volume 10.

My latest mission against Jeff DeYoung placed me as the defense in this scenario, involving Polish soldiers outfitted with British gear against a mixed force of German SS in 1944, trying to pull back from France. As I love the historical element of the game, I will include the write up that is attached to this scenario.

Coudehard, France, 20 August 1944: The Falaise Pocket was closing and rapidly becoming a death trap for German units. Elements of the German Seventh Army streamed toward the very small bottleneck that remained open near the crossroads village of Coudehard. Here, SS Sturmbannfuhrer Erich Olboeter led a mixed force of Panther and Tiger tanks, SS Panzergrenadiers, and flak panzers, in an attack to break the encirclement. Olboeter's mission was to seize Coudehard in an effort to hold open the Coudehard-Boisjos road, enabling other German units to escape. Joined by elements of Fallschrimjager Division 3, the Germans made progress until they reached a wooded area on the edge of a pasture southwest of the village, and the surrounding high ground held by determined elements of the Polish 1st Armored Division. Sturmbannfuhrer Olboeter, standing in the commander's hatch of his Panther, signaled Untersharfurher Leo Freund to follow. Olboeter's Panther moved out but did not get far before being immobilized, forcing Olboeter to bailout. Untersharfuhrer Freund was about to advance when Polish fire struck the warhead of a panzerfaust lying on the edge of the ditch in which his squad was taking cover. The resulting explosion blew apart one of his comrades, spattering Freund and the surviving squad members with the soldier's blood and chunks of flesh. Enraged, Freund and his men surged forward into the enemy, past burning vehicles and through the Polish infantry position. Fighting rages until 1500 hours when the SS finally cleared the village. The German success was short-lived. The gap was later closed again, forcing many Germans to abandon their equipment and infiltrate through the trap on foot. Olboeter escaped this time, but was badly burned in a partisan ambush eleven days later. He died on the operating table in Charleville on September 1, while having his legs amputated.


The Poles are facing a tough task, trying to contain a heavily armored column of SS. It's kind of like bathing a rabid 200 pound cat while being IN the bathtub at the same time - naked. It just isn't going to go well, and success will always be vaguely defined. Fortunately, I had a good two weeks to prepare, of which all but five hours was completely squandered by me. Finally, the night before, I loaded up VASL and started working on my defense.

The write-up in the Schwerpunkt magazine helped tremendously, but I tried not to follow the rationale too exactly, since Jeff was sure to be aware of the same recommendations. The Poles have seven tanks at their disposal, but only two of them are really worthwhile. Two Sherman V(C) models up gunned by the British with a 17 pound cannon (equivalent to 75LL in game turns). As is with all Shermans, the armor rating was pathetic, especially against gorillas like the Panther and Tiger that will shortly be swooping in on my position. The Poles also get five normal Shermans, useful for little more than killing thin skinned halftracks, creating smoke, and keeping crew turnover very high in the European theater of operations. God help the Allied tanker in WW II. I don't know how they climbed into these death traps without soiling themselves.

Advantages to the Poles were found in the setup and terrain. Per scenario rules, the Poles were permitted to set up two squads and one Sherman hidden in place, looking for those surprise flank and rear shots on tanks as they rolled past. Fortunately, the Poles had a number of 'Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank', or PIATs. (Scroll down from the link). The PIAT is essentially a spring loaded bazooka-type weapon that fires a shaped charge. Ironically, the Kill Number in game terms is identical for a PIAT and a Sherman, but of course the Sherman has a bit more range. Go rent A Bridge Too Far to see the dramatization of a PIAT in use.

Finally, the Poles have 80 mm artillery they can call in to help keep the Germans at bay. The artillery ended up being the MVP for me, but more on that later.

As for the armor face off, the two up gunned Shermans (termed Fireflys) were the only things that could take on the Panther and Tiger from the front, and even that was a dicey proposition. If memory serves, the kill number of the Firefly was 23, while the frontal Tiger armor is something like 18, leaving a 5 or less on two dice to effect a kill. Forget about a normal Sherman. Oh, and the Tiger will pretty much kill any variant of Sherman on any hit. You begin to see the problem.

The Germans also have lesser panzers, various flakwagons, and a Whirlwind - essentially a quad mounted anti-aircraft gun treads that can mow down trees. He also gets a 9-2 armored leader to command the mechanized horde, meaning he has a great chance of ventilating my tanks from very long range while not even stopping to aim.

The German goal is defined thus - accumulate 95 victory points in a combination of exiting German units through a narrow corridor defined in the scenario (escape the pocket), kill Poles for points, and control the village buildings at the exit point (holding the pocket open). Sounds like fun, for him.

My insanely devious set-up session went long into the night, as I tried to think like Jeff DeYoung. This led to an uncontrollable desire to make foam 3D maps, so I had to pull back a bit and try to think like Jeff thinking about the scenario. As the Schwerpunkt magazine suggests, there are three primary approaches to the objective: one up the middle over open ground, one to the north passing through a narrow wooded road, and one to the south also through wooded road into the village. The north approach is the most direct, while the south approach still comes under the view of a large hill mass on the north side. Obviously, the hill mass is the best place for the Fireflys, so they took the hill and had a nice over watch position over the entire map. Unfortunately, the southern approach was also screened heavily by in-season Orchards (it is August after all), leaving many blind spots for his armor to pick their way along the approach. The northern route was also under the Firefly guns, particularly where the road exited the woods. I backed up the northern approach with two hidden squads armed with PIATs, covering the road exit, and also sighted the .50 caliber machine gun on the hill to cover the same northern approach. Finally, the hill was home to my radio observer, ready to call in the artillery to pound the escape route, the village and either the north or south approach.

My hidden Sherman was placed in the forest, guarding a back door hex that would give the northern force access to the center in case I backed him up in the woods. I thought that he might try to loop around at some point, and a hidden Sherman would get a point blank shot at a passing vehicle, from the rear. The rest of my forces went into the village to cover the building, and my two anti-tank pieces were deployed hidden to fire on any vehicle on the verge of exiting the map, again from the rear since he would have to drive by to exit. The southern approach was screened lightly with a few dummy tank counters, a few armored carriers to give the impression of more tanks, and one Sherman that was actually deployed to race into the center of the map to get rear shots at passing tanks. I really didn't think the southern route was viable due to the time limits of the scenario.

I finished my setup and hit the sack by midnight, ready for a 9 AM slaughter in Grand Rapids. To be continued later tonight....

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Behold...an update

I don’t know if anyone is still reading this, but I should offer some sort of token update. With my recent acquisition of a new laptop, I’ll be able to offer more faithful updates to my ASL rounds as they happen, as well as any other notable game related information. I would still like to see this page grow into something more exhaustive, covering other gamers in the Kalamazoo/Grand Rapids area.

Since my last post, I’ve played several times. Unfortunately, I’m not able to offer a detailed blow by blow, and I feel that if I don’t go ahead and post a summary, I’m going to be hung up thinking I need to address these past scenarios before I move on.

I’ve played several scenarios with Chris Garrett as we finished up the playtest for the latest Journal. We played a French-Japanese scenario set in Indo-China with the Japanese either assaulting a small village or moving through to exit the map. Terrain included an embanked railroad and rice paddies, but mostly the rice was out of play and served to funnel the Japanese through a narrower passage on the map. I ultimately lost, but once again I learned a lot and am feeling more and more comfortable with things. I still forget a lot of stuff, but the increased frequency of playing is drilling it into my head.

After we finished that scenario, Chris agreed to play a Red Barricades scenario to help me get back into the mindset of Stalingrad. I had arranged to start the full Campaign Game of Barricades with Steve Garvey, another local I met at ASLOK through Jeff DeYoung. Since it had been some time since I’ve played on the RB map, the practice would help. I took the Germans on RB1, essentially just like the start of the Campaign Game with the Germans assaulting the north side of the map as they move into the factory complex. We only finished one turn in an abbreviated playing, and then two more turns on a subsequent playing. Highlights (for me) include a Stuka dive bomber attack that took out an emplaced T-34 tank turret, and a fairly successfully push to get across the first east-west road before the complex. I’m by no means comfortable, but at least I’m still in the game.

In the meantime, I started the first CG date with Steve. Since we are set up at my house, I am the Russian player (that way I can work on defensive set-ups prior to his arrival, saving time). We completed three turns on the first day, and I have to say it has been a horrible day for the German player. Casualties thus far – 13.5 squads dead, four leaders dead, one dead tank, four immobilized tanks (two abandoned by the crew), one halftrack in flames, and three stunned halftracks. The Russians have lost 2.5 squads. Unfortunately for Steve, my anti-personnel and anti-tank mine placements seemed to have been effective, as he’s hit about every spot I’ve mined. The tide has turned to the point where I am considering a Russian counter attack when we resume.

Finally, I played a scenario with Jeff DeYoung called Tip-Off at Taurragon. This was an early war scenario with the Germans (me) assaulting across a couple of bridges into a prepared Russian position. It was a great session, with lots of destruction on both sides. The Germans were gaining ground but probably paying too high of a price. While I think the Russians had a slight edge by the time we had to quit, it was quite possible for the Germans to break through given the position. We picked it up when time was called.

Coming up this weekend, I am playing a German-Pole scenario at Jeff’s house from the latest Schwerpunkt magazine. I will be the Poles with a prepared defense while the Germans try to roll through my positions and escape from the map. That one will have a more detailed write up. The RB Campaign will pick up again after Thanksgiving, and I’m still working on the RB scenario with Chris G. So lots more updates to come.

I’ve never played so much ASL, and when I moved up here, I thought I’d end up playing a lot less, if at all. I have to say Michigan has been kind to me so far.