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.