written by Markus Stumpter.
Inspired by Thomas Prowell's report of last year, here is a report
of a game of the two-day scenario of Bloody 110 I played over
the last two months with a friend, Herbert Gratz, using the 3.1
rules. Here is what happened, of necessity focusing a bit more
on my POV (I played the Germans). [Oops, just noted that I used
standard German time notation: 24-hour format, with a colon to
separate hours and minutes, so 8:20 is 20 minutes past 8am, or
0820.] I hope it's not too long.
The US player had fairly loose setup restrictions (roll of 5,
I believe). At the cost of setting up his arty units virtually
without inf support, he put a garrison into every village on the
map, AT guns at some choke points, and a fairly strong garrison
into Marnach (virtually all of B/1/110, most of C/1/110, and a
fair number of AT guns and heavy weapons units, distributed over
seven or eight stacks in all), with four AA halftracks covering
the eastern approach to Marnach. He even put a couple of AT guns
and one B/1/110 platoon into Roder near the eastern border of
the map, while A/1/110 was parceled out among the northern villages.
All of these had prepared defense opsheets. Most villages had
a couple of minefields, with a strong screen east of Fischbach,
and entry area 2 completely covered by them. We later noticed
that this last was not actually legal given his setup restrictions
as he had no units nearby.
My initial opsheets intended a three-pronged assault on Marnach
by the 2/304, aided by the 1/38 Pioneers, with the 3/38 Pioneers
going for Fischbach (which I had hoped would be empty). The units
in Roder were a nasty surprise, as they delayed my eastern pincer
for several hours while it slowly cleared the village. I did
not want to lose troops in an assault to keep them fresh for attacking
Marnach, and worked mostly with artillery, using up a lot of ammo.
This did not work as well as expected, since he some return artillery
fire that also caused losses and kept me from spotting for several
turns, since he kept getting the initiative. I finally moved
the pioneers around for a crossfire and cleared the defenders
on the first shot (should have done that much earlier). At this
time, between 10:00 and 11:00, three hours into the day already,
the other two pincers were already in position SE and south of
Marnach.
Now I had a real problem. The 2/304 HW were supposed to enter
by ferry as the second unit in the line and it was painfully obvious
how much they would be needed in Marnach, but my ferry dierolls
were abysmal (ultimately giving me the first roll in the 4-6 range
after five hours). With visibility of 3, I could not really use
the Nebelwerfer. The 3/2/304 and 1/38 crept around to their start
positions northeast of Marnach. I had planned a path through
the woods on my opsheet, so they could stay out of sight of artillery
spotters and, as it happened, the AA halftracks, but they were
very slow to get there. At 12:40 I decided the foot dragging
had gone far enough and I could not delay the attack any longer
(actually, I had originally expected it to go in between 10 and
11, a clear argument for the requirement of time limits on attack
opsheets). I used smoke to get the southeastern pincer into the
buildings on the outskirts of Marnach, but expected to be blasted
back out and have to fail the attack within a turn or two. Things
looked bleak elsewhere too. The 3/38 had failed to enter Fischbach,
which was heavily defended with a monstrous minefield right across
my planned avenue of attack, retreated into the woods and I tried
to get them a move opsheet to the Bois de Grindhausen. At that
time I still had not received a single ferried unit, but US reinforcement
rolls had been great. Most of the A/707 Shermans were assembled
near Heinerscheid, awaiting their orders. The 3/CCR/B Sherman
platoons arrived at 13:00, moving to an assembly position in the
center of the board. I feared they would eventually counterattack
at Marnach, which later proved to be justified.
At 13:00, German luck changed. The weather (continuous heavy
fog and snow so far) changed to Light Fog, allowing me to place
the Nebelwerfer fires close to the center of Marnach, and both
scattered very little. Virtually every stack in the town lost
at least one or two steps, and the AA halftracks were vaporized.
I started to take over some more buildings on the outskirts.
Both of us used quite a lot of artillery, with my fire causing
constant losses in Marnach. Even better, the ferrying got underway!
2/2 PG entered the map at area 2 and I wrote an opsheet to get
them to attack towards Grindhausen, and the 3/38 pioneers implemented
their move which would take them towards Hupperdange. Only the
bridge (at Dasburg South) had failed twice to finish. Things
looked very good.
Instead, what happened was a total disaster for the Germans as
the A/707 at Heinerscheid implemented their opsheets at 13:20
and started moving south (he had watched me clear some mines in
area 2 at the start of the game and wisely concluded that additional
reinforcements might arrive there eventually). The 3/38 pioneers
were caught on the move and overrun (one step survived to disappear
into the forest it had come from), for the loss of 2 tanks to
lucky AT rolls. The Shermans continued to entry area 2, smashed
into the unassigned 2/2PG and slaughtered them spectacularly with
the help of lots of artillery fires. Since I had stupidly left
them in the open, even the mandatory retreat for unassigned troops
did not help since the way to safety was blocked by well-placed
barrages and they were cut down trying to reach the woods. It
took more than an hour since the tanks mostly stayed carefully
at arms' length, but only two of 2/2PG's platoons escaped.
At 14:00 the bridge was finished, but the weather turned to mist,
and the P-47s arrived, causing fairly strong losses among the
Marnach attackers on that turn. While they did not hit much for
the rest of the hour, the defenders of Marnach had used the chance
to regain their balance and kept the attacker's heads down. The
eastern pincer which had been positioned for an assault on the
center of town was stopped for the moment (the foremost platoon
eliminated), and SFAs from the northeastern and southern pincers
were blocked by smoke and artillery fire. Ironically, the southernmost
Marnach hex fired several SFAs at my troops assembled in the woods
opposite it to little gain, while my overwatch return resulted
in a step loss each time due to incredible dierolling. Now the
fall of Marnach which already had appeared imminent again was
a remote prospect. In addition, at 14:40, the CCR Shermans implemented
their opsheet and moved northeast of Marnach to attack my NE pincer
in the flank! I failed that pincer, but most were eliminated
before they could get away. In the absence of my AT guns, I
tried to use artillery against the stacked tanks. I had lots
of Good Shots, but about thirty dierolls resulted in not a single
tank killed.
By now it was 15:00 and I had two units across the bridge at area
3, assembled SE of Roder (1/304 PG and 304 Reg - my first AT guns),
but they were still unassigned. If his CCR/B tanks had been a
bit more effective, they would have swept past Marnach by then
and we might have had another unpleasant episode, but he was quite
methodical and now took care of the eastern pincer after finishing
the NE one and apparently did not want to pass through my artillery
attacks with which I kept his spearheads busy. The good news
was that at 15:00 the southern pincer managed to get an artillery-caused
SYR on the southernmost Marnach hex and secured a lodgement.
Unfortunately, when they tried to push further, they had heavy
losses and two of the three platoons ran back out of the town,
with the last hanging on, to direct artillery fires on the defenders.
The fight continued unabated into the darkness. At 15:20 I managed
to ferry the 2/304 mortars over (also at area 3) and at 16:00,
1/3 Pz rolled onto the map at Roder (evoking a satisfying groan
from the other side of the table), followed at 19:00 by 2Pz Recon.
So far, none of the German reinforcements had managed to implement
their opsheets, while the A/707 tanks already were busy with their
second set, one company moving south, the rest staying put to
block entry area 2. At last, at 19:00 the 2/304 heavy weapons
managed to get onto the at-start 2/304 attack opsheet on Marnach.
Being finally (11 hours into the game) able to fire mortars at
Marnach helped a lot, but with only four platoons remaining in
the fight from the initial attack, I needed 1/304PG to make faster
headway.
That happened at 21:00 - as luck would have it, 1/304PG and 1/3Pz
finally implemented their opsheets on the same turn. 1/304PG's
opsheet, drawn up at 14:00, had reached 28 weighted turns by the
time I managed to roll higher than 6. :-) The Panthers swarmed
up the hill and swept the area E of Marnach clear within three
turns (3 Panthers lost to 7 Shermans), continuing northward.
3 Panthers which did not move on immediately were lost to AT gun
fire from Marnach for just 1 more Sherman hit south of Marnach.
I wondered how the remaining four Shermans could still be lingering
around SW of Marnach after the obvious failure of his attack -
later I was informed they had implemented a new opsheet on a roll
of 12 immediately after failing their old one!
Shortly after midnight, the Americans had received another company
of CCR/B tanks, the M10 platoon, and (finally) the provisional
troops which were assembling in Clervaux. Still, the Allied counterattacks
had now run their course, I did not expect any more before daylight,
and the fall of Marnach was a matter of time. That left only
all the rest of the map. :-( My one concern since early evening
had been to get all future reinforcements into the fray as quickly
as possible, which meant drawing up just pure battalion opsheets
for the best size and staff modifier, and attempt to distribute
objectives evenly enough to give no formation more than it could
manage. All the routes were drawn up to bypass Marnach south
or NE.
At midnight, the attack by 1/304PG on Marnach finally cleared
hex 23.26, which had been crucial in stopping the advance of 2/304.
The midnight US VP assessment resulted in a major victory. This
had not really been in doubt for me since 2/2PG was knocked out
in the afternoon, eliminating any chance of taking some of the
northern villages on the first day. The Marnach attack finally
began making headway quickly, and by 3:00 the remaining defenders
were completely encircled (with a mortar strike causing for the
first time bn morale results for the US side). The last defenders
disappeared at 5:00, by which time the game had already entered
the mopping-up stage on the rest of the map. The troops of 1/304
moved on towards their next goal - Clervaux. We ended the game
at 8:00, one turn before they would have reached the first (still
unassigned) picket line on the outskirts above Clervaux, as the
ultimate outcome was pretty clear.
By 4:00, one platoon of 1/3Pz had started attacking the artillery
in Reuler (which withdrew, leaving some infantry behind that was
eliminated by 7:00), and the rest attacked A/707 at Entry area
2. A/707 put up a good fight initially south of the ridge at Area
2 with several Panthers killed, but when the attackers swept on
to the other side of the ridge, the fog lightened which allowed
free use of the IR sights, and the last platoon was eliminated
without German losses by 6:00.
Still further north, at midnight, the two survivor platoons of
2/2PG, hiding in the woods, had implemented their orders to attack
Hupperdange (which contained one artillery battery). They managed
to suppress the defenders on one side of the village, and in two
close combats eliminated the guarding platoon, two guns, and a
truck by 7:00. The rest of the battery withdrew west. It was
quite surprising to see these two relic platoons do something
for their side after all - taking a village all by themselves.
1/2PG, on-map since 17:00 and already reinforced with its trucks
and heavy weapons, took till 4:00 to implement its orders: taking
Munshausen, arriving there at 7:00. A classic case of overkill
against a single battery accompanied by a platoon.
2Pz Recon (which had arrived at 19:00) had implemented its orders
at 6:00 and was attacking northwards through Urspelt (with orders
to continue to Grindhausen and Fischbach - apart from 4 AA trucks
a total of 4 isolated US stacks of mortars, AT guns and infantry
remained in those villages).
In summary, by 8:00, most German formations were moving towards
or attacking targets that were no match for them. Two opsheets
were still awaiting implementation: the Panthers of 1/3Pz, now
unassigned, were trying to implement a new opsheet that would
enable them to attack Clervaux in support of 1/304PG. And the
38th PzJg bn (arrived on the board at 5:00) was working on an
opsheet that would take part of them to Clervaux (on a route that
would let them knock out the Shermans that still guarded the crossroads
SW of Marnach) and the rest to eliminate the single stack waiting
for them at Heinerscheid. Since the mopping-up character of the
game was now quite boring for the US side compared with the tension
of the afternoon and night turns and the outcome rested only on
the question whether 38PzJg would implement soon enough to eliminate
the single stack in Heinerscheid by noon (and, possibly, whether
the defenders of Clervaux would dig in in time), we stopped there,
with a German minor victory the most likely outcome (of course,
the US forces had had their major victory since midnight). I'd
estimate playing time up to that point, spread across no less
than eight mostly fairly short sessions (we could let the game
remain set up between playings), at 20-25 hours. The Germans
still had about 20 artillery salvos left, the US about 10.
>From the luck POV, the Americans were blessed with early and
strong reinforcements and some very quick opsheet implementations,
whereas the German opsheets tended to be somewhat tardy (and the
ferry dierolls were awful). On the other hand, the combat dierolls
seemed to favor the Germans somewhat (there were so many cases
where the Americans would hit nothing with an SFA, only to suffer
step losses and SYRs in the subsequent overwatch fire of much
lower strength, that this became a standing joke for us).
>From a strategy POV, I get the impression that I did what most
B110 beginners do: I attempted to go for Marnach in the theory
that the battering ram in the center would work best to secure
some important initial objectives, but was ignorant of the fact
that early in the game the battering ram just isn't on the map.
To make things worse, the Marnach garrison at which the ram was
of course aimed was quite large, and when my northern force was
crushed, I had no choice but to continue scratching at Marnach
until the next wave of reinforcements got going, long after the
midnight deadline had passed. On the other hand, once US tank
strength was reduced far enough to isolate Marnach and allow
free movement of German units on the board, the garrisons everywhere
else on the map were fairly weak and quickly dealt with, even
though the remainder of the Marnach garrison held out almost till
daybreak. (Since the Marnach crossroads was still blocked when
we ended, the most important spot on the map had become the Feschberfurt,
which was undefended and gave the Germans free access to most
of the western half of the map.) With regard to tactics, looking
at the German player's notes in the rulebook now, I am pleasantly
surprised to see that I did something fairly close to those suggestions.
On the US side, his defense was extremely tenacious, his armor
counterattacks were well-coordinated and especially the northern
one was a stroke of genius. IMO the southern counterattack spent
a bit too much time on clearing pockets of resistance instead
of pushing on to its objective, Roder, or it might have produced
a similar setback for the three unassigned formations in its path,
but thankfully he didn't know that. Instead, it was stopped cold
after gaining several hours respite for Marnach. [His opinion
is that in retrospect he would try a more flexible defense, maneuvering
more with his infantry forces which virtually never left their
entrenchments voluntarily in this game.]
Btw, we had the impression that given the really bad visibility,
this game would probably benefit from a house rule that forbids
examining faraway enemy stacks (great, there's only a '6' morale
platoon protecting all that artillery, let's go there next) and
allows hidden setup of US AT guns.
Final trivia: the M10 platoon joined the Shermans at the crossroads
in the early morning and ran only after three SFAs had been fired
at it. The next German reinforcements that would have arrived
across the bridge were the 2/2PG trucks at 8:20 (quite ironic:
12 trucks and 2 Gw38(t) would have arrived to support a battalion
that consisted of 2 platoons and a couple of mortars), the 2/304
trucks (in virtually the same situation) at 9:40, and the 2/3
Pz at 12:40. Conclusion: Bringing the trucks in for the initial
units probably isn't worth it, by the time they arrive their units
will be shot up anyway. Better concentrate on getting fighting
units across. Battalion morale again did not really play a role
- the only bn to get a morale of 2 was the 2/2PG, and that happened
at a time when about half the units in the battalion were already
shot to pieces! Before we set it up, I recalled the game as being
a bit drab, but we found that using the 3.1 marker counters gave
it just the right touch of color - when set up it looked gorgeous
regardless (or possibly because) of the subdued map and unit counters.
Ultimately this game was certainly my most fascinating TCS experience
to date.
Markus