Reply To: Centennial Gaming in the Great War – Returns!

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Valor & Victory Megagame (P4)

All Not-So-Quiet on the Western Front
German Trench Assault vs. French
Blücher-Yorck Offensive
Chemin des Dames Sector, May 1918

The epic battle of French and Germans in the trenches of Chemin des Dames …

… concludes.

To the northeast, Hauptmann Schoeller gathers what remaining forces he still has from his shattered stosstruppen kompanie, clinging to his position as Bothi runs up behind him with his own handfuls of survivors.  The Germans have more or less won the western two boards, the final result of this murderous trench battle will come down to whether the Germans can clear most of the French positions on the eastern boards as well.  They face an uphill battle, the French are well-fortified, the actually outnumber the Germans here, and the French still have significant mortar support, although this last factor is fading fast as the Germans clear mortar positions from the western boards.

Weakened German stacks are vulnerable to French assault, especially after some of their units in these stacks are pinned by French mortar strikes or direct rifle fire from the bunkers and houses.

Finally, the third image below shows the overall situation at the end of Turn 4. The Germans have now completely cleared the western two boards (although even those mortar crews put up some decent fights on occasion and cost the Germans in casualties and time), while the Germans continue to feed squads into maintaining that bloody toehold on the northeast board.

Starting on Turn 5, we see the prototypical nightmare of Allied forces during the spring and summer of 1918 – German stosstruppen detachments running unchecked through secondary, support, and communications trenches, fanning out in all directions, assaulting and overrunning isolated French positions wherever they find them.  Three assaults at once are happening here, German firepower supplemented by flamethrowers and -1 and -2 officers.  By making careful use of the pinning rules, the Germans are not able to clear almost all these positions, but thanks to their elite status and presence of officers, actually pay almost nothing in the process.

Bothi just has a huge target painted on his back today.  One of the last French mortar teams scores a “snake eyes” hit (best roll in the game) on his remaining troops, inflicting still more casualties.

Yet Bothi will not be stopped.  Gathering still more squads and half-squads from remaining platoons, he forms a last-ditch assault group here (with another officer helping him, one of his fire teams armed with am MG 08 15 LMG and despite losing another half squad to opportunity fire, manages a lucky assault on Captain Auger’s position, the last real French position left.  The cost is grim, however.  The Building was a +3 cover bonus, and Auger had three half-squads in that building.  So that’s 3 casualty points for the building, 3 for the half squads, and 1 for Auger = 7 in all, in addition to the half-squad lost to opportunity fire.

Clearly, this is the kind of assault you usually make only after having a couple artillery missions called in on the house (but the Germans have none of these left) or some flamethrower teams burn some of the French out first (the Germans have none of these left either).  So it’s grenade, bayonet, and shovel time … and the Germans pay a predictably high butcher’s bill for this “victory.”

Meanwhile, Haputmann Setesch and Leutnant Brecht have assaulted from the south, clearing a much more lightly-held French  building and putting some fire down on French mortar pit, one of the last French positions on the board.

Finally, this last image shows t he position at the end of Turn 6, the end of the game.  The Germans have … won?  They have cleared all four boards except that last mortar pit, which be overrun by German assault on Turn 7.  They have lost 63 killed and 120+ wounded, plus many more walking wounded, scattered, missing, or terrorized (251 in all combat ineffective).  Of their twelve officers, seven are killed, wounded, or missing.

But they own the French trench system, and have inflicted 91 killed, 180+ wounded, and about 90 more walking wounded, or mostly taken prisoner (they own the board).  All French officers are either killed, wounded, or on their way back to German PoW camps.

At least we have finished this game with a narrow German victory, and at least on this board, and at least for now, “All’s Quiet on the Western Front.”