Emergency Miniature Work - 15mm USMC Super Cobra
Highlights from Sunday's Game
Here are just a few snapshots from Sunday’s game between @elessar2590 and I.
Again, the whole “report” was recorded on video HERE.
But just a few spots are highlighted below.
Here are the Germans entering from the Luxembourg border on the east side of the map, representing the leading elements of 1st Panzer Division (XIX Motorized Corps, Army Group “A”). These represent ELEMENTS of 1st Panzer Regiment, 1st Schützen Regiment, 4th Aufklärungsabteilung (reconnaissance detachment / battalion), 37th Panzerjäger Abteilung (antitank detachment / battalion). This is the situation at the end of German Turn 1, when they have contacted the main line resistance for the Belgian 1st Chasseurs Ardennais Division.
Action starts off right away as @elessar2590 hooks a platoon of Belgian rifles and a section of Maxim HMGs back through the woods in the north and “close assaults” some of my light armor trying to squeeze around the extreme Belgian left. Please remember this is the Ardennes and these cuts through dense treelines are very narrow. Normally in Panzer Leader all you have to do to avoid this is maintain a distance from treelines of at least 1 hex (150 meters). But that wasn’t possible here. Also, those German light tanks and armored cars were able to fire as the Belgians charged, I just whiffed the roll with a “6” on opportunity fire. So I guess these German panzer recon troops were still half asleep from their drive through Luxembourg. Also, note how Elessar2590 hooked back in such away so his advanced was screened from the follow-up stack of German light armor, so they couldn’t provide additional fire support against the charge.
More bad news for the Germans comes when I hit the Belgian center proper on Turn 2. As I approach the town of Martelange (Belgian / Luxembourg border), Elessar pulls back from the first hex of the town on Turn 1. This gives me a foot hold in the town for free, but also compels me to advance into the town and engage the Belgians at close range in a street fight on Turn 2. Long-range fire support isn’t nearly as easy all of a sudden. In a rush and not really paying attention, I send in the PzKpfw- IVDs and PzKpfw-IIIs to bulk up the “assault hex’s” defense against anticipated Belgian infantry attack (those Mark IVs will do great with point-blank HE fire, but the Mark IIIs are practically useless in this fight). What I SHOULD have done is call in off-board artillery fire, but those batteries were left out of this game for purposes of the stream. This aside, what I also should have done was backed off with the tanks and sent in infantry, allowing the tanks to employ fire support from a different angle. But again, I was in a rush and not paying attention. Elessar’s 47mm ATGs and 13mm Maxim TuF HMGs pinned down by Mark IVs, and then he followed up with a great roll on a converging “CAT” (close assault tactics) battle. Basically, it was the “Belgian Prequel” for Saving Private Ryan, infantry mass-assaulting German tanks driving blithely through close city streets. There go two platoons of Mark IVs ... ten tanks in all. Ooof. Boss-man Guderian will NOT be happy. =(
Turn 3, and here come the French (lead elements, 5e Division Légère de Cavalerie - 5th Light Cavalry Division). Now historically these guys didn’t arrive until Day 3, long after these forward Belgian units had been virtually annihilated. But for a fun stream we included them here anyway. Just in time to, because the Germans have shaken off their bloody noses of Turn 1 and 2. The Belgian left wing is gone, the Belgian center is cracked (but not quite collapsed YET), and the Belgian right is fatally outflanked. But they’ve delayed and blooded the Germans far more than should have been possible. 
First, the butchery in the center. Where German panzers have failed, Stukas and infantry (converging from two directions and bolstered by “pionier” engineers) have smashed the Belgian antitank battery, antiaircraft battery, HMGs, and two platoons of infantry. Fire from German 8.0 cm “grenatenwerfer” mortars and 7.5cm infantry guns have also helped. Some 200 troops are killed, wounded, or captured here, along with 12 guns. But still the Belgians cling to the center of town, pinning down one platoon of German infantry, their T-13 tank destroyers wrecking a handful of PzKpfw Is, and their Headquarters “CP” stubbornly refusing to die.
In the north, the Belgian left wing is gone. Although two platoons of my light armor failed to rally from earlier Belgian close assaults and were then blown up by continued assaults on Turn two, follow-on German light armor pinned down a full squadron (company) of Belgian cavalry (150 mounts) that tried to counterattack. None of these rallied and were then butchered by sustained German 2.0cm autocannon fire. The same fate was share by Belgian infantry and Maxim HMG sections, already mauled by Stuka air strikes. The way is thus open for a route around the north, across that Ardennes stream and seizing the first German objective hex. But is it too late? Already the French cavalry of 5th DLC has arrived.
In the far south, my panzer element that outflanked the Belgian right has also run into some terrain problems, delaying them just enough to where they French have narrowly won the race to this village crossroads objective hex. Looks like a little tank skirmish is in the making here? Sadly, this was as far as we got. Although the Belgians are mauled and on the brink of collapse, they lasted longer and cost the Germans more than they ever should have. Thus, the Germans are really NOT in a position to engage the French for the last two or three objectives hexes. Crazy as it sounds, this is an Allied victory as Guderian’s larger-scale timetable for 1st Panzer Division and XIX Motorized Corps in general is now totally thrown off. They’ll be fighting here for the rest of the day and into tomorrow, by which time Guderian had expected to be halfway to Verdun.
Great game from @elessar2590!
Sorry I missed the game. Looks like a great scrum! Looks like I’ll need to brush up on my PB/PL/AIW rules! Beautiful game board and counters, Jim… as always.
Thanks very much, @ceppie . I’m happy to say I’m getting better as template design and saving / organizing editable assets, so building these boards and counter forces are getting easier and easier.
Virtually every game I do now is a custom board, and often with whole new armies built just for a game or short series of games.
The map looks great. These are drawn individually for each game?