75th Anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino and Northern Italy (Gaming The Battles)

Turn 3 Polish:

Once again, the Polish desire to take the fight to the Germans sees all the platoons unpin and advance. Polish Green Platoon and Polish Yellow Platoon are able to advance within charge range of the Fallschirmjager.

The Polish shooting this turn is ineffective but the mortar platoon does manage to land a couple of shells near the Fallschirmjager Red and Green Platoons which pins them into place – potentially crucial for the upcoming assault!

Polish Green Platoon is first to attempt to push the Fallschirmjager from their trenches. Unfortunately for the Polish, the defensive fire is swift and accurate, landing five hits and killing three teams. That’s enough to stop the Polish and pin them in place.

Polish Yellow Platoon however successfully avoids the incoming fire and is able to scramble into the trenches, killing a Fallschirmjager team in the process. Clearly caught off guard, Fallschirmjager Green Platoon fail to counter attack and fall back.

Turn 3 German:

Red Platoon is unable to unpin from the mortar fire while Green Platoon falls back to the Fallschirmjager HQ.

On the German right flank, Blue Platoon and the MG nest is able to lay down a lot of fire power onto Polish Orange Platoon, who lose three teams and get pinned whilst the other MG Nest sprays Polish Red Platoon and kills a further two teams. 

Turn 4 Polish:

Orange platoon is able to unpin and move up to assault range of Fallschirmjager Blue Platoon. Green platoon also jumps into the trenches with Yellow Platoon and prepares for another assault, this time on the central trench. Fallschirmjager Green Platoon, now in the open take fire and lose another team. The PIAT carried by Polish Green Platoon takes a hopeful shot at the MG nest on the hill and by some miracle, takes it out!

Green platoon assault Red Platoon in the central trench but again take a lot of fire as they launch their assault, losing another 3 teams and getting pinned. Meanwhile, on the Polish left, Orange Platoon lose a single team assaulting into Fallschirmjager Blue Platoon, killing the remaining teams of the platoon and taking the trench. The Polish now hold both of the two flank trenches. Can they push home this advantage?

Turn 4 German:

What’s left of Fallschirmjager Green platoon moves toward the trench now occupied by Polish Orange Platoon and sets up a counter attack while the Fallschirmjager HQ unit moves toward the German left flank to try to retake the occupied trench there. Desperate stuff from the defenders!

The German shooting manages to remove a few teams from the Polish platoons including one of the MG teams but is otherwise ineffective and doesn’t pin the Polish down.

Fallschirmjager Green Platoon launches their assault on Orange Platoon. The defensive fire is able to kill one team from Green Platoon leaving just the platoon HQ. The HQ jumps into the trenches and, whilst they fail to cause any damage, the Polish fallback, giving up their hard earned trench.

The company HQ assaults Polish Green platoon and gets into hand to hand combat, killing Green Platoon’s HQ and removing the rest of the platoon.

Turn 5 Polish:

Last turn and the Polish must push forward to secure victory. They manage to pass morale checks where required and get firing. The Mortar team removes another of Fallschirmjager Red Platoon’s teams and pins them in place. Orange Platoon fail to hit as do all the other platoons who are desperately firing upon the Fallschirmjager Company HQ. 

Orange platoon assaults the command team of Green platoon and despite losing two more teams as they charge in, kill the last remaining team from Green Platoon and retake the trench.

Polish Yellow and Red Platoons attempt to assault the Fallschirmjager Company command but the defensive fire on both attempts is too much as Yellow loses 2 teams and is pinned in place while Red loses 3 teams and gets pinned. The assaults fail.

Turn 5 German:

With victory almost assured, the Fallschirmjager just have to hold on to the end of the turn. Red platoon passes it’s morale check and with the MG platoon, there is no need to take a Company check. During the shooting phase, Polish Red Platoon loses another couple of teams while Yellow Platoon is reduced to just two operational teams. 

And with that, night falls and the Fallschirmjager begin to withdraw having successfully held off the Polish in their final assault. Although both sides took heavy casualties.

Wrap Up:

This was a fairly quick but brutal game. The number of assaults and counter assaults mirrored the actual battle and the defenders were able to last the 5 rounds to gain victory. Had they needed to hold on for another round, it could very well have been a different story.

The Fallschirmjager finally withdrew during the night of 17th May and whilst the Polish did finally take Monte Casino, it was a somewhat pyrrhic victory given the huge losses that they took in doing so. Meanwhile, in the valley below, the battle was still raging as the Allies gradually pushed north toward the Hitler Line.