The first encounter of the day(night) as the Americans make a stand in front of the German advance.
The (sort of?) level ground on the hilltop in this stretch of the ‘road’ (…just a track, really) with a narrow-ish chokepoint on the northern side seemed like a good place to try to slow the German advance.
The Germans will attack (in a Probe Scenario) from the right (north) side of the 70″x80″ table.
American Force
1st Platoon will defend the hill but will be fighting on foot. They’ve got three MGs but their 60mm mortars are back with the vehicles at the bottom of the hill/ridge.
The Germans are upon the position before any entrenchments can be dug in the frozen ground, but the sound of an M5 Stuart (from the Sqn’s Co.E) can be heard on its way up the hill.
German Force
The Germans have just a single Sturm Platoon for the fight.
Support may come as the battle progresses ( -and the game lasts long enough!) but they hope to quickly get on top of the hill before a serious defense can be established, and so will attack immediately — it’s 0440.
The battlefield from the North. All movement off-road is Heavy Going. Movement uphill (along the tan lines) is treated as in Really Heavy Terrain. Night restricts visibility to 8″ in the forest (…which is everywhere!) though the nearly-full moon provides 24″ of visibility on the (~2″-wide) track.
Both sides put central JOPs on the ridge/hill. The Germans placed one over on their left side which the Americans countered with one of their own. The final U.S. JOP was put overlooking the ‘pit’ where the attackers had put their last JOP.
Force Morale rolls see the U.S. side starting at a reasonable ‘9’, while the Volksgrenadiers begin at a not-so-very-thrilled-about-it ‘8’. (both rolls were reduced by 1 due to the darkness)
The Fight Begins…
The Americans put an M8 crew down the slope on overwatch to keep an eye on their flank, while the Stuart drives on at the back of the table. The German player then rolls 3x 6s to end the turn (allowing a few minutes to pass on the clock). Perhaps the Platoon Leader waited with an ear to detecting some help coming up before committing his forces?
Hearing, instead, a tank to his front, he decides to commit both Sturm Squads on the left flank’s slope while deploying the Grenadier team and LMG Squad up on the road.
The Americans watch and wait (which is storyline-spin for rolling 4x CoC pts and not being able to do anything else…).
More ‘5s’ rolled by the American player gives them a CoC die but little chance to do much else but to have the lone crew retreat in the face of the German advance.
The tank makes slow progress as it struggles up the dark, slippery track (causing regret for the allocation of scarce Command Dice!).
The Americans have managed to beef up their line with the mortar Section and -better- 30- and 50-cal MGs on overwatch.
Still…no one hears anything – perhaps because a great deal of noise comes from over the hill behind them? The Stuart must be racing to get there in a hurry!
Nope! All the noise is from the driver’s efforts to free the tank from the icy hole it’s slid into — so much for the expenditure of all those Command Dice!*
*an attempt to get unstuck must wait until the end of the turn.
Things begin to gel as the German Platoon Leader comes on to get the assault squads in line while the LMG Squad Leader gets his two teams on either side of the road (with the hope of scaring off the tank if it makes it over the hill).
The Americans have yet to pass a test to detect the attacker’s movement, until…
…the mortar section manages to succeed in a roll to hear the second Sturm Squad as it moves up to dress the German Assault line. The Americans put fire out into the darkness in front of them and all hell breaks loose as the frantic shooting begins…
The mortarmen score some hits (-one of which wounds the SL! -the Curse of Clarke manifests?), but take the same back (minus the hit on the leader…) from the other Sturm Squad that was on overwatch. Then the two machineguns open up and -just to add to the cacophony- a second M8 crew deploys and adds their carbine fire to that of the other crew. Lots of bullets flying, but: Shooting at just noise/ muzzleflashes doesn’t produce much in the way of results, so the impact (the wound on the leader aside) of the 50+ dice rolled is just 18 points of shock* spread across the Sturm and mortar squads.
*Half of this includes the extra point of shock (per the night rules) inflicted for every attack that scored a hit.
Then it’s the German’s turn…
Both Sturm Squads fire into the night: The righthand one scores a hit on the HMG while the fire of the lefthand squad directed at the MMG position hits the men either side of it – killing an M8 crewman and wounding the JL of the mortar section.
There’s nothing in the way of clever tactics now: just blast away into the darkness…
The Recon Platoon’s SL comes on scene (with his crew behind him – what counts in this situation as a ‘reserve’, I guess?) and orders the MMG and second M8 crew to fire, which -joined by the fire from the mortar section- succeeds in pinning the Germans.* The 50-cal is put on overwatch and the CoC die+remaining MMG (as an ambush, perhaps?) is kept in the pocket ‘just in case’.
* This sort of knowledge/intelligence of the condition of enemy ‘out in the darkness’ strikes me after-the-fact as something that should be avoided if at all possible? …dunno.
The Fight Ends…
For the German commander, the failure of the ‘sneak around the side of the hill’ plan, the despair of his men, and the sound of the tank on the other side of the hill (-and all those Yankee machineguns!) leads him to conclude that it would be best to call the attack off for now and return with more of the Company.
A withdrawal is ordered, but since it is a campaign (-and I can’t help but muck about with games…) I played out the movement. The lower Sturm Squad didn’t go anywhere at first (rolled snake-eyes), but that turned out to be better than what happened to the German Platoon Leader who joined the other squad in retreat only to have the 50-cal (which was on overwatch) make a sound-detection roll and send a few farewell-rounds after them: one of which hit the poor, already-wounded SL! The lower squad made it safely away without detection in the next phase, but left three of their number behind to join two of their comrades from the other squad as POWs, so the order to withdraw cost five men…ugh. The one kia would have to wait for a thaw to be buried, but the kia M8 crewman was found to be only knocked out (or so he said…) and the Americans will face the next attack at full strength.
NOTE: The Stuart managed to succeed in unsticking itself, which the American commander was glad of – -blocking his access to further support and/or retreat was not the sort of help he wanted!
Final Thoughts: Not much of a game -just a short blind-shooting match- but as with all such ‘let the dice decide the setup’ scenarios of a broader campaign: It is what it is (and now was), and -as with all CoC games I’ve played- produced an enjoyable narrative that was a pleasure to create/see unfold = a win in my book!
Link back to campaign home page.
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