Baraque de Fraiture 1614 23/12/1944

 

The bitter end for the US. All US tanks are on fire. Only one 105 is manned and it has no HEAT left. The southern flank has collapsed. A PzIV has broken into the middle of the US position and has an immobilized M16 at its mercy. The Glider Infantry company has achieved little - suffering heavily in the bombardment and are now struggling to send out some troops to counter the German advance from the East. I forgot to bring on the othe Germans who are due at 1600 hours from the North! but they are not needed anyway. I think it's all over.

Some errors I made that would help the US if not repeated.

• Germans entering at 1500 hours cannot use the road bonus or the NIC bonus but must add +1 for Deep Snow. This means they need a DR <= 8 to enter. OK easy -  but if they fail then the US have a turn to recover. Entering in 3 groups there is a good chance one will fail (70%x70%x70% = 35%)
• I should put all the US M4s on the EASTERN edge or able to move there at the first initiative. The wide flanking attack by the 2 M4A1s was really effective, but the Germans just had too many PzIVs on the map by then.
• Foxholes under orchards suffer airbursts which is nasty. They do gain for direct fire, but it is moot.
• Using the historical deployment is interesting, but spreading F/325thGIR around in smaller groups would bolster the 106th and maybe make the bazookas more useful.

The US are outnumbered and outmatched and have to win the armour battle to win the game. Even one or two PzIVs or StuGs left will run riot and kill off all the light armour, leaving the infantry easy prey to the PzGr...