BFP25 From Villebaudon to Valhalla After Action Report (AAR) Advanced Squad Leader scenario

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Victory Conditions

The Germans, with 10 Panthers (and four AA AFVs plus a slew of assets), had to break out into the left mapboard, killed enough Americans (10 CVPs per pt) and/or occupy enough of 4 VC hexes (2 pt per hex) to get 9pts in 9 turns.  To be honest, I didn’t think the Americans had a chance at all.  Those Panthers had front armors that none of us could touch (18 AF vs the three TDs with APCR of 20TK).  They could just drive over, occupy all four VC hexes, kill two US AFVs and win the game.  However we did have two tank busting fighter bombers and an 100mm OBA that could keep the infantry at bay.

My opponent advised that the Panthers couldn’t ignore American armor (or bazooka teams).  They couldn’t allow to them to get in close and (God forbid) get a side shot.  The Americans had to use their gyros and their fast turrets (on most) to keep the threat alive.  We had to keep the German armor chasing after us. It’s a strategy I stuck to on one flank but not the other during this game.

Before we begin, if you look for combined arms and bocage action, this scenario delivered nine turns of nonstop carnage for both sides.  It’s a glorious mess!

After Action Report

The Germans were making their way through the bocage.  We couldn’t see them, given the height of the bocage.  We did land a Harassing Fire OBA in the place where they needed to get out.  We had a few front line units threatening bazooka shots.  They would have little or no chance to escape back into the village.  The majority of our armor is on our left flank.  It threatened hits on German flanks but could also slip back into the middle or even to the right.  The problem was that our frontmost M10 (with the armor leader) and the Sherman couldn’t hulldown on the hill at all for any sort of staying power.  The Germans unloaded their infantry in the bocage corridor.  They also moved their heavy weapons team up the hill to deal with the M10.

Meanwhile back at the village, we were digging foxholes at a few choice places and the cutters were busy opening up some bocages.  We had our AT Gun in the bocage on our right, pointing straight down the road.  A cutter’s opening up a path for the Meatchopper to join it as well.

The Germans were forced to go over bocages to avoid the OBA.  Two Panthers went up a Level 1 hill which prompted most of our Shermans to exit the left flank into the middle.  Our escaping M10 couldn’t escape a shot that came right through the side of a bocage and a building!  Fireball!  The dual Panthers then focused their attention on the church steeple.

The radio malfunctioned and our Harassing Fire was no more!  Our valiant front line teams were still holding the Panthers back as they dare not show their sides.  Shermans shot smoke rounds to help an M10 hop back down the central corridor.  Meanwhile, a stack of Germans decided to jump the bocage on the right.  Our deadeye M10 stationed there fired the first of its killer shots and broke everyone!

The dual Panthers on the hill kept the radio guy pinned while he desperately tried to fix his radio.  Germans poured out of the bocage but then the first of our fighter bombers appeared and fired down a bocage corridor.  It killed a Panther and immobilised another.  German AA unfortunately damaged the plane and it was recalled.  Our bazooka teams ran in desperation, the team on the right made it and the one of the left had less of a chance.  A Panther sneaked up on our right!  Our Shermans shot a few smoke rounds & backed away.

The German infantry was getting closer, and with them panzerfausts!

The dual Panthers kept up the pressure on the church steeple.  Radio guy managed to lay OBA on a Panther in spite of that but didn’t do much damage.  Our pair of spotted mortars worked to keep the Germans off the hill on the left flank so that our M7 howitzers could see them.  Deadeye M10 on the right scored a critical hit on a Panther!  Unfortunately the other fighter bomber had to leave after German AA shot it when it was trying to lay a Fire Lane.  The hide and seek in the centre corridor intensified.

Three Panthers down, two Panthers shooting on the hill, that left five Panthers barrelling down the highway …

The Germans moved an AA tank up the right to deal with our open top M10 but our MVP burned it as well!  (You should hear the cursing.)  German soldiers were now picking their way through the woods in the middle of the map.  They were definitely getting into panzerfaust range.

Urgh!!  A Sherman was burned by a faust.  That, however, allowed US armor to form a new line behind the bocage on the right, along with an escaping bazooka team.  The M7 howitzers were feeling the stress.  The two shooting Panthers on the hill moved forward, but a German spotting round landed in a curious place in front of the church steeple.

A smoke OBA landed in front of the church!  The breeze proceeded to make it worse.  The M7’s on the left are now feeling the presence of German combined arms although the spotted mortars still managed to break a stack of Germans on the hill.  The American’s in the village braced for contact.  The line of American armor on the right fired everything they got but they weren’t deterring these Germans anytime soon.

The Meatchopper covering the final approach to the village made its presence felt, bocage or not!  The Germans shot and burned it, creating issues for the AT gun.  One M7 on the right was lost to a Panther and a Sherman lost to a faust.  Only one M7 survived and ran to the village.  Meanwhile, the folks in the church steeple relocated to the right.  A panzerfaust on the right burned a M10 but the rest hopped over another line of bocage, and so the game continued.

A Panther on the right got tired of these bocage hopping Americans and started driving over itself.  Two AFV’s immediately went for my first career underbelly shot and one of them connected!!  A Panther bulldozed into the first VC hex in the village and caught the M7 in the middle of the street.  It couldn’t move away, it would have to fight it out.

A German AA AFVs got too close, trying to bust open a path through the American infantry.  It was shot and burned.  So was our M7, right in the middle of the street.  On the right, the last of our M10s got burned by panzerfausts.  The last of the American armored moved to their final positions (or out of the way).  Our spotting round just landed somewhere random … (sigh)

The was a huge fight going on at the front of the village as the Germans tried to reduce the possibility of a last turn American counter attack.  Our AT gun stopped some infantry but couldn’t do a thing about Panthers driving in and sitting on VC hexes.  We stunned a Panther coming by on the left but the second got through.  We did make a mistake on the right and let a Panther in on the deep right VC hex as well.

We had to take back 3 VC hexes!!!  We tried to reposition our spotting round and it landed an immediate OBA squarely on the Panther in the deep right VC hex!!  Unfortunately that didn’t even scratch the paint.  We tended tried for shots on another VC hex Panther from our AT gun.  That failed to deliver as well.  The Americans conceded.

I looked up the rules on Vehicular Control afterwards.  What I should have done with my remaining AFVs was to occupy the VC hexes with them.  The Panthers would then have to get into the hex and to shoot them in hex to gain control.

I lost the game but it’s a frightful carnage of a scenario nonetheless – FUN!