Operation Market Garden - Battle Report

On the 12^th of October 2013, for reasons best known to each individual, nine players of Flames of War got together to play a scenario loosely based upon Operation Market Garden at the Deeside Defenders gaming weekend in Broughton.  With much chopping and changing of sides the eventual participants were:

For the doo-gooding Allies:

Phil – Canadian Armour

Paul – Welsh Guards

David Astbury – British Armour; 30 Corp

James – American Para’s

Dennis – American Para’s

For the suspiciously cheerful Germans:

Pete – SS Panzergrenadiers

Ben – SS Panzer Kompanie & Heer Grenadier Kompanie

Chris – SS Panzer Lehr

Rick – Panzer Kompanie

I wrote the scenario for this, and had a few aims I wanted to achieve of which the main one was everyone enjoying themselves.  I had spent a bit of time on the mechanics of how to drop para’s, and measured out distances and arranged for scenery and desperately tried to balance up the two sides while players were chopping and changing – I think I roughly managed the last.  Finally the biggest surprise I wanted to spring was that the objectives for both sides were not the same.  The Allies had 6 different objectives which they could claim, while the Axis had 5, locations on the board and while some were the same, others were quite different.  The side holding the most objectives at the end of the time allocated won, and a fog of war prevailed until the last turn.  I’ve scanned in the master copy of the map,with the red dots showing the objectives and the letters (A = Allied, G = German) showing whose they were, and below is the list of the different ones for each side.

The Master Copy of the map, both sides had their own maps which they were not supposed to show the enemy.  Phil regularly forgot this important fact.

Allied Objectives

The Farm – This is a possible sticking point in securing the highway we need to transport our supplies and troops up and down.  Capturing it would secure that route, as well as providing a base of operations for the top brass to swan around later down the line.

The Monastery – In this ‘wonderfully’ flat country something that sticks up into the sky is a god-send!  We need that tower to put our observers in so we have a decent view into the town.

The Windmill – Not only a tall building, but it’s also on the only hill and overlooking the road.  Can’t be having jerry holding such a good vantage point.

The Ford – Interesting one this, we do not believe at this time that the Germans are aware of this crossing point over the river.  Holding time would enable us to flank the German positions in the town and prevent them re-enforcing on the western road.

The Ford does not appear on the German maps and they are unaware of its existence.  If the allies cross it (very difficult going), or German troops come within 4” of it then they become aware.

Southern Bridge, Far End – If we fail to secure this today we risk having to force a crossing against concentrated German forces which will prove costly in time and lives, we need that bridge.

Crossroads – The most ambitions of our objectives, the crossroads is the joining point of the German supply, troop movement and communication lines.  Take it and we’ll roll them back.

Axis Objectives

The Crossroads – I don’t need to remind you that this is the joining point of our supply, troop movement and communication lines along the front.  Failure to hold this will certainly force us to withdraw from the line of the river in the coming days.

The Southern Bridge Far End – We CANNOT allow the bridges to fall into enemy hands, this river is one of the best lines of defence we have, and we must use it!

The Western Bridge – This is also a key crossing point which is made even more important because its loss would see the army cut in two in this area.  It is also the route re-enforcements will come from if we require them.

The Windmill -   In this awful flat country something that sticks up into the sky is handy!  We need that building to put our observers in so we have a decent view over the road and surrounding countryside.

The Industrial Estate – My information is that our esteemed colleagues in the panzer divisions have chosen this site, on the wrong side of the river, to place a substantial proportion of their fuel supplies in that fuel tank.  It must be held until we can bring up enough transport to remove it or our armour will grind to a halt.

  

Set-up:

To put it simply the SS Panzergrenadiers and Panzer Kompanie (me and Pete) deployed in a 2 foot deep band across the width of the table, from the windmill (my side) to the monastery, to represent the front line.  A third German company garrisoned the town – the grenadiers – while the Allies started off table, with their armour moving on to the south of the front line, while their paras dropped in from turn 1 onwards anywhere they chose using some scatter dice.  Sadly the pictures had to be taken by iPhone, not a good option but I had left the camera at HQ.

The Battle:

Turn 1 dawned bright and clear as paratroopers dropped from the sky.  James choose to drop his allocation between the windmill and the river, quietly seizing the ford which the Germans were oblivious too and launching an attack on my 88’s on the hill, destroying them.  Dennis was even more bold, dropping his men in huge platoons (19 teams strong!), one behind Petes SS Panzergrenadiers looking to wipe out his Panzer IV’s, and the rest on the other side of the river amongst the buildings.  The paras attacking Pete failed miserably, and were severely punished by the German tanks, but it was even worse in the town.  The yanks succeeded in taking out the Germans AT guns and StuG’s, but hadn’t realised that virtually every building was a machine gun post!  Ben and Chris had done well in deploying their troops, and by the Allied turn 2 Dennis’ 1500pts of paras was practically no more and I deemed it necessary to recycle them and back in they came against a nearly untouched grenadier defence company for another go which would last longer than 1 turn. 

The German front line, with my Panzers in front of the windmill hill, and Petes SS Panzergrenadiers beyond them near the monastery. 

The allied armour had arrived, with the Canadian centre of Shermans being flanked to its right by the British with Shermans with a number of lighter Stuarts, and a mass of Cromwells to their left from the Welsh Guards.  The Welsh had obviously decided the way forward was to go quickly, and were highly aggressive from the start, with the Canadians almost dragged along for the ride, fearful of losing their lines of sight and missing out on the kill.  The British in comparison went with the ‘slow and steady wins the race’ strategy, which was proving a success against an outnumbered SS Panzergrenadier platoons who gradually gave ground for better positions.  They did so unhurried however, and were able to drop back to better firing positions with a reasonable number of men, abandoning the farm in the centre to the Canadians, and latterly the monastery to the British in the knowledge that they were not required by the German high command to hold them, however the Allies did have them on their hit list, and two objectives fell to them easily.

The Allied armour arrives, or at least most of it, Welsh Cromwells to the right, Canadians in the centre and the Brits (obscured by random terrain piece) on the far side.  The edges of the farm are to the left.

The full battlefield, with one of the American paras (James!) already trying to text for re-enforcements.  The results of this are unknown.

The SS Panzergrenadiers, the monastery, and the paras near the river.

Closer still - the Paras miss their shot and fall foul of the SS tanks.

The crossroads in the centre of the town.

Ben and Chris' artillery, which caused many problems for the paras throughout.

My Panzers had one very good turn, brewing up a goodly number of allied tanks, these being the Welsh.

However there were many more available.

 My Panzer Kompanie, to the right of the SS Panzergrenadiers, came under more intense pressure as the bulk of the Canadians and all of the Welsh Guards came at them at full speed.  This left no real opportunity to fall back successfully, even if the way had been cleared of American paras.  To clear this route, and escape some of the attacking armour, my pioneers in their halftracks assaulted the paras and reclaimed the hill and the windmill on top with the assistance of a depleted platoon of Panzer IV’s.  However, the Cromwells were soon on their back, and as the pioneers dug in, unable to make a further dent on the rest of the dug in Americans, the Panzer IV’s were hit in the back and wiped out, complete with the company commander.  The rest of my retreating armour fell back into fields and towards the hill, with the two Tiger 1E’s acting as a magnet for the hordes of 17pdr-armed Challenger and Sherman Firefly tanks.  The combined Panzer IV’s and Tigers bloodied the Allied advance, destroying 7-8 tanks, before the Welsh M10’s took the lead and wiped out the Tigers.  They were in turn destroyed by the remaining withdrawing Panzer IV’s.  The German tanks covered the retreat of my other platoon of infantry; panzergrenadiers racing recklessly in their trucks towards the safety of Petes forces, before being finally overcome by the wave of green armour.

My Panzer IV's and Tigers try to fall back, but the paras are in the way, and the Allied armour soon catches them and wiped them out.

Dennis’ new para wave come in again, and although it didn’t suffer as much as the first time round a couple of heavily armed kampfgruppen in the town put pay to their hopes of taking the bridge.  They were crushed back into a corner of the town near to the bridge, but it would take more than machine guns to get rid of them completely.  On the other side of the river Dennis launched more paras against the back of Petes SS, but with the SS now retreating the more compacted troops made short work of the yanks.  James also dropped in more troops, including an ill-chosen placement of a platoon on the far side of the town, most probably hoping to enter it from the undefended north.  However Ben and Chris clearly had a paranoia complex about this, and heavy machine guns pointed from every window there too, forcing the paras to dig in to survive, before a big half track platoon arrived from reserve for the Germans to wipe them out.  The rest of James’ remaining reserves were allocated to his already strong positions south of the ford.

More re-enforcements for the German effort to clear the town of paras.

Some of Phil's Canadians are caught by my Tigers in the open just before the Welsh gained revenge.

Phils canadian infantry take the farm after little SS resistance.

 More German reserves slowly began to arrive from Ben and Chris, with Ben’s SS heading down the road into the town, aiming to reduce Dennis’ remaining Paras.  Chris’ forces consisted of primarily Panthers, and they took another route around the edge, heading towards James’ paras with the overall aim of taking on the Allied armour horde.  They attracted the attention of the allied air power; wielded with varying success by Phil throughout the battle, but escaped, only to find a belt of para’s in the way.  Friction erupted on the German side as Chris insisted that my remaining pioneers (dug in around the windmill) attacked and cleared a route for his tanks.  I rejected this as suicide and fell back into the windmill to claim that as an objective.  Chris forced his way through, but at the loss of several tanks after they were hit by a couple of nasty Allied artillery bombardments.  He then pushed the lead elements into a wood where they took out a couple of Cromwells, only to be devastatingly ambushed by troops from James’ paras who wiped them out at close range, and ended the counter attack before it had really begun.  With no other target the horde of allied tanks turned their guns on the windmill, and, although it took a while, my pioneers were wiped out.

The spectacular part of the para defence of their corner of the town, they took out an entire armoured half track platoon before falling back to one last building, hence the black smoke!

The Allied armour reaches the line of the windmill and links up with James' paras.

The menacing German re-enforcements arrive, courtesy of Chris.

The end of Dennis' paras, surrounded and outnumbered and outgunned.

David's British infantry takes the ruined monastery with no resistance from Petes SS, although he did return with his Panzer IV's to make the end hot for them.

Phil's desperate efforts with his typhoons were a feature throughout, and this was his big moment at the very end of the battle when he destroyed a Tiger while flying through the towns streets.

The battle was coming to a head, and near the edge of the town there was much grumbling as Pete bemoaned the lack of re-enforcements coming through from the town, where Ben was retaining every man in his final bid to wipe out Dennis, who succumbed after some brutal house to house fighting.  My last platoon; the panzergrenadiers, took only a few casualties from their mad truck dash and dug themselves into the buildings next to the fuel tank objective on the main road just as Petes troops were withdrawing or being wiped out by David’s British advance.  Pete’s SS panzergrenadiers made good their escape and secured the allies end of the bridge, finished off the last of Dennis’ troops on the table in the process.  With Dennis’ American para’s destroyed Ben finally succumbed to Pete’s demands for re-enforcements and sent a platoon of Puma armoured cars across the main town bridge to confront the British Stuarts which, following the demise of Petes last AT guns, were now advancing swiftly.  They failed to do enough damage to them to drive them off however, and with the agreed time upon us the game was drawn to a conclusion, time to count objectives.

The German counter attack fails as Chris' panthers fall prey to James' paras in the woods.

The Results:

The Germans under Ben and Chris had successfully cleared the town of para’s, and as a consequence held the crossroads and the Western Bridge, while a combination of Pete’s SS and the Puma’s now held the far end of the Southern main bridge into the town having slowed down the British advance.  My panzergrenadiers looked to have claimed the fuel tank just off the main road but the pesky British Stuarts were just close enough to contest it, while the windmill was lost to us following the demise of my pioneers.

The Allies had claimed the monastery with Davids troops, and the farm with Phil’s, easily due to Pete’s ignorance of the Allies objectives and subsequent withdrawal (which was almost certainly the best action anyway due to the volume of Allied armour heading that way).  James’ paras held the ford, which the Germans remained oblivious of until the very end, while none of the Allied armour was able to reach the Windmill to claim that thanks to its positioning up a steep hill.  The crossroads and the town end of the Southern bridge had been valiantly contested by Dennis until the very end but he succumbed to the inevitable as Ben and Chris poured troops in.  Overall 3 objectives a piece, and a draw, and in the words of the victory conditions; A Draw - no strategic success achieved for either side, the Yanks get to take over the running of the war, and the senior Germans are called back to Berlin for “a chat”.

Post-Battle Analysis:

It worked out quite well in the end, although the original plan called for more para’s and fewer Allied armour, but with a last second loss of a player it had to be balanced up a bit.  This meant Pete’s SS and my Panzers stood little chance of doing more than delaying the armour, which Pete did with more success than me, although credit to the Allied players who really went for it with very aggressive attacks – they could have stopped and tried snipping but pushed on under the driving influence and example of the Welsh.  The Para’s almost did their job, with Dennis losing a massive 2,500pts+ in the town against the excellent defence of Ben and Chris, but sticking it out until the end, causing them a fair bit of worry.  James did several good jobs; sticking a knife in my Panzers back, claiming the ford, and blocking the Panther re-enforcements.  Overall everyone seemed to have a good time, the scenario came out roughly balanced, and that’s all you can really ask for.