Scenario 12 :Misty Mountain

Place : Monte Castello, Italy
Date : December 12 1944

A description of scenario 12 : Misty Mountain from the GMT Games board game Combat Commander : Europe

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Setup

Fog shrouded the mountains and the green Brasilian troops nervously moved into their start positions. They were unaware of the locations of the waiting German troops, a severe handicap. But the fog was a handicap to both sides, a 3 hindrance cumulative to any other LOS hindrance.



Hubbard, with 3 squads and an MMG was on the right, hoping to push down the road and off the map. Blenkinship was on the left with three squads and the other MMG. His immediate task was to take objectives 1 and 3, and then await further orders.  Jensen was in the orchard in the  middle  with 3 squads, prepared to support either flank as the situation developed. In the figure above , Jensen has moved off to the left from his original start position in the orchard, attempting to block Pfeifer.



The Germans were setup with Pfeifer , a squad and a team in a building at hex F8, a very forward location, looking to exit the map. Bierman, a squad and an LMG were in the building of objective 3 (D6), with a squad backing them up just behind the objective in another  building . One squad was setup on the woods covered hilltop just behind the major objective 4. There was a little command confusion here as the  German command thought that any point on the hilltop was the objective.


The bulk of the German forces were setup on the hill top and ridge that included objective 5. The ridge was heavily fortified with bunkers and trenches.

Vamanos!

Jensen reacted quickly to the advanced deployment of Pfeifer and moved to the left, moving out of  the cover of the orchard in the early morning mist to block an easy German exit.
Pfeifer engaged  one of the blocking squads and in the ensuing melee the Brasilians fought well, ambushing the advancing Germans twice before being overwhelmed.

Pfeifer got most of his troops off the map, with one German team falling to the Brazilians. Not a good start for the Allies, more VPs added to the already  daunting German total, and precious time wasted.

A tentative advance on the US right through the orchard drew fire from the German HMG on the mountain top. This caused the nervous Allied commander to think twice, even with the mist giving cover. More progress was made on the Allied left as the Brazilians move into the buildings , taking objective 1 and moving up on objective 3.

Reinforcements in the shape of Sgt. Smith arrived in fairly short order with a horde of green troops. They were positioned in the middle and to the right of the Allied positions. Smith had orders to take objective 4, which the Germans had mysteriously left unoccupied. Sgt. Pfeifer and two teams reappeared in the German rear.

Success On the Left Turns to Disaster

Blenkinship pushed up on the left, and got into the buildings without too much trouble taking objective 1, and started a firefight with  the Germans in objective 3. After breaking the Germans the  Brazilians stormed the objective successfully. However Blenkinship and his squad then got pinned in the objective 4 building, and were not able to recover. The stone wall surrounding the building had them trapped.  Heavy consistent fire from the German HMG on the hilltop took its toll, and Blenkinship and the squad perished. A heavy price to pay from one lowly objective.

Success In the  Middle

Smith, the best leader the Allies had, took his green troops right up the center, in the shadow of the trees and moved into objective 4. This turn of events was a surprise to the Germans, as up to that point they thought the entire hill top comprised the objective and led to an 8 VP swing in the Allies favor. The Allies had been reducing the German VP lead, but it was still  6 or 7 points in the German favor. It would have been closer to zero but the German events repeatedly rewarded the Germans for holding on to their existing objectives.

Too Little Too Late

On the right the Allies had belatedly realized the value of the medium mortars smoke ability. With no direct line of sight to the German HMG on the hill top, they started dropping smoke close to the HMG, allowing Allied units to move up the right side of the map unhindered.


Hubbard did manage to get a couple of squads off the map, capturing objective 2 on the way, but this left behind scattered Allied squads with no leaders on the right. The Germans quickly recaptured objective 2 once Hubbard was out of the way.


So at this point , time was moving along. Heavy casualties on the left had stalled the Allies, although the objectives remained in their hands. In the middle, Sgt. Smith had a good grip on the valuable objective 4, but was forced to stay there to prevent its recapture. On the right , there was no leader, but a lot of squads milling about.

Another Time event brought Hubbard back on the right, and Jensen had moved into the area to organize a mass advance off the map. But at this point one more time event would end the game. The Allies were stuck between  discarding to get move cards to kick start the advance, and running through their deck triggering Time. The deck ran out before the move cards arrived, and the Germans scored a solid victory.

In hindsight

A catalog of errors on the Allied side cost them the victory; too tentative in advancing through the mist cost them too much time.  Realizing the benefit of smoke too late. Leaving the green squads leaderless  on the right and perhaps getting distracted by Pfeifer and his dash off the map in the early going all contributed to a lack luster performance. The Brazilians fought well  but their high command let them down.