Conflict of Heroes : Firefight # 1 Partisans Revisited

Conflict of Heroes 2nd Ed 

Awakening the Bear, FF #1 : Partisans

Oct 17, 1941, Russia

The Germans were feeling confident, over confident perhaps , with their longer range LMGs,  as they group moved on to the map south of the road. They spread out into two rifle squad/LMG  stacks and moved into the light woods.

Germans enter the map on T1

At this point the Germans stopped and started firing at the Russian rifle squad in the woods on the Russian left flank. This had disappointingly little effect.

After the Germans had used up all but two CAPs the canny Russians started to move in toward the cross roads.

End of T1

 At the end of turn 1 the hoped for Russian casualties had not been inflicted, and the Russians were congregating out of sight of the German LMGs.

End of T2 Russian Reinforcements, a nasty surprise

The Germans sent one LMG + Rifle squad around the bottom of the woods to try and flank the Russian  squad there, but the Russians sidled along the road in the woods. The other German LMG + squad moved to the top of the woods and started engaging the Russians there.
Some success there, eliminating one Russian squad outright led to a rush of blood to the head , and the Germans closed to try and take over the objective, completely forgetting about the Russian reinforcements about to come storming down the road into their rear. The German rifle squad was broken but manged to  closed  with the Russian squad on the objective to melee. Callous Russian leadership ordered other Russians to  fire into the melee, missing the Russians but killing the Germans. The  German LMG was also broken, and the center of attention for a whole bunch of Russians.


For a short while it looked like the German   LMG might miraculously survive; on T3 the Germans got the initiative and the LMG backed out to take shelter behind the woods and was looking menacingly at the rear of a nearby Russian squad. The Russian unit changed facing leaving the LMG  with the option to rally or to shoot. The Germans fired and I think killed another unit, but were then eliminated themselves. Iron crosses all around.

Turn 3 saw the entry of the German SS squad. So far the Russians had held the objective  for three turns and the casualties were 2 units each, so the Russians were comfortably heading for a win.
The   Russians split off a  squad to close with the SS, but then decided this was not a good plan. The SS squad moved adjacent to the Russian, who had only one AP  left and was looking helpless. Instead of shooting, the SS got greedy and moved into melee in the same hex. The Russians used their last AP to move out the way the Germans had moved in! So both squads missed each other entirely as they were both facing the wrong way and so could not target each other even if they had the APs.

Meanwhile the surviving German LMG  + squad closed with the Russian squad in the woods. The German LMG was broken, but the Russian squad was eliminated.

End of T3

So throwing caution to the winds in T4 the SS squad carried on toward the objective, ignoring the Russian squad in its rear. The SS took out one Russian squad firing into its rear and then  moved adjacent to the Russian Maxim MG , flanking it but with no APs to do anything about it. In the woods below the objective the other German rifle squad moved toward the objective from the other direction.  The German squad actually moved on to the   objective, and held on to it at the end of T4, eliminating the Russian unit there. The German LMG rallied. Suddenly it looked like victory could be possible for the Germans.Russian casualties had mounted and now the Germans had the objective.

But then the Russian rifle squad the SS troops had bypassed arrived in the rear of the SS squad and put paid to them. The  Maxim MG somehow reclaimed the objective eliminating the German rifle squad and overall we  were left with three surviving units, 2 Russian and  1 German. The Russians had held on to the objective for 4 turns out of 5, so gaine a comfortable victory.

The End

So a big win for the Russians. After the Germans shot themselves in the foot at T2 forgetting about the reinforcements it looked like it was all over, but at the end of T4 it could have gone either way.
However their gamble did not pay off in the end and the Russians came back with guns blazing.

Conflict of Heroes : Firefight # 1 Partisans

The Russians waited patiently while the German LMG edged into position , coming in on the Northern end of the map edge. The German LMG maneuvered to keep out of the LOS of the Russian Maxim until they were in position in the woods. At this point the Russian MMG opened fired but to no effect.
The LMG gained 6 more APs from an action card and commenced to lay down fire on the Russian MMG. The Russians  were lucky to emerge from that hail of bullets with just a broken unit.


The second German MG then moved onto the board and the Russians were relieved to see that they were not moving in to have another crack at the Maxim.  The German LMG moved into the central woods obviously preparing to bring some firepower to bear on the Russian rifle squads.


The Russians were worried; they could not just allow the German LMGs to pummel them from long range, so the Rifle squad on the Russian left started advancing  to the small copse , screened from the advancing German LMG, to distract the Germans from the objective  and to close the range.


As follow on German squads started moving up to join the LMG more Russian squads threw caution to the winds and moved up out of the woods toward the German LMG. German CAPs had been spent on the Maxim MG gun battle so the LMG could only respond by adjusting its facing, to avoid being outflanked. This  helped as one Russian squad fired at close range, did not get the flank advantage  and did not affect the German LMG unit. The German squad coming up in support of the LMG was more accurate and broke the Russian rifle squad. A second Russian squad advanced into the same hex as the  German LMG, gambling on gaining the initiative next turn, as it could not do no more that turn.

At the end of turn 1 the Russians gained 1 VP for holding the objective. No losses at this time, but two broken Russian units and 1 broken German.

Both sides commited 2 CAPs to the initiative roll and it went to the Russians. The melee occurred and the German LMG squad was broken.  The Germans decided that discretion was the better part of valor and the German LMG advanced  out of the melee hex, toward the Russian objective, keeping its front facing toward the hex it has just left.

This allowed the Russian Rifle squad nearby to recover. A  German Rifle squad moved into extract revenge for the death of the German LMG team but it did not go well for them and a heroic Russian response killed the German squad. To add to the Russian successes, the Maxim recovered.

The German LMG  moved  into the objective , but  kept their facing toward the rear  where the nearest Russian squads were celebrating their successes. However the Russian reinforcements entered the map and group moved up the road until they were in LOS and range of the German LMG  on the objective hex. A group fire eliminated the Germans.

In a coup de grace a Russian squad moved in from behing the copse on the Russian left and, braving manchine gun fire from the surviving  German LMG  , reoccupied the objective as the last act of turn 2.

At this point the Germans, face with havely losses and reducec CAPs, surrendered.

Scenario #2 Hedgerows and Hand Grenades

Place : Normandy, France
Date :  July  1944

A description of scenario 2 : Hedgerows and Hand Grenades from the GMT Games board game Combat Commander : Europe

www.gmt.games

Setup

Sgt. Smith was in the center with the MMG and 2 squads, Hubbard was on the US  right with the mortar looking down the road, and Blenkinships men were leaderless on the left.  

The US had drawn a double exit points open objective so Blenkinship, taking advantage of his free deployment,  was off at the other end of the map ready to exit and rejoin his squads.

The Germans had setup a defense in depth, with a strong presence in the center of the map around objectives 3 and 4  ; Rattenhaus was in objective 3 with a squad, along with a squad in the adjacent building.  Esser was in the bocage surrounded field to the right of Rattenhaus with two squads.

To the rear  the two German HMGs were positioned in a strong second line of defense, with Biermann and Schrader.

Opening Salvo

American artillery dropped dense smoke which drifted right onto objective 3. As a result the Germans fell back from the farmhouse complex without firing a shot! Esser and his squad remained behind in the bocage, rather exposed, as a forlorn hope.


Blenkinship moved off the map and scored a quick 4 VPs and waited patiently on the Time track to rejoin the action.

Sgt. Smith in the center  took advantage of the German tactical withdrawal and scrambled  forward into the objective 3 farmhouse. This was a 4 VP swing as each objective was worth 2 VPs. Smith and his men were relieved to take the first objective without a fight.  Just as they moved in , a breeze sprang up and cleared the smoke exposing  German conscript squads on the road outside the farmhouse, that had been tardy in their withdrawal. Excellent timing , for the Americans...
The nearest conscript squad  was rapidly broken and then routed off the board with a "12", a stroke of bad luck that brought Blenkinship onto the map to rejoin his squads on the US left flank. The other Conscript squad was also broken, and met the same fate a couple of turns alter.

Smoke blows away , exposing a target rich environment 

Rattenhaus, having fallen back from the center to the HMG line, took his squads to the German left and was looking for an opportunity to move off the map.
Hubbard  and his two squads were blocking this exit, but were in the line of fire of the German HMG so were feeling a little under matched.

Chaos in the center!

Smith, now securely installed in objective 3 along with the MMG ,  called in artillery on the German HMG in objective 5. The  US MMG was able to join in on occasion. The conscripts manning the German  HMG  and Biermann were quickly broken and only saved by the timely arrival of Herzog, who helped them to rally successfully. However their rally was brief and they were broken again and routed out of the woods. Allied airpower then added to the German misfortune and broke Esser , who had been sitting quietly in his bocage fortress all this time.  The German squads with Esser managed to fall back with a Rout roll leaving Esser broken and isolated. Shortly thereafter a sniper took him out! The Germans best leader eliminated without making a significant contribution to the fight.


All this time Schrader and the other German HMG traded fire with Hubbard and his mortar team rather inconclusively.



Smith moved out of objective 3 into the bocage surrounded field recently occupied by Esser and started to move threateningly toward the broke Biermann

Things at this time were looking very bleak for the Germans.  A run of lucky events and a dearth of German recover cards  had taken their toll. But then a rare foray by the Luftwaffe struck lie a bolt from the blue and broke Sgt Smith  his MMG team and accompanying squad. Then, the US discard looking for a Recover card triggered a German reinforcement : an SS squad!  In what turned out to be a fortunate move  for Sgt Smith at least, he was routed out of the way as the  SS squad   moved in to melee, and with a couple of ambushes obliterated the central US weapons team and squad ,along with the MMG. The US center now only comprised a broken Sgt Smith. The US steamroller had been stalled.

A lone US squad detached from Hubbards group  and  moved back in to objective 3, by way of objective 4 to confront the SS squad, and  to distract them from the still broken Sgt Smith.  Blenkinship was also moving in to cover Smith from the US right in a race to save Smith and plug the hole in the US lines. The SS squad decided to leave Smith alone and meleed the nearby US squad in objective 3. Neither side had been able to prepare any ambushes, but the US held the initiative. It was not needed as  the Germans lost the melee by  the closest of margins. Smith breathed a sigh of relief and then recovered. 

At this point the Germans were three units away from the surrender level and had lost their best leader and one HMG. But they were not out of the fight and the Time marker was only on 4 (out of 8).  The VP marker was hovering around zero.

However time had run out for the players and so an honorable draw was called.