American Breakout

The Germans were trying to contain an American breakout just 10 miles south of Normandy at the village of Caumont. A company of veteran Panzer Grenadiers held the river while waiting for armored support in the form of a deadly StuG III. The American assault force was formed around an experienced infantry company with support from a platoon of Shermans. A lagging platoon of M8 Greyhounds were trying to catch up and get in the action also. The Americans had an excellent pre-battle recon effort that gave them a substantial manpower advantage to begin the fight.

RULES: Poor Bloody Infantry II by Peter Pig, Rules For the Common Man

US Force: First Platoon: Platoon Leader, Bazooka team, 2xHMG,
2xBAR, 4xRifle Team
Second Platoon: Platoon Leader, 3xBAR, 6xRifle
Sherman Platoon: 3xM4 Shermans
Recon Patrol: 3xM8 Greyhounds

German Force: Panzer Grenadier Platoon: Platoon Leader SMG,
6xLMG
Panzer Grenadier Platoon: Platoon Leader SMG,
6xLMG, 4xSdKfz 251
1xStuG III

The Germans chose to defend the river line, guarding three vital points in and around the town. The damaged bridge was the Americans primary objective, with the church tower and one tree hill as secondary goals. The Americans attacked with both infantry platoons and the Shermans, while the veteran German force started the fight with just one platoon of grenadiers on the table. At right the Germans guard the south side of the bridge. The Americans came in from the north.


The Americans rolled forward with the Shermans and a platoon of infantry, quickly outflanking the grenadiers but were unable to cause many casualties to the dug in Germans. On the right, the American second platoon rushed forward, claiming One Tree Hill. First platoon first squad rushed down the far left flank, claiming the church tower and giving the Americans two of the three objectives on turn 1.

In the German half of turn 1, the grenadiers guarding the left flank edged forward to begin a game-long shootout with the Americans taking One Tree Hill. They were able to wipe out a substantial number of the Americans, but never cleared the hill. On the right flank, deadly German machine gun fire took out the American rifle team advancing behind the Shermans.


On turn two, the Americans lost one rifle team on One Tree Hill to German opportunity fire, but got their revenge when their HMGs were set up on a hill overlooking the bridge and killed the grenadier's platoon leader. Lacking leadership, the Germans were able to do little on their half of the turn, but did manage to kill one American rifle team in the church yard.

It would take another turn to get a new platoon leader in place, but turn three went much like turn two. The Americans were able to rush the bridge, holding all three objectives for the first time. The US forces extricated their tanks from the bridge and swung around the right flank to pound the village with ineffective fire from their 75mm cannons. Second platoon continued to take withering fire from the grenadiers, losing one rifle stand to opportunity fire and two more during the German half of the turn. In return, the Americans did wipe out one stand of grenadiers with opportunity fire. At the end of turn three, the game clock stood at eight and the Germans wisely elected to bring on reinforcements in the form of a partial grenadier platoon of the platoon leader and four LMG stands.

On turn four, the Germans continued whittling away at the American right flank with opportunity fire, while the American second platoon finally wiped out German resistance on the left. The tanks kept blasting away at the town but were unable to root out the dug in grenadiers. On the German half of turn four, the reinforcements rushed forward and fired on the Americans in the churchyard, killing them to a man.

Turn five proved to be pivotal as second platoon was free to race through the town and take a small farm that would be used as a staging ground for the next day's assault. First platoon remained bogged down in heavy streetfighting. The Germans successfully called in artillery on their half of the turn, but they called it in too close to their own positions and lost first platoon's commander as a result. Infantry fire did kill one of the two US units holding the damaged bridge, however. The game clock rolled down to three.

In turn six, the US second platoon took another forward position and the Greyhounds showed up, too late for the action. The Germans made a last chance effort to clear the bridge of Americans. A close assault failed at the cost of one squad, but later machine gun fire succeeded in killing the last American section, a BAR team that had held the bridge since the third turn and denying the US force 8d6 of victory points.

The final result was a rather narrow 15 point US victory, with much of the margin coming from second platoons push to the German baseline. The Americans were just able to overcome the tenacious German defenders and make further Nazi defense in Caumont untenable. After what looked like a sure rout early on, the German's veteran stature and superior firepower really started to tell, giving them great staying power. The American manpower advantage enabled them to outflank the grenadiers early, but they were unable to kill dug in veterans at a pace that would have allowed them to maintain control of the three objectives.

Some highlights:
One German square firing with three APs had something like seven hits out of 22 dice.
The American HMGs fired just once during the game, but they made it count by taking out the grenadier's platoon leader.
The German artillery strike turned out to be more stupid than ballsy thanks to some hot dice from Col. Fairchild.
APs were easy to come by for a change, with the Germans regularly getting six and seven and the US having enough to blast the village with at least six or seven rounds from the Sherman's 75mm cannons. Not that they had any effect, but they got the shots off.
Motivations were tougher for the Americans to come by, and they had to sacrifice some mobility around the bridge when the platoon leader failed to get his troops up and moving.
German LMGs are just plain nasty.

Next game: Three weeks, and it's a biggie. Soviets vs. Germans in a two-map 800-point slug fest.