Ethan's Wargaming Blog. : Stop Patton! A CD IV AAR

Hello Gamers!

Last weekend I played in another one of Vic's Command Decision games. I forget the actual scenario name but it involves a large hodge podge of Germans attempting to blunt the tip of Patton's famous advance so the Germans can gain time to recover. There was a colossal amount of units on the table:

Despite the fact that the Germans were rolling in with around four companies of Panthers and Stugs their troop quality was pretty bad. Most of these guys had never seen combat, and this was only their third or fourth time actually driving their tanks. As such, all German movement was halved. The Americans were pretty standard, and had a buttload of Shermans and Stuarts as well at Hellcats.

Anyway, the Germans were tasked with taking 3 of the towns scattered across the board. This would prove nigh' impossible, but hey, we tried :D

Shots of the Table:

The German plan was to take the towns to the Left and Right and converge on the Center town. A fairly straightforward and easy to follow plan, and quite honestly, the only plan available (I'll get to that later)

We were moving using blinds/concealment markers with a visibility of four inches (200 yards to you non CD players) and we made it through the first turn with 0 contact. The Americans laid out dummy blinds hoping we'd try to trek it through the open ground rather than using the roads, but their bluff failed.

This is where the entire plan fell apart. Our right flank came to a screeching halt due to a single platoon of Shermans, who opened fire on the encroaching Panthers. Predictably, the first Panther Platoon crapped their pants and threw it in Reverse. This would become the trend for the entire rest of the game.

As Turn 3 began the Germans moved their two pincers into contact with their respective towns. Immediately, it became painfully clear the day was lost. We were too slow, and the Americans made it to every town before we did, meaning it'd be nearly impossible to dig them out. On the right, four companies of Panthers were held down by a single company of Shermans. The Germans killed a single platoon, while in turn losing two platoons of their own.

This is as far as the Panthers would get as even more Shermans rolled into town and the Panther's morale was already shaky.

On the left, the Germans fared little better. My Infantry Company made it all the way to the town, which had been occupied the previous turn by US blinds. Lo and Flippin Behold, it was two companies of Stuarts
who immediately destroyed 1/3rd of my men. The following turn I had nothing to do but close assault, and my entire force was slain by canister rounds.

The game was beyond over at this point. With a single Engineer Company left in the center, advancing towards a town filled with machine guns and Hellcats, we just gave up. All in all, I understand that this was a historical refight and war isn't always fair, and I enjoyed hanging out and seeing people while pushing some plastic.

However, the game was so unbelievably one sided it was impossible to be upset at our loss. The Germans have absolutely ZERO chance of getting to the towns before the US does. It is simply impossible to take any more than one town. If we had sent the Panthers left and all the infantry up the middle as a flank guard we would have taken one town. However, by then the center town would be bristling with death, and we would be back to square one anyway.

The Troop Quality of the Germans combined with their reduced movement rate makes for an impossible challenge. The Table was beautiful, the figures were outstanding, and Vic was once again a passionate and awesome GM. Even though I lost I had fun, as I always do when playing any of Vic's games. Here's some more shots of some of the Figures involved: