BA: Italian Front Germans vs US Paras

My 251/9 arrived this week so it has been pressed into service for tonights game and I've made a few tweaks to the force:

My Italian Front Germans- 12 dice
1x Vet Lieutenant + NCO
2x Vet squads: SMG, 2x LMGs, 5x rifles
1x Vet squad: 3x SMGs, 2x LMG, 4x rifles
1x Vet Pioneer Squad: 3x SMG, 1x flamethrower, 5x rifles
1x Reg Med Mortar
1x Vet sniper
1x Reg Panzershrek
1x Reg 37mm Flak AA
1x Reg 233 armoured car
1x Reg 251/9 stummelwerfer
1x 251/1 Reg SPW

Kent's US Para's- 10 dice
Kent too had tweaked his force and fielded:
1x Vet lt and NCO
2x tough fighting vets with BAR and 10 men
1x Vet paras wityh LMG
Vet bazooka
Reg 57mm AT gun
Reg Greyhound armoured car
Vet Sherman


We decided to keep it simple and play max attrition. I went into this one thinking I had a well balanced force and would do well.

 Things started well, on turn 1 I only lost a mortar man. Then on turn 2 my panzershrek team missed the sherman but then the 37mm put 2 pins on the veteran tank, and my 233 added another. Alas then panzershrek team was destroyed by small arms fire from US paras. The 57mm AT gun missed the flak 38 and the American mortar failed to range in on flak 38.

 Turn 3 the 57mm missed 251/9, as did the bazooka team. However the paras kill 3 men form the squad that had debussed from the 251/1 and my platoon commander was shot throught the heart by a sniper. As a bonus the panzer greaniers that had leapt out of the 251 managed to kill 6 paras!

Bazooka misses. On turn 4 (below) the Vet germans attack the 2 remaining paras and completely miss, they take a loss and are routed!

On turn 4 the pioneers kill 5 paras with the flamethrower but the paras (despite 4 pins) remain.  The 233 hit and pinned the greyhound and the bazooka knocked out the 251/9.

Turn 5 and my pioneers kills 2 infantry along the hedgerow, again again the mortar misses the 57mm At gun (by 1- grr). Near the stone wall the paras assult and kill 3 Germans for the loss of two, the gemans flee then the squad in the building pour LMG fire onto the Americans killing 4 of the 5 survivors- but again the Amerians refuse to break! The Greyhound hits the 233 and immobilises it. 

In the final couple of turns Kent completely mopped up my force, killing a total of 11 squads for the loss of 5 of his own. Talk about a thrashing.

An interesting game, the decisive moment coming when my panzer grenadiers (turn 3 or 4) failed to kill the infantry squad on the left flank and were destroyed despite the dice favouring them 9-3. We both felt I was about to roll up the flank at the point as both tough fighter units were about had it but somehow Kent managed to keep all his damaged units on table despite needing some very low morale rolls which meant that once again I was not able to finish off badly damaged squads and the last couple of turns were completely one sided with how the dice fell but by then the damage had been done. Overall though I thought my force had a good balance and was happy with the way it played, even though it simply melted away in the end.

we do need to look at a morale system for the game, once a force has taken half or more casualties a morale test each turn to stay fighting, maybe with a penalty for extra squads destroyed, rather than fighting to the bitter end.

Craig