PP8 - A Little Bit Closer To Heaven

Last fall, Paul Works and I played this scenario from the Provence Pack. I had the gallant liberators of their homeland and Paul took the nasty jackbooted thugs.

Analysis:
This is game of "king of hill" on our old favorite Board 2, with the Free French needing to control all Level 3 Locations at game end to win.

The German defenders are mediocre: six squads (with the usual assortment of leaders and SW) and a 50L AT gun (plus crew) at the start, later reinforced by twelve more squads plus the trimmings. In contrast, the Free French are one hard core outfit: a dozen elite squads entering on Turn 1, reinforced by six Assault Engineer squads, Monsieur 9-2 and four M5A1 Stuart light tanks on Turn 2.

Now for the catch. The Germans have lots of Trenches and Mines, while the Free French don't have much time. In theory, the Free French have six turns. But if they don't more or less have victory wrapped up by turn 4, then the wave of German turn 3 reinforcements will get into the inevitable line of Trenches on the Level 3 hexes. It's unlikely that the French will be able to completely clear the Level 3 hexes in the short time remaining.

So the name of the game for the Free French is to _quickly_ get up hill and attain the victory conditions, all the while running up exposed hills against an enemy that is well dug in.

My offensive plan was conduct a concentrated attack with all of my forces against only part of the German positions. That way all of my forces would be opposed by only a portion of the Germans forces and encounter only a fraction of the enemy fortifications. My entry hexes stretched from approximately A6 to K1, the initial objective the Level 3 hexes on J4 and K5. I planned to avoided the L2 woods since this would be an obvious place to plant the Mines. Once J4 and K5 were secured, I planned to use my superior force to push on to the other Level 3 hexes.

What Happened
Paul set up a two layer defense with about half of his force as a forward screen to delay me and half on the Level 3 hexes. The 50L AT gun was in N6.  My attack initially went fairly well, which was helped by the brutal dicing that I was administering to Paul. Sure enough, I captured J4 and K5.  Unfortunately, I lost two tanks (one to a PF and one to the AT gun) and had another immobilized by the AT gun. Furthermore, my ascent to J4 and K5 were slowed by the down side of concentration force. Running eighteen squads through a small area while avoiding Residual Fire and stacking consumed too much time. Meanwhile, the German reinforcements arrived on the other Level 3 hexes. Due to the cliffs and woods hex in M4 (4MP to enter from a Level 1 hex), the Level 3 hexes at M5 and south very tough to take. By Turn 5, it was clearly impossible to win and I conceded to Paul.

Lessons Learned
I could have used my tanks much better. Their anemic armament was fairly useless against infantry in trenches. I also underestimated how the terrain (hills and limited VBM around the woods) would restrict their movement. I should have sent tanks along the road around the south side of the hill and used them to beat up the German reinforcements as they entered from the west. I would have gotten lots of FFNAM and some FFMO, which would have reduced his ability to get reinforcements on the hill quickly and made the most of my armament. Then my big elite force on the hill would take on the small mediocre German force without interference. Furthermore, this would have kept the tanks out of LATW range which is a good thing.

Mass is a principle of war, but I overdid it. Spreading out a bit more would have speeded up my run up the hill.

I thoroughly enjoyed this scenario. Lots of options for both sides, which makes for an interesting tactical problem to solve. My only complaint is that the counter density on the hill gets pretty bad. Kudos to my fine opponent Paul Works, scenario designer Laurent Cunin and MMP who put the Provence Pack on their website.