One Hour Mortain

 Although the postcard game on Mortain was OK, I didn't feel inclined to play it again. It was an interesting scenario though and I translated it into my One Hour WW2 variant. I'm working on some changes and will be doing a few test games - the main things are changes to assault, more formal rules on obstacles and logistics and tidying up the combat resolution a bit.

The Mortain scenario doesn't have any obstacles, but hopefully there will be some assaulting going on.

I rejigged the OBs a bit, for this game the elements represent RCTs, Combat Commands and Kampfgruppen, so 2-3 battalions each. 

30th Div became 3 x Heavy Infantry, one with AT guns and 1D6 of offtable artillery support and 1D6 of air support, each with six missions.

3rd Armored became 3 x Tanks - modelling armour heavy combat teams.

17th SS had 1 x 'tank' (The KG centered on the Stug Bn) and 2 x leg infantry

2nd SS had 2 x Heavy Tanks (Tigers and Panthers) representing the armoured elements and 102nd SS Tiger Bn, plus 2 x leg infantry. I figured all the infantry in halftracks would be accompanying the tanks, while the chaps in trucks would be walking. 

I normally play on a 9x9, but the scenario is long and thin so I went with 6x9, Germans attacking down the long angle. The US set up much as in the Postcard game, two Regiments around Mortain in the south and one Regiment (with the AT guns) on the hill east of St Barthelmy.

For this game I'm experimenting with allowing units on hills to see/shoot three hexes. The woods are dense, so impassable to armour unless on a road. The 'open' ground is actually lots of bocage, so should be bad going for armour, but I forgot that at first! If doing it again I should probably make the woods passable at 1 hex a turn.

No stacking in OHW, so the Germans are quite packed in. Given all their armour, they went for a northern attack. I should have restricted them to a two hex move. I'll remember in future. 

The US dropped air and artillery all over them, which will slow them up at least, and concentrated fire on the Stugs as they are easier targets than all the Tigers etc. This inflicted so much damage that the Stugs became disorganised. 

The other US infantry re-deployed, using their interior lines, sending an RCT up to St Barthelmy while the other RCT occupied the crossroads in Mortain.

The Germans opted to plaster the hill with fire from the big cats while the Stugs closed on. The infantry worked their way around the flanks, mightly hindered by those air/artillery barrages as they count as bad going, which for infantry is a maximum of 1 hex move.

The US dumped the planes on the Tigers (who they actually hit), and the arty on one of the infantry units, while the RCT reorganised some of the hits inflicted by the tank fire - so effectively suppressed for the whole turn.

The slow motion assault on the hill continued, while one sneaky German infantry regiment made it into the woods SE of Mortain, where they were shelled.

Battle for the hill. The Germans have managed to get one infantry regiment up onto the ridge while the Stugs reorganise, and the Tigers have moved forward too. The US infantry has taken such heavy losses it is also busy reorganising. The other US Regiments are digging in.

3rd Armored puts in an appearance, also constrained by the difficult terrain, the three Combat Commands lock down the exit roads, and CCA occupies a nice hilltop position SW of St Barthelmy, able to shoot right down the valley.

Too late for the guys on the hill. A mighty barrage from the German infantry, Stugs and Panthers, followed up by an assault by the Tigers wipes then out and puts the Tigers up on the hill. In my revised assault rules, the defender gets a shot (using the assault combat dice) against the attacker, a major deviation from the original OHW. The Tigers shrug it off and obliterate the defenders.

However concentrated fire from the RCT in Mortain supported by CCA (firing at 3 hex range) manage to take out one German infantry regiment. The Tigers are hit by P47s and take another hit, enough to disorder them.

Vorwarts! The Panthers and Stugs push down the valley, while the Germans put in a strong flanking attack on Mortain. The Tigers reorganise - the Germans are limited to reorganising one unit per turn to represent their dire supply situation, the US can reorg two.

The US concentrates everything on the Germans in Mortain, but are hideously unlucky and largely miss.

Up north, the Germans make no such mistake, and the defenders of St Barthelmy are annihilated by massed, concentric fire. Ouch! I need to have a think about how the 3 hex LOS from hills works, but I reckon it is downhill only, so in the situation above, the only possible shot now is CCA vs the Panthers. The Germans will have to move to winkle out the US tankers.

The US air and artillery are exhausted and need to spend a turn reorganising, which absorbs the entire US supply capacity.

The German infantry dash into St Barthelmy, while the Germans turn their attention on the last RCT in Mortain.

Blaaam! This isn't going well at all for the US, as another RCT bites the dust. A ten dice attack needing to roll six hits on a 5 or 6. Hmm, that was quite lucky. Anyway, all the US infantry are gone now, and the Germans still have six units left.

Rumble, rumble. Blimey it is just like the film 'Battle of the Bulge'. The German infantry in the north infiltrate through the woods around CCA.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. CCB and CCR open up on the Stugs, supported by the replenished air and artillery, while CCA assaults the Tigers! This isn't as silly as it seems as all the German units are damaged, while the US tankers are largely unscathed. 

When the smoke clears the Tigers managed to repel the Shermans, but have taken enough hits to become disorganised. The 17th SS Stugs have been completely destroyed however. Suddenly it isn't looking so good for the panzerwaffe.

The Germans are a bit stuck at this point, the US tanks are all mutually supporting that open ground is very unattractive for the German infantry. The Germans also now have two disordered units but only one supply column, decisions, decisions.... The Tigers can't reorganise in any case, as they were assaulted last turn.

The German infantry attacks, supported by fire from the Tigers and Panthers, while one infantry regiment (more useful in Mortain) reorganises. The infantry regiment in the north moves adjacent to the table edge, slowed by the dense woods.

CCA concentrates on the Tigers, with all the air and arty. CCR (the M10s) was badly damaged by the German attack and reorganises, while CCB tries to overrun the impudent German infantry marching through the fields.

The Tigers are badly damaged but not destroyed, and CCB is repelled with minimal losses. Havign been assaulted, the Germans in the open can't reorganise next turn (I've started putting 'shock' markers on assaulted units as a handy reminder).

The Germans concentrate on CCR out in the open as CCA is a hard target up on the ridge, while the US concentrates on the damaged German infantry out in the open.

Astonishingly both CCR and the infantry survive, albeit with grievous losses, so they busily reorganise. The German infantry in the north exits the table, while another regiment marches up behind the Tigers to use the same route.

The Allies fire everything they have at the Tigers, and they are finally destroyed.

And next turn, even though the Germans get more infantry into St Barthelmy, the shattered German Regiment in the open is finally destroyed. There isn't any hope of the Germans exiting five units or destroying all the Allies now, so I call it at that point.

That was a really good game, and felt a much closer result than the Postcard Game versions. The Germans managed to achieve concentration of force early in the game, but later on they were too weak and disjointed to pull the same trick against the US armor formations. If I was going to run the scenario again, I'd have a think about the terrain, as the dense woods were perhaps too constricting for the armour on both sides.

The rules modifications worked well, I'm particularly pleased with the restricted reorganisations and the increased ranges firing downhill. It suddenly makes high ground extremely important both for fire and artillery spotting. I'll reserve judgement on the new assault rules, I need to run some more battles to see how I feel about having both sides fight in one turn as it is contrary to the spirit of OHW. OTOH it is much more intuitive and will make some aspects of the Ancient and Napoleonic rules easier to fiddle around with.

I really need to try a scenario where obstacles are significant to test those, fortunately I have a couple in mind.....