Urban Warfare Day - Market Garden

 I solo played the Memoir 44 'Overlord' scenario of Market Garden last year, time to try it out at our 'Urban Warfare' day at Tapton with actual humans. This is essentially a double sized M44 scenario, with some extra rules to cover the table having six sectors instead of the usual three.

I did this with my Hexon and 15mm stuff, it proved to be quite a big game...

Battlefield from the southwest. It is 26 hexes long and 9 hexes wide, representing the 65 miles or so from Joes Bridge at Neerpelt up to Arnhem. Each unit is a couple of battalions (or equivalent), and I guess each hex is 2-3 miles. We'll, that is how I justified the OB anyway. As I generally use a couple of stands to represent a unit, that means each stand is roughly a battalion. 

To fit the M44 mechanism constraints, the scenario layout is somewhat abstracted in places, but here are XXX Corps lined up for the off. Arnhem is dimly visible in the distance at the end of Hells Highway, the grey central road.

XXX Corps faces off against KG Walther. Walther has 6th FJR and SS Richter (from IInd SS Panzer Corps), both holed up in Valkenswaard. Guards Arnmoured Div has four armoured combat teams, each of one armoured and one mech infantry battalion (Irish, Grenadier, Coldstream and Welsh Guards groups), while 43rd Div has three infantry units representing six battalions of infantry, and 8th Armoured Brigade in support each with an armoured regiment and another infantry battalion in carriers. XXX Corps artillery is represented by a pair of 5.5" guns. This is quite an armada.

In reserve KG Walther has the 10th SS Panzerjaeger battalion and the 10th SS Engineer battalion. I'm sure they will stop XXX Corps all on their own!

East of Arnhem, 9th SS Panzer has two leg infantry units and Stug Brigade 280, representing the two weak SS Panzergrenadier Regiments and all the reinforcing units. 10th SS Has Graebners 9th SS recce Bn (mech infantry) and two tank units with various SS panzergrenadiers in trucks, and inevitably, Tiger IIs on the 506th Tiger Bn and Tiger 1s from KG Knaust and Pz Ko Hummel. Knaust is represented as a special leader figure with the Tiger 1.  

This is obviously an abstraction as the bulk of 10th SS was ferried slowly over the river, but the tank units are blocked in by Graebner to start with.

West of Arnhem is 1st Airborne Div (six infantry units representing all 12 battalions of the division, including the Poles and Glider Pilots), with Col Frost as a leader riding an armed jeep. Well why not.

Kraffts 16th SS Ersatz Bn is dug in on the outskirts of Oosterbeek.

Nijmegen is strongly held with two leg infantry units from Korps Feldt plus massed Flak and Artillery at the south end of the bridge. Obviously irl the guns were north of the bridge, but hey ho.

Karl Euling and his 'ghost battalion' of 10th SS Panzergrenadiers are north of the river, out of shot.

West of Nijmegen are four units of 82nd Airborne. The battlefield has been reversed here for game purposes, as the real para assault came in from the east. They also have three lots of assault boats to row across the Rhine, and Major Cook/Robert Redford to lead them across. The rest of the division is presumably fighting off the numerous German counterattacks elsewhere. 

Further south are 101st Airborne. Easy Company, James Caan etc. Five units to take Eindhoven and the bridge at Veghel. Opposing them are some bits from 15th Army - 59th Infantry Div at 30% strength, the Tilburg Polizei battalion etc.

However Panzer Brigade 107 are in reserve to the east. Two tank units (Panthers, halftracks) and another Mech infantry (halftracks, SP Flak). The 107th was entirely equipped with Panthers, Jagdpanzer IVs and various models of Sdkfz 251. They were even reinforced with some Jagdpanthers for their famous attack on Veghel.

I had seven players for this, so Anthony was German CO and took Korps Feldt in the centre, Lloyd had KG Walther and 107th Panzer while Tim Had 9th and 10th SS Panzer.

Pete commanded the British, and from north to south, John took 1st Airborne, Diego the US Airborne Corps and Simon XXX Corps.

Each sides commander was responsible for managing and allocating the command cards. The horrible wrinkle in this scenario is that the Allies start with 13(!) command cards, and the Germans with a mere three. For every Allied unit destroyed, the German hand size increases by one, and the Allies drop by one. A very clever way of modelling operational surprise, but a brutal first few turns for the Germans.

101st AB made an early advance towards Eindhoven, but the Germans prioritised the south for command cards, so 107th Panzer also got rolling but then ran out of cards!

At Arnhem, the Germans also got moving quickly, but not enough to forestall 1st Airborne who were busily engaging Kraffts battalion in Oosterbeek. Tim did manage to clear the lower river road to get the Tiger IIs rolling for Arnhem though.

RAF Typhoons strafed the 107th Panzer, who busily retreated back their start line. Oh dear!

The Nijmegen sector remained very quiet while all this was going on.

The Eindhoven garrison took heavy casualties, but hung on and drove off the first assault by the 101st. The US Paras also rushed the bridge at Veghel, contesting it with the local garrison.

At Arnhem, Col Frost was killed leading an assault against Krafft. His very first battle. Typical!

British Paras took the the east end of Arnhem with heavy losses, but Krafft still hung on grimly as the Tigers rolled onto the bridge. 'Bring up the PIAT!'. The Germans were still prioritising the north and south sectors, while the Allies were prioritising the north and centre to get the paras in good locations before XXX Corps got rolling.

The priority for the Germans was to destroy Allied units to get their command deck size up, and reduce the Allies, even at the cost of losing units. The Allies needed to stake claims on the ground.

Having said that, Korps Feldt rolled forwards to beef up the Nijmegen defences. 82nd Airborne hadn't really done anything in this sector at all.

XXX Corps also popped into life with a massive attack on 6th FJR and KG Richter. Both German units took some losses but hung on in their fortified villages. The Allies also took a few hits and were stymied for now. Infantry dug into towns are hard to shift with tanks. 10th SS Panzerjaeger moved up in support, but Loyd was very nervous about the odds! As KG Walther is outnumbered over 3:1, he was right to be.

The 101st finally clear Eindhoven, albeit with heavy losses. 107th Panzer is parked to the east of the city. US Paras are also having a go at the bridge at Veghel (off camera to the left).

Fighting still rages at Arnhem. 1st Para have occupied most of the city now, the SS tankers are stuck outside, but Krafft is still hanging on by his fingernails.

XXX Corps has another go at 6th FJR.

And break through! 6th FJR surrender and the left hand village hex falls, while SS Richter is fairly shot up too and the Irish Guards engage 10th SS Panzerjaeger on the road junction beyond.

The 101st are hanging on in Eindhoven, just, as Panzergrenadiers supported by Panthers batter at the outskirts.

In Arnhem 1st AB finally captures the north end of the bridge. There isn't much they can do about the Tigers on the bridge hex, but they do chip a hit off them. The German tankers can't do much to the Paras in the city hexes either, but can at least contest the bridge. 

KG von Furstenbergs SP guns advance southeast of Nijmegen to threaten the 82nd, who mill around in the open.

SS Infantry push into the western edge of Arnhem, while Stug Brigade 280 supported by motorised infantry advances around the north of the city. 1st AB is looking a bit ragged now and quite a number of Allied units have collapsed, giving the Germans more command cards and the allies fewer. I neglected to take photos of the tank battle raging south of Eindhoven, but in fact the Germans up to a hand of ten cards now, while the Allies are down to three(!). 

In fact this is the end - in the final turn, coordinated German assaults all along the line knock out several Allied units. In Arnhem the SS retake the bridge, and the combination of the destroyed Para unit and now controlling the bridge is enough to garner the Germans 13 VP and victory.

In the end neither XXX Corps nor the 82nd really got going, but the Germans managed to knock out a number of Para units and retain control of a number of key objectives, which was enough to give them victory. A very different flow of play to both my solo effort (which went right to the wire, 11:12) and David Crooks play through (which was an easy Allied win). It may be that the way the card decks are stacked at the start make the outcome very variable, but I'd like to play that again, but maybe in 6mm on the M44 boards as it setting up with 15s on the Hexon was a major effort, although it looked grand.

Something to tell your grand children. Any mighty bored they will be!