XXX Corps breakout with NQM, Corps level, another go

 Having set the XXX Corps breakout scenario up for NQM, I thought I'd give it one more go, having carefully re-read the sections in the rules on who can and can't reorganise under what circumstances.

Pretty much the same setup as before, the Germans and British both  had the historical deployment, SS Heinke East of the highway, 6th FJR to the west and KG Hoffman holding the road  and the Irish Guards leading off for XXX Corps. I shuffled the mass of Allied artillery around a bit on the far side of the canal to make it easier to resupply. I should have added a couple more hexes of leg room I think. 

One change I did make was to allocate a lot more planes to the initial bombardment, twice as many medium bombers in fact, so the entire road as far as Valkenswaard was bombed, as happened historically. The Spitfires went for the Jagpanzers in Borkel as usual and the Tiffies stonked the AT guns in Kolonie. The air attacks were hilariously ineffective, inflicting a total of two hits between them, but they did put barrage markers over lots of German units. 

The Allied bombardment used all the field guns against the German front line, and both regiments of mediums on counterbattery fire. Even on an un-recced target this was quite fearsome and inflicted no less than four hits on the German artillery. This didn't stop them firing one barrage on turn one as hits apparently don't take effect untit the combat outcome phase. I should probably have treated the bombardment as a separate turn. 

The opening attack was a catastrophe for the Allies, although the Germans took some losses, the defenders rolled a plethora of sixes which inflicted hits on 231 Brigade and, combined with the 105mm barrage, a whopping four hits on 1/Irish Guards. The Sherman battalion just disintegrated.

The only bright spot was that at least two German units were out of ammo, and even more amazingly, two out of the three British attacks succeeded in pushing the Germans back. The SS held firm however. Kolomie was occupied by the Irish Guards infantry battalion who took losses from the German barrage, but then were lucky and recovered them in the reorg phase.  Both the German and British ambulance drivers get medals as they both drove through barrages to save the wounded, taking hits in the process (I really like that rule, Richard Brooks had similar mechanism in one of his WW1 sets).

The 6th Penal battalion and Hoffmann AT gunners fell back parallel to the road.

As the Tiffies and guns stonked the German positions on the edge of the forest, reinforcements moved up. The Household cavalry went to support 231 Brigade against 6th FJR, and the SPAT Regiment went to support 231 Brigade against SS Heinke. The Welsh Guards moved up into Kolonie to attack the German positions on the edge of the forest.

Another catastrophic British turn! The Household Cavalry managed to overuun the FJ west of the highway, but 231 Brigade bounced off SS Heinke again. The Welsh Guards annihilated KG Hoffman, but the Germans still inflicted enough losses that the British managed to lose the outcome advance dice roll, so failed to advance into the now vacated hex. I really need to ask Chris if this is how it is supposed to work. There are casualty, out of supply and disorganisation markers everywhere now.

I think I'm getting the hang of how the reorg/resupply works now, but the restricted space means I'm only enforcing the stacking limits at the end of movement, not during it. Something else to ask Chris about. 

The Cavalry were disorganised last turn and unable to reorg due to being under bombardment, but I can't see that it stops them recce'ing, so they drive through the gap in the German lines, occupy Petter and recce the Germans at the crossroads! The British now commit 32nd Brigade as the Irish Guards are fought out, and the 10th SS Jagdpanzers assault Petter, supported by the 6th Luftwaffe Penal battalion. Those penal guys are really keen to get their epaulettes back.

231 Brigade and the tail end of 32nd Guards Brigade hold the corridor, and SS Heinke and 6th FJR are still holding out!

The Jagdpanzers retake Petter, pushing back the Household Cavalry and the Welsh Guards bounce off KG Hoffmann, they are too weak to continue the attack now.

The Germans start to dig in around the crossroads, but now 32nd Guards Brigade fully deploys to resume the attack. General Adair, the Divisional CO himself, goes to reorg the Household Cavalry, while General Walther tries to reorg KG Hoffman, as they have lost their KG HQ. The SS Panzerjagers sort themselves out as they are an independent unit. 

The remains of the Irish and Welsh Guards pull back and 231 Brigade holds the corridor along with various divisional bits from Guards Armoured. SS Heinke have extended their front and managed to dig in (I'm pretty slick at the digging in times now), while 6th FJR are just hunkering down in the woods. 

The 32nd Guards Brigade attacks go in supported by all the Divisional and Corps artillery. Once again the Germans manage to roll a six (the SS engineers vs the Guards Cromwell Regiment, ouch!) but the last remnants of KG Hoffman are overrun and the Jagdpanzers are also forced back with some losses. 

The SS choose to make a longer post combat outcome move (I'm finally getting the hang of the Reorg phase) and fall back to cover the bridges. I've also finally been playing the formation HQs correctly, I think. 32nd Guards occupied Petter and the crossroads, but laagered for the night, just short of their D-Day objective at the edge of the woods (hilariously just 'held' by General Walter on his Kettenkrad). 

Back down the corridor, SS Heinke was still holding hard up against the highway, but 6th FJR was bottled up against the canal. Both would have to withdraw in the night to avoid encirclement. Irl SS Heinke ended up joining with 107 Panzer Brigade further north for the attack on Veghel which cut the corridor. 

The situation at the end of the game at 2400 on 17th September 1944.

That all felt a bit slicker, there are still some things I'm not sure about, particularly how orders are supposed to work. There doesn't seem to be a functional difference between 'attack' and 'move to contact'. There still seems to be too much going on to run this as a remote game, but I'll try some more scenarios and get a bit more confidence. I've been pondering how it might work for 1914, and perhaps for f2f play, borrowing the OP14 card activation system might work well. I was somewhat inspired by Graham Evans recent Jarama game, so I might dig out one of my own Jarama scenarios and give that a go. 

I had a chat with Chris at Partisan about some of the situations thrown up by these games, and it seems that the bombardment hits should have been applied immediately. I guess that is the difference between the pre and post move shoot phases. I'm not at all happy with the concept that artillery fire automatically prevents units attacking, it turns artillery into laser guided nuclear strikes from space, and I much preferred the mechanism in the old NQM where artillery had to hit units in a hex to disorganise it and even then could still shoot, just not assault Instead I've adopted the convention that if you advance out of a barrage you take an automatic hit, which is included in the outcome dice roll. I might just borrow some stuff from my own rules: artillery barrages are bad going and units disorganised by artillery fight at reduced effect (drop a column on Table 12), which would then give harassing and counterbattery fire a point.