Tigers at Minsk - The Poupeville Exit

 More US Paras in Normany with Tigers at Minsk. This scenario was originally in the US Para expansion for Squad Leader published in the AHGC General, but it was reproduced in Fireball Forward. I largely based the  game on the FF version.

Battlefield from the south. Poupeville lies across the exit of causeway 14 from Utah Beach (the flooded area behind the beaches is off to the north) and was one of the D-Day objectives of PIR 501, 101st Airborne Div.

Each of the buildings is worth 1VP, apart from the tall building at the top (2VP) and the church which is the German HQ and worth 5VP. The side with most VPs wins the game which lasts 55 minutes. Historically the Germans collapsed when their HQ was captured.

The German defenders from GR 919, 709th Infantry division. Two rifle platoons with three sections each and a sniper. In the FF scenario they also have the potential for an MG team as a variable attachment, but in the original Squad Leader scenario, they have an MG mounted on a kubelwagen!

Well, I thought that would be much more fun. I don't have an armed Kubelwagen, but I do have  a Horch with an MG, so I used that.

The Germans are all poor quality so their sections rally on 5+ (unmodified) and their force morale is 3.

I had to make up some rules for the sniper - treat it like an FOO for target purposes and it rolls 1D6 and can only ever score a pin.

And the mighty 501st! Lt Colonel Julien Ewell managed to assemble about 40 men to attack Poupeville, including various odds and sods from his HQ section.

Here they have four 'heavy' squads in two platoons with 3D6 and high morale, plus a squad of typists etc with 2D6 and normal morale. They did have a bazooka section attached which I modelled as an AT availability of 3, I thought it might be useful against the Horch. There is also a .30 cal MG team with the HQ. 

Overall the force is high quality and has a force morale of 4.

There is a lot of blocking terrain and covered routes to the German HQ, so the defenders were necessarily forced to spread out. I tried to make sure all the open ground was covered by fire and that there was a reserve. The Horch was hard to position - it can't enter building hexes unless on a road and there is a good chance it will bog if trying to cross a hedge. In TaM softskins are also destroyed by a single pin result! In the end I put it on a road behind a hedge covering the left hand side of the village centre. On the roads it can easily move around.

Otherwise the Germans spread out to minimise bunching penalties although the sniper was in the southern house on the N-S road with a rifle section.

The centre didn't look very inviting for the US, but there was cover on both left and right flanks. I went right flanking as I could take advantage of the covered route to get a two hex move for the Paras behind the small orchard. Three squads stacked up there and one occupied the buildings next to the orchard.

The HQ team and .30 cals set up a base of fire just east of the crossroads. They had a pretty good field of fire from there, despite all the hedges and buildings.

The Germans are obviously loaded for bear and gun down the US Paras in the buildings with boxcars. US morale drops to 3. Not a very good start.

The US response is fairly subdued. The .30 cal pins the German section behind the hedgerow while the HQ squad misses. The other Paras deploy in the woods and buildings, one squad to a hex to minimise bunching. 

This time it is a different German squad which rolls boxcars and another Para section is destroyed in the 'house of death'. One of the US squads in the orchard is also pinned. Perhaps there are 88s in the town? US force morale 2...

The Germans also shuffle up their reserve section and move the Horch along the road to cover the front of the hedge line.

A shame I didn't take a photo of the Horch moving, as the first thing the US do is shoot it to pieces with small arms fire! You can see a big puff of smoke at the edge of the village. The Paras have clearly got their eye in as they also finish off the pinned German section behind the hedge. German force morale drops to one! The other pinned Para section rallies (anything but a 1).

The German response is a bit pathetic and largely misses. Now the US paras manage to take out another German section AND score a whopping two hits on the combined rifle/sniper group and the sniper is removed. German force morale is reduced to zero and they have to take two fallback tests.

Although some of the Germans manage to pass one test, they all fail at least once and one fails twice. Once all the retreats are done there are two sections clustered around the church and the section from the western hamlet has retreated right behind the hedge! It is a good job LOS from the .30 cal is blocked or it may have been gunned down in the open.

The Germans are fortunate that the remaining sections all end up in command and they hastily occupy buildings in the interior of the village. They have given up the outskirts now the US are deploying their full firepower. 

The US take advantage of the German retreat to double move all their units up to the edge of the village as they are out of LOS of the defenders. 

The US move into the buildings and both sides settle down to shoot at each other. As everyone is in cover and the buildings break up line of sight, this is singularly ineffective and a couple of turns pass with loads of bullets in the air but very few units actually hit. 

The Germans still hold the majority of VP buildings, so are currently winning despite their morale being zero. All they have to do is hold out a bit longer. 

Colonel Ewell looks at his watch, 44 minutes on the clock! He decides to break the stalemate with bold action. The HQ squad rushes the church, this locks the defenders into close combat so that the two Para Squads can push forward too without being opp fired. One takes the northern exit building and the other reinforces the church assault. 

The defenders fight bravely (pinning the HQ squad) but outnumbered 2:1 in combat dice, they are wiped out. This triggers another German fallback test. They guys in the house southwest of the church hold firm and shoot at the Paras to no effect, while the Germans in the hamlet retreat (again). Perhaps they are Ostruppen? The Germans have to use their turn to put them back into cover. The game clock now stands at 50 minutes. 

On what is almost certainly the last turn, the US rally their HQ squad and one of the Para squads occupies the buildings SE of the church to prevent sneaky German counterattacks. The. 30 cal pins the last German section in the village under under covering fire from the MG, the other Para squad changes the cowering Germans who are duly wiped out. 

Amazingly the Ostruppen stand and fight, but they can't mount an effective counterattack over the open ground and just shoot at the Paras over the fields, pinning them. 

Time runs out and having captured the church, the US have 12VP to the Germans 3, a convincing win and very historical. Without the church they would have lost, and amazingly I didn't roll a single random event the entire game, which is a shame. 

That was really good fun and very much captured the spirit of the original Squad Leader scenario. The really great addition was the force morale concept, as once the Germans reached their break point, their defence became badly disrupted and the US could pick it apart. I did think the US might be doomed after their catastrophic opening moves, but in the end quality told and they swept all before them. 

I think I'm getting my head around how infantry combat works now, my biggest error in the game was misplaying the armed Horch and it ended up being destroyed without firing a shot. The US also spent too long locked in a firefight in the town, and it was marginal as to whether they would run out of time.