ASLSK AAR: Hammer to the Teeth (S15)

SITREP

The opening hours of the Ardennes offensive would find the forward U.S. infantry outposts probed and infiltrated by their German counterparts. Before the panzer divisions could make their drive through Belgium, the poor bloody landsers would need to seize river crossings and key road networks along the “Ghost Front.” This would help sow confusion among American formations, as few would realize the level of ambition of the attack until it was well underway. The point of the spear of Manteuffel’s V Panzer Armee was LXVI Korps, comprised of two volksgrenadier divisions and the Fuhrer Begleit Brigade. On the morning of December 16th, these formations would creep through the Schnee Eifel and deliver the first hammer blows to the green U.S. 106th Infantry Division.

The Players

Scott – Americans – Defending:
293^rd Volksgrenadier Regiment, 18^th Volksgrenadier Division

Neal – Germans – Attacking:
423^rd Infantry Regiment/Company B, 81^st Engineer Battalion

After Action Report

Location:
Bleialf, Germany

Date:
16 December 1944

ROAR Balance	Archive Balance
Americans 54	Americans 38
Germans 54	Germans 42

Scott (Defending)

The Good:

• Delayed Neal’s advance just enough to make this a real fight.
• My second AT gun turned out to be way more effective than expected.
• My final close-combat resistance almost flipped the game.

The Bad:

• First AT gun ran out of HE too early, making it far less effective.
• My mortars didn’t contribute much, leaving my right flank weaker.
• Bazookas were underutilized, meaning I wasted one of my best tools.

I started the game feeling pretty good. I had two 57mm anti-tank guns, two medium machine guns, and two bazookas—more than enough firepower to hold the village. I knew Neal would come in hard, but my plan was solid: a deep defensive setup, fallback positions, and overlapping fields of fire.

Then, the game started, and Neal’s heavy machine gun instantly went full doom mode. My forward squads evaporated almost immediately, and suddenly my “deep defensive setup” became an emergency fallback retreat. My mortars didn’t do much, and to make matters worse, my first anti-tank gun crew ran out of HE almost immediately. Not a great sign.

Still, I wasn’t out of it yet. His first moves were cautious, and I made him pay for it by stalling as much as possible. My second 57mm anti-tank gun started doing some serious work once it got rolling. His infantry wasn’t expecting it to be useful, but with the right rounds, it was shredding squads left and right. At one point, I thought I had a real shot at stopping his push altogether.

Then, the mortar disaster happened. Neal fired at my gun crew and scored a critical hit. I removed my crew from the board. But later, we realized he didn’t even have line of sight to that hex. After some rule-checking, we restored my crew, broken, which meant I was back in the fight. And that’s when things got insanely close.

By the final turns, I was clinging to my last buildings, trying to keep just one victory hex away from him. My last real stronghold was a hilltop building, where my remaining forces had hunkered down. I held out for as long as I could, bazookas and MMGs firing at anything that moved, but ultimately, Neal’s overwhelming force of broken-yet-still-functioning squads rushed me in close combat. It all came down to a few dice rolls, and, well… turns out an 8-to-1 close combat is not a great place to be.

Neal (Attacking)

The Good:

• Massive firepower advantage—my HMG, MMG, and mortar dominated once they got rolling.
• Strong flanking maneuvers forced Scott’s defense to collapse early.
• Close combat swarm tactics finally overwhelmed his last-ditch resistance.

The Bad:

• Completely botched my line-of-sight calculations, leading to wasted fire.
• My first few turns were ruined by failed smoke and HE attempts.
• Underestimated the infantry-killing potential of his anti-tank guns.

I came into this fight ready to bring the thunder. I had a beautiful arsenal—an 81mm mortar, a heavy machine gun, a medium machine gun, several light machine guns, and a Panzerschreck. The Americans had two 57mm anti-tank guns, but since I wasn’t rolling up in tanks, I figured they wouldn’t be too much of a problem. I was wrong.

The plan was simple: suppress the village with my machine guns, lay down some smoke to cover my advance, and roll over Scott’s defenses like a well-oiled war machine. The reality? Well, my very first attempt to place smoke failed spectacularly. My mortar crew, despite having years of training and presumably at least a passing familiarity with their own weapon, failed to put down any covering smoke on my first shot. Then my first attempt at an HE barrage? Nothing. Meanwhile, my machine guns were going full blast, but Scott had set up deep enough that I wasn’t getting the easy kills I wanted.

Still, I had one thing on my side: relentless aggression. While my mortar was busy doing nothing, my heavy machine gun team went on an absolute rate-of-fire rampage, cutting down Scott’s front-line squads like they were extras in a war movie. The American right flank collapsed, and suddenly I had my first real foothold in the village. At this point, my confidence was riding high. I had broken his center, I was moving in, and it felt like victory was just a matter of time.

Then, out of nowhere, his damn 57mm anti-tank gun woke up and started ruining my day. I had assumed they would be non-factors, just oversized paperweights since I had no vehicles. But oh no, they had infantry-killing capabilities too, and his surviving crew used them to devastating effect. Worse, I completely screwed up my own line-of-sight calculations and spent several turns firing my mortar at a unit I couldn’t even see. At one point, I actually cheated myself into a critical hit, which we later caught and corrected (but not before I had already wiped his gun crew out). Embarrassing.

The final stretch was an absolute bloodbath. My assault on the last few buildings turned into street-to-street fighting, and I swear I spent more time resolving close combat than I did setting up the game. Scott’s last-ditch stand was surprisingly effective, but in the end, sheer numbers won out. I flooded the village, turned his final strongpoint into a dogpile of close combat rolls, and managed to break him just in time. But man, it was close.

Conclusion

This game was an absolute slugfest. Neal started out strong, had a few misfires (literally and figuratively), and then managed to regain momentum just in time to push Scott out of the village. Scott, meanwhile, played a textbook defensive game, stalling Neal for just long enough to make it dangerously close.

The lesson of the day: never underestimate an anti-tank gun, never trust your first line-of-sight calculations, and always remember that close combat is a cruel mistress. Despite an early German lead, the Americans made this an absolute knife fight until the very last turn, proving that in ASL, no victory is ever guaranteed until the last dice roll is made.

Academy Out!

GET TO THE CHOPPA…!!!

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