AAR: In Front of the Storm (A231)

AAR By horsefield & injurwii

ASL AAR: In Front of the Storm (A231)

Module: Croix de Guerre
Scenario Publisher: MMP
Scenario Designer: Curt Schilling
Date: May 10, 1940
Location: Aessan, France
Attacker (horsefield): French
Defender (injurwii): Germans

Download the VASL .vsav setup file.

Set Up & Tactics:

I had the pleasure of playing a face-to-face game against user injurwii this past weekend. We played A231 “In Front of the Storm”. ROAR looked pretty balanced, so we rolled for sides randomly and I found myself in command of the counter-attacking French in 1940.

French advantages seemed to be primarily number of squads and their tanks. Having a 3:2 advantage in number of squads and firepower would hopefully give me the ability to grind down the defenders to some extent. Obviously uncontested AFVs are always a big advantage, and in this scenario the R35 are fairly immune to most of what the Germans can throw at them. The ATR – even adjacent – would only have a final TK of 3 on a hull hit, while the 37mm could only manage a 3 or 5 (turret/hull) at anything but point blank range. Probably the biggest danger would be CC led by the German 9-2.

The Germans had the advantage of said 9-2, their hidden mines and AT Gun, and the inherent advantage of defending against a bridge crossing. The 9-2, presumably camped with the MMG in a stone building or foxhole would be a focal point of the German defense, and a tough nut to crack. The mines I considered more of an annoyance, and while they might come into play, I might also simply miss them. The fact that they can’t be placed in road hexes leaves me with some known safe routes (particularly for the tanks, which aren’t too vulnerable in the roads). The AT gun itself as noted before doesn’t pose a huge threat to my tanks, so I also chose not to worry too much about it, and simply accept that it might pop up and blast one or more tanks at an inopportune moment. The real problem is the bridge crossing itself. To have a real shot at the victory conditions I probably need to either destroy the majority of the German order of battle, or somehow drive it away from the bridge, so that there is no defensive fire available to contest my dangerous crossing. Ideally that means being in place to cross a couple turns before the end of the game so that I have enough time to use fire to suppress any remaining defenders (particularly on the far side of the river).

Given all this, I planned to lead the attack with the tanks, and hopefully use a “swarm” style attack (i.e. one squad per hex spread like a blob over many contiguous hexes, aiming to reduce vulnerability to defensive/residual fire, and still form powerful AFPh attacks). The Germans appeared to have a picket-line strung across the board width. As you can see they had taller concealed stacks in 42B4, J3 & N0, along with a concealed stack on 40J6 (not pictured). It seemed likely that each of these stacks had one of the four support weapons (3 MG, 1 ATR) available to the Germans. I imagined their leaders were also likely stiffening most of those stacks as well. I guessed the MMG and 9-2 were in 42J3, right in the middle of the line – the most obviously place, commanding the direct route to the bridge. That seemed to be where I would need tank support, possibly including some VBM freeze-sleaze.

Because of the stack in 42B4, an approach from the north side wasn’t too attractive. Right up the road in the middle would be the path taken by the tanks, while the infantry took its time moving more slowly through the forest in the south. I stacked as many squads with leaders as possible (nine) to benefit from the extra MF out of sight of the enemy. Other than temporarily revealing a squad in 42F3 to string concealment during the French APh, the Germans had no response.

Action Summary:

German turn 1 saw only minimal action from the Germans, as they opened up with a squad and LMG from 42N0 against the still-concealed French in the wood-line to no effect.

At the top of turn 2 I had to decide how much of a hurry I was in. Initially I leaned towards sending the tanks in to VBM the German MMG nest to allow the infantry to sweep forward and blast them with Advancing Fire, but eventually decided I had enough time to spend a turn shooting and creeping closer. In Prep Fire however, a series of unlikely rolls resulted in both the German 9-2 and the 5-4-8 manning the MMG taking a PTC and failing! Now here was an opportunity! Suddenly, instead of having to cross a street against the full firepower and ROF of a MMG with an extra -2 DRM, I was looking at only 4 FP with only the normal FFNAM/FFMO modifiers possible, and no possibility of ROF. It was now time to attack, not to wait around.

Of course, a natural “3” on the first defensive fire ended up vaporizing a squad, and I faced a brief personal moral check. Time to halt the attack while I still have troops? Non, l’audace, toujours l’audace! I kept moving up squads, avoiding residual firepower, but I still had to sweat some decent 4 firepower attacks the Germans were able to throw at me. Three French squads made it adjacent to the German machine-gun nest: one broke, one pinned, and the last one managed to stay good order (despite even a LLTC when its accompanying 8-1 broke). Of course, there was no real decision in the Advance Phase – into CC they went! Both sides missed in close combat, so there was a melee going into the German Player Turn 2.

During their turn, the Germans redeployed both of their flanks towards the middle, outside of any French fire. In the middle of the line, I chanced a defensive fire shot from the R35s into the melee, but a hit only caused the French squad to pin. With nothing else to lose, the French threw a six-hex 36 FP fire group at the melee. A K/4 result wounded and broke Herr 9-2, but both squads passed their 4MC. Close combat saw the French miss the withdrawing leader, while the Germans likewise failed to harm the French.

French turn 3 I hoped to cave-in the German center, although I ended up being a little over-aggressive. First, a two-vehicle platoon attempted to freeze the German squad in 42J1 to open up the orchard area for further French advances. I was certain that the J1-K1 hexside was open, but when I tipped a tank counter on its side, it was blocked! That left my infantry to make their way forward as well as they could, trying to draw fire and avoid residual. The Germans had a good fire plan, and were able to hit the French with a number of decent shots. In my hurry to cut-off the Germans in T3 I ran a squad into J2 which promptly broke and would subsequently die for failure to rout (always check your rout paths before you advance!) The turn ended with a successful French 2:1 to finally end the melee and seize the German MMG.

Losing the linchpin of their defense, the Germans spent their turn three dressing their lines in front of the bridge. French defensive fire broke the remaining squad in the middle of their line and sent them scampering back across the hedges into the woods in 42H1. Going into turn four, this gave the French a bit more room to advance.

Once again the French led off with their tanks, this time finding a bypass-able hex-side along 42J1-J2 to crash into the lane leading to the bridge, getting right in the face of the Germans defending the north side. Without buildings around the R35 were invulnerable to street-fighting reaction fire, and rolled up to throw some point-blank advancing fire across the far hedges. The French right flank picked their way through the orchard in the K and L hexrows, while the French left slowly flowed past the German outpost in 42F3. German defensive fire broke some French, but enough survived to throw out some punishing advancing fire. The Germans also revealed their “door-knocker” in 40I7 to throw a round downrange at the first R35, but bounced it off the armor.

German turn four Rally Phase kept them in the fight as all their broken units managed to rally back. This time their 37mm managed a burst of five ROF shots, bouncing all but the penultimate shot, which finally knocked out the lead French Renault. Otherwise the German fire was slacking, and slacked even more as French defensive fire managed to casualty reduce the antitank gun crew from long range.

In French turn five, the French flowed across the lane and around the German left flank to bring the German rally points under fire. Advancing fire prompted a surviving German half-squad to go berserk, but otherwise most Germans we left cowering under DM. A good rally phase got them some troops back, but their berserkers only managed to tie up a French squad in melee. Due to the late hour the German commander resigned at the start of turn 6. They had some good order troops in 40H1 to contest the French bridge crossing, but otherwise were out of the fight.

I think the game was probably decided by the unlikely double-pin of the German MMG team back on turn two. Had they stayed good order, it would have delayed the French advancing at least one turn (and quite possibly more), which would have meant they were trying to brave a bunch of defensive first to dash across the bridge on the last turn instead of having a couple turns to leisurely clear out the last defenders and stroll across the bridge. A fun game nonetheless, demonstrating once again the advantages of uncontested armor support, and the power of advancing fire multi-hex fire-groups.

The German defense plan seemed fine to me, despite their loss. I was a bit critical of their initial deployment on their flanks as being too far from the objective, but they were all able to get into the fight. I wonder if instead of a “fall-back” delaying defense, the Germans might instead use a “opening-gate” defense, retreating away from the bridge to one or both flanks, and attempting to place fire onto the bridge crossing from far on the flank(s). This might prompt a dispersal of the French effort, but might not be a better plan than just putting bodies directly in the French path. Overall, an interesting scenario, albeit somewhat one-note as many bridge crossing are.

Postscript:

I always try and learn (or re-learn) at least one rule anytime I play; it’s always easier to remember things if there’s a story to go along with it. For this game we had three rules questions: one we looked up pre-game, one we rolled for (having not found a reference in the book), and one we thought we got right but subtly screwed up.

First, I had thought that walls along a hexside of a hill were considered at the higher level (I was clearly confusing walls with non-inherent terrain as per B10.1), but we looked that one up in setup, and as per B9.35 they’re at the lower level, and units on the hill cannot gain wall advantage (this is referring to a hexside like 42D3-D4).

Second, at one point the wounded German leader wanted to voluntarily break and then get carried by a broken squad starting in its location. We couldn’t find any reference to carrying SMC in the RtPh while we were playing, but let the dice decide. In fact, I was able to later find a clear rule (A17.2) stating that wounded leaders may be carried by any “Good Order MMC”, clearly disallowing routers from carrying a leader. As an aside, since a wounded leader actually costs 5 PP to carry, we should have disqualified this regardless given it’s more than inherent portage capability.

Finally, at one point one of the R35s rolled snakes one a Infantry Target Type (ITT) To Hit roll. For a moment I was thinking critical hit, but recalled that ITT critical hits actually occur on Final TH DR less than half of the final to hit number (8 for ITT shot at close range). Since the shot had something like a +5 DRM, we actually played it as a normal hit. However, we still screwed this up slightly, since as per C3.7, a natural “snake-eyes” on an ITT To Hit roll is actually followed by a subsequent dr, with a “1” or a roll less than half the modified TH# still resolved as a critical hit.

GET TO THE CHOPPA…!!!

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