Gunnery Sargent Rock (Bruce Stewart) played my Almost Fosse Bridge Scenario. This is the Italian Campaign. All words are Bruce’s.
5 June almost Fosse Bridge report
After many months I had a chance for a crossfire game with my old school friend Tony. We refought the most recent scenario – Almost Fosse Bridge – from Steven’s Balagan.
I played the Germans and Tony the Guardsmen.
I decided to commit to pushing through with all my infantry down the wooded river on my left flank. I encountered a entire platoon of guardsmen in one of the woods, while dealing with them a British Artillery observer and rifle team caused me a lot of problems.
I tried to bring my STUG into play but got pinged with the first round from the 17 pounder.
Next initiative I got, I dropped some smoke and diverted to deal with the folks in the farmhouse.
The initial platoon pushing down the river had just about run out of steam after the encounter in the CC with a HMG in a wood just before the bridge, plus they were receiving HE fire from the Shermans in the wood.
Having dealt with the farmhouse occupants 2nd platoon diverted to follow along the river.
They charged through the remnants of first platoon, eliminated the HMG and took the bridge.
It’s not over yet, having lost 4 rifle teams and a STUG, I had to lose just one of the squads on the bridge to lose. My luck held out despite rifle fire and HE from the 17pdr.
Games notes
It was a great scenario, with the prospect of losing by the six elements, I often had to sacrifice movement to un suppress infantry teams. It really went down to the wire and Tony and I had a really exciting game.
It was a classic case of one half of the army watches and the other fights. I lost the Stug and then ditched a PZ4 crossing a hedge and did not even move the 2nd Panzer 4. It really was not tank country with all those hedges. I felt I could be more aggressive with close combat and I need to figure out not getting shot up in the open. Tony wasn’t familiar with the moving clock but when he realised the effect, he really liked it.
Armour rules notes
[Steven: This relates to my draft Revised anti-tank rules, in particular Anti-tank Rating – Revising Crossfire Anti-tank Rules 5 and Infantry Anti-tank Weapons – Revising Crossfire Anti-tank Rules 6.]
Piat, panzerfaust rules – Tony and I really like these, an early play test game we had had Panzerschreck’s duelling with Shermans. The point-blank rule really works for us.
Direct fire with tanks / guns – I really like the system of throwing multiple dice akin to the infantry fire. Saves looking at tables.
I do think 1 dice subtracted for shooting at a new target would be great. In all of the three games trialing the new rules Tanks have been knocked out with the first shot.
I like the 3 stages of damage for tanks, rather than the sudden death of all tanks in the original rules.
We were not sure on the number of times a AFV or AT gun could fire, in this game we limited it to one round per phasing turn or reactive fire.