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Fishbreath:
I'm posting this first at a different forum, which happens to do automatic scaling of images. They're all going to be 1920x1080 or 1600x900 here.

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Return to St. Vith: A Command Ops Mini-AAR

I've always had a fondness for the Airborne Assault/Command Ops games, ever since I saw a review of Red Devils Over Arnhem when I was a but wee lad and thought to myself, "That looks fantastic." To date, that fondness had been the creepy-stalker sort no doubt familiar to our contingent of visual novel and dating sim fans, but I've recently crossed the boundary between less money/more sense and more money/less sense on the $100-wargames scale.

Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge is a real-time, not-hex-based operational-level wargame. Scenarios usually span from 48 hours to 10 days, maps run ten to a few dozen kilometers across, and the units under your command range from divisions to brigades, each potentially modeled all the way down to a platoon level. Three mechanics conspire to force you to play your hand like a battlefield commander might have done. The first is orders delay, which simulates the time it takes for an order to percolate from you, the highest-ranking commander on-map, down to the tip of the spear. Orders can take up to two hours to reach their destinations if you're not careful with your attachments, detachments, and the like. The second is the overloaded headquarters mechanic, which increases orders delay when a headquarters has too many units beyond its normal count attached. The third is the excellent AI, which makes it possible to order a battalion to make an attack and trust that the battalion commander will employ his companies without screwing it up too badly. Long story short, it's a complicated game, and one I haven't gotten into beyond playing the tutorial in a previous installment I borrowed from an old college pal. That changes this week! As a potential prelude to future AARs, I'm going to be posting my experiences working through the Battles from the Bulge tutorial.

It's set during the closing stages of the larger battle. This scenario is somewhat speculative, in that it posits an attack on St. Vith from the south as part of an encircling maneuver. Here's the map:



The grid is 1km squares. I'm the American side, by the blue label: Combat Command A of the Seventh Armored Divison. It's a brigade-sized formation, including the 35th Tank Battalion, the 51st Armored Infantry Battalion, and the 1st Battalion of the 318th Infantry Regiment, plus a supply depot, two self-propelled artillery battalions, and an anti-air battalion. My opposition for the moment comprises elements of the 17th Volksgrenadier Division, which the briefing calls one of the best German infantry divisions on the Western Front. More of the 17th Volksgrenadiers will be arriving from the north about a day into the scenario, and panzer elements are en route from the west, expected around day 2. Combat Command B of the 7th Armored Division is headed my way on day 2, along with the divisional headquarters, and Combat Command R will be along early on Day 3.

I have four objectives for this battle, which I labeled (the red numbers) backwards. Objective 1 is St. Vith, which intelligence claims is currently undefended, and which I start losing victory points for if I'm not there in 24 hours. Objective 2 is the Breitfeld crossroads, and I should have that at 0200 Day 2. Objective 3 is the village of Lommersweiler, which I'm expected to capture by noon. Objective 4 is the bridge at Steinebruck, which is an immediate goal.

Here's a detailed view of the southeastern corner of the map and my forces:



1. The 51st Armored Infantry Battalion, which is probably my heftiest unit: two armored infantry companies, an assault gun platoon, a mortar platoon, a tank company, and an engineer company.

2. 1st Battalion, 318th Infantry Regiment. Pretty bog-standard: a headquarters element, three rifle companies, an AT gun platoon, and a mortar platoon.

3. 35th Tank Battalion. Three tank companies, one of the 51st's armored infantry companies, and A Troop of the 25th Cavalry Reconaissance Squadron.

4. Headquarters elements, including the AA battalion and the two field artillery battalions (one of which is in the 35th's circle).

Around Stenebruck, intelligence (of course, the enemy contacts on the map are generally only accurate by purest chance) suggests there's a reinforced battalion, and roughly the same in Lommersweiler. My plan is to form up all three battalions for an attack on Steinebruck. The 1st Battalion of the 318th Regiment will move along the north road after that, and hopefully should reach Breitfeld early, while the 51st and 35th Battalions will make use of brigade artillery support and the good tank terrain to empty out Lommersweiler.

Hanzoku:
Doesn't look like you have a lot of choice except to go in the front, given the terrain and (supposed) disposition of the enemy. You want to secure flat ground on the other side and get your tanks in their as quickly as possible I'd think.

Fishbreath:
Alright. I'm not going to get to play tonight, but it never hurts to have a detailed plan:

1. The 51st Battalion and the 35th Battalion will assault Steinebruck from the south, starting as soon as possible. The 1st Battalion will move through at the base of the hill to the east of Steinebruck, from which it will attack the German flank 90 minutes after the mechanized attack begins.

2. Once all three battalions have crossed the bridge, the 51st will continue along the north road toward the Breitfeld crossroads and take up a blocking position north of the Y in the road.

3. The 1st and 35th will make an assault on Lommersweiler. The 1st will remain to defend the village and the crossing, while the 35th will press the Germans north toward the 51st.

4. The 35th and 51st will probe Breitfeld. If it's lightly defended, they will take it.

That should cover the first day. It's an aggressive plan, but as a mechanized  commander, I think that's par for the force (zing). It would be ideal to be in defensive positions in St. Vith before the German reinforcements arrive.

Fishbreath:
And we're off! In this post, I begin my attack, and I also use 'brigade' interchangeably with 'combat command', which would cause any officer of the period to shake his head at me for being old-fashioned. I'm also using the <battalion>/<regiment> notation for the 1st Battalion of the 318th Infantry Regiment. Already, I have a correction to make: as astute readers may have noticed, the order of battle in the interface flatly contradicted my claim that I'm the 7th Armored Division. I am in fact the 4th Armored Division. The 7th held St. Vith during the first German attacks, and were the ones to retake it historically. The 4th Armored Division was historically involved in the relief of Bastogne, which accounts for the fact that Combat Command A is about 30% understrength on average.

In this scenario, orders delay ramps from 0% to 100% over the first hour, so from nil to more than an hour for orders percolating down from brigade HQ. The first few minutes are, therefore, obviously an excellent time to give orders, so I did.



I directed the 1/318th to move to point 1, then form up for an attack at 10:00 a.m. I then gave the order for brigade HQ to attack across the bridge; the headquarters staff picked point 2 as its form-up point. It's shielded from view of any heavy weapons in Lommersweiler by what I clearly should start calling Hill 3.

By 6:45, the leading elements of the mechanized attack are getting into place. A Troop of the 25th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron is only about four hundred meters from the nearest German troops, but Hill 3 and the gloom are in the way. Notice that A Company of the 35th Tank Battalion is selected, with its footprint (the while lines), command line (the blue one going to the 35th Bn HQ; green lines go the other direction, but A Company has no represented subordinates), and task (the gray movement line and the arrow). Once it finishes moving, it'll reorganize and begin to attack.



At 7:40, it's dawn, and the attack is beginning to take shape. The 1/318th's rifle companies are in place, and its headquarters has taken up a safe position from which to direct the assault. The mortar platoon is headed that way too.

This is a good place to mention the first poor choice my subordinates have made. C Coy/51st Bn is a bit far ahead, because it's trying to go around the woods to its west and take position roughly level with the 489th AA Battalion. This is because I left the attack formation to the discretion of the brigade HQ staff, and then because the 51st Battalion's commander chose something too wide for his sector. The little blue square on C Company's unit card means that it's taking cover, thanks to fire it received moments before.



Fast-forward a bit to 10:35. The mechanized forces have met the Germans and are engaged in forcing them back. I issued orders to make this a moderately aggressive action, so rather than rush ahead and take unnecessary casualties, the brigade is using its overwhelming superiority in armor to steadily push the Germans off the objective. The 1/318th is in a standard assault formation, and is now on the march toward its objective on the far side of the river. It's a minor river, so infantry can cross it but the tanks will need the bridge (the thinner line to the north is a stream, which the mechanized forces can cross just fine).

Notice the red square on B/51st Bn's unit card: that means it's under fire and taking losses (yellow means just under fire). Notice also that C/51st still isn't in place, having been delayed by enemy contact when the sun rose. It probably would have been smart of me to change the 35th Battalion's orders, but I hoped that C/51st would be able to sneak past before they were spotted.



Which brings us to noon. Some of the German forces have retreated over the hill north of Lommersweiler to the marked crossroad. The attack continues apace, with the Germans forced back across the bridge but still able to defend it. I have a German Panzerjaeger company selected; it still has many of its guns, but its headquarters (the German unit with the red 0, symbolizing routing/recovering and no combat strength, respectively) is presently incapable of issuing an order for it to fall back. I don't know what its formation is, but it's still firing intermittently on those units it can see, which suggests it's in a defensive box.



In the next hour or two, I expect to complete the push across the bridge. The 51st will keep the pressure on, while the 35th and the 1/318th will assault the town.

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A final note on orders delay: some of the early Battle of the Bulge scenarios give the Americans a 16x penalty on orders at the start. At that point, orders to large formations are probably more quickly achieved by bypassing the headquarters units beneath yours and commanding the lowest units directly.

Knave:
Just posting to say I'm watching and enjoying!

I keep myself I'll buy this game one day, the price tag just doesn't gel with me though. Been spoiled by steam-sales :(

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