Eindhoven historical campaign

[guyhill]

After my unexpected Draw playing the allies in the Eindhoven historical campaign, I decided to have another go at it, this time making sure to grab all the victory points as fast as possible. Orders delay was set to "realistic", reinforcements and supply to standard and historical, respectively.

The plan
* 501 PIR: capture and hold all Veghel bridges, Hulstheuvel Hwy bridge and Uden
* 502 PIR: capture and hold the St Oedenrode bridge and the Koevering and Neinsel victory points.
* 506 PIR: capture and hold the Son and Best bridges, advance on Eindhoven

501 PIR
* 1/501 to march to Veghel. They will probably not take part in capturing the bridges, as they start so far away.
* 2/501 capture the Veghel railroad bridges and advance on Uden, capturing the Hulstheuvel bridge and Uden itself
* 3/501 + A/326 Engineers: capture the Veghel Hwy bridges and clear Veghel

502 PIR
* 1/502 + B/326: advance straight to St Oedenrode and capture the bridge and the town
* 2/502 + 3/502: capture Neinsel, drop off 1 Coy and move on. 2/502 to move to Oedenrode via the Hwy and assist 1/502. 3/502 to move 1 Coy to Koevering and assault Oedenrode from the Koevering side with the remainder. After Oedenrode has been captured, 3/502 to defend Koevering, 2/502 to defend Neinsel until relieved. Then take over Son.
HQ + Base: relieve 2/502 at Neinsel

506 PIR
* 1/506 + C/326: capture Son, advance on Eindhoven afterwards
* 2/506: move to the canal between Best and Son, and assault Son bridge garrison from west. Hold Son bridge once captured until relieved by 2/502. Then advance on Eindhoven
* 3/506: capture and hold Best bridges.
* HQ 506 + AT: hold Son
* Base 506: use to hold Woensel junction once 1/506 has captured it

The results
501 area: from the start of the scenario on 1300 hours, it took only 44 minutes to capture the Veghel canal RR bridge. Due to a mistake from my 2/501 commander, who decided to advance on the other RR bridge via the canal road bridge, the other RR bridge wasn't taken until 1600 hours. The canal road bridge was captured at about 1530 hours but the other road bridge wasn't captured till 1730 due to some stubborn resistance in the town of Veghel. I decided to order 1/501 to advance on Uden instead of 2/501 because 2/501 was too busy. Hulstheuvel was captured without a fight at 1800 hours, but clearing Uden took more time: the victory point was mine at 2200 hours.
After the initial assault I defended the RR bridges with 2/501 and 501 base; 3/501 with the engineers defended the road bridges and the minor bridge at Leest. Hulstheuvel was held by a single coy of 1/501; the rest of 1/501 held Uden. The Germans did not try to blow any of the bridges in the 501 area.

502 area: Neinsel was captured without a fight at 1400 hours. Koevering was gained without a fight at 1630 hours. The Oedenrode defenders stubbornly resisted and tried to blow the bridge at 1545 hours. Fortunately the demolition attempt failed, and I took control of the town at 1645. I saw no need to adjust my plan, so I sent 2/502 south after Oedenrode had been captured, holding Neinsel with the 502 base.

506 area: the attack on Son went beautifully. 1/506 attacked from the north, meeting the german garrison head on. Meanwhile 2/506 got into position west of Son and attacked the garrison in the flank. At 1630 hours the bridge was mine after a failed demolition attempt.
1/506 + C/326 went on to capture Woensel and the Philips factory, capturing them on 1845 and 2130, respectively. Woensel fell without a fight; I chased away one AT / AA unit from the Philips factory before capturing the point.
When 2/502 arrived at Son I decided I did not want the hassle of a relief in place, so I sent 2/502 on to Eindhoven instead, where they took control of Philips, freeing 1/506 and the Engineers to deny the Germans the Eindhoven victory point. They succeeded in doing so at about 0100 hours on D2, and a scrappy night fight for Eindhoven ensued. Eindhoven finally fell at 0900 hours, after the arrival of 6DLI and 15/19 Hussars.
At Best the assault went well. At around 1730 3/506 had gained a foothold north of the highway bridge; they controlled the victory point there at about 1800 after another failed demo attempt by the Germans. Best RR bridge turned out to be only lightly guarded and was captured at around 2030 hours.

In short, all bridges were captured intact by 2030 hours on day 1. At the start of day 2 all victory points were in allied hands, although some were only lightly held.

Defending the highway
I will not attempt to give a detailed overview of all that happened in the remainder of the scenario, as this would be a long and boring list of German attacks, Allied defense and eventually Allied counter-attack. I'll just give a list of my reinforcements, stating how I used them in each case.

* 327 GIR was used to build a strong defense line between Oedenrode and Veghel, to the Northwest of the highway.
* 6 DLI defended Eindhoven for the remainder of the scenario. They defeated a particularly nasty counterattack by 107 Pz Bde on D3, which almost succeeded in breaking through to Eindhoven. Fortunately they decided they had had enough after 2 Pz Coys had been decimated.
* 15/19 Hussars was used as a mobile fire brigade in the Koevering / Veghel area, to assist 327 GIR in holding the road and 501 PIR in holding Veghel.
* 44 RTR was used likewise in the Son / Eindhoven area. They played a crucial role in defeating a major counterattack (by 107 Pz Bde?) on Son bridge on D7. On D8 they succesfully defeated some German attacks east of Eindhoven, thereby annihilating a lot of German units. C Squadron, 44 RTR distinguished itself here: entrenched in a small patch of woodlands east of Eindhoven it succeeded in killing 8 German units from 107 Pz Bde all by itself. Inspection of the battlefield after the battle showed that 107 Bde had been reduced to 16 men and 1 gun.
* 8 DLI assisted 2/506 in defending Son and almost got wiped out during the D7 attack on Son.
* 9 DLI assisted 3/506 in the Best area, defeating countless attacks by 6 FJ Bde.
* The Grenadier and Coldstream guards groups did not have a hard time defending Uden, Hulstheuvel and the road between Veghel and Hulstheuvel. The only notable action here was a counterattack by 2 Grenadiers into the teeth of a German advance, breaking up a German attack before it even got underway.
* Queens Bde defended the road south of Son, but they had an easy time of it. I didn't really need them at all.

The result was a decisive victory for the Allies (Germans 27 points, Allies 100). The Germans lost more than 12000 men, I lost about 2000. I didn't lose a single unit, while the Germans lost 47 units. The only remaining German units of note were 1033 / 1034 and 1035 Regiments, but they were pretty weak, each Coy having only about 1 platoon's worth of men.

[Arjuna]

Well done. You now need try it with Painfully Realistic Orders Delay and a favour Germans reinforcement schedule. [;)]

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna
Well done. You now need try it with Painfully Realistic Orders Delay and a favour Germans reinforcement schedule. [;)]

Don't listen to Arjuna - he's like a crack dealer pushing his game and before you know it you're hooked [;)]

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Arjuna]

<G> I must have gone up in Eddy's esteem. [;)]

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna
<G> I must have gone up in Eddy's esteem. [;)]

You have no idea [;)]

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[guyhill]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Well done. You now need try it with Painfully Realistic Orders Delay and a favour Germans reinforcement schedule. [;)]

I might... But I want to play the other historical campaigns at the default settings first. I'm still trying to think of a way to get a decisive victory at Arnhem. It seems tough enough as it is.