Nijmegen historical campaign

[guyhill]

Today I finished the Nijmegen historical campaign (yes, I really caught the HTTR bug [;)]). In line with my Eindhoven AAR I'll describe the initial assault in some detail followed by a short overview of the rest of the battle.

The plan
504 PIR: Capture and hold Grave, Overasselt, Honinghutje and Hatert bridges
505 PIR: Capture and hold Mook, Heumen, Blankenberg bridges, capture Groesbeek and Somerchem to assist in capturing Honinghutje by cutting the road between Honinghutje and Nijmegen.
508 PIR: Capture and hold Nijmegen CBD (what does this acronym stand for, by the way?) and the south bank of the Waal; once defence is organised, send some units back to Groesbeek area to help defending there. Don't take the bridges themselves as the bridgehead on the north shore can probably not be held by 508 alone (I planned to use the Guards for this).

This left only some auxiliary units (Bases, AT guns, Arty, HQs) to defend the perimeter to the north and east, which makes this plan quite a bit bolder than the real thing. I estimated that no major German counterattack would materialise before D2, by which time I hoped to be able to send some of the Nijmegen force back to the Groesbeek area. I did not want to waste time on a major city fight, so I planned to capture the southern bridge approaches as fast as I could.

504 PIR plan
1/504 + A/307 Eng: capture Hatert bridge, leave 1 Coy, then capture Honinghutje and hold
2/504: Capture and hold Grave and the Nederasselt and Grave bridges
3/504: Defeat the German units South of the DZ, then capture and hold the Overasselt bridge.
504 PIR HQ, Base and A/80AT: reserve

505 PIR plan
1/505 + B/307 Eng: capture Mook, hold with 1 Coy, then capture Heumen and Blankenberg bridges
2/505: capture and hold Groesbeek
3/505: assist 2/505 with capturing Groesbeek, then advance on Somerchem
505 PIR HQ, Base, B/80AT: set up screen between Mook and the Popenberg

I decided to do a 2 Bn attack on Groesbeek, as initial intelligence showed a full FJ Bn there.

508 PIR plan
1/508: assault the south end of the Nijmegen railway bridge
2/508: assult the centre of Nijmegen, between 1/508 and 3/508
3/508: assault the south end of the Nijmegen road bridge
C/307 Eng, 508 PIR HQ, C/80AT: Defend the main road from Nijmegen to the east between Wyler and Nijmegen

The Bn's would march on Nijmegen with 3/508 slightly in front (i.e., the Bde attacked in right or left echelon, I can never remember which), which I hoped would help me. Hopefully the AI would sent units east from the western part of Nijmegen; these units would then be attacked in the flank by 1/508 and 2/508.

Div assets: set up screen between Groesbeek and Wyler

The result
This felt too easy. By 2000 hours I had captured all bridges I planned to capture intact. 508 PIR decimated KG Henke (the Nijmegen defenders) in short order; its units made a desperate dash to freedom via the railroad bridge, only to find the southern approaches in my possession. During the advance of 508 PIR I noticed some German units moving away from the bridges accross the Maas-Waal canal, so I think that my aggressive plan helped capture those bridges as well. 504 PIR did what they had to and more. A mistake on my part sent the 504 HQ, base and A/80 AT to the position occupied by HQ 82 Div, via Blankenberg bridge. I decided to let them have a go at it, and they succeeded in capturing this bridge intact. This made life easier for 1/505; this unit could now concentrate on defending Mook.
Groesbeek was a walkover, as it did not contain many FJ troops, only a few AA guns. 2/505 defended Groesbeek, 3/505 went on to capture Somerchem.
By nightfall I decided that I needed only 2 Bn's to defend Nijmegen, which meant that I could sent 3/505 and 2/508 back to defend around Groesbeek. One Coy of 1/504 took over Somerchem.

Day 2: The Germans repeatedly tried to cross the Nijmegen road bridge. Every attempt was defeated by the 3/508 defenders, weakening the Germans to a point where I was tempted to send 3/508 to the north side. I did not do so, as I saw no need for taking risks.
A large couterattack materialised out of the Reichswald, so I was glad I had sent my 2 Bn's back from Nijmegen. These troops did not want to attack from the east after their advance units had bumped into C/307 Engineers near Wyler and got a severe beating. Instead they took the whole day moving around my position to attack from the north. I was able to move 2/508 from my west flank to my north flank in time to stall these attacks.

Day 3: The Guards arrive! I captured Nijmegen road bridge with the Grenadier group and the railroad bridge with the Coldstream group. This was hardly a fair fight as they simply rolled over any German resistance. I captured Lent around 1630 hours. The other VPs on the north side were captured shortly afterwards.
Day 4: Welsh guards were sent to Mook to defend. 8 Armoured Bde was split up: the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry was used to capture the remaining bridges over the Maas-Waal canal and then sent south. 13/18 Hussars was sent to Groesbeek and 4/7 Dragoon Guards were used to defend my weak north flank.
Day 5: since I had nothing better to do I decided to kill some Germans. I first sent the Welsh Guards from Mook to Wyler and beyond; 13/18 Hussars were used to cover their right flank. I then sent the Irish guards northeast from Beek to the Waal to crush the Germans there, with 4/7 DG covering their left flank. I hoped to trap some German units between my tanks and the Waal, but unfortunately most of them got away.

The scenario ended in a Decisive Victory. I had 100 points, the Germans had 21. After day 1 the outcome was never in any doubt, and I feel it was too easy. Inspection of the battlefield after the battle showed a large number of German troops who had infiltrated my defenses, so maybe I have been a bit lucky.

Some strange tings occurred during this scenario; I wonder if they might be due to bugs.
* First, when I ordered 2/508 to assault I chose to assault with 3 Coy's abreast. Their reorg looked fine, but when they started moving the AI decided to swap the left and right units.
* Second, when I ordered the grenadier group to assault the Nijmegen road bridge their order looked like an order generated by the AI, not one I had given myself (i.e., slightly darker grey assault symbol on the map, no buttons to change aggro and the like in the left panel). Maybe due to the distance? I ordered the assault from their initial position south of Grave, with many waypoints. Fortunately the assault worked as planned, but it did not look right to me.
* Third, I did not succeed in capturing the ferry at Weurt, although no enemy units were in the VP area (I checked after the battle) and I was able to use the ferry.