How not to play Joe's Bridge scenario

[henri51]

I bought the game yesterday after re-watchig "A bridge too far" and launched into this scenario without much preparation. I have all the previous games of this series, but it has been a long time since I played so I was more than rusty. If I had been the General in charge of this battle for the Allies, my performance would certainly have deserved a promotion to Buck Private and a job cleaning the Division latrines...I did almost everything wrong, as you shall see in what follows. BTW there is a detailed walkthrough of this scenario in the free strategy guide of the old HTTR available in the member section. I was playing with realistic delays.

In this scenario, the crack British Irish Guards have two battalions and a few extra divisional assets to take Joe's Bridge protected by a motley crew of Germans. The objectives are the bridge itself and two nearby objectives on the main highway a few km from the bridge on either side of the river.

The Division is off to the East from the main highway South of the river, and there are two roads leading to the bridge, one running up to the river then following the river edge to the bridge, and another running West to a crossroads joining the main highway going to the bridge. I chose the "obvious" plan of sending one battalion along each of the paths, hoping to coordinate their assault of the bridge. I gave assault orders to the two battalion HQs with forming up points (FUP) a couple of km away from the bridge. There was a weak-looking force South of the bridge on the objective there, and I figured that they could be brushed aside before assaulting the bridge, especially since whichever battalion arrived last would probably hit these Germans in the flank because my two forces would be arriving from perpendicular directions.

Fine, but I should have read the scenario briefing. It clearly states that in addition to the German forces visible North of the river, there are significant German forces South and West of the bridge that intend to use the bridge to retreat from some previous battles further South. I also didn't check the terrain along both axes of advance, and failed to notice that the FUP of the battalion advancing along the river was in full view of the Germans on the other side of the river. But my worst mistakes were yet to come...

I did not pay to much attention to the makeup of my two battalions, and failed to notice that one of them is much more strongly armored than the other, which should have influenced my strategy. One worthwhile thing I DID do was to send my lone reconnaissance company along the Southern road to see if any German opposition was on the road (there was nothing before the first objective South of the bridge).

I did not pay too much attention to the time, but this scenario begins at 18:00, so there are only a few hours of daylight, which means that any delays could force me to choose between a night attack and a delay to the following day for the assault.

So my units went merrily on their way, and the Southern force reached the crossroad, went a bit up the road and began to deploy at their FUP, while the other battalion quickly rode along the river to their FUP without any opposition due to surprise. But after being in enemy view for over a half hour, the FUP was soon under fire from the aroused German units North of the river, thus creating confusion and delays at the FUP.

I had neglected to move my division HQ, with the result that it was now some 8 km from its battalions, further increasing the delays. Around 2000, the Southern force along the main highway finally began its assault, joining the recon unit which had engaged the Germans defending the objective South of the river. This turned out to be tougher than expected, since one of the German units there was a tough AA unit that could rip through my armor. Eventually the battalion along the river got itself sorted out and joined the fray and helped to dispose of the enemy South of the Bridge, opening the way for the bridge assault. By now it was pas 2100.

About that time, German units began to appear from the South, just below my single HQ unit on the main highway, who had stayed safely behind the assault at the FUP! So here is this HQ all by itself on the road 2 km behind its troops unit trying to coordinate an assault while being hit from behind by enemy units trying to get to the bridge...

I peeled out one or two units from the assault to go help the HQ, causing additional delays in the attack. Seeing my units milling around in confusion instead of attacking, I decided to take the bull by the horns and command all units by myself, so I gave everyone except the units defending the HQ orders to assault all-out RIGHT NOW! Since my Divisional HQ was some 10 km back with the artillery who was pounding the German position, this caused an overloading of the HQ capacity, increasing the orders delays even more.

It was 2 AM before the assault got under way in a piecemeal fashion, but it soon stalled when most of the attackers had decided that it was time to get some shuteye! I changed the "rest" button to "none" to kick their butts into action, which eventually got most of them into the attack, albeit in a more or less disorganized manner.

By morning the situation was a stalemate, with more Germans appearing North and South of the river. Had my units been somewhat less elite (this division is just about the best that the British had), this could have turned into an unmitigated disaster. But I kept pushing my units, and they soon captured the bridge objective, but there was no chance of capturing the last objective to the North. The game ended as a draw, which is a humiliating defeat for the British.

If I have to spell out all the rules that I broke in this exercise, you really need to read the strategy manual and watch the tutorial movies, but my worst crimes was not carefully reading the scenario briefing, not planning for likely enemy reactions, not taking terrain into account, not taking into account my force composition, neglecting to adjust game parameters such as resting aggro etc, not keeping a reserve, keeping my HQ too far from its subordinates, and a few dozen others.[:-]

The next time I played this scenario, I gave the assault order directly to the Division HQ with the FUP behind some woods a couple of km SE the bridge and shielded from the German N of the river by the factory along the river. The division HQ moved everyone to the FUP and broke out the two divisions to attack from the same two directions as before, but from a much closer distance thus giving the Germans much less time to react. When the Germans appeared to the South, I sent the weaker battalion to the objective there to hold them back and continued the assault with the armored battalion, who captured the bridge and continued pushing North to the last objective, with the help of the heavy artillery that I was controlling myself as I did the previous time. This time I got a decisive victory.

[Rosseau]

I just see graphics mods, no strategy guide, in Members section, but I will google it. Thanks.

[henri51]

You have to log in as a member and have registered CO-HTTR. Then when you click on the "registered" button for that game in the game list, the strategy guide appears with a couple of other downloads.

[Remmes]

ORIGINAL: henri51

You have to log in as a member and have registered CO-HTTR. Then when you click on the "registered" button for that game in the game list, the strategy guide appears with a couple of other downloads.

Found it and it is must-read material for newcomers. I like the assessments of the tasks involved from both perspectives very much. Will come in handy some day....

As of right now I am still in the "How not to play Joe's Bridge scenario" phase.