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This is my second and Moose's first PBEM game of TOAW: We picked Operation Nordwind and Moose went with the krauts. I started keeping track of stuff on turn two:

Turn 2:
THE GERMAN TURN: In the east, The 89th Corps, the second round of SS units come down, pressing on Lembach. They probably want to sweep down to Niederbronn, cutting off Phillipsbourgh and then onto Petit Pierre. They make short work of the 45th Infantry divison, routing it from its defensive works. All I have at Niederbronn are mechanics and a light mortar group. If I don’t stop them soon, my east wing from Zinswiller to Hunspach is going to cllapse.

Elsehwere, things are not so bad. The bulk of the 45th is defending Hunspach sucessfully, with only Frederick’s HQ unit and the 179th around Lembach—Moose really got the drop on me by using his SS offensive at my weakest point. If I send enough of the 45th to slow down the SS units, the 256th VG gets a free pass to overrun what I have left there, and both, however weakened, will link up with the 257th heading through the forest. However, the 256th isn’t going anywhere as long as I stay dug in.

In the center, my guys are holding their own against the 17th SS and supporting VG units. Moose has again decided to avoid my strongest emplacements, meaning the 44th have so far provided a strong defense against westward attacks from the 19th and 36th VG, who are the left wing of the 17th’s offensive. It looks like Jerrry’s efforts are two coherent movements, each with an SS division at the core and flanked by a supporting VG division on one side, and two on the other.

MY TURN: There is little I can do besides tighten up my lines a little bit, and hold on for reinforcements.





The map:

Turn 3:
THE GERMAN TURN: Air recon picks up more SS units moving through the Pfalzerwald to hit Lembach. *Gulp* My units around Phillipsbourgh pull back further before being too savaged, but elsewhere, it isn’t pretty.
From east to west:
The 256th run a single attack against the 45th, pushing back the engineering unit and splitting it in 3, but otherwise doing little. The remaining strong units-an infantry regiment and a tank battalion, are untouched and half of the VG division are in amber, yellow or red health.
The center of the eastern German attack has succeeded: half of my units are routed and everything is at red health, and I am faced with an amber-crowded stack of SS units with infantry and cavalry on either wing.
The 257th has failed to capture Philipsbourgh, and probably won’t unless I let them. I have totally blundered the east—I left the bulk of TF Hudelson in the west defend P-bourgh, and then the cream of the 45th hold Hunspach. I stuck an engineering battalion from Hudelson, an infantry regiment from the 45th together with some HQ units. They were directly in the path of the oncoming SS division, and while they put up a good fight the result was unavoidable: they got steamrolled and are effectively finished as a fighting force. The VG are doing their job in pinning down enough of my troops to keep me from doing anything substantial to check the SS divisions.

I have deployed better against the western drive, though. The 44th was deployed in a wider front, and is only beginning to show any strain from it. The 36th and 19th VG pushed hard against me, but have bunched up their forces to do so and stretched themselves too thin in the process—the flank at Sarreguemines is only held by specialist battalions and recon units from the 19th. The division has only two infantry units, which have been lumped with the 36th to roll up the able-bodied units on the SS’ flank. So far they have been making incremental gains, wearing down my forces—one infantry regiment this turn posted 30% losses to a push supported by Nebelwerfer attack, but my line is holding.

The 100th division is budging only slowly—they are holding the western edge of the forest and the road and rail routes against the 17th SS and the 559th VG. This VG division has more infantry units than the 19th, but it hasn’t done a whole lot. The German push last time saw SS units routing and splitting a tank battalion and infantry regiment holding Rohrbach, but it has also bunched up the German offensive. I am reeling, but I should be able to stop the bleeding soon.

MY TURN:
Essentially, I am saved by reinforcements. Three infantry regiments and an armored division with artillery support come in south of the 6th SS’s attack—they can reach the beleaguered ad hoc group holding the Germans at bay this turn. An infantry regiment and four (!) motorized artillery units show up in the west, along with another armored division. I rush these up to hold a gap that the 17th SS had opened up around Rohrbach when my tactical reinforcements were rebuffed trying to hold the town.

I look at the strength numbers of the units I can see, and generally, I am not very impressed. I figure I won’t be getting any more reinforcements any time soon, and the longer I wait, the more likely it his the southernmost SS group will punch through to Petit-Pierre on its own, or that the western SS group will link up with the western Volksgrenadier wing and sweep my guys into a pocket in the forest. Either way, game over. So, I decide to ATTACK! I push most of my guys into ignore losses attacks, and hope to throw him back across Alsace.

Largely, I succeed—I thought my attack would forestall any crushing attack from the oncoming SS forces, but it turns out that the German formations are a lot more brittle than I thought. I probably have as many artillery units as I do front line formations, and I use them all—under the weight of all that fire, the Germans collapse, with the SS formation, bunched up with heavy penalty modifiers for overcrowding, taking up to 80% losses in different fights. The hardest fight of mine is on the far west, where I scrape together some troops to have a go at the infantry units of the 19th. I send them packing, but lose 10% of my men in the bargain. I caught the support assets of the 36th holding the east approach to Sarreguemines, and rout them without clashing with the infantry assets—this may be a problem next turn if the quite-healthy regiments decide to counter-attack against my overextended troops.

The big surprise was that my battered and retreated troops backed by one healthy tank bn, with LOTS of artillery support, inflicted 30% losses on the lone tank battalion holding Rohrbach. I hope my attack wasn’t too gamey. Similarly, I hit the 6th SS's amber stack with a single artillery unit and gave it like 15% casualties. Elmer doesn't exploit stacks this much, so I had no idea of the danger it poses.

I have harder going against the VG units since I put all of my strong units up against the SS divisions, but I don’t do badly anywhere. The only big failure is my inability to drive out the HQ unit occupying Bitche (tee hee).

Beginning and end of Turn 3:

Turn 3 after my attacks:

Turn 4:

GERMAN TURN: A total of 13 moves for Moose. As you can see, I had the XV Corps Btry A/3FAOBSN recon unit as the pivot in the surrounding of the 17th SS. The remainder of the 17th makes sure to destroy it, but leaves the regiment at Riming untouched—I think it was a mistake to not peel off a unit or two to surround and destroy it, since he won’t have the chance this turn. Reading the scenario briefing, this appears to the unit the scenario author’s father served in. Sorry, Mr. Koon!



MY TURN:

The 100th Div’s AD that came in last turn pushes up against the 19th and 36th, overrunning the support units holding the east of Sarreguemines, which now has a yellow! Stack. Throwing in AA and recon units, I am once again able to completely surround one of his formations. The 100th AD chases those artillery and HQ units all the way to the map edge, where they hide behind the 8th SS Korps’ HQ, which is still at a credible 4/3 strength.



At the east, the 45th overruns the HQ and arty units holding Wissemburg, and I pocket them. Continuing the trend, I successfully overrun the HQ at Bitche this turn and dig in with a Cavalry squadron. I opt for a full-frontal push against the 6th SS, diverting the last of my reinforcements this turn from that area to make a push against the 559th VG and put a stop to the western front.


The results were almost the opposite of last turn’s—the Panzer divisions refused to give ground, proving their worth by taking heavy losses, but returning the favor even while being heavily outnumbered—I may not be able to advance any further until I completely destroy the VG units. The counterattack against the 6th fell flat, pushing the wings further back but the counterattacking routed units this time took it on the chin, failing to budge the 6th and taking pretty heavy casualties for themselves. The 100th, at great difficulty, drove off the 17th’s recon battalion and opened up a line to Rimling and its isolated regiment there, also cutting off the 17th from the 36th and remnants of the 19th.



If the SS divisions held the line, the VG units collapsed—the German player allowing his units to get enveloped meant that the Sarreguemines pocket is wiped out, taking out all of the 19th VG except for a halftrick unit, and engineer, and its headquarters. The Wissemburg pocket held, but only at heavy casualties, with about 2/3rds of its strength gone. I think this is game over for the Germans—the SS units can beat me in a fair fight, but the casualty penalty is almost 5-1 in my favor—the Germans are going to be heavily outnumbered and I have a huge advantage in artillery which seems to be the real source of my success.



Turn Five:
I think this thing is pretty much over. That the 17th SS stood and died when almost surrounded would probably have made Hitler proud, but it made the game pretty lopsided after that. This turn, I am busy encircling more units, and end the 36th and 256th as military forces. The Germans attacked with the 6th and 17th SS, the 361st, 256th, 257th, 559th, 19th and 36th VG divisions—at best, the Germans can retreat with 3 VG and 1 SS division. At worst, only two VG units—the 257th and 559th, could break out. In any event, we decided to end our PBEM game here, and start up a game of France 40.


The end of turn five:

Nice AAR. Nice example of using artillery