ASL79 - Bridge of the Seven Planets

AAR fans, Listoids, etc.,

Just finished a VASL pbem playing of ASL79, "Bridge of the Seven Planets". I had the French, Chris Mazzei had the Germans. How long did we spend on this thing, Chris, 2 or 3 months? Seemed like I spent an awful lot of time just watching the German masses coiling up like a cobra for the knockout strike across the bridge. The French kept picking away, though -- a halfsquad here, a halfsquad there--and it added up, eventually. I wouldn't call it the best sort of game for a pbem match, but it wasn't the worst, either.

French situation in a nutshell: About half of their 13.5 squad-equivalents and 5 crews are on one side, (the "German" side), of the river, half on the other side, ("French" side), and a 7-0/Mmg228, (with a 228 for backup), is permanently ensconsed in "Fort Castelnau" in the north. The stone building in 40oP5 is the key. It's only 2 hexes from the west, ("French"), side of the bridge, but if the Germans take it, game's over. (Germans win.) Where d'ya put the 155mm arty piece and those two dinky 25LL ATGs? Where should the machineguns go?

German situation in a nutshell: About half of their 20.5 1st Line squad-equiv's, (and 2 crews), don't enter until Turn 3, (of an 8.5 turn game, German moves last), but they've got 4 trucks, (for a total of 5), and 3 more leaders, (for a total of 6), to speed things up. Turn 3 also brings on the 100mm OBA, (HE and smoke), a PzIIA, and a 75* INF gun. Add in the usual Mgs and meatball throwers, and whaddya got? A major headache! Because alla this mean and nasty python has to crawl up to the one little ol' bridge in the middle of hell, and get across it to that ridiculously small stone building of so much importance. This is to be done under the noses of French ordnance and Mgs, not to mention IFP, and it has to be done without losing more than 25 CVP!

Was it in a Journal or an Annual that I saw Nixon's article about this scenario? Well, what better source of scenario intelligence than that? I set up a defense that was almost identical to his defense in the article, ( featuring the French 155 arty piece tucked away in hex 40H1 woods on the German side of the river, with that gun boresighted on the bridge along with a 25LL AT gun in 40J0, and the other 25LL (in 40T5) was BS'd at the bridge exit hex on the French side. Of the French player's 13.5 squad-equivalents and 5 crews, 7 squad-equiv's have to set up on the west (French) side of the river, the other 6.5 get to bag some Germans before getting squashed, (or perhaps turning into temporary human roadblocks on the bridge.) I didn't change much in the way of Mark's setup. I did put a 1st Line squad with the Hmg in 40W4, though, instead of green guys. There was the 7-0/Mmg228 in 40oD1.2, (or Lev2), and the other Hmg went in 40Q4 with the 9-1 and two hs, right there in the ugly open ground at the French end of the bridge. I think 3 squads and the 7-0 were in the woods southeast of the bridge, ("German" side of the river), while in the woods north-northeast of the bridge were the Mmg and MMCs protecting/backing up the 155mm and the 25LL ATG. A Lmg457 was in 40Q8, ("French" side of the river), with a bead right down the road and across the bridge, and 5 foxholed locations were behind the 40P5 objective, with 4 of them manned. Fort Castelnau's Mmg was boresighted at 16W5 (grainfield), and the 16Y2 Mmg had 16R6 (grainfield) boresighted. The 9-1's Hmg in 40Q4 was BS'd at 16 Q7, (grainfield). Wayyy far to the south, 40DD2 (stone building) was boresighted by the 8-1's Hmg in 40W4.

Enter the Hun. Chris generally avoided the big grainfield in the middle of board 16. I didn't use one of those MG boresighted hexes. (I didn't read Nixon's advice for the German assault...I wonder if Chris did?). The first Wehrmachters were more interested in the 16L6 building (and surrounding walls), and thrusting westward from there, and the turn 3 reinforcements came in at the far southeast corner. The initial German force got peppered pretty good, though -- I had some great rolls, especially with the "Ft. Castelnau", ( 40oD1.2), Mmg firing at lonnnnnng range, even with the fp getting chopped down to 1fp because of the distance. The Germans lost 5 halfsquads and a full squad in the first 3 turns, while in the same period of time the French disabled one Lmg and lost a disrupted 437 squad to a No Quarter declaration, during the Germans' thrust into that wooded area southeast of the bridge, (16N0 area). That wooded area was the springboard. Almost everything got loaded up into there. Days went by, weeks...ever notice how "slow motion" ASL can be? We used to play a game called "slow-mo football" when we were kids...if we'd thought of slow-mo battle, probably we'd have done that, too! Ah, but I digress....this was the Middle Game, now, and it was a bit depressing to see those ugly German *Death Star* stacks forming up. Hell, I thought I got a break when I had the German 9-2 in trouble, but all he did was BH to 10-2 status! Bright note for the French: The Pz IIA made it to the west bank in the German Turn 7 MPh, but died, (crew and all), in the boresighted hex of the 25LL ATG in 40J0. And then there was the SMOKE, and LOTS OF IT! Foom, FOOM, FOOOOMM! Even Chris's dagnabbed 81mm mortar was placing multiple smoke rounds perfectly, (before it ran out). Gees, now THAT was depressing! Add in a little 81mm HE accuracy, and watch your men try to get back to the west side and die trying, and well...wasn't pretty. The French 9-1 and his halfsquads got back to the objective area, but then that very same leader went NUTS!....er, I mean BERSERK! and in French Turn 7 dragged along 1.5 squad-equiv's into berserko land, right into the jaws of the first Germans across the bridge, (backed-up by *Death Stars*). One Berserk squad went down, but the 9-1/237 killed a German hero, (alas, no CVP), before the HS got killed, and the 9-1 broke and Low Crawled back along the line of "At Start" wrecks stretching north to the mapedge on the west bank road. Sounds bad, huh? Well, it WAS bad! I can just be glad that the 155mm had an unobstructed view to 40Q1, (bridge entrance hex for the Germans), where it landed a shell that killed a halfsquad, (and I think pinned and broke some others), and -- most importantly -- left a nice little RFP12 for the bulk of the German force to run through, (if they wanted). Ah, but Chris is smart....he knew his losses were slowly mounting, so he held off the major thrust for another turn and let his *Death Star* loose on the 155, knocking out the crew. That big gun killed a HS and slowed the attack, and that's it. Never even got to blast someone to bits in its boresighted hex on the bridge. Chris seemed very patient, and the patient guys radiate something ugly right across the Internet, know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about being on the receiving end of a steamroller. It might only go at 2 mph, but look out! (Meanwhile, imagine that mosquito-of-a-Mmg way up there in Ft. Castelnau, continuing to irritate the Germans from way off their north flank. It hadn't been doing much, lately, but Chris didn't like it one bit, and started to give the area some 81mm treatment, pinning the 7-0. So I moved the crew and Mmg over to 40oD2.2...who needs 7-0 leaders, anyway?) Sure didn't like it when the objective, (40oP5), got draped in OBA +3 smoke. But I liked it when the German radio op lost contact, and I liked it even better when, after regaining contact, he got sniped to death! Getting near the end, something odd happened. I guess Chris might call it a brain fart, eh, Chris? He ran a coupla trucks across the bridge and into the hexes of my green squads in grainfield locations 40M5 and 40M6, (where they could see clearly, after leaving the SMOKE shroud.). I thought, "Ha! Expecting me to waste my fp on trucks so everybody can march in totally unobstructed, eh? Ha!" And I used all the green squads' fp, (without much success), on German infantry moving onto the west bank, (unarmed trucks couldn't do anything about it), and then later on immobilized one truck in CC, and then wrecked one and >blazed< the other with TPBF in French Turn 8 PFPh. In the meantime, the 25LL ATGs were still firing at the Germans from both sides of the river, and one squad got caught in a bkDM state, on the west bank, with nowhere to rout: 2 more CVP! Turn 8. French. That's when the mosquito in Castelnau went on a rate tear with its little 2fp flinging nasty French objections into OG, (no smoke in this spot!).   And when that was done, the squad of corpses piled up in front of smoke-shrouded 40oP5 amounted to 26 CVP, and the French had won. It had taken several turns to get somebody back on the Hmg in 40W4, and to stay GO long enough to use it...and they didn't have to! I really wasn't expecting this to happen. If the trucks hadn't been there to be killed, I doubt that I could have pulled off a victory, because it would have required a lot more luck than I had already received, (with the Castelnau crew), and luck just doesn't generally stretch out that far. It would have gone into the final German Turn 9; then some really hefty German firepower would've reduced my resistance to kibbles 'n' bits, and then one lousy concealed green squad in the objective would've been in the way, and that's all. Or so it seems. Or so it seems it shoulda been, but I need a win now and then, so I'll take it.  Thanks again for the game, Chris!
--Paul "on to Enfilade!" Venard