Randy Shurtz was in town on 8/26/2004, so we sat down for some action at
Fortress Cassino. We looked through the scenario choice, and settled for "
Another Day on the Rack!".This looked like the most interesting scenario, but not the most even, with ROAR standing at 9-0 in favor of the Germans. The New Zealanders must enter from off-board, and cross the valley floor and wrest control of the Hotel Continental away from some stout German units. We decided the Allies could use both the balance and an extra turn, given the distance they had to go just to get to the VC location. The balance of allowing the Allied Shermans to enter on turn one proved to be very helpful.
The dice gave Randy the Anzacs, and I set up the defense. I had one StuG IIIG in my OB, so I wanted to make Randy cautious with his vehicles. I set up 2 5/8" ? counters in a great overwatch position, and put the StuG on the valley floor, in a position to pick off a flanking AFV to my right. The dummy on the crest line proved worrisome for Randy, but he just made moves to compensate for it, keeping his armor in useful spots, yet out of LOS of the overwatch position. His Shermans had the option for unlimited ammo in two of the three choices of smoke, HE, or AP. Randy wisely chose smoke and HE, since this would be an infantry support mission for his vehicles, not an armor fight.
As he entered on the first turn, I took a few MG shots at his swiftly moving, well dispersed troops, and managed to malf my MMG and break only 2 of his 15 squads/3 leaders. The path to the hotel is full of good cover, so juicy defensive shots were rare. The FC map is an interesting change of pace from most of the geomorphic boards, and we both struggled with the LOS factors in the new environment.
Turn two saw my MG nests both smoked in, and Randy maing good progress scurrying towards the hotel building by building. I continued to make feeble attempts to slow him down, but his multi-location firegroups ended up doing most of the damage throughout the game in his Advancing Fire or Defensive Fire phases.
After the usefulness of the overwatch dummy unit had passed, I moved the StuG out from his concealed location to better support the German infantry. This allowed Randy to put a couple of Shermans in good spots on his next turn. I attempted to make the best of the armor battle in my next movement phase, but Randy got the shot he needed to put my StuG out of business before I could do any damage.
The last two turns saw me make a stand in the fortified hotel, usually surrounded by Allied troops. It was a nasty fight to the finish, but Randy had a vastly superior number of units and firepower, and I was confined to the VC locations and encircled and/or broken most of the time. There was a brief glimpse of hope on the last German turn when a broken leader self rallied and then rallied a squad in the upper level of the hotel. But, in the defensive phase of that turn, they were quickly broken again by high levels of firepower from Randy.
Randy had achieved the impossible, posting a solid win with the New Zealanders in 7 turns. The balance did play a crucial role, allowing him to make my MG nests dodge smoke and HE shots starting on turn 2. Without that, it is unlikely that there was enough time to even get to the building at all within the time limit.
The biggest event in the history of the Cat's Lair is the new campaign game of Red Barricades.
The Germans earned 52 CVP to the Russian 22 CVP. Once again the Germans were held in check on the Volga side, mainly due to their bad luck in the OBA department, and a timely Russian OBA CH on a Pz IIIL and the eastern kill stack. The Russians held on to all of the big factories, and managed to thwart the German attempt to penetrate the C23 building, killing off the intruding 5-4-8 in the refit resolution of the CC phase. The K15 factory is gutted, and most of the buildings in the W1 thru Z6 area are burned to the ground or still blazing.
