After the last post, Steve sent me a note that said, "Hey, you know the game is supposed to start on Phase 13 of Turn 1, right?". We obsessed over and discussed that for a week, but ultimately decided to forge ahead. Then after our play session last week, Steve sent me another note that said, "Hey, all those German units on Map A that start the game disrupted come back in Dispersed Mode.". After some consideration, we decided to restart yet again. I (Dave) am still playing the Allies and Steve is playing the Germans.
Check the earlier post called "Interlude" to see the game setup and introductory pictures.
OVERVIEW of Turn 001
Turn 1 now starts on Phase 13. That essentially means that the only thing that happens on the first turn is the Allied airdrop and some limited Allied movement in the XXX Corps sector.
I decided that the hyper-aggressive advance from the last game was not a good idea and with the changes to the Game Start, probably not necessary. However, I wasn't playing very well for some reason and rolled even worse. Steve punished me severely for those failures.
SETUP
The German Player places all of his starting units on the map. Then the Allied Player places the British units of the Guards Armored division on Map D, south of the Start Line. Finally, there is a simulation of the Allied air forces attempt to suppress the German Anti-Aircraft capability in the area of the invasion. This was largely successful both in the actual battle and in this game. I disrupted 10 of 16 German Flak units.
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| Guards Armored division on the Start Line without Travel Mode markers |
XXX Corps (Map D)
Turn 1 began with the German attempt to destroy the bridges over the Meuse l'Escaut Canal. All five of the bridges remained intact. This was Steve's worst die-rolling of the day.
The Guards Armored division advanced slowly, mainly to prepare for the upcoming bombardment at the beginning of Turn 2. German units have to be sighted to be attacked, and in order to see the Germans in the Town and Woods hexes a unit has to be next to them.
The Germans countered this advance in their Free Fire Phase and did considerable damage to the British units that they were adjacent to.
101st Airborne (Map C)
The American 101st Airborne division landed without casualties or scatter.
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| 501st Regiment of the 101st Airborne (501/101) lands near Veghel |
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| 502/101 and 506/101 land north of the Wilhelmina Canal |
The 504th Regiment of the American 82nd Airborne division (504/82) landed without incident west of the Maas-Waal Canal. The 505/82 regiment also landed without incident in the primary drop zone near Groesbeek. Unfortunately, the 508/82 regiment was not so lucky. One battalion scattered into Germany and another was aborted, leaving the push toward Nijmegen and the bridges over the Waal undermanned.
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| 504/82 after drop |
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| 505/82 after successful drop. 508/82 off the reservation at the top of the picture. |
The drop of the British 1st Airborne division west of Arnhem began successfully enough, with the 1st Regiment (1/1) landing unscathed in the tiny clear area north of the village of Oosterbeek. Then the gliders came down - literally. The first string of the Air Landing Brigade (1AL/1) scattered into the forest and lost strength points and was disrupted. The second was about to be scattered directly onto KG Krafft where they faced imminent destruction, when a divine wind came up and blew them to a spot southwest where they were only disrupted.
General Model seeing disaster looming almost on top of him, immediately began evacuating the area.
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| 1st Airborne landing west of Arnhem |
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