1st US Army Campaign #2: Carantan.

general Hoth · 1st US Army Campaign #2: Carantan.

Carantan,13 June 1944.

Not knowing that reinforcements were on the way in the form of the 17 SS " Gotz von Berlichingen" panzergrenadier division, Heydte's 6th paratrooper regiment who had held Carantan against the american paratroopers withdrew from the town during the night of 11 June. The regiment had suffered heavy losses and was out of ammunition.

The following morning, taking advantage from the german confused situation (and general Marcks death), the 101st moved into Caranten and took position awaiting support from the 2nd armored division coming from the beaches.

The commander of the 17 SS "Gotz von Berlinchingen" division was furious. He immediately ordered his 37 stugs from his panzer abteilung supported by Heydte's paratroopers into a counter attack to retake the key town of Carantan. The 101st was soon pushed back towards Carantan's train station. But then, the long awaited 2nd US armored division's shermans showed up...

Maps:

South- Map8- Map6- North
When facing the maps, map 8 is on your left. Map 6 on your right.
Half hexes are in play for this scenario.
Replace all swamps and mountain hexes by woods hexes.
US and German paratroopers set up as normal infantry.

The line up:

101st US airborne division:
set up anywhere on map 6

Screaming eagle captain
Screaming eagle paratroopers x5
M1919 team
mortar m2
bazooka x2
M3 halftrack x2
3" gun M5 x2 ( Dug in: until this unit moves, it gains +1/+1 defence)
P 51D Mustang

2nd US Armored division, CCA.
enter on turn 3 on any North edge of the map:

Sherman x2
red devil captain
thompson gunner
jeep x2

6th fallschirmjager regiment, 3rd fallschirmjager division:
set up up to 5 hexes from the south edge of the map.

Oberleutnant
veteran fallschirmjager x2
fallschirmjager x7
Mg 42
nebelwerfer

17 SS panzergrenadier division "Gotz von Berlichigen":
enter on turn 1 from any South edge of the map.

Stug G
Stug D x2
Sdkfz 222 x2
oberleutnant
SS stormtrooper x3
Sdkfz 251 x4
flakpanzer IV

Victory conditions:

At the end of turn 8:

US victory: both town hexes on map 6 are still under control.

Minor german victory: One hex is under german control.

Major german victory: Both hexes are under control, the way into Carantan has been opened.

To be followed... Cool

general Hoth

A couple of pics of my latest playtest. Cool

general Hoth

A few more pictures here:

http://s668.photobucket.com/albums/vv48/generalhoth/carantan/

Bean965

Ooooo... I REALLY want to play this one!

I don't have enough time to game!!!

(Plus my gaming table is currently covered with a play test of my next scenario...)

general Hoth

It doesnt look like it, but it's a hard one for the germans! Cool

acs0424

hey, if we don't have all those fallshrimjagers what should we proxy? How would we proxy the Screagles to? I can replace most stuff (most playtests I do are modified in some way as I usually don't have all the units).

LuckyE77

I only have one csreaming eagle, what units should I use, same thing with the stugs and falchimager.

general Hoth

Well as long as you have at least one card of each unit you can just proxie with anything you have. For the german paratroopers you could use the mauser (pretending its paras) and for the US use the garands or marines.
For the stugs a brummbar or even a marder will do. Just make sure to note the stug that is the G model. It has different stats.
if you are missing any one card just have a look at the revised card thread and write down its stats. I did this when playing the battle of bergstein by Boersma because i myself was missing two key US units.

Have fun. Cool

Bean965

I have a fairly large collection and am still surprised by how much I proxy to have enough of the same unit.

I generally use any unit that a) I have in sufficient numbers, and b) is recognizable.

Sometimes I even proxy for a unit that I have plenty of, just to get visual distinctiveness! I don't know about anyone else, but I have a helluva time telling the difference between the SSPG, Luftwaffe and M1 Garand when they're on the board together.

As General H said: with armor, a similar unit, like a Brummbar for a StuG is good. I'll also change/mark units just to make them immediately recognizable - turn the turret around, take the turret off (v1 minis have screws that hold the turrent on) or sometimes, just put a sticky flag from my office supplies on it and write the unit name on the sticky flag. It ain't pretty, but it works.

general Hoth

I played this scenario again last night (my day off, its busy at the restaurant so i havent got that much time at the moment Rolling Eyes

).

And to my surprise, the germans swarmed the 101st beyond the town hexes!

I've taken a few pics i'll post on photobucket soon.

general Hoth

Bump.

Get some Carantan's action!

boersma8

We played this scenario and first things first it's a very enjoyable scenario!

What wasn't really clear to us, though, were the victory conditions: At the end of round 8 the Germans had 3 units in each of the town hexes. The Americans had one in one of them and a Sherman tank adjacent to the other. Is this an American or a German victory or should we have kept on playing till one side controlled one or both of the objectives uncontested? We felt that if the objective is controlled by being the sole occupier of a hex then it's relatively easy for the Germans to win (The Americans kicked my ass I guess it's fair to say, but I still had enough units left to contest (and take) the town. If the Americans still contest it by being adjacent than we feel it's quite difficult for the Germans to pull off the victory conditions (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, though...).

What we really enjoyed about the scenario is that each of the units involved has its use and that there are various alternative strategies (I opted to spread out as the Germans but if we'd played it again I would've kept my forces concentrated in the centre and simply advanced en masse). Even the jeeps are quite useful for pulling off enfilade fire and are therefore a prime target for the Germans once they've felt the negative consequences of them a couple of times. Also the lone plane is a real pain in the neck.

I also should've kept the Wirblewind in the centre so it would've been able to fire at the plane no matter where it positioned itself. Well, I guess we will revisit this scenario one day (it's just that there are so many we'd like to play!!!) and then there will be a couple of things I'll do differently!

I'll try to post a battle report some time next week!

general Hoth

This would be a german minor victory. One hex being still under U.S. control.
During play test it was the most common result.
thank you so much for the feedback!

boersma8

general Hoth

Hello my dutch friend. Very Happy

For hex control i'm always using that old wargame's rule whereby the occupier of the hex is the unit that last passed trhough it. So that even if there's no unit left at the end of a game there is always an "occupier".

I'll edit soon.

Snippersly

We played this last night! What a heck of a battle it was too! I played the German Panzergrenadiers while my friend was the Fallshirms.

Early on we pushed forward and traded a Stug G for a Mustang. The Flakpanzer nailed the plane with 8 hits...it was ugly. The Damaged Stug was still able to make it to the front and disrupt a incoming Sherman long enough for a close assault. The 222s and 251s were amazingly effective at keeping the 101st Paras disrupted until we could pick them off.

At the end of Turn 7, the US had the Jeeps left...which were quickly disposed of for a complete and total rout by the Germans!

Thanks for posting the scenario. Hopefully we'll play the other one soon.

Snippersly

general Hoth

general Hoth

Planning to play this one next week against our newest french member! Cool

Senjak

Ok. I will keep playing allies along this campaign if you don't mind, I'm just beginning to think and breathe like rangers and I'd rather go on like this a few more scénarios Wink

general Hoth

general Hoth

We've played the Carantan scenario tonight. The germans won despite an aggresive US defence. Around turn 4 the american left flank gave in and the germans swarmed the city with their halftracks!
No Sherman counter attack could dislodge them. Cool

Very fun scenario to play.

general Hoth

Bump!
I know this is a popular scenario on boardgamegeek.
Get some Normandy Action! Cool