1pm, June 17 1944, Le Parc de Boislonde

[MengJiao]

  This is the first fully historical scenario in Operation Dauntless.  It represents the attack by the 49th West Riding Division to capture the Chateau and Parc of Boislonde just south of Cristot.  Fighting has already see-sawed over this area for over a week.  The poet Captain Douglas Keith was killed on June 9 near point 102 (and buried there -- his grave was later moved to near Tilly-sur-Seulles) when XXX Corps armor reached the area and on June 17th it was still contested ground.  As it happens, historically at least, the 49th Division is about to remedy that situation -- perhaps despite the best historical efforts of its commander, Something ('Bubbles') Barker, known as 'Bubbles'...and me (I've added a recon screen as perhaps Bubbles ought to have).
  Other notes on the situation:  The grey blanks to the west block off the area where Panzer Lehr is still holding on and the grey blanks to the east indicate inactive platoons of the 12th SS.
  Oh and the squadron comparison I posted earlier showed 4 troops, but six are more operationally likely (adding a Firefly-less HQ troop -- home of obsolete Shermans and Stuarts, slightly more mobile than the Firefly-enhanced troops) and an AA troop that is not often represented in games.

[bob48]

Seems like a pretty complex game?

[bayonetbrant]

So the counters in here are...  platoon scale?  (isn't that what a UK "troop" translates to in US terms?)

Is the map actually that large, or did you enlarge it for the bigger hexes?

[bob48]

Yes, troop = platoon, squadron = company.

[mirth]

Seems like a pretty complex game?

I own and have played it a few times. It's quite complex.

[MengJiao]

So the counters in here are...  platoon scale?  (isn't that what a UK "troop" translates to in US terms?)

Is the map actually that large, or did you enlarge it for the bigger hexes?

  For this battle, the Germans are mostly in platoons while the 49th is in the equivalent (troops, sections, carrier platoons and carrier sections) except for 4 infantry companies.  The map is 22 by 16 in terms of hexes.  The hexes are big and four of the big (3/4 inch?) units fit in each.  There's a lot going on on the map and the rotate-to-track-movement-completion seems a bit much so I'm going to drop GTS ip markers on units/hexes as they move.

[MengJiao]

Seems like a pretty complex game?

  It's not as rules-heavy as GTS, but GTS covers a lot more (parachuting and recovering "straggling" parachutists for example) PLUS for better or worse OpDaunt covers such things as rolling barrages with special turn-one rules for some scenarios.  I'm going to avoid as many optional rules as possible (Here I've just used "Breakdown Platoons"...exactly why it is "Optional" when the whole German army is "broken down" is a minor mystery).
   But for the extra complexity focused on some detailed fighting, you do get some interesting results.  For example, when I gamed a one-brigade attack on an entrenched German line in GTS, the attackers got nowhere.  In OpDauntless that's kind of the whole point -- trying to get somewhere with the 49th Division when you don't really have quite enough of anything to do it.  There are some interesting twists which maybe sort of explain how the 49th Division did push forward historically and support the crucial moments of Epsom and the big German counter attack of June 29th.  For example, carrier platoons, 4.2-inch mortars, Vickers heavy MGs and three set ups for 17-pdrs (Fireflies, Achilles and the AT guns).
   One thing the 2nd Army had learned to do by Epsom (and which was clear from gaming a brigade attack in GTS) was to keep the Germans shifting their formations around so that they could not concentrate on one attacking zone.  Coupling that simple technique with the possible flip-side lesson of Villiers-Bocage -- that is that even if you totally blow an attack on the Germans, they will lose about the same number of troops and tanks as you do.  Therefore if you can just keep putting attacks together, you will eventually seriously attrit the Germans -- which is exactly what happened from roughly Villiers-Bocage to Epsom -- three weeks of attacking here and there that wore the Germans down and kept them from coordinating a major attack on the Allied Lodgement.
   So with OPDAunt yoiu get the attacks of June 17 which waere not well-coordinated with other attacks and came to be nearly crushed by a massive counter-attack and the hubris of the 49th's attack before Epsom on the 25th designed all-too well to draw a massive German response and wrong-foot them for the main thrust of Epsom.

[MengJiao]

 
  Other notes on the situation:  The grey blanks to the west block off the area where Panzer Lehr is still holding on and the grey blanks to the east indicate inactive platoons of the 12th SS.
  Oh and the squadron comparison I posted earlier showed 4 troops, but six are more operationally likely (adding a Firefly-less HQ troop -- home of obsolete Shermans and Stuarts, slightly more mobile than the Firefly-enhanced troops) and an AA troop that is not often represented in games.

   4pm: halfway through the German Turn.  The IPs from GTS show units or hexes that have moved.  The British Army has been rolling well and even pulling out assets well.  Even the one bout (ARC in game terms) of AT fire was mostly in the favor of the British Army.  The Germans have activated one PZKWIV to bolster their sagging line:

[bob48]

Very interesting AAR so far  :bd:

[MengJiao]

Very interesting AAR so far  :bd:

  Thanks!  I hoped Operation Dauntless might make a good AAR.  Anyway, the Brits take the Parc and dig in.  Night falls and the Germans attack.  At night LOS is 1 hex so only indirect fire (and no heavy assets) can support a position as exposed as the Parc is.  I imagine the Brits will get shoved out, but still that seems better than letting the Germans walk into the woods for free.  Both sides are getting some reinforcements at dawn (mostly units that have recovered, but some fresh flak, infantry and artillery for the Germans) and by Mid-day the Brits will be getting another tank squadron or even an infantry BN, which may allow them to recover the woods as they did historically.

[MengJiao]

  Anyway, the Brits take the Parc and dig in.  Night falls and the Germans attack.  At night LOS is 1 hex so only indirect fire (and no heavy assets) can support a position as exposed as the Parc is.  I imagine the Brits will get shoved out, but still that seems better than letting the Germans walk into the woods for free.  Both sides are getting some reinforcements at dawn (mostly units that have recovered, but some fresh flak, infantry and artillery for the Germans) and by Mid-day the Brits will be getting another tank squadron or even an infantry BN, which may allow them to recover the woods as they did historically.

  The Brits hold the Parc against the night attack and dawn finds a German armored force has retreated off in an odd direction.  LOS is only 2 hexes at that hour (and 30 minutes) so the Germans decide to raid the recon screen and maybe divert something from the main thrust.  A halftrack is picked off coming in but the PANZERS (note all caps despite their loss of combined arms goodness) press on to assault the Recon scout platoon and the Recon AT guns dug in on a hill.  I know it sounds bad, but its so crazy it just might work.  PLUS in an assault were AT fire is involved, there are at least two chit pulls (one from the green set to set up the tactical advantages for infantry firing PIATs - note caps -- and such and one from the other set to execute the shots as determined by the overall situation and the choices of the advantaged side) and there are those chits right there as if suspended over our little green simulated world.  BUda-Budda.

-- well it didn't work.  The situational advantage was heavily in favor of the defending recon force.  They wiped out about half-a-dozen PZKWIVs for the loss of a few bren-gun-carriers that turn up in game terms as a reduction in the transport pool.  The PIATS got 2 PANZERS the AT guns missed, the PANZERS hit the bren-gun carriers and the rest of the assault was resolved as a ordinary combat with a two step obligatory loss for the attackers.

[MengJiao]

-- well it didn't work.  The situational advantage was heavily in favor of the defending recon force.  They wiped out about half-a-dozen PZKWIVs for the loss of a few bren-gun-carriers that turn up in game terms as a reduction in the transport pool.  The PIATS got 2 PANZERS the AT guns missed, the PANZERS hit the bren-gun carriers and the rest of the assault was resolved as a ordinary combat with a two step obligatory loss for the attackers.

   I sense that the Germans are going to need some optional-rules boosting, though maybe they will do better with PANZER LEHR active on the field rather than mysteriously locked away in its tussle with the rest of XXX Corps.  The nit-picky rules for this scenario make it horribly clear that the Germans will have the option of launching some kind of counter attack around Turn 24 or 25 or 26.  We are currently in turn 23 and even Bubbles can sense the inevitable when it rises with the full light of day ( it is "morning" now and visibility is 3 hexes) so the 49th is storing up its assets (artillery and aircraft) and has brought in another tank squadron.  You might think an infantry Battalion would be nice for defense, but they are more expensive in terms of reinforcement points, less mobile, less likely to damage German tanks and every infantry company is a +1 artillery target and the Germans win automatically if they wipe out 3 infantry companies from the same battalion (they already got one).  Tanks are halved for normal combat in close terrain, but two tanks = close combat of 1 infantry company and have twice the steps and far more firepower so why bother with infantry?  Except in the case where you are assaulted by tanks AND infantry...a rare event so far while artillery hammers everything every turn.  Something fishy in the infantry modeling in this game, maybe.
  So here is part of the British turn 23 and their assets:

[MengJiao]

  So here is part of the British turn 23 and their assets:

   The Germans attack one turn early -- Ducking under all the air cover and heavy guns as it twere -- and -- after a mess of unlucky British fire and
lucky German rolls -- capture the woods and inflict more loses than they take.  The only catch is that to get the extra 5 scenario points they have to hold the place for a turn.  They won't be dug in for that turn and they won't have much artillery support, but the Brits cannot bring up much infantry and the sun will be up and the Germans have lots of AT of all kinds so it might work.  Here's the situation at the Start of XXX Corps turn on turn 24 (7am June 18, 1944):

[bayonetbrant]

Tanks are halved for normal combat in close terrain, but two tanks = close combat of 1 infantry company and have twice the steps and far more firepower so why bother with infantry

That does sound fishy.  Tanks can be pretty hard to kill w/o AT weapons in close combat like that, but tanks have a really hard time accounting for all the crunchies out there, too.

[MengJiao]

Tanks are halved for normal combat in close terrain, but two tanks = close combat of 1 infantry company and have twice the steps and far more firepower so why bother with infantry

That does sound fishy.  Tanks can be pretty hard to kill w/o AT weapons in close combat like that, but tanks have a really hard time accounting for all the crunchies out there, too.

  Maybe it all works out in the big scenario that seems to be what the game was built for.  In the big scenario, infantry can be rotated out of the line and rebuilt, rallied or whatever.  it is odd that they aren't much good for holding the line.  Maybe some better shifts and concealment for them and more chances of imperfect concealment for the tanks (and strongpoints for infantry) will show the game dynamics better.  As it is, artillery will dominate the infantry almost always and the side with more AT firepower will quickly dominate everything else.  The predictable turn sequence and availability of artillery and mortars puts a crip on many aspects of the game -- perhaps its realistic, but things get pretty predictable pretty fast.
  Other possible modifications: night with two turns and more rules for night attacks by infantry with more advantages for infantry at night.  Even in the time frame of this game the 49th Division made two successful company-size night attacks.
   Meanwhile the Germans seem to have lost this scenario -- all those British tanks (since I gave up on the infantry) and the recon screen probably tipped the balance pretty far.