Monday, May 28, 2012

AAR: BFP90 Early Morning Action

John Farris
Germans: Gregg Parker
Russians: John Farris
Gregg Parker and I finally got a game in.... has it been 5 or 6 months? Seems like it. We played a very interesting game from Crucible of Steel, entitled Early Morning Action - BFP-90. I think I can say that it is a good one to play.... pretty straight forward.

Gregg played the attacking Germans with 12 SS 658s, one each 9-1,8-1 and 8-0 leaders with 5 ELR , an MMG and 3-LMGs and 2 StuG IIIGs...I played the defending Russians , 5-458, 5 447S, 1 - 426, 4- Crews, one each 8-1 AND 7-0 with a 2 ELR.... along with an MMG, 2-LMGs, one ATR, a MOL-P, 2-50*MTRs and 1- 37L AT gun and . Gregg had to take all the hexes within 4hexes from BFP L Q6.

It looked like the Russians would be butter to the SS with the low Russian 2 ELR, but since the Germans had to clear 4 dummy stacks it took the Germans a little time to get to the center of the town. The 2 level building at X1 on the North side of the victory area housed the Russian MMG, 458 and the 8-1 leader in an overwatch position on the second floor. They forced the German to be careful! One MTR was in a foxhole at K5 just south of the victory locations and with a LOS to the southern victory hexes. The other MTR was at T0 with a view of the cross road in the victory area. The 37L AT was initially located south of the town in the woods at E4... since one German Stugs circled to the north and one came directly from east the little 37L was out of place so the crew rolled it to H5 with a nice view towards the crossroads.

The German attack advanced smoothly but the Russian MMG and a Sniper(!?) slowed down the northern arm of the German assault. The other Stug did a little bypass freeze at P6 and stopped in bypass. The next Russian turn saw the MOL-P, sitting quietly in N4, attack the Stug with an immobilization shot!

To make a long story short.... the ebb and flow of the battle ended with the Germans having to make a rush towards the final 4 victory locations. If any of those attacks failed it would necessarily be the end. Well the Germans would have been in place to advance into all the necessary locations but there was an unfortunate failure of the SS troops to make their moral check in the street hex at N5.

All and all it was a fun scenario well worth playing again!!

Best regards,
John

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice write up, that was a great game to get back into action with. The Russian sniper was very active throughout the game and really slowed things down pinning squads, killing a 9-1, wounding an 8-0. The 37L AT was really the unlikely star if the show, it got into position probably turn 3 then started off with an ROF streak that broke a full squad, eventually broke another two trying to push across the road then made the killing blow during the last turn mad charge. AT first I wasn't too worried about it, it's a 37L, right? By the time it piled up aquisition and started breaking squads I had my hands full trying to break Russians in the VC area, I finally got some shots at it but to no effect. Just one correction, the first StuG was immobilized by CC, the second one trying to ESB for a 2nd overrun on a squad in grain after the previous overrun failed.

Gregg