Our Saturday Game - ASL Scenario 221 - Mountain Hunters

For our Saturday game, Dan Best and I left the steppes of Kursk and traveled to the hills of the Crimea in 1942. Our selected scenario would be ASL Scenario 221 Mountain Hunters (designed by Chris Mazzei and Peter Struiff). 

This scenario takes place in June 1942 as the Germans and their Romanian Allies were driving on the fortress city of Sevastopol in the Crimea. This scenario was a great opportunity to play with some Axis Minor Allies and breakout one of the updated scenarios from the most Armies of Oblivion reprint. And It has Stugs!!! Everything is better with Stugs...I just love'em.

Historically, the Romanian Mountain troops with the support of the German Stugs would prevail and contribute to the German breakthrough of the Sapun Ridge.

The early summer of 1942 would have been good days for German-Romanian cooperation. 

I had not played this scenario previously, but Dan had played it as both the Romanians and the Russians. He had played it against Wes Vaughn in one instance and would use a lot of Wes' defensive setup in the battle that followed. The scenario uses board 2a. I'm a big fan of the larger 1a - 9a Boards. They have always struck me as the perfect size for the average ASL game. I suppose after so many years of the long boards, it was nice to have a new look at the game. 

The previous version of this scenario was J129. ROAR has that version as 44 Russian wins vs. 56 Romanian. The updated version in the ASL Archive is 7 Romanian wins to 9 Russian wins. In ROAR this version is 1 Romanian win and 0 Russian wins. Dan indicated that he had lost it as both the Germans and the Russians...so it must be balanced!!

As always, Dan and I would roll for sides, and I would be the Romanians and Dan the defending Russians.

As the defending Russians, Dan would command elements of the 775th, 386th Rifle Division with support from the 675th Anti-Aircraft Battalion. His force would consist of 2 x 4-5-8's, 5 x 5-2-7's, 7 x 4-4-7's,  2 x 2-2-8's led by a 10-0, 9-1, 8+1 with an HMG, MMG, 2 x LMG's, an ATR, a 50 MTR, and one DC. For support Dan would field 2 x 76* Arty's and on 37LL AA Gun. He would also have 4 x Trenches. And lastly, Building Locations K15 and M15 would be fortified fanatic locations. YIKES!!!

As the attacker, I would command the Romanian 2nd Mountain Regiment, 1st Mountain Division with Stugs from the German 249th Assault Gun Battalion. My force would consist of 6 x 5-3-7's, 12 x 4-4-7's, a 2-3-7, led by a 9-2, x 8-1's, and a 7-0 with an HMG, 3 x LMG's, a 60 MTR, a Flamethrower, and a DC. For support I would have a 47 INF Gun and 2 x Stug III B's.  A very nice size for, well equipped for the mission at hand. The Stugs would be fairly invulnerable to most of the Russian anti-tank elements.

And now for Dan's Pre-Game Comments:

"The Russians strength in this game is the weapons.  They have 37mm AA, HMG and 50mm MTR with 3 rate of fire.  Plus two infantry guns and MMG with 2 rate of fire.  Plus a ATR, DC and two LMG.  This is a lot of weapons for the 14 Russian squads.  I will set up the 10-0 commissar and one 4-5-8 with two 5-2-7 squads in the fanatic strongpoint buildings.  Then set up the trenches up the hill with the HMG and 50mm MTR.  These will support the strongpoint.  Also one infantry gun will set up in the woods to try to keep the StuGs from getting behind the strongpoints.  The 37mm AA will set up on the hill on the flank and the other infantry gun will over watch the village.  The MMG will set up in the village and the two LMG will be on the flanks.  The rest of the infantry will set up in the village.  This should defend all three VC areas well.  Hopefully they can keep them from taking two of the three."

 The victory conditions require that the Romanian Player secures two of 3 possible objectives. These are: 1) - control the 2 fortified buildings K15 and M15; 2) secure the building west of Row I; or 3) - control 5 or more of the 2nd level brush/woods hexes.

I would choose to take the fortified buildings with my Assault troops and then send the 12 x 4-4-7's to the north to secure the level 2 woods/brush hexes in that area. N8 would be the one victory hex in my setup area. I would grab two more for extra measure with the assistance of my Stugs.

I had set up my attack before I knew Dan's defense. Once I had Dan's defense, I kept my original attack setup.

With the aid of my flamethrower, I would rush the M15 building as my Stugs moved to assists. The Russians inside would break and give me an early opportunity to grab some important real estate.

I would get good production from my flamethrower and escape malf'ing it!!!

The dreaded 1st fire Boxcars. Dan's 37AA would take its first shot at one of my Stugs and promptly break. It would never fire throughout the scenario. Dan would later break one of the 76* Arty's also on its first fire. Just a total bummer...

Dan's force in the final fortified building (K15) knocked me back a bit, but his Mortar and HMG on the hill were the dominant force in Dan's defense. Dan' would have a 5 Rate of Fire tear that would eliminate two full squads.

My 60 Mortar had a great range and I would use it to good effect against Dan's efforts on my objective hill.

For my assault on the K15 building, I would send both Stugs into VBM freezes against both hexes. It would allow my boys to move up for the kill.

 My two assaults made good progress as Turn 2 came to an end.

My flamethrower managed to take out the wounded Commissar in K14 level one. Things were coming together better than I had hoped for against the fortified buildings.

Dan's mortar would plague me throughout the scenario.

 My Romanians would be very successful in the early close combats.

 By Turn 3, only a broken squad remained on level one of the K15 building. My boys had secure the fortified buildings. Objective 1 was in my control.

By this stage of the game, I was well positioned to hang on to the fortified buildings in my Objective 1 Zone. I sent a Stug towards another possible victory location and my boys in the north moved onto the hill there to secure as many of the 4 victory locations as possible. I already had one hill top position, with my Stug heading towards number 2 and my boys looking at 4 more. So I was feeling optimistic about my chances for securing my second objective. Dan's boys owned the village and his hilltop firebase continued to do damage and force me to be cautious up north.

A look at the victory locations I was working to control.

My Objective Zone 2 was held by a single 5-2-7.

They knew the odds were stacked against them!

It would be late in the game, when I finally got around to smoking Dan's HMG. No excuse for the delay. I would snake the roll for Smoke though and immediately regretted losing a possible critical hit...oh well...

I would send my DC boy up onto the south hill to control the victory location abandoned by my Stug, which moved forward to put the scare on Dan's infantry.

My remaining Stug would go no a victory location ride of doom!. I would reveal the final 76* Arty and survive its shots and then go for a serious ESB breakdown to secure another victory location. I would of course be immobilized...but as it was the final movement of the final turn...I was happy with securing an "insurance" victory location as Dan's boys moved to try and take back some on the northern hill.

I would repel most of Dan's final attack and secure 3 of the 4 victory locations on the hill. The fourth would be the sight of a vicious close combat, which would end in Melee and deny me that victory location. So securing the others with my Stugs had been a good idea.

A final look at the battle. I had been extremely lucky in taking the fortified building locations in about 2 turns. This freed up my Stugs to go after other victory locations. Dan's bad luck with his guns really helped the Romanian cause. Only one of his guns actually got to fire and trying to  hit a moving Stug proved too much for it. My infantry attack in the north played out very well. I got stung hard by Dan's hilltop firebase and lost some boys to rate of fire tears, but otherwise, my attack in the north went like clockwork. Dan simply didn't have the force necessary to defend all three possible objectives. And the beauty of the northern approach was that if Dan left the village I could have easily pivoted and made a go at those locations. So this scenario has some tough choices for the defender.

My Romanians had a great win. This was certainly one of those rare scenarios that I felt very good about my odds from start to finish. Once the first fortified building fell, I felt very good about winning this one. The scenario itself is very enjoyable. I loved the choice of 2 out of 3 victory objectives. It made it tough on the defender, but it definitely adds some fog of war as your opponent has to guess what objectives your attempting to take. Dan's hilltop fire group was the hero of the game. The mortar and HMG combo up there kept me honest and was able to interdict my movements across the entire map. Whenever I forgot, Dan's HMG would remind me that big brother controlled the valley.

And now for Dan's Post-Game comments:

"Well the combination of a good attack by Scott and bad rolling made this plan not work.  Scott attacked the hill on the flank and the strongpoint.  Using VBM sleeze he took the strongpoint with little problems.  Two or my guns malfed on the first shot.  The AA was a big loss, making the capture of the hill very likely.  His StuGs even managed to capture two extra hills.  Well played by Scott and a good game.  This scenario is fun and can be replayed several times with different game each time.  Good fun scenario."

"Bad rolls...bad rolls...what ya gonna do...what ya gonna do when they DM you!?! Bad rolls...bad rolls what ya gonna do!?!"

Dan and I will return next week with a playing of ASL Scenario T6 - The Dead of Winter...extreme cold and deep snow...should be fun!!! See you next week!