Hitlers Last Gamble - BftB:CO AAR

[Hofstadter]

Hi everyone. I am currently doing a historical running campaign of Command Ops Battles from the bulge. On Asids advice I am posting it here as well. Some images will be missing from this so check OP for them

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=15945.msg418127#msg418127

This aar is going to be a completely playthrough of Command ops battles of the bulge as the axis, the scenarios will be played through in historical sequence with commentary about each battle, analysis of historical conditions and points about what could have happened. I will see about creating a map, with a comparison of historical advanced, lines compared to what happened in my game. They will be presented in a lets play format for the bulk, with written commentary about what I could have done. Along side this i am reading Hitlers Last Gamble by anthony beevor, a popular history book about the Ardennes offensive

This is just a placeholder for now until i start the series. Hopefully tonight if todays lab work doesnt kill me.

I hope this will get some decent attention, as the only videos of command ops are years old and only two battles are on youtube.



----------------------------------

O-Tag

On December 16, the Allies were resting in farmhouses after the brutal battle of Hurtgen forest, where the Germans took advantage of the rough terrain. That morning the artillary bombarbed the allied line, disrupting communications, but causing relativly very casualites. This was advised against by Manteuffel, commander of the fifth panzer army, as he felt it would signal the attack like it did in the first world war.

The battle of the bulge starts in the north near the villages of Hohen, Monschau and rocherath krinkelt. The battle begins at Hofen, and Mutzenich, where the 326th VGD division prepares to take the towns in order to secure the vital road network south for the assault on Elsenborn Ridge.



My style of attack is generally based on cocentrated fire, breaking the fortified part of the line, and spreading outwards. In the start of the battle I have three battallions available to me, 751, 752 and 753. The 753 and 751 are poised for an attack on Hofen, while 752 can attack Mutzenich or Monschau. The problem with this is that I do not have any confidence in one battalion to disodge the yanks from either of these places. They would be much better suited to help out at Hofen. As this place has two victory point locations, two can hold, while the other advances to Kahlterberg or Monschau. Therefore the 751 will advance behind the hill southest of the town. While the other two move into Hofen North and Hofen South. Its important to note that the battalion attacking the north should approach the main road in a V formation, allowing them to hold back reinforcements while the other two push up and hold the town

----------

 

REVIEW

At the end of the mission I only got a draw, which I am quite happy with considering I normally fail miserably. At the end of each mission I will give it a couple of more play throughs to see if I can do better. However for the purposes of authenticity I will only be uploading my first attempt. So expect a ton of failure. On my second go with this scenario. I moved my 752 to the forest above Mutzench, and used the northern reinforcements to take it. Attached is a marginal victory with end unit positions. I am bad at maps like this, I feel if this was 3d I would do much better.

[Hofstadter]

Mission 2. The Battle of Elsenborn Ridge

Alright kids. Time to watch me get completely destroyed. Historically this is the only place where the Axis did not achieve a breakthrough, this was due to Allied arty behind the ridge, shattering any unit that got near the twin villages of Rocherath-Krinkelt



This right here, will not be successful in the opening stages. The arty will be too strong, and the enemy infantry too dug in. The only hope of taking this is complete encirclement



This image shows a basic plan of attack, however the northern shoulder will not be pushed, they will wait in the forest on the outskirts of the twin villages, and random points I will pull units off for support to the southern attacks. I essentially have one objective in this scenario



This snazzy bugger here is Joachim Peiper, now this dude is basically responsible for the blitz through the Allied line, as he has the most amount of assets assigned out of all the Panzer groups. The main objective of this scenario, protect his group to the Rolbahn point. This scenario is basically the blitzkrieg for the panzers. The  3rd FSJ will primarily assault the villages.  on the way, clearing the route for Peipers group, everybody else supports.

[Hofstadter]

Unfortunately I could not do a video recording of the battle due to its length, the amount of divisions moving about the map slows down game considerably.

Lets examine the original objectives
1. Capture the village of Rocherath-Krinkelt
2. Capture the villages along the way to KG-Peipers Exit
3. Extract KG-Peiper and as many SS Panzer divisions as possible.

Objective one obviously failed. But this was expected due to the historical research. The second object was a success. The third objective was also a success. KG Peiper was exctracted on the third day, choosing the northern route and capturing all the points. Although the game considers this a draw, I think this is a resounding success. Historically, Peiper was never able to extract out of the allocated route, and the A and B Rollbahns were not able to be cleared in this time. As you can see, just in a nick of time I managed to secure the B and C route.

In conlusion this is a very minor success. I managed to extract Kamfgruppe Ott on the B route before the germans could reinforce it. Although the size was not as big as Peipers group, it would still be a good reinforcement for the upcoming campaigns.

I absolutely hate this battle, and when I played it before I lost everytime. I am quite happy with this result and I may replay it again.

Random questions. Are the draws and losses going to get people to lose interest in this aar?

[Hofstadter]

Here is the next Mission Losheim gap, not happy with this mission, I cant win this one, there is simply too much Allied artillery, my units stopped moving by the end of day 2. Complete Loss. So bad I just scrubbed the entire thing

 

 

However onto the next mission, Stuck in the Teeth.

Pretty simple stuff, more blitzkrieging, good victory on this, managed to extract every single panzer division, the only reason I didnt get a decisive victory was because I didnt secure the last town, but that doesnt matter, I got so many panzers out to Houfallize, I ran up all the victory points and caused it to jam

[Hofstadter]

The Race for Bastogne

The primary task for the XLVII on O-Tag was to capture positions along the way to Bastogne, the key point for the entire Ardennes offensive. This corps had three divisions, the 26th VGD, Panzer Lehr and the 2nd Panzer. The purpose of this mission is the encirclement of Bastogne, capturing it will not be possible due to the arrival of heavy allied reinforcements.

This mission starts off with several infanry battallions across the river. Far across the map are the towns of Noville and Bastogne and three exit points that permit encirclement. The mission is this. The battalions will secure foward positions across the Our river and secure the primary towns, engineers will build a single bridge. When that is completed everyone will rush foward, secure the bridges at Clevaux and Draufellt. Panzers will then blitz across the map, harassing enemy units and exit at the points. Infantry will push foward and attempt to capture Noville and Assenois to help with the encirclment of bastogne, although the exit points permit this, its always good to get closer



The first two days saw the easy capture of the crossing, and the most well rested panzer divisions race across the map. The southern bridges are captured to allow forces to cross south into the map for the beginning of the capture for Assenois. Panzer divisions are starting to exit



Reinforcements begin to arrive from the west and north. HOLT in bastogne will hold as long as he can, panzers going west keep being held up by sporadic companies.



Forces are beginning to push south, the bulk of enemy has arrived to secure Bastogne. HOLT begins his retreat



All the exits are secured, FSJ groups and VGD battallions will push into Assenois on the last day.



Marginal Victory, resounding success. Bastogne has been completely encircled, panzer divisions cutting off all roads. Assenois secured by the morning of the sixth day. Now to wait for Patton to come....

[Asid]

Thanks for posting this. CO is an excellent game. It has a lot of depth. I like the "Orders delay".

Looking forward to more.

Regards