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"German Divisions on the attack, 1914 game" Topic


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1,139 hits since 22 Feb 2015
©1994-2024 Bill Armintrout
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D6 Junkie22 Feb 2015 6:43 a.m. PST

With one of our club members now in retirement, he has time to restart our 1914 Ardennes campaign.
2 German Divisions plus many many guns tries to break thru a hastly dug in French division. I was glad that this was not my French Sector.
All the terrain and minis were built andn painted by Kurt.
Rules are his own H-Hour, hopefully to be released one day.
link

picture

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Ben Lacy Sponsoring Member of TMP22 Feb 2015 6:45 a.m. PST

I love the terrain. Thanks for posting.

D6 Junkie22 Feb 2015 7:26 a.m. PST

The game/terrain is actually hex based. Kurt did a good job using dots instead of lines.

drummer22 Feb 2015 9:53 a.m. PST

I'm the game designer. (Thanks for posting D6 Junkie).

It's hex based, which allows the easy calculation of area effect against targets in the hex. We apply all the firepower against each hex to every stand of troops in it. One can spread out to save on losses, but winning close combat requires mass. So as an attacker masses to charge an enemy strong point, they begin to draw more effective fire.

The rules are still being play tested so I'm not ready to send them out yet.

Anyways, in our campaign, we are playing an alternate Lorraine 1914 Campaign. Von Moltke has denied the Ersatz Divisions to the German 6th Army, so the sides are close in strength.

In the game shown, the French 30th Division (XV Corps) had approached the rail junction at Bensdorf, southeast of Metz. Crown Prince Rupprecht (German 6th Army Commander) had railed in three battalions of 21cm and two battalions of 15cm guns to the XXI Corps, and had them counterattack. General Espinasse, commander of the French XVI Corps had suspected such a move and dug in, in response to orders to attack Bensdorf "if practicable."

The opening barrage was very effective, the French being baited into giving their partial-defilade gun positions away by a weak opening before unleashing the full weight of fire. Half the French artillery was destroyed and the other half silenced. The whole front line of French positions were suppressed.

The Germans surged forward and over ran the front line positions easily, taking many prisoners and capturing the 30th Divisions HQ. A brave surrounded French battalion at the village of Guebling was the only real resistance keeping the Germans from sweeping down to the town of Dieuze and cutting off large numbers of French. They were wiped out after 2 hours resistance, but the time they bought allowed the French to rally many survivors.

The attack bogged down shortly thereafter at a low ridge. The German guns were at their range limit and at this distance couldn't distinguish friend from foe. Couriers failed to reach the guns in a timely manner, and sometimes German artillery fire held up their infantry advance.

So the Germans held all artillery fire, and tried to cross the low ridge that separated them from the surviving French with rifle battalions and a few MG. The surviving French artillery had recovered and were firing at 1000m from behind the ridge, in a reverse slope position which was safe from counter battery. This fire ended the advance.

A final German infantry attack, again with no artillery support, through the Forests of Koecking and de Bride that attempted to outflank the French ran into large numbers of dug in French armed with MG. That failed too.

So German infantry losses which were initially negligible rose rapidly, until they had taken about 25% losses and called it a day.

The French 30th Division was wrecked, as well as their Corps artillery. They had taken over 50% losses (many of these were POW). The surviving should have routed but their die rolls were exceptionally good.

So that's what you are looking at.

mghFond22 Feb 2015 9:31 p.m. PST

Excellent report and love the pictures too. The 1914 battles are my favorite for WW1. Your campaign sounds like a lot of fun. Thanks for sharing.

Blutarski23 Feb 2015 4:22 a.m. PST

Kudos to you, Drummer. The tactical progress of the battle as recounted in your post has a real ring of historical plausibility to it.

B

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