AAR - Schwerepanzerjager vs 11th Armoured - Fighting Withdrawal

With my on going attempts to understand the Schwerepanzerjager I arranged a game against Ben. I always enjoy playing Ben as they're always close games, and I think my sweetest ever wargaming victory at a tournament was against him (and I feel he's still bitter about it!). At first we rolled up Free For All, but as Ben has played 3 Free for Alls in his last 4 games and I had played it a fair bit to we re rolled and got Fighting Withdrawl. To keep the winter theme for my army and the board Ben was using some US units so it would look a little better. The other nice thing is to actually use these guys against a tank army - not managed that so far!

Schwerepanzerjager 2 HQ StuGs 2 StuGs 3 Jadgpanthers 2 Whirblwinds Greniders with Faust Greniders with Faust 4 Mortars

11th Armoured 2 HQ Cromwells 3 Cromwells + Challenger 3 Cromwells + Challenger 3 Cromwells + Challenger Full US Paras 3 Univeral Carriers (The US Jeeps) 4 Heavy Mortars (The US Light Artillery

So we rolled off and Ben was the attacker. I deployed trying to cover the objectives, with the jagdpanthers in reserve, whilst Ben moved his jeeps up on a recon move.

 

Turn 1
Ben advanced with his platoons, keeping the Challengers in the backfield. His platoon to my left destroyed a StuG at range, much to my distress. His heavy mortars dropped smoke obscuring my view. My Jagdpanthers deploy from Ambush on my right, killing 2 Cromwells, but being rubbish with 2 more firepower tests (a recurring theme I felt) and a StuG finished off another one. I also dropped smoke trying to neutralise the Challengers.

Turn 2
Ben managed to remount the vehicle I bailed - protected ammo helped Ben a lot in this game! His platoons on my left and in the centre moved up as did his para's.

In a time honored tradition my IC StuG bogged down moving, the Jagdpanthers scored a couple of hits but failed their firepower tests, the Stugs though took out two of the Cromwells on my left side.

Turn 3
Ben's Long range Challengers toast my 2IC, however his Challengers and Cromwells were next to useless. He did some damage to my left side infantry platoon, it was only at this point I realised I'd screwed up my deployment as I forgot only the IC had a faust!

I now had to remove a platoon and choose the infantry  platoon on my right objective, but sadly the rest of my firing was singularly ineffective, bailing one tank. I pin Ben's infantry with my mortars.

Turn 4
On my right side Ben's challenger removes a Jagdpanther, and in the middle he destroys one of my StuG's. Ben failed to unpin his para's.He assaults my Left hand infantry platoon with his jeeps, but despite heavy loses, I destroyed them, but was left with 2 bases.  I open fire on both the right and middle platoons with my Jagpanthers, and succeed in 3 hits and 3 bails. My Stug's do better destroying one of the left hand Cromwells. I remove my mortars

Turn 5 
Ben's kills another infantry base on my left, he also manages to bail a Jagdpanther. Then he manageed to get units on both the left and right objective. I'm a bit screwed at this point, I manage to remount my Jagdpanther and kill his commander, moving my own IC by mistake to contest the objective instead of the remaining platoon Stug. I'm contesting both the objectives now

Turn 6 
Ben Kills my commander and also another Jagdpanther, leaving him sitting pretty on two objectives, I manage to destroy 2 cromwells, removing both the platoons on my Left and centre.

Turn 7
Ben has nothing to do, as I have to remove a platoon, and with my IC dead fail my moral test, Game 4-3 to Ben!

Summary
Ben played the mission well, very aggressively. I made some rookie mistakes, with badly positioning my Fausts, and moving my IC instead of my Stug platoon commander, but in the end very enjoyable game all round!

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the AAR

Dr Cox