The Hysterical Wargamer

Vol 1, No. 7

 Hysterical Wargamer Battle Report

                Well, kiddies, on 7 September the Gettysburg Wargamers started a series of game nights dedicated to one scenario, a phase of Operation Market Garden.  Market referred to the airborne operations; the Garden, to the ground assault along two major avenues of advance.  You might say, the the Wargamers are going to do some Gardening.  We estimate the game should take a little over a month to complete. The specific scenario is the advance and breakout of the XXX Corps towards Valkenswaard, Belgum.  In the game scenario, the German forces are hidden until they fire or the Brits come to within six inches of their position.  The Brits armor is restricted to the Road until they reach Valkenswaad.  The Brits also have some heavy guns that for the first three turns executes a rolling barrage.  The Germans also have a long range mobile gun.  Both sides also have some air support:  the British a bomb-dropping P-51; the Germans, a bomb-dropping FW-190.  The victory conditions:  By turn 15, the Brits have to be off the far end of the table.  If not, the German side wins. 

Turn #1:  Commander Rob and I discussed what the “Hines” might be up to, and we guessed correctly – the Germans probably were in position a short distance up the road.  The First round of British rolling artillery fire was dropped within six inches of the British lines.  However, the first Sherman tank on the board was stymied by fire from a German panzerfaust, located in a position to the west of the road (just beyond the north side of the rolling artillery barrage), lightly disabling the tank.  A short time later, as additional tanks and infantry support advanced, a second panzer faust and machine gun troops popped up on the east side to the road.  A well placed bomb from the FW-190 hit one of the tanks, whipping it out.  However, the Germans also planted two 88’s that effectively laid down an effective crossfire on anything moving along the road.  By the end of the first turn, the British armor was bogging down on the road, though infantry support was moving up on both sides to take care of the German infantry. 

Turn #2 had mixed results for the Brits.  As they cleared the German’s First line of defense on the west side of the road and silenced both 88’, destroying one gun., the first of two allied tack tractors had been hit and immobilized.  Although one British tank had reached a wooded area along the road about half way to Valkenwaald, German ground troops there effectively stopped the lead British tank there.  By the end of the second turn, the Brits were about a quarter of the way down the road towards victory.