Posts Tagged Paratrooper

4 results.
May27

17 Lost Opportunities

by Rindis on May 27, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After finishing up in Tulle, Mark and I went back to Paratrooper, and scenario 17, “Lost Opportunities”. It’s D-Day, and the Germans are trying to retake Ste.-Mère-Église from 505th Parachute Regiment. They have six turns to take five buildings on board 1.

I had the defending Americans, who get eight paratrooper squads, a 60mm MTR, a couple MMGs, five BAZ, and an AT gun. The defense is along the narrow edge of the board, where it abuts board 2. The ATG went in J4, where there’s actually pretty good LOS up the entire center street, and if the Germans went too far on either flank, it’d still have a shot. My one HIP squad took a MMG and was in D2, where it could do a surprise shot if he advanced on that flank. The MTR was in E6 with a foxhole, as it’s one of the few hexes with open ground in front of the buildings, and has a few places it can see in the MTR’s range. The other MMG was up in 1F6h2, where it could largely out-range the Germans.

The Germans have a mix of nineteen second line and conscript squads with the usual machine guns, a couple 50mm MTRs, a Marder I, and a couple of captured French Renault tanks. Most of them in a line at the limit of the setup area, but the two MTRs set up on the hill, with the Marder right in front. As a last note, the Germans lose if they ever go below nine unbroken squad equivalents. Given the quality of troops, its a heck of a restriction.

Mark led off with a bombardment of forward positions from all his ordnance, including a nice rate-tear from one of the MTRs. However, the only result was to reveal my squad in 1B6 and battle harden him. Movement was fairly calm until a 8-0 came into view, and the high-up MMG pinned him and ELRed the conscripts with him (for the first turn or so, I was stuck on the underscored morale method of breaking into HS for anyone who couldn’t be Replaced, before finally remembering they should be disrupting instead). Then an 8-1 came in next to that, and the MMG broke him and the MMG squad with him. In DFPh, the MMG claimed another victim, breaking his 9-1 and LMG squad, and the ATG took what I supposed to be a ranging shot at the hull down Marder, which hit and burned it.


Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left.
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Mar30

14 Silence That Gun

by Rindis on March 30, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Mark and I have dedicated Monday nights to ASL, as he tries to come to grips with the system as a whole (he’s an old SL veteran). Part of the plan is to play through some of the old Paratrooper scenarios with him, since they tend to be good for the introductory side. This time was “Silence That Gun” which is a nice small infantry scenario with a single titular ordnance piece. There were a couple of prominent errors, so this isn’t a completely ‘textbook’ playing, but it was instructive.

Mark took the Germans, who are defending part of the board 3 village with ten squads (mix of 2nd line and conscript), the usual MGs a 75mm AT, and one fortified building; and need to preserve the Gun and keep the fortified building (they have a choice of five buildings to secretly fortify), or at least maintain a CVP total equal to or better than the Americans. He didn’t set up his HIP properly, so I ended up knowing which building was fortified (3N2), which is a heck of of thing to try to mentally ignore. The Gun was next door (which makes for usefully concentrated defense), and a loose line was established across board 3, with one conscript squad all the way out on the edge of board 2. I looked at the setup, and suggested that having someone at the upper level of 3N2 would be handy, as it could do a lot to inhibit initial American moves—completely forgetting that SSR1 limits that building (alone) to just a ground level. And we’ll see just how good an idea it was….

I lined up at the limit of my setup area, with seven squads and a hero, giving the latter a DC, and deployed one squad, prepared to move into the rest of the middle loop, and use BAZ against buildings from open ground Locations such as O6, and of course start driving on the main concentration of Germans. Mostly, there wasn’t a lot he could do, but an attempt to Dash to P2 ended in tragedy as a 1KIA killed a squad and broke my 9-1. Final Fire at a HS malfunctioned a LMG.


Situation, American Turn 1, showing the full board. Yes, all hills are marsh, and north is to the left.
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Sep02

12 Confusion Reigns

by Rindis on September 2, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

A while back, I got contacted by Tracey Love on BGG for a teaching game of ASL. He’s played the Starter Kits, and was in the middle of making the leap to the full system. This was an interesting experience for me, as there were plenty of things he was already proficient with, and then others that were completely new (including bocage, which I needed to brush up on). After a little discussion, we went with scenario 12 “Confusion Reigns” originally from Paratrooper, and now reprinted in Yanks, with me as the defending Germans.

At first glance, it seems an ordinary enough straight-up fight for St. Mere-Eglise with twelve squads on each side. However, the Americans need to get 12 CVP (and at least double the German CVP), and have better leadership with their excellent 747 squads. The German commander and his staff were killed just before the scenario begins, so the Germans can move a number squads equal to the turn number plus one per GO leader (they start with two), plus a unit that sticks with a leader for the entire MPh. This freezes parts of the defense in place, which must setup within 4 hexes of 24X5. The Americans get half of board 1 to set up in, and on the opposite side from there is board 4, which the Germans can exit from without granting CVP to the Americans.

I set up with a mass in the woods that dominate the setup area, with some forward HS, and my two main MGs in buildings. The MMG went in 24T6h1 where it could see what was going on at ground level elsewhere, and the HMG in 24V3h2 where it could see most everything. The main worry was keeping the Americans from getting around the main defense, and not only leaving me nowhere to go, but inflicting encirclement. Retreating through the woods was inevitable, and I hoped to withdraw to the north in an orderly fashion.

The initial American bombardment took a few logs to run, as Tracey got used to ordnance/mortar rules, and broke two of my forward HSes and his sniper pinned a LMG squad in 24BB3. His advance was fairly cautious and conservative, but he advanced nicely on his right. I managed to break one squad as he tried to get into the valley, but had no other effect, while his advancing fire managed to kill one of the broken HSes, and another good shot reduced my LMG squad with a K/1.


Situation, American Turn 1. The full map is half each of boards 4, 24, and 1, going from north to south.
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Jan31

16 No Better Spot To Die

by Rindis on January 31, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Patch had already played the rest of the scenarios in Beyond Valor, so I decided to continue my tour of the early core modules with Paratrooper. Patch has already played all of them, but I’ve only played two of the eight. I picked scenario 16, “No Better Spot to Die”, and we started in April 2012.

ROAR has it at about 3:2 in favor of the Germans, so I took them (my track record is abysmal…) with the American balance. It’s June 7, ’44, and and I’m trying to get into La Fiere on the way to Ste. Mere-Eglise. The Americans have 6 paratrooper squads, a AT Gun, and some support weapons to hold me off for nine turns. I have 13 squads, and four French Renault tanks, the usual bevy of MGs, and a couple 50mm MTRs with which to get into board 24 (with no valley) and take four building hexes (three without the balance).

The two sides set up with nine hexes between them; I’m sure a modern scenario would say only half of board 3 is in play, as there’s no point to most of the area, but the scenario setup says to use the full board.

Patch seemed slightly surprised when I declared a Op Fire on both my MMGs and then went straight to movement on the first turn, but I wanted to get into better range and not have a couple of woods blocking LOS. When Patch realized that the initial fire fight was going to be in my normal range, and his long range, he started regretting his set up.

With a lot of movement options out there, and using the board-edge woods and grain for cover, Patch didn’t fire until my last infantry move, where he went for a leader-led stack with a 4 -2 shot, but only broke the leader on a 2MC.

The general plan was to concentrate on the south side, and get a few units into the gully, where they could advance up to the defenses out of sight while the rest of my forces softened them up for the gully force. This developed a problem when Patch revealed the AT Gun in K8 and opened up on the lead tank. Thankfully, he lost rate and and ‘?’ on his first shot, but he still hit and immobilized it with an ’11’ TK. My AF didn’t do much, but did reveal F1 to be a Dummy (apparently, I really was headed into the teeth of his defense…).


Situation, German Turn 1. The wreck in E6 is actually from the previous day’s fighting.
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