Sicily 1943 : Mountain village Assault

This week as the game on Saturday was postponed I had too much time on my hands to set up a planned game for Monday. we had agreed on a battle in Sicily to give Martins Americans a rare run out. Whilst this is not based on a  specific historical battle, one of the features of fighting on Sicily as the Americans advanced into the centre of the island was the Germans retreating to the next small village or town atop a significant hill digging in then the Americans having to assault said hill before the Germans pulled out to dig in again at the next hill. So I set to building a village on as big a hill as I could manage in the dungeon.

The result, the photos perhaps don’t quite give the full effect. The Americans will attack across the two bridges and tracked and wheeled vehicles are restricted to roads or occasional backyards, we agreed that tanks could push other vehicles out the way if needed but not the other way round. The Germans are dug in with a number of hidden deployments in ambush. There were technically five objectives working up to the top of the village marked by fuel dumps.

View from the top of the village, the final objective, beyond that one of the hidden deployment markers, although the Germans do have one surprise tank they mainly have antitank weapons, mortars and support weapons, there infantry squads are small to reflect resource issues in this theatre.

Looking down the side of the village you can see beyond the mortar some more hidden deployments, you also get a sense of the hill from here. So onto the battle…….

The Americans are fully mechanised, one of the challenges they had in Sicily was the difficult nature of the roads not suited to this approach.

The burning Tiger was just for show and not playing, I thought it would reflect the impact of the American artillery bombardment prior to the assault. It is fun when a plan comes together and I knew I had things about right when at this point Martin put his head in his hands and groaned unsure how to get his superior force into action up the difficult winding roads. The Americans have a lot of firepower as each halftrack is armed with a .50cal.

But as the Americans advance the German hidden deployments start to open up ! I found the only problem with the 88 being line of sight which was pretty limited.

American infantry start to jump out when mortars start to fall around them and the Sherman’s try to pick of key targets from the bottom of the hill, knocking out my sniper in the tower and machine gunners in the two derelict buildings.

Another view from behind the right bridge. The Sherman on the right makes a break for it up the road…..

Although not destroyed it is set on fire and with all those pins it will take a while to get it moving ?

With the Sherman blocking the other road the focus turns to the left, the Americans have now taken the building in the centre whoch was an objective but there seems to be a hold up ?

The Americans have knocked out another antitank gun on the road but the infantry now out of the building and stuck behind the wall they get pinned and won’t move out of the way !

The German infantry are still keeping their heads down waiting to counter attack

Germans in the village assault the halftrack but are thrown back by the crew, the Germans push forward with their only Pz but it can’t get a clear shot as the infantry are in the way !

Some really fierce fighting took place in the vineyards on the slopes just below the village, eventually though despite German loses the American infantry are driven back

American infantry are now looking to capture another objective but they foolishly underestimate the German defenders (dice gods were on my side) and they are thrown back by a handful of defenders in the building

In the tight confines of the village two panzers blast at each other, neither able to get a decisive knock out hit.

By this point the German infantry has driven back nearly all of the American infantry, in fact the Germans mortars were the stars of the defence , I rolled a ridiculous number of sixes to hit with indirect fire, the dice gods love me again ❤️

With the assault and the battle effectively over the only thing we needed to resolve was the tank duel in the village. We allowed each tank to fire alternating shots until a conclusion. As it happened the PzIII finally got a penetrating hit and the Sherman brewed up. The battle was definitely over, the Americans would withdraw, lick their wounds. Of course the Germans may now move north to the next village where it can all start again.

A fine and very fun days gaming, a really tough nut for the Americans but it never felt one sided and they heroically drove their men and machines forward  in the assault. The  Germans got the better of the dice and were lucky with their mortar hits. One US infantry unit also got caught in the vineyards and were almost wiped out in one turn !

Sadly I’ll need to dismantle the hill later as we have a different game and period for tomorrow.

Thanks as always 

Matt❤️