The setting was the fictional German town of Kreisberg and der Elde in the final days of the Second World War. German defenders of the town were faced with holding off the Soviets from the east and the Americans from the west at the same time.
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| The table from the American end |
From memory Andy opted to reinforce his Russians with an SU-76 SP gun and a sniper.
Andy and Jamie seem to have agreed that Ron should have the German reinforcements (probably sensible given the Fallschirmjaegers' impressive inherent firepower). They bought a couple of lengths of barbed wire, another sniper, and a second Panzerschreck team.
Leo being a younger gamer playing his first game of Chain of Command, I decided to pick his supports in advance. He had a (dismounted) armoured infantry squad and a four-man T-Force team in a Jeep. The T-Force team were there to try to identify a couple of "persons of interest" to the American authorities.
We played two separate Patrol Phases with three markers per platoon. The German patrol markers began at either end of the bridge over the Elde while the Soviet and US markers began on their respective baselines. No particularly exciting Jump-off Point locations emerged. Jamie's Fallschirmjaeger deployed facing Leo's Americans while Andy faced Ron's Heer.
On the eastern side of the river, four groups of civilians were scattered about. Unknown to anyone but the referee, one of them included the Nazi Gauleiter of Kreisberg and another included Kreisberg Katie, the German radio announcer (actually Gladys Oldroyd, a former Mosleyite fascist from Bingley). A group of civilians could be moved towards the bridge each time a German player rolled a single six on their command dice.
I'm not going to attempt to report on the whole game in detail. I was too busy coming up with rules adjudications to keep much track. However, I do know that early on a Panzerschreck round knocked out Andy's SU-76.
Leo was slightly hampered by his shortage of infantry against Jamie's Jaegers while Jamie's single Panzerschreck was always going to be stretched to deal with four Shermans!
Fierce fighting went on on the eastern side of town...
And eventually one group of civilians made it across the bridge. And what was that they saw at the south end of the Sachsenkai?...
Ooh, a light aircraft waiting to carry off the Gauleiter!
It was at this moment that things took a turn for the cinematic. Leo, seeing that he was about to lose one of his potential prizes, sent his T-Force team forward in a mad dash towards the aircraft. They arrived but took fire from Jamie's Jaegers on the way and by the time they got there all in the Jeep were either dead or wounded.
Ron managed to manoeuvre around the Jeep but as he prepared to take off, Andy was heard to ask, "I have a '1', can I activate my sniper to shoot the pilot?"
The exchange between Referee, Soviet player and German player then went...
R: Roll to hit.
S: That's a hit.
R: OK, both possible targets are effectively leaders, roll to see who you hit, odds the pilot, evens the passenger...
S: Odds; that's the pilot.
R: OK, Ron, roll to see the effect of the hit.
G: Six; that's a kill!
R: Well not necessarily, he's a Leader so you need to roll to see what happens to him. He'll probably only be wounded.
G: A one. What does that mean?
R: It means he's dead. Right, roll 2D6 to see how many inches to see how many inches the plane moves forward.
G: Twelve!
R: Right... and does it swerve? 1-2 is left, 3-4 straight on, 5-6 right.
G: Six!
R: OK so the plane swerves into the river...
R: I guess we should roll on the Leader wound table to see what happens to the passenger...
G: A one. He's dead isn't he?
And so the Gauleiter of Kreisberg met his fate. Better that than the hangman's rope perhaps?
Not long after that dramatic interlude Ron's Heer lost their last points of Force Morale and Jamie's Jaegers fired pretty much their last Panzerfaust (the Panzerschreck team had previously got in the way of a 75mm HE round). As a result it just came down to who would achieve their remaining objective?
Would Andy get a squad across the bridge thus winning the Order of Suvorov (2nd Class) for his Regimental Commander or would Leo get a tank to the river and show Uncle Joe how we do things in Brooklyn?
It came down to the last Allied phase. Both needed a 3 to activate and both got one. Andy needed an average more to dash his men across the bridge. Leo needed to drive his lead Sherman flat out and roll three sixes for movement!
Sadly, it seems we'd used up all the really dramatic dice rolling and by the time the first Sherman rolled up to the river, it was to find grinning Soviet riflemen awaiting them.
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| Soviet infantry have both ends of the bridge as the lead Sherman inches forward |
A nicely dramatic game then, rich in story telling - perhaps something we'd associate more with Sharp Practice than with Chain of Command. On the whole I have to give it to Andy as a narrow Soviet victory.
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