Assault on Villa Giulia

To: Lt P. Leinster, CO 2nd Platoon Dog Company 53rd Armored Infantry Batt.

From: Cpt. J. Northman, Dog Company, 53rd Armored Infantry Batt.

Your platoon is to immediately take position around Villa Giulia (GR: 7612-4431). Battalion S3 reports enemy activity consistent with the expected counterattack. Your platoon is to hold the villa at all costs.



Having pumped out a pair of platoons and supports for Chain of Command in short order, the time had come to put them on the table and get stuck in. The scenario was Attack and Defend right out of the rule book, with the American Armored Infantry platoon defending the locality of the Villa Giulia from an attack by German Panzer grenadiers. 

Villa Giulia dominates the valley floor and the road through it, making it critical to controlling the local area.

American officers take advantage of the villa's comforts.

The Americans took an adjutant, a minefield and a FOO with an 81mm mortar battery, while the Germans took an adjutant, a sniper team and a Panzer III. The Americans also declined to bring any of their integral bazooka teams.

To: Battalion Command, 53rd Armored Infantry Batt
From: Lt P. Leinster, CO 2nd Platoon Dog Company

Combat After Action Report for 23/11/1944 around Villa Giulia

At 0550 we became aware of German scouts probing around out outposts. Shortly after, a German squad was sighted advancing up the road towards the villa, and another squad was seen to the west of the road. Our machine gun squad engaged the Germans in the road, inflicting at least one casualty and causing the Germans to move east off the road.

A brazen German advance up the road is met by a hail of lead from the defenders of the villa.

With German troops taking cover behind the stone walls of a field east of the road, I deployed 1st Squad to cut off their advance. A brisk firefight broke out, in which what we believe to be the German officer in charge was wounded. 

After the initial rebuff, the Germans head east, joined by the platoon CO.

The firefight decimates the German section, and the Platoon CO is wounded.

During the firefight several of our men were hit, but the Germans lost at least four men. The men also reported a possible sniper beyond the German infantry, although this remains unconfirmed.

The Germans deployed an additional squad to try and break through, and the heavy fire from their MG42s inflicted heavy losses on 1st Squad.

MG42 fire devastates 1st Squad as the Germans try to push through the American defense.

1st Squad having been rendered combat ineffective, I deployed 2nd Squad to take over holding the German flanking movement. The firefight continued with light losses on both sides. The Germans then brought forward a Panzer.

2nd Squad suddenly finds itself on the end of the steel fist of the German war machine.

To break the Germans before the Panzer became a serious issue, I deployed my HQ squad at the opposite end of the stonewalled field to the Germans to bring them under fire from two directions.

The HQ squad surprises the Germans from the flank, adding to their misery.

Under pressure from two sides, one of the German squads broke and fled back towards the road where they came under fire from the machine guns in the villa. The survivors fled from the combat area.

Pressure from American rifle fire pins down the second German section.

Fleeing back from the Americans brings the German second section into the sights of the machine gun squad, who carve into them and drive them off the field.

With the Germans clearly in some confusion, we applied further pressure to the surviving Germans east of the road, driving them off. The remaining German forces then withdrew, leaving us in control of the field.

Our losses in the action amounted to 10 enlisted dead and wounded, and one Sergeant lightly wounded and another killed. We estimate we inflicted at least 20 casualties on the Germans, including at least two senior NCOs and and an officer killed or wounded.

A rather resounding victory for the Americans, who had a Force Morale of 8 remaining when the Germans sank to 0. The German players had made a few errors, but two things more than anything crippled them throughout the game: Their wounded senior leader, meaning that he couldn't be activated with all the 4's they rolled for their activations, and their terrible to hit rolls, rarely making more than a 25% hit rate even with a 50% to hit chance.

The latter could have been overcome, given the firepower the German sections could bring to bear, but the former became a serious issue. The German Lieutenant could have been directing the German forces around the field, which would have freed up their Junior Leader and squad activations that the German players had to use to keep that firefight going to activate their third section (west of the road) to flank the American position or bring their tank into play sooner, either of which could have changed the result massively.

That being said, the American player did well, constraining German options and committing sufficient force to the firefight to overpower the Germans in the attrition battle.

Most importantly, everyone had a good dead of fun, even the Germans. Chain of Command is definitely going to become a staple of our office wargames evenings.