75th Anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino and Northern Italy (Gaming The Battles)

Turn 7

BOP is able to clear the barbed wire in front of it which opens its route to point 593. BPP continues to advance while BBP stumbles into the second minefield but fortunately does not lose any teams. The rest of the British units remain pinned in place

1iC calls in the mortars and then land near FBP, pinning them in place. Meanwhile, the rest of the shooting fails to even hit, let alone cause any damage.

BPP are within assault range of the German MG2 and so try to take it out. MG2 and Nest 2 get their defensive fire and cause 5 hits, killing 3 stands. The assault fails and BPP are pinned in place.

FBP unpins demonstrating just how effective the Fallschirmjager are under fire, they have barely flinched during this assault.

MG2 and Nest 2 continue with their hail of fire directed at BPP, cutting down another 3 stands and reducing BPP to just three teams.

FRP and FGP both spot BBP and are able to bring down 4 teams with their heavy fire. The mortars are able to repeat their bombardment and destroy 1 team from BRP. The kills are now starting to take their toll on the British.

Turn 8

Again BPP and BBP unpin. BBP chooses to move through the minefield, losing a team in the process and moves toward German MG2 with the aim of launching an assault.

The British shooting is woeful and unable to hit anything. This just leaves the combined assault from BBP and BPP on MG2. The defensive fire causes only 4 hits, removing 1 stand which means that the assault hits home. MG2 is overrun and destroyed by the combined British assault.

Nest 2 continues to focus its fire on BBP, killing another team. FGP kills a further 2 teams from BPP, leaving just a single team left. FRP kills another team from BOP and at this point, with British casualties running at well over 50%, the assault is called off.

In the actual assault, both sides took a mauling however here, the Fallschirmjager came out of it fairly unscathed, losing just a couple of teams.

As a follow up battle, we could plot the real assault by allowing the Rajputana Rifles and Gurkhas to assault the same positions the following night, perhaps with the Germans having to maintain the losses they sustained in the first night.

Still, an interesting game and a clear demonstration of just how brutal the assault on Cassino actually was.