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

It’s been some time since the last battle report – the summer and then work got in the way but I feel it is time to pick this project back up again and continue with the battles of the Italian campaign and, in particular, the battle for Monte Cassino.

The last battle report focused on the 4th Indian Division’s unsuccessful attempt to take Monte Cassino up in the mountains. While this assault was taking place, the New Zealand 2nd Division was tasked with pushing along the Rapido river into the town of Cassino itself. It was then hoped that with the town captured, the NZ 2nd Division could then swing around the back of Monte Cassino and link up with the 4th Indian Division, surrounding and cutting off the defenders.

The assault started on 15th March 1944 and began with a massive air and artillery bombardment. The 6th NZ Brigade led the attack and were supported by the 19th Armoured Regiment. This was the first time that armour had been able to cross the Rapido and join the assault on the town itself. The Infantry and tanks advanced behind a creeping artillery barrage however progress was slow going. The heavy rain combined with the bombardments had churned the ground and the heavily dug in defenders were able to keep up a constant barrage of fire.

Over the coming few days, the 2nd NZ Division did manage to push into the town and to capture Castle Hill, a key point overlooking the town. However, the Fallschirmjager refused to give up the fight and, as we saw in the last battle report, kept control of Monte Cassino. Eventually, the Allied commander Alexander, knowing that his men were spent, called off the assault and both the 4th British Indian in the heights above Cassino and the 2nd NZ Division fell back.

The Battle
In this battle, we will look to recreate the initial push by the 19th Armoured Regiment into the outskirts of the town of Cassino. Here are the army lists;

2nd NZ Division:
Infantry HQ
3 Infantry Platoons of 7 teams Rifle/MG, PIAT and mortar
3 Platoons of Sherman tanks (3 tanks to a platoon)
3” mortar platoon of 4 teams
3 Universal Carriers equipped with .50 cal MG
1 Engineer Platoon of 4 teams and a PIAT team. Also a supply truck
1 Artillery Strike from off board to be used whenever the Allied player wishes to call it in

German Fallschirmjager:
Infantry HQ equipped with SMG and Panzerfaust
Infantry Platoon of 9 teams and Cmd with SMG and Panzerfaust
Infantry Platoon of 6 teams and Cmd with SMG and Panzerfaust
Heavy MG Platoon of 2 teams
MG Nest
1 PaK 40 anti tank gun
2 7.5cm Recoilless infantry guns
Scout Infantry platoon of 5 teams
Marder II anti-tank gun

Special Rules:
Lay the defences. The defenders have barbed wire and tank traps to place where they wish on the board. They also have 7 mine tokens but only three of these are real mine fields. They are to be placed on the board before deployment and are flipped over whenever any unit moves within 4”, revealing whether the token was a dummy or an actual mine field.

Surprise deployment. The defender places 15 tokens on the board where German troops could be deployed. 15 pieces of paper are put into a hat on which 6 there is a blank written. The remaining 9 pieces of paper each have one of the units written on from the list above. Whenever an Allied unit gets within 20” of any of the tokens, at the start of the next German turn, the German player draws a random piece of paper from the hat. If it is a blank, no unit is placed however if a unit is drawn, that unit is placed on the token. The token and the piece of paper are removed from the game.

Creeping Artillery. On the turn that the German unit is revealed, it is pinned and cannot attempt to unpin. It starts its turn, gone to ground, concealed and in bullet proof cover (dug in).

Muddy ground. Infantry cannot move at dash speed. Vehicles can only move at dash speed on the roads.

Random smoke. The battlefield was clogged with smoke and rain. At the start of each turn, three smoke counters will be randomly placed within the defender’s half of the table. They provide concealment to anything within or shooting through the smoke.

Victory Conditions:

The Allies have 9 turns to reach the objective at the far end of the battlefield and hold it uncontested. The Defenders win if they stop this happening.

Above is a very rough tactical view of the battlefield. The Allied army are deployed on the right which, in this case, is roughly the North East. The map key is as follows,
Brown area – hills
Blue area – Rapido River
Grey lines – roads
Black squares – buildings and walled areas
OOOOO – barbed wire
XXXXX – Tank traps
red dots – possible deployment areas for the Germans
purple dots – possible minefields
Red donut – Allied objective
NRP – New Zealand Red Platoon
NOP – New Zealand Orange Platoon etc
T1, T2, T3 – Tank Platoons
Eng – Engineers, UC – Universal Carriers, Mo – Mortars