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

NZ Turn 6

The Kiwis need to start pushing on now as they’ve only progressed half the board and taken 5 turns to do it. They’re running out of time to complete their mission. The smoke bombardment lands around the MG teams in the hills providing some cover for the advancing 2nd Division. In addition, all of the Shermans remount and Green Platoon unpins.

Red Platoon advances and finds a minefield which kills 2 units. T1 pushes forward a little toward the Marder but wanting to stay beyond 16” of the PaK40 so as to be a little harder to hit. The Engineers follow T1 up using them as cover. Green platoon moves its remaining units into the ruins of the buildings.

The command tank from T2 advances toward the Scouts and the Universal Carriers advance up the road while T3 advances on the farmhouse to try and finally flush out the 3sqd of defending Fallschirmjager.

The Mortar team continue to rain down fire on the farmhouse and manage to kill a team and pin the defenders in place. T1 fire upon the Marder and this time manage to penetrate the armour and hit the ammunition, causing the vehicle to explode. 

During the assault step, T2 command tank launches another assault against the Scouts. The initial assault kills one scout team but they hit back and cause the tank to bail out.

The rest of T2 assault 2sqd in the building across the road from the scouts. The defensive fire misses the tanks and they crash into the defenders, killing 2 teams. The Fallschirmjager are able to counterattack but fail to cause any damage leaving the tanks to kill the platoon command and push the rest of the squad out of the buildings. 

Finally, T3 launch their assault against the 3sqd Fallschirmjager dug in at the farm house. A shot from a panzerfaust destroys a tank as they advance but it is not enough to stop T3 and they manage to kill 1 team and force the rest of the platoon to fallback, finally giving up their defensive position.

German Turn 6:

Only one location has been discovered and this is drawn as a blank.

3sqd fall back and 2 sqd consolidate into the next house along the road with the Company Command teams. 

The PaK40 fires and punches straight through the armour of one of the tanks in T1, taking it out instantly and 2sqd are able to kill another team from Green platoon. The MG team in the hill is able to also fire on Green platoon but the bullet proof cover of the ruined buildings save them from further losses. 

Finally the Scout platoon assaults the bailed out command tank of T2 and is able to destroy the tank!

NZ Turn 7

The smoke lands around the PaK40 and the command teams offering some cover for the advancing Kiwis. 

T3 heads back to the road and Orange platoon, with 3sqd removed, can finally carry on advancing. T2 make a blitz move down the road and Green Platoon dash out of their building and cross the road toward the Scout platoon, ready to assault them. T1 moves into the gardens of the buildings now vacated by 2sqd. The Engineers move into the minefield with a view to clearing it however they lose one team in the process. Red platoon continues to advance around the barbed wire.

The mortar team is able to range in on the PaK 40 and also include some of 2sqd in the bombardment. The PaK40 is pinned and 2 teams from 2sqd are killed as the mortar shells rain down. 

T2 fire upon the Fallschirmjager company command teams and manage to kill the 2nd in Command. T2 then assaults into the building and while it does not cause any damage, it does cause 2sqd to fallback again. 

Green platoon assault the scout squad but get pinned down by the defensive fire and lose one team in the process. 

German turn 7:

Things are starting to look a little desperate for the Germans although if they can just hang on for a couple more turns, they might just hold the Kiwis up and win the game through delaying tactics. It’s going to be close.

The PaK40 unpins and 3sqd move along the edge of the hill, trying to get back into the fight but being hampered by the minefield tokens lying in their direct path.

The Pak 40, having rallied well, fail to score any hits on T1. The Company command fire their panzerfaust at T2 but miss. One of the 7.5cm recoilless guns manage to get a couple of shots off at T2 and hit but fail to penetrate while the other gun is able to destroy the lead Universal Carrier. The MG teams rain down fire upon Green platoon, pinning them and killing two more teams, leaving Green platoon with just one team remaining!