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

Turn 1 Allies:
With the smoke bombardment deployed, the Allies can try to get forward. The narrow crossing point will bottleneck the attackers so it is important to get as much armour across as quickly as possible. Faced with the MG Nests and dug in defenders, the infantry won’t be able to advance without the armoured support and with just 8 turns to cover the length of the board, time is critical.
With the above in mind, the Allies start their first turn by getting Tank Platoon 1 across the bridge, with Tank Platoon 2 on the bridge. The Engineer platoon and MG platoon begin to advance as well.
With the enemy behind a smoke curtain, dug in, gone to ground and at range, the Allies fail to score any hits in their first turn.

Turn 1 German:
With armour now on the German side of the Garigliano, it is imperative that the PaK40 earns its money. With no need to move this turn, the defenders begin to open fire. The Pak40 is instantly effective, punching straight through the lead tank of Tank Platoon 1 and destroying it.
Green platoon comes under fire from the Fallschirmjager and MG Nests and gets pinned but, being in the trees, the bullet proof cover protects them from damage. Red platoon also takes fire but escapes without damage. The German mortars fail to range in this round.

Turn 2 Allies:

Green platoon unpins.

Tank Platoon 1 continues to advance up the middle while Tank Platoon 2 reaches the other side of the river and turns to follow Tank Platoon 1. The remaining tanks continue to advance across the pontoon bridge.

The Engineer platoon advances up to the minefield token in front of the Grenadier platoon and finds that the token is a dummy – so no mines to clear this time!

The mortar ranges in on the PaK40, looking to knock it out to allow the tanks some breathing space. Despite ranging in first time, they fail to hit the PaK40 but do kill a team from Grenadier Platoon 1, with the heavy mortar shells making light work of the dug infantry.

The tanks miss with their shots but the MG platoon rake the Fallschirjager platoon and pin them.

Turn 2 German:

True to the grit and determination of the Fallschirmjager, they are able to unpin however the Grenadier’s do not, reducing their fire power.

The PaK40 once again does its job, as it scores two hits against Tank Platoon 1, causing one to brew up and the second to bail out. T1 is, at the moment, completely out of action!

The Grenadiers fire upon the Engineer’s at the barbed wire, killing a team and the MG nest in the centre of the table kills one of the Allied MG teams.