Aachen-West Wall 1944

[Dan Caviness]

Hello Blitz'ers:

I have a new scenario which I uploaded last night that I wanted to solicit players for. Aachen-West Wall is my latest and I hope one of my best. It utilizes many of the new JTCS 1.04 capabilities and I think if you take a look you may want to give it a go.

I intend to run it through H2H testing, but for now I've already got Normandy44 involved with H2H and on Von Luck's advice we're going to wait until we finish it before starting on this one.

I believe this scenario is ready to go as is, and we've already beta tested it hot seat and PBEM.
I offer you a double your money back gaurantee...

It is a large scenario, not as big as some, but large.

I have been fascinated with the battles along the German frontier for some time and this scenario represents the most difficult part of this campaign, the fight for the "Siegfried Line" as it was known by the Allies, and the precursor to the Hürtgen Forest.

The fight for the City of Aachen was the first major German city to be fought for after the Allied armies had pursued the retreating Wermacht through France, Belgium and the Netherlands following the collapse of the Falaise Pocket and the landings in Southern France.
While the Yanks were learning how to fight and getting better at contesting the Germans, this was the first truly urban battle they fought and they had some lessons to learn.

With useage of the new Bridge building engineers, the Allied player must cross the Würm under the sights of the Scharnhorst and Schill lines that ran along the entire German border through this area. Not a true "high wall" as was the case with Rommel's Atlantic Wall, the Western Wall defenses were more of a double line of bunkers, dragon's teeth, connected pillboxes, and mixed minefields all well supported by heavy artillery up to and including rail guns. It was designed to slow the invaders long enough for armored reinforcements to arrive. It did, it does.

The fight for the city itself was quite a nightmare, with determined German defenders popping up through sewer systems behind the advancing engineers who eventually resorted to "mouseholing" each buidling...each block...each position...house by house. They resorted to self propelled 155 Guns in the end to "knock 'em all down" as per their orders.

If your looking for a new scenario, take a shot at this one.

My Father's unit was involved in this area and this is also a part of the reason it holds special interest to me. No hero, just a soldier.
That was always enough for me.

Master Sgt. Rod Caviness
40th Engineer Combat Regiment
45th Infantry Division (Thunderbirds)
7th Army/5th Army/7th Army working for Patton, Mark Clark, and Sandy Patch.

[img][/img]

This photo was taken at the time of his discharge, Fall of 1945
The ribbons were the usual, Good Conduct, American Defense, and ETO Campaign.
They don't tell the story though. If you look closely you'll notice the small stars and arrowheads that are pinned on those ribbons.

7 Campaigns, 3 Amphibious Assaults.

Sicily
Naples - Foggia
Salerno
Rome - Arno
Southern France
Rhineland
Ardennes - Alsace
Central Europe

My Pops wouldn't talk much about the war. I think he was done with all that and happy to come home, like most.

He told a young man (me) in the 60's a couple of things during hunting trips but not much. I found a great historical research guy, WW2 Connections, name of Richard Horrell, whom I highly recommend to anyone trying to track down history. He helped me track down most of this using some old photos and two letters I had saved from my Dad to my Uncle, who was a radioman on a submarine in the Pacific.

Pops didn't talk much about it, but a couple things did get told that I can recall.

The first thing he told me:

"The landings at Anzio were not good. Your not supposed to send in engineers before you send in the Marines...."
This was a reference to the need for chain link rolls the combat engineers had to unroll off the front of the LCTs during the landings. Apparently the mud/silt was too soft and they had to do this to get the tanks up the beach. Of course the German defenders took exception to this....

Then a little later I had just seen the movie "Patton"...and being a war crazed young kid...I was totally jazzed about the movie and how great General Patton was....

When I broached the subject with my Dad he got real quiet for a bit.
Then he sighed, and told me, "You DO realize General Patton and George C. Scott are two different people...right?"
Well, I guess I did, but hadn't really given it much thought at the tender age of 12 or so.
So I asked him what General Patton was really like (as if a lowly Sgt. would know) and he got quiet again. Finally he told me,

"He shouldn't have slapped that soldier"

That was the last word he ever uttered on the subject.

Now, with some perspective, I realize that slapping incident must have alienated a lot of Patton's soldiers. It appears a betrayal of sorts I'm sure to the men who bled for him.

Regards,

Dan

ps: I realize you don't see many images posted up on these forums, and if this is inappropriate Mr. Forum master I apologize and feel free to delete any and all of it.