Scheldt '44 Market Garden (expanded) Allied AAR - settled for a Draw turn 69

[ComradeP]

The terrain isn't as poor as it looks. Most of the blue/green hexes are Broken terrain. There are numerous Marsh hexes (blue with "watery" deep blue lines in them) in the Peel in the southern part of the map but otherwise it's perfectly acceptable. Not that suitable for mobile operations, but there are enough Clear hexes to deploy armour along the intended path of XXX Corps.

Turn 17, 05:00 Dawn, September 19th 1944. Normal Conditions.

I'll save the detailed unit overview for September 20th. Most units have seen only limited action. Infantry strength is at ~60% to ~80% for the British divisions. Most divisions start at roughly 70%-80% strength.

The US airborne divisions have only seen limited action. No para units are below 90%, with most barely having taken any losses thus far.

1st Airborne Division is down 800 men already, but most of its individual units are in good shape. There are enough units to "spread" the losses.



Having pushed back Kampfgruppe Chill, Guards Armoured Division and the 53rd (Welsh) Division will start moving towards Nijmegen. The Welsh after the road to Eindhoven has been cleared. There's a Congestion hex in the middle of Eindhoven which armoured units have to pass through (no other heavy bridges around). Motorized units can take various roads.

The 15th (Scottish) Division will continue to put pressure on KG Chill, KG Rink and elements of the 719. Infanterie Division that are in its area. There are no objectives north-west of its position beyond Reusel, so it will be mostly waging an attritional war with the Germans for the remainder of the scenario. 

3rd Infantry Division will temporarily split in two with one brigade moving to Valkenswaard and the other helping out 101st Airborne at Best now that the German 59. Infanterie Division is starting to arrive. The glider regiment of the 101st moves towards Gemert.

11th Armoured Division is released and will move east of Eindhoven to Geldrop in order to threaten the positions held by Division Erdmann from the rear. The independent 4th Armoured Brigade will move to Helmond. It's currently at Hapert.



101st Airborne will start to rationalize its positions as XXX Corps units arrive.

82nd Airborne will try something...somewhat silly, but cunning at the same time. The division will only maintain a small bridge across the Maas-Waalkanaal at the two bridges we secured...



...the rest of the division will move north-west

The goal is to extract 1st Airborne by moving 6 battalions of the 82nd Airborne across the ferry at Druten and the 1st Airborne across the bridge at Renkum. That area is currently only held by some E quality companies. It's the only way 1st Airborne can survive. It's a longshot, but if it works, it will be worth it. Having troops across the Waal also complicates the German position and is the only chance I have of capturing Arnhem I think.