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

[ComradeP]

With assaults limited by stacking limitations, poor tank performance and my D quality units making hardly any impression with direct fire, I asked James if he would settle for a draw on turn 69. He agreed.

He was kind enough to share his password. Here's the situation on the German side of the fence on turn 69.



Aside from 59. Infanterie Division, a handful of units near Nijmegen, some Division Erdmann units and the bulk of the D/E quality units Division Von Tettau, the Germans are in decent shape. The slowing down of the Allied offensive combined with the frontline becoming very narrow must've allowed my opponent to rotate forces.

Normally, I try to keep hitting the same unit to keep increasing Fatigue, but that wasn't possible anymore. Many German units don't even have any Fatigue at all. Of course, the same goes for my units. After a lull of one or two days, everybody that hasn't been in combat is nearly fresh. The Germans also benefit from their generous recovery/replacements.





I was fairly happy with how the game went. I could've been more aggressive earlier, but I preferred to concentrate my forces. Slower progress on the flanks also meant my opponent concentrated some forces there. In the east, that led to the D/E quality units being clobbered and Division Erdmann narrowly escaping.

In the end, it was just too hard to make progress as the front became more narrow. The Allies really lack the means to make an impression on entrenched units due to low unit quality.

Well played by James. The only move I didn't really understand was why he didn't counter-attack the Scottish Division or move the A quality units elsewhere. There wasn't much point in keeping high quality units there for him if he didn't intend to counter-attack. I could've made an armoured push there, like in the east, but the results were not worth the hassle after a number of urban areas were turned to RUBBLE, limiting movement along interior lines prior to the weather worsening.

Suggestions:

-Reduce fire effect reductions for fortifications, at least until combat calculations are adjusted to divide/multiply instead of being cumulative. 10% Improved, 20% Trench would be better in scenarios with low quality forces like this.

-Remove morale penalty for Allied artillery. Though there might be a historical justification for reducing morale for Allied ground units, the relative lack of German artillery and the Luftwaffe rarely making its presence felt the Allied gunners had an easy time. Artillery is weak enough as it is in PzC and further reductions are not necessary.

Also: the indirect fire modifier applies to support fire during the enemy turn. The notes imply the reduction to 90% for the Allies is intended to be a penalty for offensive fire as Allied fire concentrated on the frontline positions.

Errors discovered:

-25 pounder unit belonging to 11th Armoured is fixed for the duration after returning as part of 11th Armoured instead of 5th AGRA.

-Polish airborne engineer unit has vehicle movement/defence stats.

Potential error: T-mode movement speed for Allied engineers and infantry doesn't match. Speed 10 vs. Speed 12.