0917_02_Market_Garden "It Never Snows in September" - PzC 24 Scheldt '44

Operation Market Garden, 17 September 1944: Market Garden was a daring plan, but it was also a
dangerous one. Allied planners assumed that the German defense was no more than a thin crust
along the Dutch-Belgian border and, once the Guards Armoured Division broke through, resistance
in the Netherlands would collapse rapidly. They seriously underestimated the Germans' will to
continue the fight and their capacity for improvisation. The remnants of two SS Panzer divisions
were regrouping near Arnhem and various security, training, air, and naval forces had been
mobilized as "alarm" units. Further reinforcements could be sent from Germany and from the
regrouping 15. Armee elements that had recently been evacuated across the Scheldt. Neither XII nor
VIII Corps could be made ready for an assault on the 17th, leaving XXX Corps vulnerable to
counterattack from all sides. Perhaps the greatest flaw in the Allied plan is that it relied on clear
skies. This was a big assumption for the Netherlands in September and within days the weather
became a new enemy with clouds and rain hindering efforts to resupply and reinforce the airborne
divisions. Envisioned as a swift coup de main, Market Garden was to bog down into a bloody fiasco
which would culminate in the destruction of one of the Britain's elite divisions...
[Size: Large]
Design Note: This variant of the scenario is played on a smaller map with a western edge just west
of Lommel. This somewhat constricts German and Allied movement in the western half of the map,
but ensures that 15th (Scottish) and 7th Armoured Division deployment more closely resembles
history in the later stages of the scenario.
This scenario should be played with the "Optional Amphibious Rules" optional rule to enable units
with amphibious capability to cross the Waal and Nederrijn rivers.