Scenario 33 Belated Christmas After Action Report
Scott B
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Nuts. I don’t need to tell you where we are. Much is written about the encirclement of the 101st and Patton’s relief effort. Little is said of the supply missions of Operation Repulse that provided fuel, ammunition, medical supplies and even combat surgeons necessary to sustain the fight. The broad scope of Operation Repulse included supplying the 101st Airborne Division in Bastogne, supplying the surrounded troops of Task Force Hogan at Marcouray, moving the 17th Airborne Division from the UK to the continent and evacuating casualties from 23 to 29 December, 1944. In total over 5,401,993 lbs of supplies were delivered and 2,048 sorties were flown. Bastogne received 1,952,704 lbs of supplies over 884 sorties, sixty-one with gliders which incurred the majority of the 24 losses during the operation.
The dangerous nature of these glider operations meant the pilots were volunteers and flew without co-pilots to keep their losses down. Three serials totaling sixty-one gliders carried medical personnel, gasoline, artillery shells and other supplies into Bastogne on 26 and 27 December. The gliders landed 2,975 lbs of gasoline, 86 lbs of rations, 151,831 lbs of ammunition and 32,823 lbs of other equipment and supplies for a loss of sixteen glider pilots KIA/POW, the highest loss rate in the operation.
Brave you must be to pilot a plane with no engine into combat. Braver still for one filled with explosive cargo intent on landing in a field that is part of the front line of encircled troops. Mission 1117 is our scenario and flew in gasoline and shells on 27, December. The gliders carried either sixty 5 gallon cans, in rows on the cargo floor or shells tied to the floor and other supplies.
“I’ll tell you straight out: if you’ve got to go into combat, don’t go in a glider. Walk, crawl, parachute, swim, float - anything. But don’t go in a glider!”
-- Walter Cronkite
The gliders flew in elements of two instead of the usual four as a safety concession to the poor weather. While this may have helped with take-off and in the narrow corridor at Bastogne, it required twice the time to fly the formation over a given point, twelve minutes compared to six and doubling the exposure to enemy fire. The AA fire zeroed in on the first elements and fired effectively at the later ones. The glider’s Chalk number indicates the take-off order and the first KIA/POW is Chalk 30 with the last ten chalks 41 to 50 either KIA or POW. Pilots could hear rounds from AA fire rolling around in gasoline cans and hitting the artillery rounds, several gliders exploded in mid-air. Through this these daring pilots delivered their cargo to the depleted 101st. A. C McAuliffe, commander of the 101st A/D, said that Bastogne could not have been held without their supplies and expressed his admiration for their gallant actions.
“I had to land faster than normal because my glider was at least 500 pounds heavier than we usually were. I hit the ground hard and couldn’t stop. I kept sliding pretty fast. I touched the brakes but they didn’t help. I guided the glider on the skids with the tail in the air. I hit two fence posts trying to stop. The first post knocked off the right landing gear and the second post knocked off the left landing gear. Chalk #4 finally came to a stop and as soon as I got out the artillery men in a six-by started unloading the Waco. I had made it.
From there I kept watching the others. The gliders behind us were getting hit right and left.”1
-- Claude A. “Chuck” Berry, Chalk 4
REFERENCES
1 ‘Ardennes Gliders.’ WWIIGPA, National WWII Glider Pilots Association, Inc. Retrieved from https://www.ww2gp.org/ardennesgliders.php
(Excellent site for historical & personal accounts including pilot interviews, pilot photos and video)
‘Operations Repulse, resupply by air, Belgium December, 1944.’ Headquarters, IX Troop Carrier Command. United States Army, 3 January, 1945 Retrieved from http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/4552
World War II History Round Table. ‘Glider Operations in World War II’ Online video. Youtube. Youtube,17 October, 2014. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/0CEpYDN451s
(Discussion of Strategic Mobility and Vertical Envelopment, personal interviews)
‘History, Headquarters IX Troop Carrier Command, 1 December 1944 - 31 December 1944.’ Headquarters, IX Troop Carrier Command. United States Army, circa January, 1945.
Retrieved from: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BX-cdD_MuCIxlSF0Umlfr9CR2aUGUQmZ
(Page 51 has statistics for the operation including type and quantity of supplies, losses, etc. Great source of data)
“Siege of Bastogne.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Retrieved 29 January, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Siege_of_Bastogne&oldid=938122904
‘Belated Christmas’. G.I.: Anvil of Victory. Baltomore, MD: the Avalon Hill Game Company, 1982. https://storage.googleapis.com/archivesqlt/DAO00033A.pdf
THE SCENARIO
What are gliders?
A seemingly existential question on the SSR that keeps glider counters on the board until destroyed (they are normally removed once landed). It is easy to say what they are not but one must decide what they are to play the scenario. We felt these gliders sitting softly in the snow had to fit into the Squad Leader rules. Their ⅝ counter size provided a scope of the possibilities - only Ordnance, AFVs, Soft-skinned vehicles or Fortifications are found on this size counter. By process of elimination we ended up with soft skinned vehicles and we applied those rules to them. Accordingly, the gliders could be overrun by the half-tracks with a -5 DRM to the KIA attempt per SSR 33.4 . Also the inherent pilot can immobilize or destroy an Overrunning half-track on appropriate dice rolls (72.6).
With that out of the way, we start our game…
Figure 1) Setup
Figure one shows the infantry setup, initial glider landing hexes and their eventual disposition. The gliders land randomly during the first three player turns. The US player must occupy the glider hex after landing, so he places them as close to his lines as possible, after randomly determining the row (ie A - GG). The final landing hex requires an accuracy roll affected by defensive fire and terrain, so a few landed in a different hex than shown. They are most vulnerable in the sky so the German directs all his defensive fire at the landing gliders. The range of weapons is halved against landing gliders, so they must get close to be effective. The US player wins by having control of nine gliders or having twice as many squads still in play.
Damn, those gliders are landing far away.
This German player didn’t realize the gliders would land so close to the US front line. Turned out he was responsible for closing ground and destroying the gliders so the infantry left their comfy entrenchments and trudged through the snow to the descending gliders. That epiphany left a lot of CX counters on the board.
Figure 2) GT3 Mph
Down the center
Figure two is German turn three before US defensive fire. In the three turns since the prior figure, all eighteen gliders have landed and those on the right flank destroyed. The US center was weakened by the 9-2/hmg, allowing an escorted halftrack to push up, overrun and destroy a glider in the center. Just this turn the glider south of the gully was eliminated by an overrun. That leaves twelve gliders on the left flank, of which he needs to control nine for victory.
The red circle highlights an isolated broken German 9-1 and 5-4-8 that was threatened by US infantry. Not willing to lose the leader, the Germans charged forward to save him and secure a foothold in the center. It seemed like the only choice since the Germans needed to get down there anyway and the US would only strengthen the position. The US extracted a price for their toe-hold. Sometimes the right move is the one you least want to do.
The fifty caliber is an anti-material gun
I never really knew what the ‘material’ was in anti-material. Bill was nice enough to show me it includes my halftracks. Two MG shots and two KO halftracks, the second a fine example of a mobility kill stranding him south of the gully. No more overrunning gliders for him.
Figure 3) GT6 Mph
The Tragedy of Swatting at Flies
The mid game has the Germans seek position for the final push on the gliders. The US has control of ten gliders and needs nine to win the game. The high drama was the US fifty caliber boxcaring, repairing, boxcaring again and disabling with great exclamation and a few utterances that would make any church goer blush. Balancing this tragedy was the US sixty mm mortar indirect firing on the +4 entrenched 9-2/HMG and breaking him and the attendant crew twice during the course of the game. Figure three is before the US defensive fire that crumbled the Germans on the left flank.
Figure 4) It's the last squad that matters
The Final Push
At the start of the last game turn, the US was winning with no gliders to spare and my opponent was struggling with his last turn plan. He had just exchanged fire and came out the worse for it. Not only did the Germans stand their ground, they also had a lucky defensive fire that broke two 747s and opened a path to victory. The Germans only need one lucky MC roll to take the last glider in Close Combat. I’ve been in this spot before too and could hear my opponent thinking ‘What can I do to hold this?’ Sometimes you can do nothing except hope to roll low.
And so the Germans sprinted into the US line. One leader and four squads broke. One leader and squad died in Close Combat along with the glider pilot - not enough. And one 447 passed his 2MC to Close Combat the glider pilot, deprive the US of one glider and claim a German victory. I am not sure what he is going to do with his ill gotten plunder being surrounded by four rather angry 7-4-7s. Thanks to Bill for a good game, we were both surprised by the German victory.
G.I. ANVIL OF VICTORY (GIA)
So that was my first G. I.: Anvil of Victory game. I enjoyed the scenario however the system is getting a bit too realistic for me. The infantry modeling adds drag to play and the new routing rules give too much control to the player. It's been fifteen years since my first VSQL game of Squad Leader and I look forward to completing the last gamette in the system. Fortunately, I have a few good regular players to help me through the rest of the scenarios and with the rules.
Figure 5) Cover page 51 for ‘History, Headquarters IX Troop Carrier Command, 1 December 1944 - 31 December 1944.’
I thought the reader might enjoy seeing the artwork adorning the cover page of the Operation Repulse report. It was a formal report presented to command and it's the first time I've seen a drawing used as a medium to describe an operation. It has the elements of the story - paradrops, gliders, flak, bastogne. The link to the report is in Resources, above.
SPECIAL THANKS
A big thank you to National WWII Glider Pilots Association, Inc. for helping me put this together and providing valuable resources such as pics, documents, personal accounts and knowledge. Much of it is on their site referenced above, worth checking out.