Battle of Paderborn – Clash of the Heavyweights?
'At PADERBORN, the 3rd Armored Division was striking at the "Fort Knox of Germany." Here the Reich's panzer elements were trained for battle and it was these school troops, many of them officer candidates, who came out to fight the American spearhead with tanks, tank-destroyers, and the big bazookas which seemed to be Germany's last, potent weapon of defense. The school troops of Paderborn fought well, but the grindstone of battle was wearing Germany thin'.
'The Germans assembled as many armoured units as they could to try and fend off the attack. One of these was an improvised unit called Panzergruppe Paderborn manned by instructors and equipped with an assortment of vehicles from test units, including Tiger Is, Tiger IIs, Panthers and even an old Panzer III. It is unclear whether the RAC Tank Museum’s Jagdtiger was also a part of this force, or whether it took any part in the fighting. Fighting around PADERBORN continued for around a week'.
“About five miles north of Etteln, Welborn turned north…to pass the wooded hill of Castle Hamborn and then arrowed straight to Paderborn. That less obvious route might let the US column wriggle through between these various Waffen SS panzerfaust nests….TF Welborn’s lead vehicle, the powerful T26E3 Pershing, made the pivot to head north. It was a little after 7:00pm, last light.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
The German 88mm Tiger cannons belted the fifth Sherman tank in line, the one that hadn’t turned north yet. They nailed the big Pershing…The Tigers engaged from about 900 yards away. As usual, the German gunners shot until they saw flames. They ventilated seven Shermans…TF Welborn was in big trouble.”
The Panzer Killers, Lt-Gen Daniel P Bolger, Caliber books USA, 2021, p.307.
MISSION Two of three objectives are to be held by the US attackers by end of turn 6 or 9:30PM.
Objectives are placed by the German team at least 8 inches from any table edge and within 3 foot of the PADERBORN table corner, and at least 8 inches from any other objective. The German team may place 1 unit in ambush.
GROUND
The south western approach to PADERBORN is a shallow,
heavily coniferous wooded valley of the Ellerbach stream. (Cross check
required). It is bordered by conurbations of BORCHEN, DAHL and DURENHAGEN, all
undamaged. Road net is good. German deployment area is their half of the
table (2 foot). US deployment area is one foot from their table edge.
EXECUTION.
|
Panzergruppe
Paderborn Bryan, Chris & Bailey (100 points?) 3 x JagdTiger
(Bryan) 3 x Tiger II (Peter) (or 4 x
JagdPanther) (Ralph) Light FLaK
unit (Chris) |
TF Welborn Stuart (87 points) 3 x M26 Pershing 5 x Veteran M4
(76mm) Flight P47
Ground Attack (Ralph) M36 AT
Platoon (Bryan) |
TF Hogan Ed (63 points) 3 x M26
Pershing 5 x Veteran
M4 (76mm) Flight P47
Ground Attack |
Germans deploy all of their platoons, then US.
US Air
arrives on 4D6 roll, each TF may roll, but only 1 flight per turn. German AA
may deploy out of command.
TIME OF DAY – DUSK. (Night may fall from defenders’ Turn 3)
Cracking game there and interesting to see a tank only battle, with air support of course.
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve appreciate your comment. Yes the tank only aspect was a bit of a fun reaction to our previous week's infantry only paratroop drop game!
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