Hit the Breaks - Chain of Command AAR

Once again the group convened at Ted's place to continue the 29, Let's Go! campaign. 

In the second scenario, "Delaying Action at Arthenay", the Americans need to capture a specific Jump Of Point, which Chip and Ted placed in a courtyard between the two buildings in the far edge's center. 

John and I were commanding the Americans.

With the Germans bruised but not completely beaten in the first scenario, they had to regroup into two squads. 

The Americans started with two rifle squads rushing for a far hedgerow, covered by an attached .50 cal machine gun, an off-board mortar team, and a sniper team. 

Unluckily, they quickly discovered that the town was defended by multiple MMGs hidden in the buildings.

And John's poor luck with the movement dice left one squad out in the open, accruing shock like it was on clearance. The platoon lieutenant was yelling at his men to get them up and moving (à la Dick Winters in Band of Brothers at Carentan) to no avail. 

I joined John in the muck with my own poor dice. The sniper seemed incapable of causing any damage, and the HMG was only able to chip away at the German defenders. 

The off-table mortar did manage to call in a smoke barrage, which brought a moment of reprieve for the Americans. John ordered one squad up over the hedge to try and make it to the next, and hopefully we could bring up a Jump Off Point to deploy another, fresh squad (turns out it was too far anyway. D'oh!). 

Chip and Ted used one of their CoC dice to end the turn and the smoke barrage, while deploying one of the precious German infantry squads. 

This forced John to quickly retreat back into cover. I brought on the one Sherman we had in support next to the hapless sniper team and managed to break one of the two German HMG teams. 

The constant fire from the remaining German machine guns was able to place more Shock on the one American squad then the sergeant and platoon lieutenant could remove, and ended up breaking the squad. 

With one squad down, the Germans shifted focus on the other isolated American squad and broke it as well. Chip and Ted then ended the turn, and the resulting loss of multiple Leaders wiped out the American morale. 

What a reversal! Chip and Ted ran a great defense, sparing their core platoon units with a couple of support options. A delay this early may be disastrous for the Americans. We'll come back again in a couple weeks with extra support points (and a court martial for the sniper team) to try again.