Designer's Notes:


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Warning !
Spoiler info is contained in these notes.
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Title: Between the Roer & the Rhine (semi-historical)
Type: American Attack, German Defend
Date: February 28, 1945
Time: Morning, 1030 hours
Location: Hochfeld, Germany
Weather: Overcast and muddy ground conditions
Length: 40 turns

The source and inspiration for this scenario comes from Harold
Leinbaugh & John Campbell's excellent "The Men of Company K".
An autobiographical (both were lieutenants in the unit) account
of an American infantry company that arrived in Europe as the
war was moving into Germany.

This particular scenario comes from Chapter 16 "The Battle for
Hardt". The exact details of this particular engagement are a bit
jumbled in the book. While some personal accounts recall attacking 
Hardt; Hockfeld is the town actually mentioned in the Divisonal 
history as the company's objective. Item company is actually 
supposed to be on K company's left, attacking a mental institution.
But this leaves the town of Hardt being un-assualted. So their 
objective is changed to Hardt.

Item company's CO at the time of the assault isn't mentioned in
the book, so the battalion S3, who had an important part in the
battle is listed as Item's CO.

Some players may note that the forces specified in the scenario
don't appear when they're supposed to. The Shermans were supposed
to be available to K company when they left their lines for the 
attack (as indicated in the orders), however they didn't show up 
until hours later (after Cpt Wooten went back to retrieve them). 
In the actual engagement there were a dozen Shermans, divided 
equally between I & K coompanies. For the sake of scenario balance
their number has been reduced. Had the Shermans been with K company
when they left their start lines, the day wouldn't have been so bloody
for them. This was to be the last significant action (and the bloodiest
single day of combat) for K company.

All of the German artillery, anti-tank guns and armor were actually
located from Mackenstein to Baumgeshof, futher north. Interestingly,
selecting the "Fallschirmjaeger MG company" gave me the 75mm guns,
and of course plenty of MG42s that were present in this engagement.
Since one of the accounts of the battle mentioned how well "fortified"
the German positions were I included two wooden bunkers to simulate
this (though they were probably just well emplaced MG nest in houses).
I removed two HMG42 teams to accomodate them.

Maps are always hard to come by (unless you live in the area). I
used some modern interactive maps I found on the Internet (for
Germany: www.meinestadt.de). Of course many of these roads (which
is the primary information these maps provide) weren't present in
WW II. So the roads are somewhat close, but probably still quite
inaccurate. I have no details on the topography of this area other
than it is flat - which leaves a lot up to the imagination. My
primary emphasis was to provide a small amount of terrain features
and make sure that the lines of sight could be maintained (the fire
of the 88's from Mackenstein were hitting K company and the follow
up Shermans). So the maps appear quite drab in a terrain sense.

The map is a bit longer North-South than would seem necessary. I kept
this dimension (after chopping off a kilometer of terrain to the east)
since the 88's in Mackenstein played a significant role in the 
engagement. This provides the opportunity to have an artillery/anti-
tank gun unit engage at long range (though it isn't truly long range)
with a decent line of sight. This gives the 88's a measure of
protection against a close assault since the opposing forces aren't
numerous enough to charge infantry that far across such open terrain.