Black Day of the German Army

[mikeh]

By Pacific Rim Publishing's Just Plain Wargames Series.

Game is on the first 2 days of the Entente's Battle of Amiens, also known as the Third Battle of Picardy. The German Army took such a thumping that General Erich Ludendorf described it as "The Black Day of the German Army. This battle was the start of the wars last 100 days.




French, English and Canadian Divisions ready to start the assault that will ultimately end the war in 100 days. All three have armor while the Germans have none.

[Whiterook]

Nice looking map!!! Those Allied armor units look so imposing, don’t they? …must have been frightening, even in a chaotically dense and destroyed stalemate battlefield.

[mikeh]

8 pages of rules including setup. Nothing here someone new to wargaming couldn't handle. Here a now removed British division tried to throw a German regiment out of its trenches and got a terrible roll that eliminated the division. The German regiments try to encircle another British division left hanging in the breeze but don't quite have the movement points or the strength to do much about that, and now the 33rd Infantry Division (American) and a British cavalry division are moving up to try and set the situation straight.

[mikeh]

Emery brought up the Entente's armor and they are quite formidable lending their strength and a column shift in either attack or defense, still they can be fragile. In the picture the two orange tank counters are at half strength, the lower one attached to a Canadian division has lost half it's strength through breakdowns while moving up and a British division suffers the same fate but this time in combat loses. Cracking good show though old boy




Below.on the French sector, (blue counters) the Bavarian Division, (white counter) has been flanked in its own trench losing any modifiers for defense so backs into a woods hex to regain a 1 column shift if attacked.

screen shot capture

[Whiterook]

Nice action! Interesting on the tanks… the literal infancy of armor warfare, eh?!? What were the typical anti-tank tactics of WWI?

I’ve slowly assembled a Command & Colors (much akin to memoir ‘44) set called The Great War, and the tank minis are gorgeously sculpted… what very few WWI games I have played, non involved armor to memory. On this fighting, it looks a really brutal task for either side!

[mikeh]

AT tactics? Hope they break down! Germans fired their 77mm cannons over open sights, infantry I guess was bundle grenades, they dug anti tank ditches.

[mikeh]

The southern or French section of the line breaks and the Germans retreat to their reserve trenches, the British and Canadians advance on their part of the line but their tanks are wearing down.

[mikeh]

0500 9 Aug 1918. Day 2 of the offensive. Germans pushed back to their reserve trench lines up and down the front with a (for now) small breakthrough at Marcouf. The Entente moves up all along the line and are ready to attack.



One Canadian and one French Division moving up.

gif upload

[Whiterook]

Is Marcouf in the upper left corner (under Beaucourt somewhere)? That’s a nice German penetration up there…curious to see if they can exploit it with some sort of flanking maneuver! What unit (nationality) is the red-white-blue unit…American? I like the bomb craters, too!

[mikeh]

Marcouf is just left of center on the river with the depleted tank regiment. The red, white and blue division is the the US 33rd Infantry Division.

This game is a little gem. Low counter count, easy rules including air and artillery points. Set it up and go.

[mikeh]

Be tough going for the Germans around Beaucourt, standard setup on counters. Attack, defense, movement allowance. As you can see in this closeup picture the German cannot even combine to get 1 to 1 odds, with left column shifts (for attacking across trench lines) the Germans would be attacking at 1 to 3 odds. They may be able to get a step lose from their limited artillery to get 1 to 1 but then you would still get left column shifts that would again put you back at 1 to 2 odds.

[Whiterook]

WOW, I guess that odds issue makes sense, from the perspective of trench warfare… my understanding is so much of the “fighting” was a stalemate, with periodic back and forth micro movement of blood letting.

Considering column shifts, I can see how odds ratios work in this game. I have to be honest, in that with Gotterdammerung, I just cannot figure out the 3:2 ratio from 8 Attack to 5 Defense… my mind just cannot compute that math!