Background
On 25 July 1944, following six weeks of attritional warfare along a stalemated front, American forces under Lieutenant General Omar Bradley mounted an attack code-named Operation Cobra, which broke through the German defenses near Saint-Lô. Almost the entire western half of the German front in Normandy collapsed, and on 1 August, American forces captured Avranches. With the capture of this town at the base of the Cotentin peninsula, and an intact bridge at Pontaubault nearby, the American forces had “turned the corner”; the German front could no longer be anchored against the sea at its western end and American forces could advance west and south into Brittany. The U.S. Third Army, commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton, was activated the same day. Despite German air attacks against the bridge at Pontaubault, Patton pushed no less than seven divisions across it during the next three days, and units of his army began advancing almost unopposed towards the Brittany ports.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continued its attacks to widen the corridor around Avranches. Although the Germans held the vital road junction of Vire, U.S. VII Corps, under Major General J. Lawton Collins, captured Mortain, 19 miles (31 km) east of Avranches, on 3 August.
On 2 August, Hitler sent a directive to Kluge ordering “an immediate counter-attack between Mortain and Avranches”. He demanded that eight of the nine Panzer Divisions in Normandy be used in the attack, and that the Luftwaffe commit its entire reserve, including 1,000 fighters. According to Hitler, three qualifications had to be met for the attack to proceed. “Von Kluge must believe in it. He must be able to detach enough armour from the main front in Normandy to create an effective striking force, and he must achieve surprise”.
Although ordered to wait “until every tank, gun and plane was assembled”, Kluge and SS General Paul Hausser (commanding the German 7th Army, which held the western part of the front) decided to attack as soon as possible, before the overall situation deteriorated further. The main striking force assigned was the XLVII Panzer Corps, commanded by General Hans Freiherr von Funck. Instead of eight Panzer Divisions, only four—one of them incomplete—could be relieved from their defensive tasks and assembled in time; the 2nd Panzer Division, 116th Panzer Division, the 2nd SS Panzer Division and part of the 1st SS Panzer Division, with a total of about 300 tanks. The Panzer Corps was supported by two Infantry Divisions and five Kampfgruppen, formed from the remnants of the Panzer Lehr Division and four equally battered infantry divisions.
Kluge ordered the attack to be mounted on the night of 6/7 August. To avoid alerting American forces to the attack, there would be no preparatory artillery bombardments. The intention was to hit the U.S. 30th Infantry Division, commanded by Major-General Leland Hobbs, east of Mortain, then cut through American defenses to reach the coast. Had surprise been achieved, the attack might well have succeeded, but Allied decoders at Ultra had intercepted and decrypted the orders for Operation Lüttich by August 4. As a result, Bradley was able to obtain air support from both the US 9th Air Force and the RAF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_L%C3%BCttich
The Game
We set up the game to reflect some of the early attacks. The US forces would set up in defense, but not with a clear idea of the “exact” position of the German forces and axis of attack. The Germans would be able to set up anywhere behind the stream and would be able to enter the road in front of the stream that lead off the bottom of the board. The game would begin with fog conditions (we would start rolling to remove the fog starting on turn 6, which was not known to the players. The US support would get stronger, as the game went on, so the Germans had to move quickly. The game was played using Donner und Blitzen rules.
The US forces started with an Infantry Regiment of three battalions. They had an attacked combat engineer company and recon troop. In addition they had a company of 76mm ATGs (these were placed using hidden set up. The US started the game with a battalion of 105s in general support. Starting on turn 3, they would recieve another battalion on turn 3 on a roll of 4 or 5. This would be a battalion of 155s on a roll of six. This would be checked every turn. Starting on turn six, we would roll or the fog. On a roll of 5 or 6, the fog would lift and the US forces would receive D3 P47 strikes per turn thereafter.
The Germans had a Panzer Grenadier Regiment (one battalion on foot (truck mounted) and the other in half tracks (forgot my 251s, so we used 250s). The Panzer Grenadiers were supported by a Battalion of Panthers. The Germans had a mixed battalion of 105s in direct support.
The Germans decided to hold the US forces in place with their foot and Regimental elements to the front across the river. They used their Panthers and Mech Infantry to strike down the road to avoid the stream. The forces move forward somewhat aggressively to get into position.
They then tried to slowly grind the forward US forces with heavy fire and limited assaults. This was having the effect of slowly pushing the US forces back and minimizing losses to the Germans. However, as time went on, the US artillery and fire started to inflict casualties, while the US infantry battalion doggedly held on.
The Germans realized that the attack was taking too much time and then swept around the town with their armor, while committing to a full assault on the town. With the attack, the Germans pushed the remnants of the US from the town (but they refused to break) and had their first breakthrough. Unfortunately, the hidden ATG popped their ambush and with the help of particularly accurate artillery fire, the US forces were able to put a number of Panthers out of action. This was too much for the Panther commander and he decided to start to fall back. As luck would have it, the fog cleared on Turn six. With that, the Germans decided to break off the attack. Result was a historical US victory!
- Mantueffel