AAR 1944 Italy: The Coriano Ridge by Mark Luther

The church appears to dominate on the hill, but is such an obvious target that the Germans leave it unoccuppied. The Allies will be attacking from the left.

The small stream at the bottom is fordable but it would be nice to capture an intact bridge. Fields are pretty flattened at this point and the hedges are mostly thick leafless bushes. Allies are attacking right to left.

The objective for the Allied infantry and tanks is to clear the village and road for the bridgelayers, then for the second wave to head to the objective line off table to the north.

Dennis (left) playing the the Germans: parts of the 303 Infantry Regiment, the 162 (Turkistan) Division. Rick(centre) playing the Allied infantry commander (C Coy, 48th Highlanders). Rob playing the armor support (a troop from B Sqd, 48th RTR).

The Highlanders move cross country, three platoons abreast. Center platoon still covered by blind. Not a lot of cover there and they soon take fire.

The left platoon tries to take cover behind a wall and hedge. Unfortunately it has been mined by the Germans (or whatever we call them: Azjers, Turkmenis, Cossacks etc). They are taking fire from the manor house and the small copse of trees at the top of the page.

The right hand platoon has been scattered by fire from the village. The support troop of Churchills is also in trouble. The Command tank w/ the 95mm has been immobilsed by mines and the promptly abandoned ship. The whole troop arrived late and came in to the right by the road and have been flinging HE at the Jerries in town.

After seeing their CO jump out of the smoking CS tank, the rest of the tanks are firing back at small arms in the town. What they didn't know was the pregame stonks, disabled one Pak40 and kept them out of the fight for several turns as they tried to repair their gun. Another Pak40 apparently had to clear way debris, because they saw nothing for several turns. When they did fire, they jammed one Churchill's turret.

One squad is getting some help from the platoon leader in the grain field while a couple of other squads move on the big house.

Too much auto fire coming from the village for that route. There is a MMG and squad in the house in the center and another squad in the trees to the left and houses back in town.

They've lost one gun/turret to the Pak, but have managed to blast the other ATG in the woods. Not getting close enough for any panzerfausts. The church has been pulverized by the pre-game stonks and the Germans had wisely left it unoccuppied, but the allies still feared getting near it.

The Allies had some 105s and mortars available. The fire lands pretty close to the intended target and pins some shooters.

The remaining Pak40 is between the tall wall and the house with the large door. MMG and squad in the building at bottom of pic. Other squads in large house and building to the right.

This platoon was initially emplaced by the stream and bridge and moved up the road when the shooting started. Allied HE coming down pretty close.

This view gives a good idea of the gentle slope up to the village.

The villa appears to be captured so the the center platoon is charging up. However a spotting round from the enemy lands right in their path.

As soon as the new Turkistani platoon got into a good position, they got nailed by some mortar fire. Lost their platoon leader in the first blast.

The center platoon is moving up after the villa has been cleared and their arty is coming down. The right hand platoon survivors have moved under the slope behind them. Too bad the 105's fire drifted onto the recently captured villa.

Not much here, but Chuchills trading fire with a Pak and the engineer tanks waiting for some progress.

You know its bad when the best armor on the board for the Germans is a pair of StuG 75/18(i)s!

The British artillery drifts onto the recently captured villa and the mortars also start arriving in the general area. Meanwhile another 303 Regiment platoon has appeared to hold that side of the town. It immediately takes hits from the British batteries and loses its platoon CO.

Two SAAF P-51Bs appear to search for some tasty targets.

The SAAF finds some Turkistanis to rough up.

The town should have been cleared by now for these guys to move up, but the Churchills are still blasting away to their left and its obvious that things are behind schedule. (GHQ AVRE with homemade fascine and an ARK from over the pond)

The MMG and support squad put quite a hurting on any Allied infantry that they saw. The woods to the left is where the Pak got blasted, right after repairing their gun.

The Highlanders have gone to ground behind the hedge and wall as they take some hits from the Semovantes. the right hand platoon is getting raked from the town and the survivors of the other platoon just wanna go home!

Leaderless and pinned by HE and small arms the hapless platoon is the target of the strafing P-51s. Two Semovantes have moved up to rescue them and shell the contested villa. The P-51s depart before the STuG-75/18(i)s open fire and thus didn't spot them.

The advancing reserve platoon went to cover by the wall and hedge when the German mortars started to fall and stumbled right into the previously discovered minefield. The platoon from the right moved over and starts to move up on the villa getting pounded. The Brits stop their HE from coming down on their own positions but the Germans have no problem with that target.

The platoon on the road fails its guts test and stays put. The StuGs fire some more rounds into the villa.

The SAAF P-51s are planning a return visit, but too late to decide this game.

There was no need for these folks originally, but it looks like the Highlanders will need all the help they can get.

At the end of the game the Turkistanis were down to one Pak40, one MMG, and 1½ full platoons out of three. The Allies had two good Churchills, one platoon in good shape, one about half strength and one platoon pretty well wiped out. The M10s would drive off the StuGs, but too much time had gone by to get to the main objective before dark.