AAR 1

From: Norb Brunhuber (Field Marshall Model, Army Group B)

The Market Garden JodieCon was another fun and unique miniatures event. We had three large tables in separate rooms. The tables were large enough in fact that there was very little terrain gap between them. Thus when your troops moved off of one table, only a few "theoretical inches" were taken off of your move before you appeared on the next table. That made the progress of troops very dramatic indeed. The pace of the "Company Decision" rules (a combination of Command Decision and DropZone) was also quick, letting us play out an entire day in game time for every half day of actual playing time.

The allies were blessed with clear weather and so for the most part their paradrops were dead-on. Furthermore, they could continue to drop troops throughout the next four days unlike the historical situation. The weather also allowed the allied airforce to make devastating strafing and bombing runs. Only in Arnhem, where enough AA guns could be brought to bear, did the fighters have to turn off.

The German plan I endorsed after speaking with my crack staff, was to have two lines of resistance at Eindhoven to slow XXX Corps as long as possible. The German troops at Nijmegan and Arnhem had to work hand in hand, coming to reinforce the first area that eliminated the paratroopers dropped. I was Model and so with Bittrich was located around Arnhem. We were lucky to have two crack cadet candidate players who were very enthusiastic and knowledgeable with the rules. They could quickly implement our operational plans and soon the British troopers were forced to consolidate inside of downtown Arnhem with the Germans slowly surrounding them.

Meanwhile the good news was that the forces at Eindhoven were doing an astounding job of keeping XXX Corps bottled up in the downtown area. They were buying us lots of time. Whatever troops at had in the area I fed to them immediately. The bad news though was that the Nijmegan area was going through a see-saw action. First Grave was lost and then Nijmegan itself. I began to feed all of the kampfgruppes coming available down to them in the hopes of shoring up the situation. Bittrich assured me that Arnhem was under control even with the paucity of troops he had to work with.

Eventually, but very slowly, XXX Corps extracted themselves out of downtown Eindhoven and made some good progress up Hell's Highway. Thankfully a full-up Brigade of Panther tanks came to me then and they immediately were fed into the area. I wanted to smother that smoking fire. The German tanks began to move cross-country on a bisecting course with the XXX Corps snake. I also continued to feed kampfgruppe after kampfgruppe down into Nijmegan and I began to get a hint that all was not well. They were soaking up troops like a dry sponge when everyone else was hanging on by their ragged fingernails. Eventually, Feldt finally decided to consolidate and make a stand on Hell's Highway between Nijmegan and Grave rather than trying to assault either town. A standoff ensued since neither the Germans or Allies felt the need to leave their areas. Everyone waited on XXX Corps.

Arnhem was doing well. We captured the supply center and the HQ of the British. Half of downtown was ours and we took over both sides of Arnhem bridge. Only the freshly landed Polish troops south of the bridge were in our way and we had a combined tank and infantry unit opposing them. It was time to stop feeding troops into Nijmegan and instead direct them all to Arnhem and down that bridge to blast past the Poles and make for Nijmegan. We would soon have two lines of troops in the Nijmegan area to halt XXX Corps.

In turned out to be unnecessary. Down at Eindhoven, the 107th Panzer Brigade was having trouble making to the road in time to stop the train racing by. However, in Ousterhaus, Student had wisely positioned his crack Engineers and when the naked tanks moved through the village, they struck, knocking out the three lead battalions of tanks. The train came to an abrupt halt. While they tried to get around the bottleneck, Student sent the Panzers north towards Grave (only being held by 4 stands of paratroopers), with the intent to make a third block in the Nijmegan area by taking over Grave. This was at the end of the fourth day and the gaming weekend was over. XXX Corps gave up their push and the paratroops behind German lines surrendered. Germany was safe again.