Thanks for all the comments!
Hi Fred! See you around soon I hope.
Jemima - shiitake mushrooms! -that would have been sooooo much easier than what I did.
Wrgmr1 - we were playing 1 stand = 1 platoon. The British were fielding 2 full strength battalions plus a support company of jeeps with HMGs at the start = about 1600 men or so. I had one veteran and 1 regular - no real historical basis for that just more for game balance.
The Germans attacked with a considerable force although I had quite a bit of trouble identifying the historical OB. The best website I found was
http://www.defendingarnhem.com/Westernsector.htmlI gave the Germans 7 infantry formations each of about 300 - 350 men.
One I rated as veteran - troops from the noncommissioned officers school. There were also naval and fleiger formations. The dregs of the lot were the SS wach battalion 3 - malingerers, medical cases, cowards and blackguards. They had been guarding a concentration camp in Holland and had been repeatedly raided by the Wehrmacht for soldiers capable of fighting elsewhere. Those that were left must have been truly appalling given the desperate need for manpower. The officers were also dreadful. The CO was sacked a day or so after this battle for utter incompetence. The rest were no better. I found little reference to enemy vehicles in the battle descriptions but I know the Germans were aware of the British plans, so I gave them a couple of Marders and a bunch of AA units to distribute across the inf. Nothing I could really justify but not enough for it to be too big of a problem.
The British reinforcements are also tricky. 3 para battalions is fine - They were effectively full strength, about 20 platoons including HQ, HMG etc. I cut this number down in the game as it was just too much.
The glider reinforcements are much more difficult as the OBs I’ve seen don’t break down who landed where. I think there were a couple of companies of South Staffs but I suspect a lot was support coys. I put more glider inf, some artillery and engineers in the landing group just for variety. I didn’t expect these forces to be really involved in the game - it was just something different for the Germans to shoot at.
If you are playing with 20mm figs are you looking to play the whole field?
Might be worth looking at the near miss that occurred at Renkum where a coy of Brits nearly got rumbled by a naval battalion but managed to just about escape.
Does that help?
CtM
Welcome, Guest. Please 
April 25, 2024, 03:02:24 AM
