GAJO Games

February's mega game returned to Flames of War version 4, featuring a late mid-war battle at Salerno, after a major amphibious landing south of Naples. The scenario focused on on the period after the initial landings, as the British and American forces were attempting to push inland to seize the high ground overlooking the Gulf of Salerno, while major German mobile reserves had arrived and started a series of counterattacks aimed at driving the Allies back into the sea.

This created a series of meeting engagements, and allowed us to pit a variety of forces against each other using the new rules engine.

Right from the start the fighting was heavy all along the front, with US forces pushing aggressively on both flanks while British forces cautiously probed forward in the center.

The German forces reacted quickly, pushing to secure Hill 140 and the River Sele bridge in the north, and to reinforce Guingano and Trentinara in the south. A force from the Hermann Goring division skirmished with the British in the center, working to draw them out of their strong positions around Paestum.

In the north, an aggressive US push fell short in the face of heavy German firepower, and despite valiant effort the Americans could make no headway there. The British launched an assault in the center, only to face heavy response from the waiting panzergrenadiers, and took heavy casualties. In the south the US managed to seize Trentinara in heavy fighting, but Guingano held and a German couterattack reached the main highway, negating most of the US gains.

In the northern sector, things went even worse for the allies, with German forces savaging the Allied advance, and then counterattacking to push the Allies back a significant way. As the dust settled, a marginal but hard fought German marginal victory was the verdict, with literally the last turn putting the German forces over the top. Great fun.