I was the German defender. My main concerns were the American retaining cloaking or concealment and just moving past my defenders. I placed the HMG and a HS on my right rear flank on a domininant level 2 bluff. He had an excellent field of fire for sweeping the "left tit" hilltop of any Americans if they could be illuminated. A squad with a LMG anchored the left flank from another bluff. A HS acted as a cork to slow the Americans along the left flank adjacent to the road. Another squad with a LMG was HIP in a foxhole along the forward right flank behind a one hex level two hill. His immediate left flank was protected by two minefields, which sealed off two hexes that would be out of sight of the HMG. The MMG and a squad were concealed in a depression adjacent to at 5 level two "tit" hexes. The 8-1 leader and a squad with a LMG backed the machine gun nest up and were HIP too. A squad on the "tit" covered the main hill. The 7-0 leader was kept back to rally broken squads on the rear most hill. (A stupid position as I found out. He never did gain freedom of movement.) All squads started in foxholes. Wire was strung along the ridge adjacent to the MMG nest and the squad on the "tit". Two dummy stacks were along my right flank and one back on the left covering an exit.
The Americans advanced over half his forces down or adjacent to the main road with the rest pushing along Darrell's left flank. He cautiously advanced HSs to probe my defenses. His MMGs were on his left flank with his HMG in the center. His mortars were never assembled (much to my relief!).
My HIP squad failed to break the concealment of his cloaked probing HS. I assault moved him back to keep from being easily surrounded. Darrell engaged him in close combat which his HS finally won. But this squad's presence forced him to move slowly or lose his cloaking. My squads generally fired flares whenever possible and let the rear units do the dirty work. The squad on the "tit" remained concealed for several turns mainly to cover the dummy stacks not firing. The 8-1 leader gained freedom of movement by turn #2 or #3. The MMG squad was nearly useless until Darrell finally advanced adjacent to him. Had Darrell avoided the adjacent hexes that unit would have been trapped there unless the 8-1 leader came and got him. My 7-0 never did move because he was placed out of LOS to keep him safe, but I did not realize how worthless that made him. He should have been placed where he had a good LOS and an early freedom of movement.
My basic plan worked to perfection. Two of the three minefields broke American units at critical times. Both the HMG and MMG broke squads in their boresighted hexes. Darrell did not flood enough squads toward the exit edge to get 4 squads off. I never expected to have more squads on level 2 hilltops than the Americans. My plan was to prevent him from exiting the 4 squads, which I did. He only managed to get 1 squad off in time. My squads rallied fairly quickly when they were broken. My 8-1 never broke, which was a tremendous boon for me. Critical squads rallied at critical times despite their DM'ed status. I managed to pin Darrell's leader while breaking the squads which slowed their rallying by a couple of turns minimum. Despite the superior numbers, the American leaders failed to keep their troops moving forward. The NVR increased to 4 hexes early and to 5 hexes towards the end which also was a major help to me. Had the NVR decreased instead, then my chances of winning would have too!
Chuck Payne