The following points of information should be based on to the players as the game unfolds, either if the players ask questions, or as the situation warrants it.
1. The table should be at least 51 by 81. The Warche River can not be crossed except at the four bridges -- remember that the bridge across the Warche in the center of town can only take light trucks and jeeps. The stream can be crossed at double movement costs for personnel stands and tracked vehicles, while trucks pay quadruple costs. The stream runs under the embankment in a culvert, and is impassible to all stands.
2. Night lasts till 0600, with the visibility limited to 411 due to the snowfall and moonlight. At 0600 visibility becomes 15", and each turn till 0700 the visibility will increase by 15" until the normal visibility of 6011 is reached.
3. The railroad embankment can not be crossed by wheeled vehicles, though tracked vehicles can cross it at quarter speed. Units which take up positions next to the tracks are considered emplaced when resolving the effect of small arms fire and direct fire HE from across the tracks. The embankment does block line of sight.
4. American troops which fail morale by 7 or more do not surrender - rather treat the result as being a Forced Back -2. (If there was any one place where news of the Malmedy Massacre was truely believed, it was Malmedy.)
5. Any German unit which is hit by American 105mm Fire from the 118th Field Artillery Battalion must check morale at a -1 Modifier regardless of whether or not the stand is actually hit. (At Malmedy the 118th used proximity fused 105mm rounds for one of the first times in the ETO, and put on a display of airburst shellfire that unnerved the Germans.)
6. Artillery rounds illuminate an area twice the size of their burst size. They are placed as smoke rounds at the start of the turn. Enemy units which are between the illuminated area and friendly units can be spotted at a -3 modifier instead of the usually -6.
7. Flares are illuminated at the end of the German Movement phase, and remain illuminated unit the end of the following movement phase. They do NOT go off when they are crossed, only at the end of movement. Again, as with illumination rounds, units between an illuminated area and a spotting unit use a -3 modifier.
Battle of Malmedy December 21, 1944
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© Copyright 1990 by Greg Novak.
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