The second battle of Matt’s Battle of the Bulge campaign was fought using Battleground WWII rules. John Burke, Eric Schlenger, Tom Gallagher, and Charlie Keller commanded their German platoon, supplemented by three Stugs, some mortars, and a squad of infantry. Their mission was to overrun a battery of 105mm howitzers run by Matt and Kirby Stiltner. The howitzers were defended by a rag tag group of cooks, clerks, and headquarters staff, bolsered by a pair of .50 cal machine guns.

As the Germans advanced through the snow they were harassed by the artillery which inflicted a few casualties and scattered the Germans until they had advanced inside the minimum range of the funs. The first firefight developed when a German half-track encountered some Americans dug in on the back edge of a forest. The Germans narrowly averted disaster when a rifle grenade bounded off the edge of the crew compartment of a loaded half-track.

As the Germans tried to dig the Americans out of their holes the rest of the Germans were attracted to the area like moths to a flame. One GI attempted to surrender and was squashed by a Stug. The incensed Americans vowed to fight to the death.

While this melee continued one Stug remembered the objective and ran for a gap between two hills. It plowed through a line of barbed wire, survived two AP penetrations from one of the howitzers, bounced multiple bazooka rounds off its skirts, was riddled with .50 caliber bullets on both flanks, and survived five separate close assaults by infantry. The Stug was slowed to a crawl, but the Americans had throw everything they had at the beast and failed to stop it. In the end the Germans destroyed one howitzer and captured the other. This was a marginal German victory.