Turns 2 and 3 · 10 May, morning into afternoon
SCS #8, “Air Assault on Fortress Holland.” Part 1 is here: [LINK TO PART 1] — the short version: the Germans went vertical to grab the western bridges before the Dutch could blow them, the game puts its biggest prize right on top of the historical massacre at the Hague airfields, and I dropped in trying to take the bridges without repeating 1940. Turn 1 ended with Moerdijk cleared, Waalhaven surrounded but not fallen, the AA around Ypenburg knocked out — and 14 Dutch steps gone against three Ju-52 steps and two troop steps of my own.
AI generated summary of my prior part 1.
Now the bill starts coming due.
Turn 2: Forcing the Issue
German leadership realizes that it needs to raise its risk profile or be nit picked apart in small scale engagements at 1:1 and 2:1. Where the Dutch can afford a step loss the para platoons cannot. So they force the issue.
That asymmetry is the whole thing, the German player must quickly appreciate to cost benefit. Most Dutch units carry two steps: hit one and something is still sitting in the hex, still shooting, still making me pay to come back. The paratroops don’t have that luxury. Why? Because a step loss is combat ineffective i.e. eliminated. Gone. A step loss off a para platoon is a platoon gone. Add village hexes defending at ×3 and the arithmetic gets ugly fast for the attacker. Grinding away at 1:1 and 2:1 is how the airborne arm dies of a thousand cuts while the Dutch are still standing there. So the choice is to stop treading water and start swinging.
Attacking all around Gravenaal, and Waalhaven at 2:1 and 3:1 eliminating steps as fast as they can, the Germans go for broker ready to absorb losses where a dread A1 pops ip on low rolls. The benefit to this strategy is as a FJ unit, overrunning, we get a +2 drm, reducing the A1 risk, but not eliminating it. The 16th also attack, and while its tough house to house fighting they inflict 2 steps for 1 step loss. 2nd FJR northwest of Delft attack at 5:1! FJ’s in Ypenburg force smack downs wiping three more steps off the map.
The Dutch airforce attempts in its phase to suppress the landing forces at Ypenburg. Which might allow a strong counter attack. The Dutch pilots are however no match for the exerptise of the Germans.
The Dutch counter attack in Dordrecht eliminating another platoon, but not clearing the town.
By the end of the morning turn, its been a mixed bag for the Germans and Dutch. 3:1 loss ratio is still good, but the German losses are mounting. Ypenburg is under threat.
Turn 3: The Afternoon Everything Slips
With a significant air advantage [I rolled a 10], the Luftwaffen support bridge clearing efforts around Moerdijk.
Hexes cleared of enemy units and eZOCs will count toward VP’s at game end, starting from this edge of the board. So the Dutch have to be rooted out.
The Luftwaffe pummel Rotterdam & Waalhaven AA, and elements in Zvenbergschen.
Air eliminates four steps. 12 units land into each of the Airfields, Ju-52 losses mount.
1FJ secure the BPM Oil facilities.
25% of landing are wrecks, troop landings are scattered. But quick co-ordination by leadership build a perimeter.
Tough fighting ensues in Rotterdam on both sides of the river. The loss ratio stays at 3:1 for the German turn. But is radically reversed in the Dutch action phases where they build a 2:1 loss ratio, killing for platoons of paras, in exchange for just two step losses. This drops the loss rate down to about parity. Not a good result for the Germans. This early in the fight.
The Dutch player [me] has seen the proverbial light, and also appreciates that it can absorb punishment at a much higher rate. So they hit the Germans hard.
Dutch attacks across the board incrementally weaken the German effort. A thin green line holds Ypenburg, the Germans are splintered in Rotterdam and surrounded. While in the South the bridges fall back under Dutch control.
Start of Turn 4 VP total sits at Dutch 3, Germans 15.
The History Check: 10 May, Afternoon
Here’s what makes this turn uncomfortable. The game just did to me, more or less on schedule, what the afternoon of 10 May did to the real thing, the actual historical run of things.
The German plan depended on a 48-hour clock: take the bridges from the air, then survive on top of them until 9th Panzer arrived overland. Everything in the first day was a holding action against that stopwatch. And on the actual 10th of May, the morning belonged to the Germans, who swiftly secure Moerdijk taken by a stick that dropped onto the bridge at 6:40 a.m. and cut the demolition charges before the Dutch could fire them; Waalhaven fallen; 120 men set down on the Maas beside the Willems Bridge by floatplane.
Then the afternoon arrived. At the Hague airfields the drops had scattered, follow-on Ju 52s bogged in soft ground and blocked their own runways, and Dutch grenadiers spent the day clawing Valkenburg, Ockenburg and Ypenburg back. By evening the Germans were reporting the Hague landings “largely failed.” The final bill in that sector alone: over 200 transports destroyed and around 2,500 casualties, 1,600 of them prisoners.
Look at what my turn 3 actually says. Twenty-five percent of the landings are wrecks. Troop landings scattered. Ju-52 losses mounting. A thin green line at Ypenburg. It’s the same afternoon. Now the funny thing is SCS is NOT know for its historical verisimilitude, so this is kinda impressive. Or, Im playing horribly. LOL.
And on Ijsselmonde the historical airhead was ground down by exactly the kind of piecemeal counterattacking the Dutch are doing to me here at Dordrecht, half-trained Dutch recruits wiped out an entire elite paratroop company. My Dutch counterattack into Dordrecht killed a platoon and didn’t clear the town. Same shape, smaller scale. Nice one.
The mechanism underneath both is the one the whole airborne arm learned the hard way and then had to learn again over Crete: paratroopers are deadly on landing and desperately fragile in the hour right after. That window is where our desired loss ratio can flip . Mine flipped to parity in the Dutch action phases of turn 3. That’s the design telling the actual story. A rare thing for an SCS title.
Where I’m ahead of history: my Ypenburg is still standing. The real one was gone by evening. Whether that’s skill or a good die roll on a 10 for air support is a question I’d rather not examine too closely. 😊 #rolldice!!
The VP total says Germans 15, Dutch 3 and that number is a liar. I’m winning on points while my army comes apart, splintered in Rotterdam, surrounded, and watching the southern bridges go back to the Dutch. The bridges were the entire reason to jump. Turn 4 next.
Part 3 — Turn 4, 10 May PM — [LINK TO PART 3]
Quick Narrative, but from the Dutch perpsective