Turns 5–12 · 10–13 May · Relief that arrived too late
SCS #8, “Air Assault on Fortress Holland.” Start at Part 1 — [LINK TO PART 1] — Part 2, turns 2–3 — [LINK TO PART 2] — Part 3, turn 4 — [LINK TO PART 3]. Where we left it: I’d taken the prize I was trying not to want and lost the thing I actually jumped for. Itsbeen that type of game.
Four turns in, holding the Hague and losing the bridges. I ended Part 3 saying the question for turn 5 wasn’t whether I could win a fight, but whether there’d be anything left to relieve with the German Panzers arriving.
This one runs to the end. Turn notes are from the session videos rather than written capture — I was filming rather than writing by this point.
ADMIN NOTE: I import these from a word document. If spacing is whacky, its because I missed ‘tuning it’ for ya. Apologies in advance.
Turn 5 · The night turn, 10–11 May
Certain challenges for the Germans, to say the least. We were surrounded there and all sorts of trouble. Chaps have crossed over on the ferry and we’re in a bit of spot of bother there. Lost the two VPs for here. These Belgians here just at Dordrecht just won’t calm down.
Rotterdam has been super interesting. I got very lucky as the Germans with an attack here that the air went in with a DG and a step loss, which reduced the number significantly enough that we got a four-to-one attack — and we are now in control of the five VP bridge there.
Back in turn three the Dutch just went ballistic and knocked out nearly every single paratroop unit. They had a three-to-one kill ratio, not the other way around. This turn [5] and turn four it’s been a blistering pace of unit eliminations for the Germans.
What Turn 5 bought
I got the bridges back. That is the headline, at great expense, Part 3 ended with me having lost them — and here they are again, five VPs, off a lucky four-to-one that only existed because the air went in first and disrupted the stack.
But look at what it cost to be in a position to take them. Surrounded at Dordrecht. Two VPs already handed over. The ferry crossing gone. Dutch had a three-to-one kill ratio against me in turn three. I have spent turns four and five clawing that back, and the clawing is what the whole middle of this game turns out to be. A war of attrition.
Turns 8–9 · Losing the airfield
At the end of turn eight the Dutch decided to get after it. They DG’d two hexes, eliminating an entire company of the 22nd Luftlande, as well as the engineers.
Had to retreat two, and lost another step because of the retreat. So a total of three steps — and that’s the airfield.
This is not going well for the Germans whatsoever.
Although over here they’re beginning to clear Rotterdam. They’re having some issues with keeping the road open, because that’s VPs per number of hexes. It’s a night turn, so no air, which gave the Dutch a reprieve from having the snot bombed out of them.
Still no German land-based reinforcements. We’ve delivered all of the green dudes that can fly in. So now we’re going to have to fly in our supply heads — and it’s going to be very expensive, because now there are enemy units adjacent to the airfield.
What Turn 8 cost
Ypenburg. The eight-VP airfield, the one I said in Part 1 I was deliberately not going to chase, the one I then took anyway, and the one Part 3 called “the success story.”
Gone in a single Dutch turn, to two disruptions and a forced retreat that cost a third step on the way out.
Everything that can fly in has flown in. From turn nine onward the German airborne force is a fixed quantity. The only things still arriving are supply heads, and they now have to land next to enemy units and worse to come.
Turn 10 · The barrage, and the arithmetic of air
We’re deep in it. The French have arrived. The swingy part of this game is the air — if you’re not getting air as the Germans, then you’re in a world of hurt. We rolled a three this time, so I only get two attacks for the turn.
We tried to bring in air supply heads. Fine here — survived the AA and the die roll for the landing. But here was a complete show, and these guys are aborted. That’s a first for me. That was rough.
I’m starting to use the Dutch artillery much more effectively. Now I’ve got them in range I can keep this airfield under a standing barrage, and that will give the DRM on the Junkers trying to land. The Junkers — we have destroyed now upwards of I think 24.
The only reason I’m keeping going is that I know how many attacks the German units can run in a turn, and if it goes well it will change the dynamic significantly. So it’s worth grinding through. Nine turns is a long time to be hanging by a thread — that’s two full days in the real world.
[IMAGES — turn5-6-7 / turn8 folders]
The Ju-52 spiral closes
Part 3 flagged the transport count at 10 and called it the number the Dutch should watch, because it scores twice — once when the aircraft dies, and again when it isn’t there to fly the next wave.
It is now 24, and the Dutch have found the multiplier. A standing artillery barrage on the airfield doesn’t kill anything directly; it puts a modifier on every landing roll. So each turn I try to bring something in, I lose more transports, which raises the Dutch VP total and thins what I can still deliver to an airfield that is under barrage, adjacent to enemy units, and no longer even mine.
That is not a setback. That is a system feeding on itself, and it took the Dutch until turn ten to find it, I’m slow like that…Which really would mean that the Germans could or should have been out of supply earlier and in even MORE trouble than they are headed for. Much sooner for sure.
Turn 11 · 9th Panzer arrives
The motorcycle units from 9th Panzer overrun the infantry sitting behind this bridge. Got artillery and lost a step, but they were able to attack across and clean that up, then move here, overrun the artillery in the buildings, and carry on their merry way. Meanwhile 11th and 33rd have made their presence felt.
There are very few units coming on the board at Valkenburg for the Dutch. They’re about done. Some Brits coming in from section E somewhere. Lots more Germans to come on board yet.
But the bad news is the Germans have lost this airfield. They’re all out of supply. Life is miserable over there.
I should be able to get across this river somewhere, and then make a run at that airfield — that will give us maybe two turns to try and recapture it and pick up the eight VPs. If we can’t do that, I think it swings the victory conditions more in favour of the Dutch.
Turn 12 · 13 May, and calling it
It’s the top of the 12th turn, 8:00 a.m. 13 May, and I think we’re going to call it as a minor German victory.
The Dutch have elected to abandon Dordrecht, and are beginning to roadblock the ability for the German armour or speed bump them from getting to Ypenburg and the Capital. Which is completely inundated with Dutch units. All my guys there are obviously out of supply. They’ve built a defensive line along the canal to thwart any last-minute push by the German armour.
With just three moves to go I don’t see it feasible for much to change, other than more German units dying which would pick up another one or two VPs for the Dutch, but wouldn’t change the net outcome.
It’s 15 VPs. We would have a substantial victory if we kept Ypenburg. Unfortunately that is not going to be the case. There’s no way I can recapture it in three turns.
What the whole thing cost
Final: minor German victory. 15 VPs. Ypenburg lost, and with it the difference between minor and substantial.
The historical paratroopers were rescued by a clock: everything they did between 10 and 12 May was staying alive long enough for someone else to arrive.
My clock ran the same way and arrived at the wrong answer. 9th Panzer came. The motorcycle troops overran the bridge defence, the 11th and 33rd turned up, the Dutch ran out of reinforcements at Valkenburg. On paper the relief worked exactly as history says it should.
And it was too late, because by the time it arrived there was nothing left to relieve!!! The airfield had been gone for three turns.
The men holding it were out of supply.
Then the Dutch had stopped trying to beat the armour and started simply standing in front of it abandoning Dordrecht, giving up a town to buy a roadblock, building a line along a canal not to win but to run out the clock. Stick a unit behind the one who bled out, to slow the exploit move. Game over.
That is the clearest thing this game did to me. The Dutch player’s winning move at the end was to stop fighting. LOL.. Sigh. Once again. SCS is fun, but ahistorical as all get out.
The History Check:
The real relief made it. Osprey states it flatly — German success “depended on a single, major factor: 9th Panzer Division.” The Gennep coup let the armour roll, and by late Sunday 12 May the tanks reached the Moerdijk bridges and the land line to the paratroopers was secure. On 14 May Student shook hands with von Hubicki. Osprey’s verdict: “It was a close-run thing.”
Mine reached the bridge and could not reach the airfield. Same division, same road, one turn’s worth of difference, and it decides minor against substantial.
What happened next historically is the part the game does not model and probably should not. With the Dutch still holding and Hitler impatient, an ultimatum went to Winkelman on 14 May. Surrender talks were already underway with Schmidt — but the bombers were airborne under radio silence. Thirty-six aircraft from the south-east saw the recall flares and turned away. Fifty-six He 111s from the east dropped their full load, some 97 tons, on central Rotterdam, killing about 900 people.
Student himself was struck down in the city, his skull opened by a falling beam at his command post and operated on by a Dutch surgeon. The general capitulation was signed on 15 May by Winkelman and von Küchler, at Student’s own headquarters in a schoolhouse at Rijsoord.
So the campaign that my table decided on a canal line outside Ypenburg was, in fact, decided by a bombing raid that the men negotiating the surrender could not call back.
On the game
Fifteen turns, twelve played, and I called it three moves early because the arithmetic had stopped moving, Even with a 4:1 kill ratio the German armour was going to be stuck. The Dutch just feed men into the grist mill, and the Germans ate their fill, then the Dutch punched back hard. I’d say way above their weight.
The thing I keep returning to is the air roll. Two air attacks on a three. Everything the German player wants to do — disrupt a stack before assaulting it, protect a landing, clear the AA — comes out of that one number, and when it comes up short the turn is simply worth less. That is a real design choice and I think it is an odd one for the subject, because the whole German plan was a bet on air. But it means some turns you are not playing a wargame so much as waiting out a bad roll. Seems like a fake handicap to me.
And the Dutch order of battle just keeps coming. “I don’t know where all these units came from. I’m going to have to go do some homework on this.” Dozens of units, bicycle troops rolling up turn after turn, companies that are ridiculously strong for what they are. It is not wrong, I checked the record says the Dutch fought harder than the myth allows, and that is half of why I wanted to play thisbut from the German chair it produces a specific, grinding feeling that nine turns of hanging by a thread does not improve.
Would I play it again? Yes. But opposed for fun. Not for history.
My review on this SCS TITLE : https://bigboardgaming.com/fallschirmjager-scs-review/