Flames of War in El Paso???

The other day I received an e-mail from an Army transplant down in El Paso that was looking for a few games.  Jon just moved here from Tennessee and wanted to practice for this year's Wolfkreig event so I quite happily made the hour drive south and got to roll some dice.  Since he will be running Germans he asked me to play an opposing force, something I've strangely never done in nearly eight years of playing this game.  Tried my hand at a US Airborne list, while Jon ran a 26. Panzergrenadier list he wanted to playtest.  Both lists were from the Italy Compilations.  I had two platoons of Airborne, M18 Hellcats, Dismounted Cavalry, a Weapons Platoon, and Naval Gunfire Support.  Jon's list had two platoons of Armored Panzergrenadiers, a patrol of 222 Armored Cars, a Hummel Battery, a platoon of 8.8cm PaK43s, a platoon of 7.5cm PaK40s, and two platoons of armored flak.  We rolled for the mission and played Pincer, with me defending.

I started with one Airborne platoon in the trees near the creek and the other in Ambush.  Hellcats, Cav, and a few LMGs in reserve.  Jon had two armored Panzergren platoons, Recon and Hummels on board.  

NGFS is nasty!  Turn one I hit a cluster of halftracks, killing three and bailing another.  Two passengers were also destroyed.

On his turn Jon continued to advance, though now more weary of the Navy.  On my turn I deployed my ambush, in and around the church ruin.

On turn three the Hellcats arrive and fire .50 cals, doing no damage at all to all those halftracks.  This never happens when someone else uses them...

I Assault out of the ruin, killing a few stands of the Panzergrens, but one of them is their commander, who is too far away for Mission Tactics.  The 2iC was an earlier victim to naval guns, and this platoon is stuck.

Clearing the woods.

On the other side of the board the Cav has arrived, assaulting into the rear of the other Panzergrenadier platoon, now pinned between them and the Hellcats.

Jon runs his flak up the road, firing on and then assaulting the Cav, pushing them back.

My last reserve arrives, backing up the Cav.  

Fire from bazookas and Hellcats destroy the flak, securing this flank.

A final push from the Airborne destoys the recon, securing the game.  6-1 win, those big US platoons just don't die.

A great game and a fun time down at Sun City Games in El Paso.  Jon and I discussed a few things about his list, such as dropping one of the flak platoons for some smoke and trying to find a way to get those AT guns in the game while attacking.  We plan on getting at least one more game in before he heads to Wolfkreig.