Battle of Caspe AAR Part 5

So here I am posting in February the AAR of a game we wrapped up on July 6. 

We began the 5th day of battle over the small Aragon town of Caspe. In the preceding four days and 15 Rounds, the workers militia of the CNT-FAI bloodied themselves trying to liberate the town with little to show for it. The Nationalist had caused severe casualties, suffered few themselves, and held their positions firmly. At the end of the forth day, however, effective artillery and dogged infantry action had destroyed most of the objective buildings and brought the anarchist forces into rifle range of the church - the nationalists' headquarters.

In the closing minutes of day 4, I had quietly gathered my remaining forces from their far-flung positions and massed for a last-ditch counter-attack.

The first roll of Game 5 came out for the nationalists, and I shelled the anarchist columns with my 75mm cannons.

The very first fascists shell landed near the south flank, hitting one of the immobilized tiznaos and killing a machine gun crew.

The next shell damaged the train. 

This was not a big deal, as the anarchist workers continued to repair their train as it inched along. I guess that was a perk of having your army made up mostly of industrial workers' unions.

I lobbed two more shells at the stream of revolutionaries rushing up the central road into town.

When the volley subsided, 17 workers lay dead.

Now, the anarchists fired three cannons at the fascists. Nationalist targeting of anarchist artillery had knocked a few cannons and crew out in the previous days. 

Their first shell fell short of the church, causing some structural damage to an already-battered section of town.

The Republican side aimed their remaining cannons. 

The next shell pinned a couple soldiers and caused more damage to important buildings. A Republican crew set its sights on the factory by the train tracks occupied by many Assault Guards and Falangists.

The shell fell short, causing damage to both the factory and the already-burning shack.

Next, the movement phase commenced. It was time the desperate charge I had anxiously awaited for around 6 months.

For those six months, a handful of small squads of rebel soldiers had waited, in the corners and edges of damaged buildings, in small, dark crevices in the table, beneath little puffs of cotton-ball smoke.

I rolled the die and brought them quickly to the front doors of the large gray building. This was the ruins of Objective B, a strategic building which the anarchists had conquered in the previous day's fighting, from which they could fire down on the courtyard behind the church.

Using the melee mechanism of our rules, I tried to breach the door. I rolled high enough to break through. The five anarchists on the ground floor inside fired at the soldiers, killing the first three who stepped through the door.

The fascists rushed in, however, killing four of the workers and forcing the fifth to flee outside.

The skirmish played out, with both sides trading shots and grenades. Workers caused some casualties, but they certainly took worse than they gave.

The nationalist push carried them all the way to the upper floors of the building. Objective B was now back in the hands of the Spanish Peninsular Army. What had taken the CNT-FAI 4 days of battle and hundreds of fighters to conquer, the Nationalists had retaken in a single push.

While the Nationalists were counterattacking in the center, in the North they were preparing to withdraw. The factory was initially a good, strong position, but it had been badly damaged by the shelling. There were other good defensive positions behind it, and I hoped my opponents would continue to send half of their forces toward this north approach to the town. My defenses were much weaker on the southern approach, as can be seen by the militia's progress there.

I brought two trucks up to the back of factory to facilitate a quick withdrawal.

During their movement turn, the anarchists tried to advance on their left flank. Their vanguard push into the outskirts, but fascists had overwatch and kill the first two workers with SMG and rifle fire.

The anarchists continue to move their units forward, bringing a HMG crew up in a truck.

They did not see the fascist with a grenade hiding in the burning farmhouse.



With a perfect throw, the grenade obliterated the machine gun and crew and badly damaged the truck.

The Nationalists held their positions around the yellow house, keeping the anarchists from entering the town from the south, which would threaten the artillery positions.

The Nationalist counterattack on the southern end of the line of contact had blunted the anarchists' most-potent push.

Still in their movement phase, the CNT-FAI tried to retake the gray building south of the church.

As CNT-FAI reinforcements raced to reach the front line, two more fell to fascist bullets.

The movement phase came to a close. With the front-line such a confused mess after last round's melee action, there was a lot riding on the roll for initiative during the coming Skirmish Phase.

I won the roll again, and the soldiers gunned down two CNT-FAI riflemen. A fascist officer in the gray building also shot down an anarchist bomb-thrower lining up to grenade the building.

While I had landed some hits, most of my soldiers missed their targets. There were still many anarchists in the skirmish zone, who returned fire and killed the officer and two other soldiers.

Further north, the anarchist reinforcements joined their comrades in the graveyard and the orchards beneath the church.

Soldiers fired on them from the factory, and a Carlist with a HMG fired from the church roof, but they all missed their shots.

Round 17 of this epic battle commenced with the Nationalists winning the Round Initiative roll yet again. I fired half of my cannons at the central zone, striking multiple anarchists advancing up the middle street. 

One shell struck an already-damaged tiznao.

The anarchists were growing particularly strong on the North flank, where reinforcements used the train as slow rolling cover.

I shelled the anarchist right flank, hitting the train again.

The shell did minimal damage to the locomotive, and the workers militia just continued to fix it up each turn. Overall it was not a very effective volley. 

Next, the CNT-FAI's cannons opened fire on Caspe.

The Republican artillery fired on the fascist center, managing to kill three troops holding in cover behind the buildings. 

The anarchists also shelled the factory building, which the Nationalists had yet to abandon.

The Movement Phase began. I had little to do, but my friends tried again to advance across the board.

 Again, they ran into deadly overwatch.

The nationalist volley of rifles and MGs from the church sector killed three anarchists in the orchards, routing them to the graveyard.

7 nationalists killed 3 republicans trying to advance to take the concrete factory on the fascist left flank.

On the south side of the board, the fascist hiding in the burnt out farm building threw a grenade at the workers crossing his window.

The grenade exploded in the back of the truck, causing severe damage.

For my movement phase, I removed most of the Civil Guards and Peninsular soldiers from the factory, leaving just two falangists behind to slow down the anarchists.

They withdrew on trucks to the buildings around the train station just up the hill.

On the south side of the table, the Nationalists held on to the burnt down farm house.

Most of their numbers, however, had been pulled back toward headquarters. Only a few soldiers remained in advanced positions on the south part of Caspe.

The anarchists advanced at them from the fields, and during the skirmish round they managed to kill a few fascists in that sector.

The anarchists lobbed a well-placed grenade to kill soldiers in cover.

While reinforcements straggled through the carnage into the agricultural fields, the nationalist line continued to hold.

In the north, the CNT-FAI column pressed forward with armored vehicles, machine-guns, and a train. One of the two fascists left behind to cover the retreat of their compatriots threw a grenade at the attackers.

The blast killed three workers, including a delegate, and pinned others.

Machine gun fire from the buildings above the cliff pinned other workers taking cover in the graveyard.

Along the northern edge, the workers continued to repair the train, moving slowly and steadily toward the station.

But they would never arrive. After 17 rounds and hundreds of casualties, my friends decided to give up the assault on Caspe. The Fascists still controlled the church and Objective B (what was left standing of it anyway).

The day's fight had mostly turned out to be a stalemate, with little ground gained. In fact, the Nationalists had recaptured ground while causing severe casualties against the attackers.

And while the CNT-FAI column still had decent numbers along the north flank where they moved with the train, the fascists' defensive positions were especially good there. In the center and south of the battlefield, the workers militia numbers had been reduced to the point of making any renewed attacks futile.

The anarchists could have decided to pull out of the city and continue their bombardment from a safe distance until the church and surrounded buildings crumbled to the ground. In this way, they may have won a long battle of attrition, though it would probably take a few more game days. The nationalists also had a strong artillery section, however, and had some success targeting the Republican artillery positions. In the end, my friends had lost the will to fight. This battle, anyway. 

While I enjoy winning, it was unfortunate to see the fascists victorious. Even worse, fascists seem to be winning across the world right now, in conflicts with much higher stakes then our little campaign game.

 

Join us next time as we try out the next scenario, Scenario 4: The First Battle of Sietamo.