Sunday 11 September 2022

Assault on Hofheim...

Wittenberg forces make an improvised assault on the Walled town of Hofheim....

--oXo--

Positions

Hofheim, early in the morning just as the sun was rising ...


Out of the morning mist the Wittenberg assault force head for the east gate, with a petard team...
An assault force approaches the north gate, men with axes and scaling ladders...
and a smaller force approach the west gate, with rope & grappling hooks ...

Assault on the West gate 

First move was made on the West gate, men with grappling hooks moved up towards the wall..
Both rope teams got a good hold with the grapple, two men got up onto the wall on one side ...
But couldn't get into the gate tower, on the other side they were now opposed by the gate guards..
Eventually one man got up but couldn't make much progress to clear the wall of defenders..
the attempt on the West Gate had stalled ..

Assault on the North Gate

The teams with the ladders approached the gate and got the ladders up; the gate guard was on the walls...

One ladder was knocked down and broken, another ladder pushed back, one man got up onto the wall and got stuck into a fight with a guard...
as the men fought on the wall, some of the garrison reached the wall from the adjacent tower...
Although the second ladder was up, the attackers only had a toe hold on the wall, men went at the gate with axes but to little effect...
the attempt on the North Gate had stalled ..

Assault on the East Gate

Once the attacks were in on the other gates, the petard team and supporting troops moved up to the East Gate....the gate guard raised the alarm, men scrambled to get ready in the towers and one ran to alert the garrison... 
With covering fire, the petard was attached to the gate
The petard fuse was lit, but went off too quickly killing most of the petard team, but blowing the gate
After the dust settled, the attackers charged in un-opposed....
With half the garrison at the other two gates, the rest moved towards the East gate.....
More attacking troops moved up to the gate ....
The garrison charged into the attackers, if they only could hold them and push them back 
But no, they were pushed back down the main street, still there was a chance ...
There were too many attackers and the defenders were pushed back towards the church...
As they were pushed back into the square, some of the attacker moved to the North gate clearing defending troops away and pushing them back down the street...
The gates were opened and more attacking troops came in ...

The garrison fought on bravely in front of the church....
Beset on all side they surrendered.. 

Hofheim was now in Wittenberg hands.

--oXo--

Notes:
1.  The scenario is based on Wargaming in History Vol 11, SYW Small Actions - Hadik's Raid on Pirna; using the special game mechanics included in the scenario definition.
2.  Attacking walls with ladders and grappling hooks, can work if all goes well. But not in this case.
3.  The petard team did the job, if the gate had held then the whole attack would have failed.


3 comments:

RogerB said...

Beautiful display. I get excited every time I see a new posting of this saga is up. Great work with this!

Tiberian general said...

Fantastic stuff Allan.

Willz.

Ray Rousell said...

A great looking game!