Command Ops: St Oedenrode

This is a battalion sized historical scenario focusing on the St Oedenrode Road Bridge and the attempt by the 502 PIR to secure it on the first day of Operation Market Garden. This specific battle is featured in the Highway to the Reich expansion pack for Battles from the Bulge as “Screaming Eagles over Hell’s Highway”, a large grand campaign scenario that stretches almost ten days. This “extract” is quite condensed as it lasts only 1 ½ days.

The scenario is designed to be played as the Allies only (this is primarily because the Axis forces consist only of static garrison units guarding a primed bridge without any reinforcements that a human player could effectively control). The Allied player controls 1st Battalion, 502 PIR, 101st Airborne Division. There are no artillery or engineering assets available; however there are some limited airstrikes. The map is the stock Eindhoven file that shipped with the game, so the only thing to be downloaded is the scenario file itself which is available here.

The initial deployment of 1st Battalion immediately west of Sonsche Heide: these 586 men are all that are available during the scenario as there are no reinforcements. On several test runs this force is almost adequate enough to remove the Axis forces from the objective and secure the bridge before it can be blown (even without engineers). On one test I managed to have the Axis forces surrender prior to the end of the scenario.

The German positions on September 17, 1944: on several further attempts at this scenario I have found that it is best to assault the road bridge itself (offset from both the Allies and Axis objective areas) so as to un-prime the bridge, then attack 2.ODE, the static Heavy Flak Garrison on the north bank of the Dommel River.

Once that unit is destroyed (or surrenders), I shift focus to 1.ODE, the Light Flak Battery on the south bank so as to run them out of the objective area. As this Victory Point location is all Occupation, 1st Battalion must have them out of the area in order to start accumulating VP's.

Download Scenario File

11/01/13: Here is a surrender I achieved when attacking the left flank of the German position.

11/01/13: Pushing 1.ODE off of the objective to accumulate those Occupation Victory Points for the Decisive Victory outcome in another test.