Introduction
Combat for the Arnhem Bridge
By
Dinamika Energitama Nusantara
Todd Canto
19 Apr 2014
The Close Combat series is about air assault, armor, and infantry fighting in the European theatre during World War 2. I’ve been wanting to write a Close Combat campaign for awhile, but I wanted to do more than just historical recreations, I wanted a different kind of Close Combat.
The plot came to me one day about a week or two ago while I was at work. I was having lunch with a friend, and we were talking about the ridiculousness of the Parliament of World’s in London, the big meeting of the world’s top world leaders. “Imagine if a bunch of world leaders got together and said, ‘Hey let’s build a bridge in the middle of this river so we can get some equipment across to go fight these Nazis?’” he said. “This is insane!”
I thought about it for a while and my mind wandered to WWII. If the UK can’t hold the Germans in Belgium then they’re going to need something in there to hold them off. So I got out my copy of the Close Combat rulebook and started looking at the Operation Market Garden scenario. The battle was fought on October 17th-18th, 1944. The objective was to capture the Arnhem Bridge and hold it for three days. The Germans had sent in an airborne and armored force from the 6th Parachute Regiment, the 76th and 504th Parachute regiments, the 1st and 5th SS Panzer regiments, and the Dutch police and fire brigade to blow up the bridge.
Our mission was to hold the Arnhem Bridge for three days until the US army could get in there. This is where the rules of Close Combat really make their mark. You don’t have to worry about all the minutiae that’s part of a larger scale campaign like 6th Sea or more recently the Red Orchestra.
With Close Combat you don’t have to worry about logistics. You can just load up your units and drop them where they need to go. You don’t have to worry about supply lines. They’re taken care of for you. All you need to do is hit the enemy hard enough to win the battle.
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