Surrender Or Die

Spearheading the 3rd Division’s breakout from the Anzio beachhead were the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions. They were to stage a commando-like raid on the little town of Cisterna di Littoria by passing undetected through what was believed to be the thinly spread front line of the Hermann Goring …

1944-01-30

OA16

BB10

Spearheading the 3rd Division’s breakout from the Anzio beachhead were the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions. They were to stage a commando-like raid on the little town of Cisterna di Littoria by passing undetected through what was believed to be the thinly spread front line of the Hermann Goring Division. The Rangers carried no heavy equipment other than bazooka and mortars, with extra shells for the former and only three shells apiece for the latter. Each Ranger carried and extra bandolier of ammunition, hand grenades, and British “sticky” anti-tank grenades. They made their advance along the Pantano Irrigation Ditch at night but when they left the cover of the ditch to charge to the outlying buildings of the town, German fire exploded around them from all sides. An ambush had been set and the town had also been reinforced by the 26th Panzer Division. By noon, the two Ranger battalions were nearly destroyed, with the remnants surrounded. A handful of men which refused to give up made a stand in a farmhouse.

Cisterna di Littoria, Italy

The Winter Line was a series of German and Italian military fortifications in Italy, constructed during World War II by Organisation Todt and commanded by Albert Kesselring. The series of 3 lines was designed to defend a western section of Italy, focused around the town of Monte Cassino, through which ran the important Highway 6 which led uninterrupted to Rome. The primary Gustav Line ran across Italy from just north of where the Garigliano River flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west, through the Apennine Mountains to the mouth of the Sangro River on the Adriatic coast in the east. The two subsidiary lines, the Bernhardt Line and the Hitler Line ran much shorter distances from the Tyrrehnian sea to just North East of Cassino where they would merge into the Gustav Line. Relative to the Gustav Line, the Hitler Line stood to the North-West and the Bernhardt Line to the South-East of the primary defenses.

German

American

Scenario Type = Standard