Six Came Back

The big push to break out of the Anzio beachhead was on, and Darby’s Rangers were to lead the way for the Americans. At 0100, the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions, with the 4th following, infiltrated the mobile defensive positions of the Hermann Goering Division near Cisterna. …

1944-01-30

G05

The big push to break out of the Anzio beachhead was on, and Darby’s Rangers were to lead the way for the Americans. At 0100, the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions, with the 4th following, infiltrated the mobile defensive positions of the Hermann Goering Division near Cisterna. Behind them, the Allied big guns opened fire, heralding the offensive. Charging forward without heavy equipment, the Rangers swept through a German camp, killing all. The town was only a few hundred yards ahead, but the Rangers were in open fields with dawn just breaking. And the Germans were now awake. Reacting quickly, flak wagons, SP guns and armor from the 26th Panzer were rushed forward. The Ranger fought on, hoping for reinforcements that could not arrive. Only six out of 767 officer and men made it out alive.

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.

American

German

Scenario Type = Standard