Survival of the US 5th ID (M)

[Legbreaker]

Anything is possible.

Re the artillery, I'm thinking that the ready supply of ammo was expended during the battle leaving very little for defensive fires should there have bene a counterattack. In that light firing just to create a screen at targets that may, or may not be there or even be a threat seems a little wasteful.

There may well have been the manpower available to conduct a cursory scrounging of the wreckage. I don't believe though that enough would have been recovered quickly enough to resupply the US units in the area.

Given the scenario parameters, it seems likely that the writers considered any PC groups that escaped to have probably come from one of these units . Taking a bit of a leap, it seems probable the horseborne cavalry were effectively wiped out, given that animals aren't an option when equiping beginning characters with transportation.

[Panther Al]

Actually, Horse are an option. Instead of rolling 1D6 per three characters for a vehicle, you get 1D6 horses/mules. I was seriously thinking of going with that in my game. (Page 26, V2.2 BYB)

[Abbott Shaull]

You know that is one thing that hasn't been discussed much that I can remember. Sure month or so well forward of the IX Corps and limited amount of round for the AFV's. The battles with various units during the break through and pursue Polish and then major battle would of drawn down the number of main gun rounds for the tank, but I don't recall much about like Mortar and Artillery rounds.

Again the 5th could carry so much of everything and they already been in running battle more less for at least the last month. Could it be that part of the reason why the 5th was so easy to pick off was due to the fact that ammo for Mortars and Artillery as well the MRLS units of the Battery were at running short and no one was able to get the calls of fires they would of liked.

So throw this into the mix...