Dieulouard Bridgehead - The Matrix Games version of West Front

Dieulouard, 20km NNW of Nancy, France: [Best played as Axis] The successful American crossings of the Moselle River north and south of Nancy in the first weeks of September, 1944 were just preliminaries for the planned encirclement of the French metropolis. To the north of the city at Dieulouard, the assault battalions of the US 80th Infantry Division crossed the river on the 11th, striking a thinly manned sector of the German First Army. Lacking local reserves, the enemy was unable to launch a swift counterattack. Instead, the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division was forced to grant the American bridgehead an entire day while an attack force was mustered, giving the GIs precious time to dig in among the hills and along eastern bank of the slow moving river. The reprieve came to an abrupt end before dawn on the 13th when German infantry and assault guns of the 29th Motorized Grenadier Regiment smashed into the outposts of the 2nd/318 Infantry Regiment near Loisy. Confusion was rampant in the darkness of the bridgehead as German commanders pushed their troops through the determined defense in an attempt to reach the bridge sites and cut off the American units to the south.