The set up shown below was followed exactly for each and every game.  I set things up and took a picture of all 18 positions with a digital camera.  I then darkened the picture with a lot of gamma correction and in some cases added a night sky line.  As discussed in the recce instructions of the game (Phase I - Recce), positions that were spotted by the recce are marked and at the end of the phase, the printed photos are given to the player.  Things like the 37mm guns are "cammed" with lichen and such.

The Germans are placed very near where the attacking players enter the board.  I wanted this so that all hell would break loose the moment the attackers entered, and in all cases, it certainly did!  A proper recce, which would find positions close to the edge, would force players to plan carefully how they were going to attack; on the main page of the competition I stated that infantry resources are very low for the attackers so they would need to figure out how best to combine their arms (infantry, armour, artillery) to minimize their losses.

For a normal attack/defense game (in this one, the moderator is also playing), I would not have the defenders so close to the edge!

Each photo is accompanied by a diagram of the map, indicating where the position is, and a short bit of text, in quotation marks, representing the assessment of the recce patrol.  Any square brackets which follow are my post competition comments.

What inspired me in creating the 18 photos and recce reports that could be garnered by the recce patrol phase, was an incident during an exercise in CENTAG's FALL EX '89, when I was attached to a German panzergrenadier battalion as an umpire in Bavaria.  The Germans (who were "enemy force" against the Americans and Canadians and some other Germans) had positioned themselves along a wood line in front of which an important road for the main advance of the enemy.  The Canadians had sent a recce patrol into the area the night before the main group was to have advanced down the road.

One of the cool things about being umpire staff in any exercise is you get a unique view of what is happening in both sides.  You get the orders the commander of unit you are with gives to his troops.  You confer with other umpires (you're equiped with a speedy jeep - Iltis was the Canadian light vehicle used, a German designed field car) and from hearing what the opposing sides plans are and when patrols are going out, etc, you know within half an hour of when the "battles" you have to adjudicate are going to occur.  It's great fun.

Anyway, the Canadian recce patrol had returned and briefed the battle group commander about what was in the woods.  The battlegroup commander made his plans, assuming there was negligible forces in the woods.  In fact, he was certain the Germans in the wood would not dare open fire for fear of being wiped off the face of the planet by a fairly large force of tanks and mechanized infantry.  What had the Canadian (infantry from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry - PPCLI) reported?  All they could find in the woods was no more than 2 sections (squads) of German infantry, and no armour.

In fact, there was actually a full company of Panzergrenadiers, along with their Marder IFVs (with Milan ATGMs), plus a platoon of Leopard IIs in that woods with me!

As you can probably guess, the battlegroup confidently steaming down the road, broadside to the wood, at first light was wiped out...

"Dug in infantry, looks like Volkstrum squad position"

[Note that the 37mm is visible if you look very, very carefully at the batch of lichen to the right of the picture!  It was indeed very hard to see here and armour from more than one team fell afoul of this gun not realizing there was one there.]

"MG and/or observation post.  SS or Volkstrum, can't tell"

[In fact, this is the SS FO and the independent SS rifle/panzershreck squad]

"medium tank or assault gun"

[For the teams that ot this photo, the experienced players quickly figured that this was a Stug, confirming the relatively obvious vehicles in the foreground of the overhead photo that was part of the attacker's briefing.  In fact, many turned to my display shelves behind them to find a Stug model to confirm their suspicions]

"Tank?"

[This was a more difficult photo]

"Tank or assault gun"

[This was obvious with a bit of examination.  However, only one team's recce patrol got as far behind German lines to spot this to be able to examine this photo.  It is indeed the "large vehicle" at the back of the column in the overhead photo that was part of the attacker's briefing.  I deliberately took this photo with a figure beside it to give the teams a possibility of realizing the relative size of the vehicle.]