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The
first I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum! game was quite well received and
the group was eager for another action.
One of the players requested more tanks, so I cast about a bit for
another action and settled on the the French counterattack by SOMUA S-35s
of the 3rd Light Mechanized Division against
the panzers of the 3rd Panzer
Division on the morning of May 13, 1940.
The Panzers had pushed the French Dragoons out of Orp in the
morning and were reported to be moving to Jandrain when the French
launched the attack by the 1st Cuirassiers.
Google
Earth is one of my favourite tools for generating realistic looking
battlefields when good period maps are not available, especially for
Europe, where many of the features will remain as they have for
generations: the towns and roads get bigger, but much of the rest seems to
be pretty much the same. For
this game I zoomed in on the region between Orp and Jandrain and we used
that as the basis for our table. The
terrain in this area is largely flat farm land, and
main feature of the terrain was the long line of woods surrounding
a stream that ran to the east of the main north-south road between the
towns.
The French forces consisted of 3 understrength platoons of SOMUA S-35
tanks and a platoon of motorcycle reconnaissance troops, led by the
Company Captain, and two additional Big Men: a Lieutenant in one tank
platoon, and a Sergeant in the motorcycle troops.
Two Blinds started deployed on the road, with the rest entering on
the French Blinds card.
The
German forces consisted of a Light Panzer platoon (mixed Pz IIs and Pz
Is), a Panzer II platoon, a Panzer III platoon, and a Panzer IV platoon.
These were supported by a platoon of armoured cars and a platoon
from the divisional anti-tank battalion with four PaK 36 anti-tank guns.
The Germans also had a forward observer in a radio car with contact
to a battery of 10.5 cm howitzers. Unbeknownst
to the French, the Germans had been able to send some elements forward and
establish positions. The
Germans started with two Blinds on the road and had two groups deployed
hidden on table, one in the woods east of the road and another in the
woods along the west table edge. The
German PzKw III and PzKw IV platoons had to be the last two Blinds onto
the table and they unfortunately rolled the maximum for their number of
dummy Blinds, providing them with more decoys than they needed and
requiring them to fight longer with their light units against the superior
French armour.
The
game opened with each side sending Blinds forward to try and spot the
enemy. With the flat terrain,
sighting distances across the wide plain to the west of the road were
quite long and the recon elements of both sides were revealed.
The French motorcycles decided to bail off of the road before
anything with guns started to light them up, and drove off toward the
woods, where they forced the hidden unit there onto a Blind, but were
unable to spot the units through the woods.
The first unit of S-35s was soon revealed as well and opened fire
on the lightly armoured SdKfz 222 armoured cars, brewing up one of them.
The other promptly scooted away and began to try and move across
the stream to provide sighting against any French movement up the east
side of the battlefield.
The German units on the Blind discovered by the French reconnaissance
platoon revealed themselves and opened up on the dismounted French
motorcyclists. The hidden
elements consisted of two PaK 36s with an attached Big Man and three PzKw
IICs, and their combined fire pretty well crippled the recon troops.
The squads began taking a lot of wounds, which in IABSM
provide a negative penalty to movement and shooting.
Since the troops were also in the woods, they suffered additional
movement penalties, with the net effect that they could not move away from
the withering fire and could only stand there and rack up wounds.
Eventually I made a GM ruling that any section with more wounds
than effectives was routed and dispersed/surrendered and pulled them from
the table.
In the meantime, the French armour began to fire on the German ambushers,
shooting off a well aimed shot each turn and advancing slowly forward.
The PaKs and Pz IIs engaged the French armour but their shots just
bounced off of the thick armour of the SOMUA tanks.
Most units in IABSM have one card per platoon, allowing
coordination of the platoon's sections, but the French armour has a card
for each tank to reflect the poor communications and overworked commanders
of their vehicles. However, if
not under fire themselves, the French officer Big Men could activate their
entire platoon. The German
fire was concentrated on the lead French units, allowing the French
Captain to coordinate the actions of the following platoon.
The advancing French slowly got the better of the German ambush,
destroying one of the guns and three Panzer IIs, but not before one of the
French vehicles wandered within close range of the remaining PaK 36 and
was immobilized and eventually abandoned.
The French advance had been focused up the main road, allowing the Germans
to steadily bring Blinds onto the table and use terrain to prevent them
from being spotted by the French armour.
These began working their way across the stream to move up the east
side of the table and counter the French Blinds advancing there.
The Germans sprang their other ambush of another two PaK 36s and
three more Pz IICs. The PaKs
began long range fire against the SOMUAs, which was predictably mostly
useless, while the PzIIs began moving down the west table edge hoping to
get in behind the SOMUAs.
Late
in the game the French had a run of bad luck, twice drawing the Petrol
Shortage card and then rolling the '6' required to immobilize a tank.
As the night was winding to a close, the German heavy armour
finally arrived, with the Pz IVD platoon leading the way.
The first exchange went badly for the Germans as one of the Pz IVs
was brewed up by the S-35s, but subsequent fire from the German tanks led
to another immobilized S-35 and the loss of the main gun from another.
At this point our game time was running out and we called it a night.
The French counterattack had stalled, with four SOMUAs immobilized
and another combat ineffective with a busted main gun.
The remaining three French tanks remained on their Blind, slowly
slogging through the woods and stream on the east edge.
The Germans for their part had lost three Panzer IIs, two PaK 36s,
one Panzer IVD, and an armoured car, but were in a position to overwhelm
the remaining operational SOMUAs and to possibly exit the south edge with
some armour. In addition, much
of the French armour was within the beaten zone for the German artillery
in the unlikely event that the golden card sequence needed to call in
artillery in these rules happened to come up.
Lucky rolls for French crews to continue manning the immobilized
tanks could definitely have added an additional toll to the Germans, but
it seemed likely they would hold the field on this day.
A perfectly historical result that closely mimicked the actual
French counterattack of May 13, 1940.
Unfortunately, I got caught up keeping the game running at the end and
didn’t get any pictures of the end game or the clash between the S-35s
and Panzer IVs.
The group once again really enjoyed the game, which is a great result
since these guys are all primarily board game players.
The table looked quite nice, although I really need to work on
getting some fields of crops and such.
The scenario seemed to offer a good challenge to each side, and
although there are definitely a couple of tweaks I might make, it seemed
to provide a decently balanced game. The
French armour was very tough and significantly outgunned the Germans,
especially the Pz IIs available at the outset of the battle, but the
command and control issues built into the rules, along with the Germans'
ambush positions built into the scenario, seemed to compensate.
Another game is planned for next month.
Brian
Cantwell
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