AAR 1944 Holland: Broekhuizen Bridgehead by Mark Luther

Overview of the table

The British assault would come from the trees on the left. The Germans could setup in the town of Broekhuizen and to the right of the roads. Off the top edge of the table was the Kastell:  a large manor home surrounded by a moat, which was the target of the rest of the Monmouths and their support.

British Start Line

The British got six pre-game stonks that they placed in the town.

You can see the British forces arrayed on the table in the left corner. I normally don't expose the units like this but since this was a demo game at a shop, I wanted to show potential players some of the toys.

Broekhuizen: Some Assembly Required

The town wasn't actually as flattened as would appear in the game. I choose to represent it this way to catch the eyes of the WH40K crowd. It doesn't get much more apocalyptic looking than this. The pre-game stonks managed to take one defending squad down to half strength and a couple of other units took hits also.

Crabs to the Mines

The Sherman Crabs move to the edge of the minefield along with a couple of pioneer sections. The British knew where the front edge of the mines were but not the depth of the field.

MG42 Opens Up on the Pioneers

They pin one of the sections immediately. They also knows that they was going to experience quite a bit of return fire. Most of the other defenders had pulled back from the front edge of the town to escape the pre-assault barrage are were moving back into position.

One Section of Pioneers Getting Close to the Wire

You can see some of the defenders have moved up and are about to pin the lead section of mineclearers. The British artillery is falling too far back at this stage and the 2" mortars can't seem to get going.

One Crab Shelled

The rightmost Crab is destroyed by 88 fire from across the Maas. The lefthand Crab has been temporarily immoblised by a Pak40 in the wood patch to its left front. They can clear up to a D4 worth of mines per turn.

Monmouths Begin their Attack

The Monmouths start one of the platoons through the path made by one of the sections. The paths are just wide enough to get a squad through. A Geman spotting round comes in right in their path.

Mortars Starting to Fall

More of the Monmouths move out. No time to wait for their artillery to get the range on the defenders. The middle Crab has also taken a hit but flaills along. The Cromwells are shelling the woods where the PaK is firing from.

Engineers Make the Wire

Its been slow going clearing the mines for the Pioneers and most sections have taken casualties. Mortars are pinning a lot of Brit units.

Smoke Finally

The 2" mortars finally get some smoke down and some of the pioneers start to cut away the wire. Suppressive fire from the Vickers have had little effect so far.

More Artillery on the Way

The FJ units have several batteries to call on. The most deadly are the 82mm and 120mm mortars. The spotters for the batteries are located in the remains of a 3-storey building close to the river.

Flails Make It to the Road

Two surviving Crabs have beaten a path to one of the roads. The Cromwells finally silenced the Pak40 but a 20mm AAA in the same patch of woods is about to open fire on the flanks of the Shermans.

The Attack Continues

The flails move down the road only to get hit by a drifting mortar barrage. Meanwhile more defenders are moving about in the town. The FJ platoon HQ squad is in fall-back positions. The pioneers have managed to remove some of the barbed wire despite heavy casualties. A couple of the sections haven't even cleared paths to the wire yet.

Cromwells Join the Party

The Cromwell troop quickly moves up through the beaten paths to find themselves getting hit by mortars and the 20mm AAA. The 95mm CS tank in the rear has been immobilised by the Flak gun to its rear.

First Assault Repulsed

The FJ squad just beat off a close assault by a couple of squads of Monmouths. Another couple of squads are pinned in a patch of unspotted mined ground on the other side of the cleared wire. And to add to their misery a salvo of 25 pdr fire has fallen short right into the midst of the Brits. Meanwhile a Cromwell come into view on the road and dodges a panzerfaust round.

Into the Town

The Monmouths finally eliminate one of the defending FJ squads and move a platoon down the street. Meanwhile the 25 pdrs pound a corner of the town that contains the FO. The MMG has been silenced and the defenders are in pretty desperate shape.

Ambush!

The FJ platoon leader and his half squad blast the crap out of a Monmouth platoon that is moving down the road. The other remaining FJ squads are still firing at the Brits in the open.

Game End Positions

At this point, there were few troops left in the town and the artillery had gotten the range and the supporting guns on the east bank of the Maas are having trouble finding targets so we decided to call it quits. The Monmouths had taken the town essentially but at a high cost (as it was historically). Only two officers were left. The pioneers lost 17 out of 32 with their CO down. 2 of 3 Sherman Crabs were KO'ed. The Cromwells had only one undamaged runner. I managed to entice two newbies -- Tom took over the job of attacking the town and Adam came along later to watch, and sometime Lardie Rob played the hard pressed defenders. The Germans had little chance to keep the Brits out for the entire game but the attacking troops were getting abused all along by the artillery and defensive fire.