Unfortunately for Kev he wasn't able to get to our game last night. We played the first of Rich's Dunkirk scenarios from the Summer Special 2004: Cassel. I was British, Clive German (as ever).
We had played "Oi, get orf my truck" last week, and Clive had got so engrossed in attacking my forces that he lost his objectives and was forced off by the British infantry tanks with a bloody nose.
He was determined to get his revenge this week. Clive, aggressive as you get in LFS, is a tad more cautious in IABSM, and slowly trickled forward trying to identify the British position. When he did, his two flanking forces were hit in a lovely ambush on the British left that pinned one section with 5 wounds and killed three in another. These troops were grounded for the rest of the game despite having four half tracks, one their number had its mg blown off by a 2lbr, the others skulked trying to pin the ambushers, fearing a closer move.
On the right, the Brits were defending a small copse against the MG platoon. Amazing shooting from the Aldershot rifle display team saw one MG team wiped, another decimated for only 1 man down. These guns were then kept out of the game by the HQ light mortar plastering them with smoke for long enough for the supporting infantry platoon to get the same treatment. I rarely missed and we got kill after kill! (I can tell you that that isn't my normal luck!)
Clive did ,move a group of panzers (mk1's) through the centre. 1 section was caught on the wrong side of a hedge and badly hit. This forced me into dramatic action as Clive's tanks had shot up the Boys rifle earlier on. A Vickers at a roadblock held them back until it too was KO'd.
His second platoon finally moved forward, close enough to get into a vicious fight with the weakened section, killing or capturing all of them. They followed up into the MMG and Anti Tank position on the crossroads. despite a heroic defence, the crews left the stricken guns to the Germans and retreated onto the HQ section in a farmhouse on the corner.
A section close assaulted a tank, forcing it back. Then Captain Chulmondley grabbed a bag of bombs and heroically legged it to the tank shedding its track and then even survived the hail of fire to escape back to his platoon. A VC recommendation by any one's standards!
With the Germans on both flanks, Chulmondley realised that his work was done. The Brits retreated back through the funnel left by the decimated Germans to form another stop line, it would be unlikely with fighting like this that Hitler would want to send more tanks into the close country around Dunkirk.
A great game and Clive's second bloody nose in a fortnight. The British are losing but doing so by extracting a heavy price on the Teutonic hordes.
Max