Friend Dave and company have been playing a mini I Ain;t Been Shot, Mum campaign, Chasseur, and invited me to take part in game three. The campaign is set during the invasion of France in May/June 1940, and I would play a column of German Panzers as it motors towards the Seine. Here are the game briefings:
The Allies (British & French)
Following the splendid showing yesterday (didn’t those Panzers burn well!) your boys are now in the tow of Hallencourt together with a small force of Frenchies who also encountered the Hun two days ago. A shame the rest of the 7th Argylls haven’t turned up…in fact none of the 51st have now that you think about it. Hmm…
Your job today is to stop the enemy here and to prevent him from reaching the Seine bridges just to the south of the town - or at least to delay him whilst a covering force is put in place. The men are in good spirits, the French tanks are supporting you and you have defensive options. Rather than four weak sections, you have reorganised the platoon into three full-strength sections.
Your first task, though, is to agree dispositions with the French so as to cover all possible routes through or round the town. The only problem being that apart from the tans, all the French seem to have disappeared just at the moment. Ah well, better just deploy the chaps and get on with it.
Company HQ
Big Man A: Captain Brember (Level III)
Big Man B: Sergeant Gray (Level II)
Two Vickers MMG teams (5 men each)
One Boys Anti-Tank Rifle Team (2 men)
One Light Mortar team (2 men)
Two trucks
1st Platoon
Big Man 1: Lieutenant Baxter (Level III)
Big Man 2: Sergeant Mackay (Level II)
Three sections of 8 men each
One Boys Anti-Tank Rifle Team (2 men)
One Light Mortar team (2 men)
Three trucks
Support Platoon
Big Man 3: Sergeant Dalgleish (Level II)
Two 2-pdr Anti-Tank Guns (5 crew each), two carriers as tows
Carrier Platoon
Big Man 4: Sergeant Law (Level II)
Three Carriers: two with Bren LMG, one with Anti-Tank Rifle, 12 men in total
French Support
Big Man 5: Lieutenant Blanc
One Somua S-35
Three Renault R-35/40
Off-Table Support from a battery of three 25 pdr guns with pre-registered targets
Bonus Cards: Rally, AT Bonus, MMG Bonus, Dynamic Commander
Although the British troops had three Actions, the French tanks had only two Actions (and therefore two morale) and could not move and fire in the same activation.
The Germans
What a glorious morning! It's just after dawn on 7th June 1940, and at last your Panzers are on the move again. After the easy successes in the north, with the British running for their lives at Dunkirk, the final attack on the remains of the French army is about to begin.
You (Major Beckenbauer) are the tip of the advance (the schwerpunkt!) as 7th Panzer Division rolls forward again. You have elements of the 25th Panzer Regiment, a detachment of engineers, and are ordered to head for the river Seine with all haste, and if possible to seize a bridge there. Once taken, your orders are to make the bridge safe and hold until the rest of the Division catches up or until Rommel thinks of the next lightening move.
After crossing the Somme easily on the 5th June, you have bypassed the major French strongpoints by going cross country, and have been joined by your lorried infantry of the 7th Rifle Brigade. Now the little town of Hallencourt can be taken or bypassed and after that you'll be in open country towards Rouen and the Seine.
So, here you are on the outskirts of Hallencourt, a town you need to pass through – or go round – to reach the Seine bridges which are your objectives. Your recon platoon has drawn you the attached map, a bit on the thin side but adequate! It would seem you have a choice of a run down the main road through the town, or going round it. The report tells you that enemy troops have been seen moving within the town. You have met both French & British in the last few days, so this could be either. They also report the ground towards the river looked very green (soft?), but could not get close enough to check.
Your Panzers are a little battered after yesterday's encounter with the British, although one of the Panzer II's has been repaired and is back with you. The recon platoon is now nearly back to full strength, but you are especially pleased that Regiment has sent up a support platoon of StuG with a Panzerjaeger attached. This should give you the artillery support you desperately needed yesterday. However, you should not attempt to subdue or take the whole town – the mission is to capture that bridge. The Luftwaffe have promised support as usual.........
Vorwaerts!
HQ Platoon
Big Man A: Major Beckenbauer (Level IV) in Kfz 13
Big Man B: Leutnant Heller (Level II)
Two MMG teams (5 men each), each in a Kfz 70
One squad of 8 pioneers in SdKfz 251
One FOO in Kfz 14
1st (Panzer) Platoon
Big Man 1: Hauptmann Heldt (Level III)
Three Panzer IIC
One Panzer 38(t)
2nd (Panzer) Platoon
Big Man 2: Leutnant Seeler (Level III)
Two Panzer IIIE
One Panzer IVD
Two Panzer 38(t)
3rd (Grenadier) Platoon
Big Man 3: Hauptmann Weber (Level III)
Big Man 4: Ofw Schnellinger (Level I)
Four infantry squads (8 men each)
One Anti-Tank Rifle Team (2 men)
One Light Mortar team (2 men)
Two LMG teams (2 men each)
Four Opel Blitz trucks
4th (Artillery) Platoon
Big Man 5: Leutnant Grabowski (Level II)
Two StuG IIIA
One Panzerjaeger I
5th (Recon) Platoon
Big Man 6: Leutnant Haller (Level II)
One Panzer IB
Two SdKfz 222:
Limited Off-Table Support from a battery of two 81mm mortars
Bonus Cards: Rally, Rapid Deployment, Blitzkrieg, Tank Killer (Panzerjaeger only)
German infantry had three Actions; German AFVs had three Actions and a morale of three.
The Battlefield
The Germans would enter the table from the road at the bottom of the picture, and needed to exit on the same road at the other end of the battlefield. They thus had a choice whether to go straight down the road through the town; take the long way round by the road heading right; or go across the field down towards the river on the left (although they had been warned about soft ground near the river).
The pictures below show the views from the opposite end of the table, and where the Allies deployed their troops. As you can see, their infantry was concentrated in houses and church within the town itself, with the French tanks lurking behind; the anti-tank guns were dug-in behind the hedges surrounding the cow barn; with the Carrier Platoon hidden in the pig sty to the left.
The Game Begins
As I (as German commander) had no idea where the enemy was, I couldn’t commit my schwerpunkt until I had identified the enemy’s positions. I therefore decided to probe all three of the routes discussed above: left of the town, through the town, and round the roads to the right of the town.
Through the town would be quickest, but to take vehicles into a town is always risky, and if my enemy had assets that could block the far end of the High Street, I would be trapped like rats in a barrel.
To the left looked a strong proposition, but I was a little worried about this “soft ground”, especially for my wheeled vehicles, and again I could be blocked from my exit point by forces currently out of sight behind the town.
Right looked a long way round, but my wheeled vehicles (all the trucks and armoured cars) move double on a road, so could speed round and be off table before the enemy could react.
My only consolation was that the British and French had no idea which way I would go, so would have to make sure they could cover all angles. That meant, to me, that the infantry would be in the town, with any armour or anti-tank guns as wild cards that could be anywhere so would need to be spotted and neutralised before a general advance could occur.
First on to the table, therefore, was a probe to the left with 1st Panzer platoon: the Panzer IIs along with one Panzer 38(t). They, under a Blind and accompanied by a Dummy Blind, can be seen forward and to the left in the trees in the picture below.
I then deployed my artillery platoon. Unusual to lead with the guns, but I knew from previous recon that there were no enemy immediately on me, and their job was to try and identify threats within the town, and then neutralise them with long range 75mm fire. As luck would have it, my first spotting roll was “double 6” and I managed to see a glint from the British FOOs binoculars coming from one of the windows in the white house in the distance at the end of the High Street.
StuGs Deploy
This was all the excuse I needed, and both StuGs opened fire. Again, luck was with me, and although the shells did no more than add a bit of Shock to what turned out to be the British HQ platoon and leading Big Men, the house was set alight by my bombardment, meaning that all inside would have to vacate as soon as possible. Talk about keeping the enemy off balance!
Meanwhile my Recon Platoon headed out along the roads to the right, followed by Blinds representing my HQ and truck-based infantry platoon.
Recon Platoon scooting to the right
Things then started happening quickly on my left. The Blind concealing 1st Tank Platoon had reached just past the woods and turned towards the town when it was spotted and forced to deploy. Then, out from behind the town came two French tanks: the Somua and one of the R-35s. They opened fire and manged to immobilise one Panzer II and knock out the 20mm cannon on another!
This was not good (an imagine what it would have been like if the French tanks had had more than the rather rubbish two Actions) but I soon got to return fire and, much to my surprise, the ‘broadside’ from the entire platoon managed to knock out both enemy tanks. This was a major achievement, in my opinion, and well worth the damage they had done to me.
The British Commander, in the background: decidedly unimpressed by the performance of his French allies!
My tanks then turned towards the town, discovering and engaging a section of British infantry in the big house in the foreground of the picture below. As you can see, the Panzer II with its 20mm autocannon knocked out was doing a bit of reconnaissance by proximity: no way could the Brits remian hidden with a Panzer in their back garden!
Knock, knock!
In a few moments, I would do the same sort of thing with the Dummy Blind: sending it right into the High Street just to the right of the big house, forcing the British infantry in two other locations within the town to deploy as well. Now I knew where they were!
The German Recon Platoon had also been discovering things: the British anti-tank gun platoon to be exact, hiding behind the hedges surrounding the cow shed. The guns opened fire, and although they didn’t take out the lead SdKfz 222, it’s crew decided that being a sitting duck was no fun at all and decided to abandon ship and bailed out!
Now that I knew where the anti-tank guns were, I could kill them, even if they currently blocked my route round to the right. The FOO called in my off-table mortars but, as it would take a bit of time for that to arrive (presumably lots of paperwork to fill in) I moved my infantry forward forward to take them out.
Unfortunately, the Recon Platoon had managed to drive straight past the British Carrier platoon hiding in the pig sty and, as my trucks drove past, these opened fire at point blank range!
The lead two trucks were hammered: one squad losing five of its eight men, the other losing two but racking up the Shock.
Leaving aside what I was going to do to Leutnant Haller after the battle, quick action was needed. Fortunately I had another squad ready to jump in so, on their next activation, they jumped down from their trucks and the whole lot charged into the pig sty, overwhelming the two closest carriers for the loss of one more man. The surviving carrier bugged out.
The surviving German infantry from the first three squads then headed forward for the wood, intending to take up a position where they could start to lay down fire on the anti-tank guns. Again unfortunately, they then came under fire from the British section in the church, losing a few men and getting pinned down. This was another awkward situation, only solved when I brought the two Company HQ MMG teams up and into the white house bottom left. Once set up, they would have a clear, point blank range shot into the British lining the windows of the church.
Meanwhile, back at the town, one of the remaining Renault R-35 tanks had turned back towards my advancing Panzer II platoon. Whilst getting into position under cover behind his burning comrades, however, the tank commander left his rear end sticking out into the main road. Up came my Panzerjaeger on a Tank Killer bonus card, and put two rounds through his side armour: end of R-35.
Worse for the French, my Panzer 38(t) had managed to get a shot in at the last French tank: sending several rounds of AP right up its, er, backside as it tried to manoeuvre towards my infantry. The Allies now had no armour left…well, they had one battered carrier, but that wasn’t much interested in doing anything but leaving rapidly!
Unfortunately I was almost out of time. Not game time (we’d actually only had a handful of Turns) but real time, as I had another event to go to. That meant that rather than reducing the now-all-British force from a distance, I had to get stuck in and do the job quickly. Much against my better judgement, therefore, I sent my medium Panzer platoon straight down the High Street, as shown in the pic below (the Panzer IV is in the lee behind the right hand house).
A fierce fight broke out between the British infantry contingent (two MMGs and two sections of infantry) and my tanks: the PBI dropping grenades from the houses, my tanks raking them with machine gun fire. You can also see the survivors of the light tank platoon joining in. As the battle ended, the German tanks had picked up a bit of Shock but had just about halved the numbers of infantry.
It was a stupid thing to do, however. I would have been much better hanging back and letting the 75mm guns on the StuGs and Panzer IV blow the houses down around the enemy foot, and then machine gunning any survivors in the rubble. I wanted to try and finish the game with a decisive win, however, so took the risk…
This is especially true as (and you can just see it in the picture, above) my off-table mortars had finally ticked all the boxes on their various forms for unscheduled fire, and landed the first of many bombs onto the anti-tank guns, one of which had moved round to cover the flank. It was a good shoot: knocking half the gunners out. A couple more of those and the way through would be clear
Aftermath
But the game had to end before all that because, as I said, I had to go.
The Allies had lost all four French tanks, two of three carriers, and had their infantry contingent reduced by about half. The Germans had lost half a platoon of infantry, but no tanks: those that were out of action had not been destroyed, their crews had bailed, meaning that “in real life” they could be recovered later.
My mission, however, had been to get troops off the table, which I hadn’t actually done yet. The Umpire therefore awarded the Germans a Moderate Victory, as all could see that the end was in sight for the Allied force.
A great game from a great scenario: my only regret is not having the time to finish things off properly!
Robert Avery