Over the Christmas period, I got a chance to play in a Christmas-themed game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum set in late December 1944. It was a Battle of the Bulge scenario, with me playing a US force defending a major supply dump against an attack from a German armoured column. I could expect some support from nearby Brits, but couldn’t be sure when they would arrive.
View from the German end of the table
The Germans would arrive in two waves: firstly a reconnaissance force, secondly the main body.
The recon force consisted of a couple of half-tracks and an armoured car. One half-track hit the mines that I had laid where the road passed through the wood in the centre of the table, and the other two vehicles were soon disposed of by the two 76mm anti-tank guns that I had positioned dug-in in front of the supply dump and in the woods to the left.
With the recon phase of the game out of the way, it was time to move onto the main event. The German tactics were simple: big cats (three Panthers) up the right hand side of the table to fire hull down from behind the hill; a platoon of tank-hunters (two StuGs and a Marder III) up the middle to fire hull down from behind the hill there; and two platoons of infantry up the left side of the table to close assault the supply dump.
In defence, my tactics were also relatively simple: defend from the rear of the table except for one platoon of Shermans that would lurk behind the hill on my right hand side of the table - the idea being that I would effectively flank any Germans hull-down behind the other two hills whilst blocking anything coming up my right.
And, as you will see from the gallery above, this is exactly what happened.
The German infantry platoon marching unconcernedly towards the hill were raked by machine gun fire from two Sherman 75s, whilst two Sherman 76s knocked out the three tank hunters. The only fly in the ointment was that I just couldn’t kill any of his Panthers. Firstly, they were quite difficult to hit, being hull down, and secondly, when I did hit, their armour was thick enough to bounce my shells. Very frustrating!
My main concern was that the Germans would stop trying to suppress my fire and just launch an all out assault. There were still a couple of German Blinds to be revealed and, until the British arrived, all I now had left were a couple of Hellcat tank-killers, two small platoons of infantry, and seven Shermans. Sounds like a lot, but remember that my tanks/tank-killers were dying from a single hit from a Panther, whereas I had already hit the three Panthers over ten times with absolutely no effect!
With the eventual loss of the anti-tank guns, I was forced to deploy the tank-killers, both of whom soon succumbed to enemy fire. I was now weak on my left, but still the Germans showed no signs of coming forward, and time was ticking on…ticking on so fast, in fact, that it was now almost time to end the game.
Dave, the Umpire, declared that the Brits had now arrived, and a shed-load of British armour deployed just where I needed it, on the left. At the same time, the Germans deployed five Panzer IVs from behind a Blind and finally got moving forward towards the Shermans protecting my right flank.
It was, however, too late by then. The Panthers had a good time shooting holes in the British tanks (the Brits had the same problem I had, especially as their Fireflys were at the back of their column) but my Shermans could take out Panzer IVs, and did so. The clock finally clicked round to game end time (assume either the weather cleared and my jabos could take to the skies or that the Germans ran out of fuel etc) with my US forces still safely ensconced in position around the supply dump.
A great game of IABSM and a victory for my troops. I just wish I’d been able to take out a Panther, but they were all still fully-functional with only their paint scratched at the end of the game!
Robert Avery