Still on lockdown, but it’s bank holiday Monday so it must be time for another game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum against K, Daughter #1’s boyfriend, trapped with us for the duration, but rapidly becoming a regular wargamer with, now, eight games under his belt.

The premise for today’s game is simple: it’s France 1940, and Rommel’s Germans are advancing rapidly on Lille, aiming for the village of Lomme, whose capture will seal off the escape route of all English and French forces in the area. The Allies have realised what the Germans are up to, and have dispatched a small force to hold Lomme for as long as possible. The scene is set for an epic clash!

The village of Lomme is shown in the photo, above. The Germans will enter from the south (the “top” of the picture) anywhere along the table’s edge. The French start anywhere they like on the table, and must prevent the Germans from exiting any troops to the north i.e. anywhere to the right hand side of the picture.

Please excuse the rather anachronistic clearly marked lines along the main road: Lomme is obviously a very progressive place!

The Germans

The Germans disposed two strong, truck-mounted platoons of infantry, each four squads strong, with each squad having 8 men. Their Company HQ contained three MMGs, an anti-tank rifle, and another squad of infantry. Accompanying them were two PaK 35 anti-tank guns towed by Kfz 70 trucks. Finally, four Big Men would command the German infantry: more than enough to make sure everything ran smoothly.

Panzer reinforcements were due to arrive after six appearances of the Turn card: a zug of four Panzer II and a zug of three Panzer IV. Each zug had its own Big Man.

The French

The French also had two platoons of infantry, but their platoons each had three squads, with ten men per squad. They had two MMGs, and had also been assigned two ageing soixante-quinze field guns.

Due to reading the listing incorrectly, the French had four Big Men to command the above: two more than they should have had. It did mean, however, that they had none to command their tanks.

The French briefing also contained the promise of two platoons of tanks: three R-35 and three Char B1 bis tanks. I couldn’t, however, find any mention of when they were due to arrive, and suspected, therefore, that they were a cruel jest on the part of Mr Clarke and destined never actually to grace the tabletop with their presence. As K is much less experienced a gamer than I am, I decided to give them to him anyway, and have them arrive at the same time as the German Panzers.

The Game Begins

The Germans advanced quickly onto the table. My Dummy Blinds scouted the first few houses, but were then Spotted after only clearing some of the open ground in front of the village.

I had some idea of getting into the nearest row of houses along the main road before the French really knew I was there, but this was a foolish notion, and I suffered for it when a squad of French infantry opened fire at Close Range on 2nd Platoon.

Acknowledging my foolhardiness, 2nd Platoon’s commander was forced to order a retreat, but unfortunately a lack of command levels left half their number still under fire

At least I now knew where the French were, and the game settled down into a long range war of attrition, with my superior firepower (especially from the machine gun platoon) from behind hedges being countered by the larger French squads firing downwards from the upper floors of the houses.

Both K and I were, obviously, awaiting the arrival of our armour and, eventually, the Turn Card came around the right number of times, and on trundled two Blinds per side. I brought my Panzer IVs on my left which, although neither of us yet knew it, faced them off against the monster Char B1’s ; and my Panzer IIs on my right, which of course meant that they would come up against the R-35s. My anti-tank gun platoon had also been lurking at the back of the table, awaiting something decent to shoot at, so now sprung forward into action.

Although the arrival of the Char B1’s was a bit of a shock to my men in the gardens of the houses by the crossroads, the next phase of the action actually began on my other flank, where one of my anti-tank guns rapidly unlimbered and, with a series of crackingly good shots, took out the rear-most Renault.

This allowed my Panzer IIs to arrive unmolested, with the lead tank even sneaking a quick round of 20mm cannon fire into the backside of French Tank 5.

One more round and French Tank 5’s crew bailed out, with Tank 4 speeding off down the road to avoid the same fate. My Panzer II’s were then free to swing round onto the French flank, with the lead tank moving up to a position where it could open fire on and Pin the crew of the soixante-quinze as they frantically prolonged their gun into a position from which they could resist this latest incursion.

Unfortunately, the French gun crew was made of stern stuff, and despite soon losing three of their number to more cannon fire, sent a round into the lead Panzer II that blew it to bits!

Meanwhile, a foolish decision of mine to bring up one of the anti-tank guns “as fast as possible” lead to them speeding down the road and ending up right under the guns of one of the remaining French infantry squads. Bye-bye anti-tank gun crew and tow!

The other two Panzer II’s were chasing after the last Renault, and would eventually corner it with one facing it forward and the other on its flank. The tank was still fighting gamely on when the game ended.

Meanwhile, the Panzer IVs had engaged the Char B1’s, taking advantage of their four Actions and flank position to take out the two rear “mobile pillboxes”. It did take more than a few shots to force their crews to bail, but the French were unlucky in their activations and more unlucky in the dice they rolled for movement even considering the Slow Tank rules, so gave the Panzers plenty of time to shoot them up. Note that over several turns a rare German anti-tank rifle fired all its ammunition at one of the Chars and failed to penetrate its armour once!

The final Char, however, had got itself into a good position on the corner by the crossroads, and blew the lead Panzer IV to bits with a couple of well-aimed shots.

Despite this success, the writing was now firmly on the wall for the French. They only had a couple of infantry squads left, and one of their 75’s had also been destroyed so, with many Gallic shrugs of the shoulders, they retreated. The day belonged to Major Lardich von Skinner!

Aftermath

That had been a brutal game with large casualties on either side. I paid dearly for my unusually impetuous advances, and would have had plenty of explaining to do once the butcher’s bill had become apparent.

The French were fairly passive, but then they were defending buildings and saw no reason to move. They were a bit unlucky with their tanks, but the one card per tank limitation stopped them properly co-ordinating their efforts.

All in all, another great game!

Robert Avery