My afternoon game at Operation Market Larden X was Phil & Jenny’s excellent Throw Them Back scenario for I Ain’t Been Shot Mum.
This involved a German counterattack on one of the Normandy beaches just after D-Day, with my instructions being, as one of the German players, to get a significant force “onto the sand”.
View from the inland “German” end of the table
The forces involved
Knowing that the Allies had access to reinforcements coming off the beach, there was no time for shilly-shallying around, so my co-commander and I sent our troops up the table as fast as we could.
We knew we’d run into prepared defences, but felt that this sort of “reconnaissance by panzer” was still the best strategy to adopt.
Reconnaissance by panzer
The first obstacle we encountered was a dug-in 6lb anti-tank gun blocking off the left side of the table. It opened fire from its concealed position and battered one of our Panzer IVs as it struggled to get through a particularly thick hedge.
Another IV was on the road just to the right, so I picked up the dice and announced that the tank would swing round and come at tbe AT gun from the rear. An enormous dice roll later, and it ended up just short of actually crunching the gun under it’s tracks.
It was now just a question of who got the drop on whom, and unfortunately and despite cutting down half the gun’s crews with the co-ax, the Panzer IV took a couple of 6lb rounds point blank and promptly brewed up. Other tanks got their revenge however: HE and machine gun fire rapidly removing the gun and its accompanying infantry as a threat.
Meanwhile, on the other flank, a column of tanks supported by infantry was making its way along the track towards the beach. Another AT gun, again supported by infantry, opened fire, and the Germans soon lost two of their Panzer IIIs.
Back to the left and centre, and the Germans were getting their advance going, although another Panzer IV was lost to an AT gun lurking at the beach end of the central road.
But the Allies were also on the move, with tanks starting to pour off the beaches and advance towards the action.
Up in front, the Allied commanders were obviously nervous about their right flank, particularly as we now had a platoon of infantry supported by a couple of aged Somuas advancing forward.
They moved two platoons of infantry up as a blocking force but, in the heat of battle, forgot that we had more infantry avdancing up the central road.
With a quick trot across the asphalt, the German infantry set themselves up behind the hedge bordering the road and prepared to open fire.
Most wargames give a bonus for fire on the flank, but IABSM doesn’t. It does, however, give a bonus for shooting at multiple targets…such as six squads of infantry plus support weapons all crowded together in a neat line behind a hedge at close range.
The dice were rolled, and we had generated thirty casualties on the unfortunate Tommies! Thirty!
The saving rolls were not good, and half the Allied firing line disappeared, the rest suffering from more shock than an electric eel wearing a copper jacket!
Unfortunately at this point time beat us and although there was a bit more jockeying for position, nothing more of any great significance occured.
Phil carefully weighed up the situation (ignoring both sides’ loudly exhorted claims of victory) and declared a the game to be a draw.
Aftermath
Which was actually a fair result I think.
Although we had advanced just over half way down the table and cleared the Allied forward defences, we had lost two thirds of our tanks…and although we had caused two of the three Allied platoons horrendous casualties, the end game would realistically been our infantry (admittedly armed with plenty of ‘fausts) verses the Allied tanks from the beachhead.
All in all a brilliant game of IABSM played across what can only be described as a fantically created tabletop. Well done to all concerned and particularly to Phil and Jenny for putting on such a great display.