Tried out something different last night with the chaps. A few years back WSS magazine carried a scenario for use with another set of company-sized rules centred on Operation Blackcock January 1945. We had a group game using that set and were disappointed, mainly due to the ultra reactive, super accurate and highly unrealistic mortar fire system those rules employ. With the group now adopting IABSM as our go-to WW2 set, it was time to revisit the scenario.

I amended the force lists to TFL format and distributed the Big Men accordingly. The scenario is a two day event consisting of two sub scenarios: one for each day of this particularly difficult battle. Off we went last night with the British advance and Day One assault on the village of Sint Jooth.

British troops came onto the table under Blinds, but confusion quickly set in as the two allied players debated the best way to handle the 40” limited visibility as a result of the freezing morning mist. As they pondered their position was noted by the German forward observer who relayed it to their off-board mortar battery teams.

Thereafter it was roadblock time again and again. Their attempts to clear a passage along the road by pushing immobilised and destroyed vehicles off only tended to present more targets for the mortars.

German partially disclosed Blind MG42 team covering the banks of the stream represented by the hedge/tree lines. The foreground shows the dense forestry inhabited by hunting German tank destroyers.

During this period of destruction the PBI were left to fend for themselves and attempted to quickly get to cover in the nearby woods: a task made more precarious by the regular bouts of sniping at the armoured column on the road by German tank destroyers skulking in the Forest.

Tim Whitworth

IABSM AAR