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Time for another blast from the past: here’s an After Action Report from a game played five years ago. It was the first game played with what is currently my American army.

The table was very random, since it was pulled together from the collections of several people who were not actually going to play the game.

The American deployment was in hidden: with lots of widely scattered units spread amongst what little cover was available.

The German deployment, also in hidden, was less dispersed.

In this game I learned that you need to spread your troops out far enough apart so that they can move forward in a coordinated way without tripping over each other’s feet and blocking each other’s line of sight.

The Germans, although concentrated in one place, knew what they had come to do.

To win!

And therefore caught the Americans in total disorder.

American units were being destroyed one by one like clockwork!

As already mentioned, this game taught me not to deploy so many units so close together, as initially they hinder each other’s movement, especially if those initially deployed furthest forward are the slowest, and, if destroyed, then get in the way of the advance and the line of sight of those following.

Burt Minorrot

 
 
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We had a bash at Rob Avery’s ‘Defence of Calais’ scenario 5 today: The Carriers at Cocquelles, 24 May 1940. Another great game and scheduled for a re-run.

For now here are a few pictures. Hope you like.

Tim Whitworth

 
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It's 1630 on 5 July 1943 in western Russia, where the I Battalion, Panzer Grenadier Regiment 101, 292nd Infanterie Division is carrying out an assault on Soviet defensive positions in the "Bunkerwald," held by elements of the 1st Battalion, 676th Rifle Regiment, 15th Rifle Division. This is part of the German offensive to eliminate the Kursk salient, specifically on the northern shoulder of the bulge, as German forces push towards Ponyri.

I am playing this game because I have the good fortune of being buddies with Steve of the "Sound Officer's Call" blog , and he is running a "Firestorm Ponyri" campaign. He is playing some games with his local buddies, but was unable to play all of the games himself; rather than simply 'dice off' for results of campaign fights they were unable to play on the table top, Steve asked if anyone in the blogosphere wanted to help, so here I am.

It's been a little bit of an issue that I literally just sold off a bunch of German late war gear, so I'm a bit understrength, but Steve is working with me to make sure the fights I get match up with the forces I have. This is the first fight I've played, and I hope it wasn't too much a pain for him, I certainly want to keep going! First, I love to play games; second, it's been way too long since I've played any Eastern Front games (maybe eight years or so?); and lastly, I'm a solo gamer that still craves some camaraderie, so whenever I can help another wargamer out, I'm always quick to jump at it.

A rather unassuming swath of land in western Russia, part of the Kursk salient. At top center is a forest known by the Germans as "Schwarzwald," while at center is "Bunkerwald," and there is an unnamed patch of wood at far left. There are three dirt tracks in a generally north-south direction, mostly towards the three human structures: the State Farm (bottom left), the District Seat (bottom center), and Alexei's House (center right). The rest is untended grassland pocked with cultivated fields; there are some wooden fences on the southern half of the table, as well as scrub around a lot of the fields, that neither blocks LOS or provides cover (just for looks), while there are some hedges strewn throughout the table that don't provide cover or block LOS, but do serve to 'disrupt' LOS a bit (making shots through a bit more difficult).

The Orders of Battle

Germans

  • Battalion Commander

  • 1st Company (three rifle platoons of three rifle squads)

  • 2nd Company (three rifle platoons of three rifle squads)

  • 3rd Company (three rifle platoons of three rifle squads)

  • Schwere Company (MG platoon of four MG-42s, mortar platoon of four 8.0cm tubes, infantry gun platoon of two 7.5cm guns, and an anti-tank platoon of two PaK-38 5.0cm guns)

  • Assault Gun Platoon (reduced, only two vehicles)

  • Battery of 10.5cm Artillery (off table)

  • Battery of Nebelwerfers (off table)

Soviet

  • Company Commander

  • Rifle Company (three rifle platoons of three rifle squads)

  • Anti-Tank Rifle Platoon (3 x PTRS-41s)

  • Anti-Tank Platoon (3 x 45mm ATGs)

  • Infantry Gun Platoon (2 x 76mm guns)

  • MG Platoon (3 x Maxim .30-cal MGs)

  • Mortar Platoon (3 x 82mm mortars)

  • Combat Engineer Platoon (three flamethrower squads)

  • Assault Gun Platoon (3 x Su-76s)

I'm playing in 10mm (figures, vehicles, and gear a mix of Pendraken and Minifigs UK) based at one stand=one squad, weapon, or vehicle. I'm playing this game using Too Fat Lardies' "I Ain't Been Shot Mum" rules, simplified a bit in terms of combat, morale, and movement.

And here we go, with troops added. The objective for the game is possession of "Bunkerwald" (the path of forest at center bottom); the Germans want it and the Soviets currently have it. The fight will go until one side breaks, winner determined by ownership of the objective. The German baseline is in the north (top) and the Soviets at bottom (south).

Scheme of Manoeuvre

German

The Germans have infiltrated the bulk of their Schwere Company into the Schwartzwald (patch of woods at top center), where they have emplaced their machine gun, mortar, and Infantry Gun (IG) Platoons. Because of the pace of operations they have not had the opportunity to conduct a thorough reconnaissance, so they are proceeding with a generic 'double envelopment' assault. To that end, 1st Company is crossing the line of departure in the northeast (top right), with a lot of open ground to cover, while 2nd Company is using a shallow gully in the north-northwest (top center left) that runs north to south to infiltrate as close to the objective as possible.

The Germans are aware of enemy forces in Bunkerwald and in a stand of trees in the southeast (bottom right), so supporting fires will be used to reduce/suppress those positions. The Germans are holding 3rd Company and their ATG Platoon in reserve (off table).

Soviet

The Soviets are manning static defenses with a mobile reserve to counterattack any German breakthroughs. To that end, the Soviets are manning three fortified and (semi-) mutually supporting positions: Strongpoint Irina (in woods at far left), Strongpoint Anna (Bunkerwald), and Strongpoint Ilsa (in the southeast/bottom right). To that end, the Soviet commander has task organized his rifle company, MG platoon, ATR platoon, and ATG platoon into combined arms forces at each defensive 'hedgehog.' So each strongpoint consists of three rifle squads, one .30-cal MG, one ATR, and one 45mm ATG.

The infantry gun platoon is emplaced in the southwest (bottom left), while the mortar platoon is emplaced behind the State Farm, with its platoon commander acting as forward observer on the second floor of the State Farm building. The Soviets have their assault gun and combat engineer platoons in reserve (off table, with the engineers planning to ride into battle on the Su-76s).

 

German Initial Deployment

 

I suppose here I will make a comment on the rules and my setup: I'm not sure why, but I really sold the Germans short during this fight by only giving them Platoon Commanders (PCs), but not Company Commanders (of which they could have had three for the rifle companies). When I was setting up I just kinda blew it off as, 'well, they've got plenty of troops, plenty of supporting weapons, plenty of leaders, they don't need'em.' Well, in the attack, across open ground in particular, you can never have enough leaders...

 

Soviet Initial Deployment

 
 

Off-Table Assets and Reinforcements

 

It’s Time to Fight

The battle begins with German artillery pounding the objective, Strongpoint Anna! 150mm HE shells, some quick fuse, some airburst, and some delayed fuse (to take care of bunkers) detonate, causing all sorts of headaches for the Russkies, but no real casualties, just pinning the PC and his MG team (below, left). While in the southeast, the Nebelwerfers slam into the earth occupied by Strongpoint Ilsa. This barrage causes significantly more damage, owing to the open topped positions: the ATR team suffers casualties and is 'men down,' two rifle squads are suppressed, and the PC and MG team are pinned (below, right).

 
 

Interlude

The Germans call up their reserves (3rd Company and the PaK platoon), and designate Alexei's House as the TRP for all supporting fires. The Germans are pretty beat up, but still looking pretty grim for the Soviets; no one is occupying the objective. If the Soviet CO's card will come up, I'm going to have him fall back and turn his mortar platoon into an ad-hoc rifle platoon in order to go occupy Strongpoint Anna. If they can get in there, and get the Engineer Platoon in there as well, holding the objective, with their Su-76s prowling around, it may very well be that the Germans don't have the firepower and bodies necessary to dig them out again.

Off We Go Again…

 
 

IABSM is always a treat, the friction it throws in the game can have you going mad, but I certainly enjoy it, especially for solo games, it makes the fight completely unpredictable. I'm sure it's not everyone's cup of tea; it can be so deliciously frustrating to have (for example) a PC and a squad sitting there, mere inches from a whole string of 'man down' and suppressed enemy forces, knowing that if you could just get them activated you'd surely charge, then knock out a whole string of troops. IF you could just get them to activate ;)

Regarding deployment, being omnipotent, I'm certain neither the plan of attack nor the plan for defense was the best, but I felt like they both gave the best opportunity for a great solo game. The 'hedgehog' approach to defense made a lot more sense than anything else I could come up with; it's historically relevant, and there was no way I was going to load everything up into Strongpoint Anna, knowing the German off-table arty assets in the fight. Conversely, knowing the Soviets were going with three strongpoints and didn't have any off-table arty, I could have just loaded up in the center and pushed the grunts forward, ignoring the flanks and daring the Reds to come out of their trenches and bunkers, but that hardly seemed sporting. Overall, I'm very happy with how the fight was planned and carried out, I thought the plans worked very well.

Man, what a fight! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. It's been a long time since I had that many troops on the table, felt good, though I can't say it want to do it all the time, so I'm looking at scaling at least some of my future fights in this campaign back to company-level. I can't wait to play some more next weekend. Awaiting my orders!

Just Jack

 
 
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Lardy Day at the South London Warlords yesterday. IABSM game put on by Ian Spence, involved a US mixed force of tanks, reece and infantry pushing German defenders out of a village and driving off table.

A bloody affair which ended up with most German units eliminated, except the crucial platoon that held the village itself. We used the Oh What a Total Bummer dice driven variant of the rules, the first time that Lardy Rich had seen them being used.

Nice little game that had my US forces not doing what I wanted to do as often as I wished. As with all TFL rules, friction reared its’ ugly head and managed to stifle my infantry attack, but I was able to get my armour and reece to do the damage.

Hopefully we will do another Lardy Day next year and we get more people along to play games.

Desmondo Darkin

 
 
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The stage is now set for tonight’s game using TFL rules ‘I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum’. the last stand of the Searchlights at Les Attaques, Calais 24 May 1940.

A scenario from the Defence of Calais scenario pack which supports the rules. It is set on the 23rd of May 1940 as the BEF retreats back to the coastal ports, fighting a rearguard action all of the way.

This is the advance of the forward units of 1st Panzer Division and their encounter with a scratch force of C troop, 1st Searchlight Regiment troops at the village of Les Attaques on the Canal de Calais.

David versus Goliath?

Well, goodness, what a game. Germans very cautious indeed. The myths of Blitzkrieg, eh?

Three German tanks disabled, two more abandoned and just one on its way to Calais!
The British fought every inch of the way.

Excellent scenario though and made a great storyboard to an actual historical event.

The first photo of the game (below) is very reminiscent of those pictures of the time full of damaged and abandoned vehicles.

Here are some more shots of the terrain:

Games 2 & 3

This scenario is additive!

Returned to play it twice more. Dale and Barry this time, with a swop over at half time. Some excellent gaming and some brilliant results using IABSM rules from TFL.

Getting ready to run it again tonight with two more teams.

Here are a few more action pics from games two and three:

Games 4 & 5

More pictures of the Les Attaques 1940 game. This time the 4th and 5th plays at it with different players. Certainly getting value for money with this scenario!

A few additional ideas built in this time to curb a few ideas at short cuts etc.

Tim Whitworth

 
 
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Inspired by issue 184 of After the Battle magazine, I decided to do a late war game based on actions in one of the Oder Bridgeheads in February 1945. It allowed me to try some loaded-for-bear SS foot units, and was a change of pace from the Normandy kick I was on.

The Soviet 49th Guards Tank Brigade (with T34/85s) drove the SS Fallschirmjaegers out of Grabow on Feb 5. But then the Kampfgruppe Schwedt defenders received reinforcements: two batteries of Sturmgeschutz-Brigade 210 and Fallschirm-PanzerJaeger-Bataillion 54. So, along with units already in the bridgehead (SS Jagdverband Mitte, SS Fallschirmjaeger Btn 600 and the snipers of SS Scharfschutzen-Zug) the Germans counterattacked on Feb 7

Final German casualties are two dead StuGs, and nine of the Fallschirmjaeger Panzerjagd down. Sheridan lost seven of his Jagdverband men and one MMG team.

I lost one M4 and forty-five men, two MMG teams, two platoon leaders and the Company CO. No point in the tanks hanging out here anymore. The war is going to be over soon.

Mark Luther

 
 
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By the end of the first week of September 1939, the German 4th Panzer Division had advanced as far as Warsaw. Thinking the Poles would be knocked off balance by the speed of their advance, German commanders issued orders for the city to be stormed via the Ochota district on the western flak of Warsaw.

The Poles, however, had heavily reinforced the area, with units from the 40th “Children of Lwow” Regiment barricading streets and manning gun emplacements along all the approaches.

The Poles let the Germans drive into the city, and then opened fire with everything they had. Worse, many streets had been covered in turpentine, which was then lit on fire, destroying several German tanks and catching German infantry in the inferno that followed.

This then was the background for scenario #47 (Taking Ochota by Storm) of the second September war scenario pack. The game would begin as the Poles (played by Dave) open their attack on the advancing Germans (played by John). The Germans’ objective was just to get as many of their units as possible back off the table; the Poles’ objective was to destroy as many German units as possible.

The Battlefield

Two thirds of the table was taken up by the outskirts of Warsaw: a loose grid of streets with a goodly number of houses and factories. The other third was fairly empty rough ground.

A main road ran down the centre of the long axis. The Germans would start the game along this road spread out from the half way point deep into Ochota: the open ground behind them at the other end of the table being their way out.

The view down the main road into Warsaw

The Poles would start the game in a loose horseshoe shape surrounding the hapless Germans, initially separated by a bit of a gap. Their troops were dug in and, because of the seating arrangements in my wargaming room, mostly concentrated on one side of where the Germans were: Dave showing a marked reluctance to stand up and lean over the table!

The Germans

The Germans had a strong, well-balanced force: a slightly reduced company of Schutzen infantry supported by a couple of platoons of tanks.

Force commander was Hauptmann Siggi Schnitzel on a motorcycle combination. Directly under him were three platoons of Schutzen motorised infantry, each with a Big Man and two squads of eight men each. Each squad had lost their transport, but did have two LMGs, meaning that they would fire with an extra dice. In support was a platoon of four MMG teams in Kfz70 trucks.

Attached were Hauptmann Kurt Kirschwasser’s tanks: a company HQ of a Panzer Befelswagon and a Panzer II; then two platoons each of a Big Man, two Panzer IIs and a Panzer I.

The Poles

The Ploes were commanded by Kapitan Bazyli Barszcz: a man with far too many zeds in his name!

Their infantry contingent consisted of three line infantry platoons each of two 12-man squads. The 1st and 2nd Platoons also had an anti-tank rifle team, using the excellent wz.25 anti-tank rifle. In support were three MMG-carrying taczankas (to use the Polish spelling).

Also in support was Big Man Porucznik Burt Bigos with two 75mm field guns that would operate as an improvised anti-tank gun platoon i.e. each weapon would fire on a separate Anti-Tank card.

Finally, Porucznik Kori Kurczaka commanded a platoon of five 7TP jw (1939) tanks: the best armour the Polish army had available.

The Battle Begins

Both sides deployed under Blinds, with each side putting down one Blind at a time. As per the scenario, the Germans were clustered around the main road; the Poles had a blocking force on the road out of Warsaw, but were otherwise mostly to the south of the main road.

Both sides spent their first Activations in Spotting. The Poles spotted the German Panzers on the main road; the Germans spotted the Polish blocking force. The Poles also decided to deploy their tank platoon in order to get them into the action as soon as possible.

Things happened very quickly after that. The German Panzers scattered off the road, seeking to avoid the attentions of Burt Bigos’ guns. The tanks headed north, but left the Befelswagon behind: it was hit by several shots of 75mm HE and would spend the rest of the game trying to get moving again.

Without the German tanks to shoot at, the Polish field guns then turned their attentions to a German infantry platoon sheltering in a house near the road. The German infantry had already begun a firefight with the Polish taczanka platoon, and were somewhat perturbed when the house they were in was not only hit by the Polish guns but also set on fire: the Schutzen would have to vacate the premises on their next action.

Another Schutzen platoon, from its start point in the house opposite the burning building, also headed north, looking to carry out a combined attack on the single Polish unit north of the road: an infantry platoon that had just started to pepper the advancing Panzers with anti-tank rifle fire.

Unfortunately, the German infantry ran straight into the single Polish turpentine trap and were engulfed in an exploding fireball: the equivalent of being hit by a flamethrower. The German infantry platoon effectively ceased to exist, with only flame markers remaining in its place.

This was a bitter blow to the Germans and, I think it fair to say, sapped their morale. All the remaining Panzers now decided just to individually sprint for safety: all semblance of a coordinated plan not out of the window.

This left the two remaining German infantry platoons somewhat in the lurch: especially the platoon at the deepest-into-Warsaw end of the road. This attempted to make its way north of the road in order to loop around and away from the main Polish force, and would spend the rest of the battle dodging from house to house in an attempt to follow the Panzers, all the while gradually losing men to Polish fire.

The Death of Barszcz

Meanwhile the German platoon that had been forced to abandon the house set alight by Polish artillery had moved west, hoping to make a quick dash off the table.

Their progress, however, was stymied by the Polish tanks: the AFVs were moving north looking to get into firing positions on the flank of the fleeing Panzers. Kapitan Barszcz had, on his snow white charger, moved forward from the original Polish artillery blocking position, and was currently sat under the leas of a badly shelled house.

Unfortunately, that house was now occupied by the German platoon, above, members of which leaned out of the window and dropped grenades and improvised petrol bombs onto both the Kapitan and the nearest Polish tank.

Suffice to say that the tank survived but Barszcz did not!

Ed.’s Note: no horses were harmed in the making of this AAR. Please assume that Ogier dodged the petrol that so afflicted his master and was last seen cantering happily off into the distance.

Note the Germans on the top floor of the nearest house

The End

Barszcz’s death was really the last German success of the battle, and John conceded shortly after.

One or maybe two Panzers might have got off the table, but no more than that. It had been a crushing defeat for the Germans, a glorious (and historically accurate) victory for the Poles.

Post-match analysis revealed that John, the German commander, had gone into the game without a specific plan. His aim had been to spend a bit of time working out where the Poles were, then make something up “on the hoof”. No thoughts of dividing his troops into those aiming to flee and those aiming to hold off the attackers whilst they did so; no attempt to force a Kesselschlacht that would draw the Poles into a fight in one place whilst most of his troops punched through with a Schwerepunkt elsewhere.

IABSM, like most uncertain-activation games, requires a plan as the basis for what you are doing. You might not get the cards you need in the right order you need them, but a plan allows you to make the best of what you do get: okay, so I can’t do this bit of the plan now, which is annoying, but the card that’s appeared means that I can do this bit of the plan instead etc

Dave, the Polish commander, was happy. He acknowledged that things would have gone even better had he initially spread his units out a bit more, but German Unschlüssigkeit had meant that he could actually use his deployment to powerfully sweep across the table…and he hadn’t had to stand up much either!

For those interested, the game lasted about 2½ hours.

Robert Avery

Polish taczanka

Polish 7TP jw (1939) tanks

 
 
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Clotted Lard is the Devon Wargames Group’s annual Lard Day. A full report of the 2019 event can be found on the DWG blog, but here’s an extract describing the game of IABSM that took place as part of the festivities.

Hill 203

Put on by club members Ian and DWG. Ian has been working hard in recent months to build up his collection of 15mm WWII Normandy figures and then decided he needed some bocage to go with them. I get the feeling he is not up for building any more of the stuff, but his efforts bore fruit with his hedgerow-hell game seen at Clotted Lard…

And a few more shots of the game taken from the IABSM Facebook page:

Carojon

 
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Had a small learning game tonight building towards the demo game at Salute. Some of the kit is currently incorrect but will be made so in time for the event!

Michael Curtis

 
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This scenario is in the Welsh Guards supplement pack and represents their action defending the slopes of Mont Lambert between the village of the same name and St Martin Boulogne following their rapid deployment in under 24 hours from the south-east of England by troopship to the strickened port, where they intended to offer a rearguard action to French and British troops who were retreating back to the coastal ports of Boulogne and Dunkirk.

Upon arrival the Welsh Guards deployed with their colleagues the Irish Guards and some troops from the ACPE units in a semicircle around the port of Boulogne. The Welsh Guards took up the eastern part of the perimeter with the 3rd Coy taking up positions on the St. Martin road.

Extract from 2 Bttn Welsh Guards diary

Date: 0730hrs 23 May 1940

Whilst the Commanding Officer was making a detailed tour of the line enemy tanks attacked No. 3 Coy at MONT LAMBERT, setting fire to the rd block which was being inspected by a patrol under 2/Lieut. A. MacN. PERRINS, most of which suffered casualties. The tanks fired at the A/T guns sited near 3 Coy HQ. These guns either put the tanks out of action or at any rate made them withdraw after heavy fighting. Lateral enemy Arty bombardment began and lasted without pause until midday, registering at first on the quay and the town of BOULOGNE and later lifting backwards (SOUTH) until it registered accurately on the railway running through the Bn position, the SAMER road, and particularly on 2 Coy.

At about 0900hrs under cover of this close Arty bombardment and Mortar fire, a strong enemy attack with Tanks and A.F.V.s was launched against our right (2 Coy) and centre (3 Coy). The front was held intact until 11a.m., a slight readjustment to 2 Coy’s position having been made, one Pl and Coy HQ being withdrawn slightly to the left and rear. The Arty registration on the railway had made it untenable and one Pl suffered heavy casualties from shell fire. Meanwhile 3 Coy was heavily engaged and suffered casualties. Capt. W.H. CARTER being mortally wounded at about 1030hrs.

The Scenario

The scenario sees the Welsh Guards having arrived at their positions and attempted to dig in to the hard ground. They succeeded only in digging scrapes for cover but were supported by brigade anti-tank units armed with Hotchkiss 25 mm anti-tank guns known as 'one pounders'. In the scenario the guards have 3 of these for their assistance. They are under attack from advance elements of the 1st Panzer Division in the form of platoons of Mark II and Mark III panzers.

These are French Hotchkiss 25mm Anti tank guns. Bought by the British army and affectionately known as ‘One pounders’ these little guns packed a punch against Blitzkreig German Tanks.

These are 1/72 scale metal castings from Keiven at Lancer Miniatures. Painted in Tamiya and Vallejo paints, flock based on MDF and festooned in tufts from The Warpainter.

These 1/72 scale kits by S Models, Pz Kpfw II Ausf B, are excellent wargaming models. Painted in Tamiya and Vallejo paints, on a Warbases MDF base and textured using Jarvis cork pieces and sand, dry brushed and decorated with tufts from The Warpainter (via EBay)

The Game

We initially played this game on the Friday night but experienced a series of very strange extremes with both the order the cards were dealt and the dice scores being rolled by players. This resulted in a magnanimous British victory with all of the German tanks being destroyed by the 25 mm anti-tank guns. In addition the Germans lost all of their support medium machine gun teams, including actual MMGs being destroyed by roles of '17' from small arms fire from the British infantry platoon in the sand quarry.

Three of us decided to play this game again a couple of days afterwards having had time for us to do some further research and swot up on as many AARs and accounts of the actual battle as possible.

In this game Ralph play the Germans and Martin played the British, whilst Yours Truly was umpire and tea masher.

In the second game the cards were a little more generous in the order in which they were drawn but again the opportunity for the German player to identify Welsh Guards positions as a result of their previous evening's poor fire discipline provided Ralph with significant intelligence about the Guard's deployment and Martin had to uncover half the Blinds he had placed on the table.

This can be a particularly difficult scenario ruling if an extreme is obtained, however on both games we managed to get about 50% of the Blinds exposed and in fairness that was reasonable.

The disclosure showed an anti-tank gun outside the crossroads and a British platoon, 9 platoon, 'C' Coy, Welsh Guards taking up additional cover behind the low cliff of the sand quarry close to the crossroads. That platoon was accompanied by a Boys anti-tank rifle, but not the usual 2 inch mortar.

The crossroads showing the first anti-tank gun to be exposed and the platoon in the sand quarry adjacent to the monument

Ralph proceeded to bring on his Germans on Blinds and was initially a little reluctant to engage the targets already exposed, choosing instead to rush for the Boulogne end of the table. His objective was to secure the crossroads and get 5 tanks of far edge.

His machine gun company was quickly observed, along with another Panzer II platoon and the former quickly became the target of concentrated small arms fire from the British infantry platoon within the quarry. The Panzers were immediately also under fire from the one pounder anti-tank gun at the crossroads along with another one nearby, which exposed itself coming off its Blind. The Panzer platoon suffered several hits and a series of minor damages in the form of engine mobility problems and losses of actions for the following activation but importantly only one tank was knocked out.

The Germans are allowed a forward observation officer for their offboard mortars in the form of a Storsch light aircraft and Ralph was quick to have it over the table and searching for targets. That it did in finding the anti-tank gun at the side of the crossroads, whereupon it called in support from the offboard mortar battery.

Ralph brought on more reserves in the form of a second Panzer II platoon and it soon started to make headway down the slopes of Mont Lambert, veering somewhat northwards away from the activity in the sand quarry and the crossroads but very quickly came under fire from a third anti-tank gun back in the isolated farmhouses on the St Martin Road.

The third anti-tank gun along with its accompanying Big Man attempting to create havoc to the advancing panzers

More minor hits were achieved but nothing dramatic and the Panzers continue to roll on. The mortars now zeroed in on the anti-tank gun and casualties were suffered. Martin continued to pour fire into the advancing Panzers as a third platoon, this time of Mark III tanks entered the fray.

More mortar fire ensued with the motorman reducing their distance from the target each turn. A rifleman in the quarry notched up successes against the German machine-gun positions on the hill and drove one off quickly. The Germans were in danger of losing whatever support they had for the tanks and it looked like another British victory may be on the cards. However they look changed dramatically and the German Panzers started to take advantage of the pinning potential of the autocannons on their Mk II tanks, quickly switching targets and eventually pinning all three of their tormentors.

The airborne spotter turned to richer targets and assisted the mortars in zeroing in on the Welsh Guards in the sand quarry where casualties quickly started to build.

The German advance continued with more and more firepower quickly pinning the anti-tank guns early on after each tea break card respite. The anti-tank gun close to the crossroads despite being aided by a Big Man removing Shock regularly eventually succumbed and German concentration of fire move to the one next to the quarry and that was quickly dealt with. The gunners abandoned the gun despite the efforts of another Big Man and were mown down as they ran away towards farm buildings. That left just the third remaining 25 mm gun sat back in the farm buildings on the St Martin Road as a single main deterrent to the German advance.

The guards start to withdraw from sand quarry area as all appears to be lost

The second Guards platoon was activated but only offered elements of firepower in the final destruction of the remaining German machine guns. But by then it was getting too late with the Panzers rapidly advancing down upon the crossroads.

The Welsh Guards in the sand quarry succeeded in shooting down the airborne observer but found it necessary to withdraw from the quarry as mortar fire continue to zero in on them. They also desperately tried to get their anti-tank rifle across to the road and hiding the hedge is close to the crossroads, but as they did so they too were mown down by successive rounds of auto cannon fire and high explosive shells from the Panzer Mark III tanks.

The Germans were now effectively free to bypass the crossroads, with the British defence all but eliminated. The remaining Welsh Guards electing to withdraw back to Boulogne and make a stand in a similar manner to that of their historic predecessors.

Panzers on the advance

All in all it was a better game than on the Friday evening and went very much the way of the real thing. We now need to move on to play part two of the game which is the defence of the station on the dockside in Boulogne itself.

Tim Whitworth

Pictures of Key Terrain Features

The Crossroads

 
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Played our IABSM dice-driven variant tonight, pitching 1943/44 Soviets vs Germans.

Both sides fielded a company of infantry and then chose from support lists up to a points value shamelessly copied from CoC. The Soviets picked two units of tank troops (BT-7s and T-34s) and a medium mortar battery; while the Germans picked a Panzer IV troop, an FOO; a Stummel infantry support vehicle, and loaded up on the panzerfausts.

We tried out a new rule that limited the number of times a unit could be activated. It was partially successful, but the jury is still out.

It was good to get back into gaming after the Summer break, and the cold beers helped the evening roll along nicely.

The game ended after some bloody exchanges, and both sides lost significant numbers of infantry, the Germans though knocked out all the BT7s, but still had to engage the T34’s.

Cheers to Iain Fuller, BartMan and Philip Andrews.

Desmondo Darkin

 
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Had a lot of fun running this little scenario at Broadsword 9 over the weekend, so I thought I'd share it here! We played the Battle for Honkaniemi (Feb. 26, 1940), also known as the only (and therefore "largest"!) tank battle of the Winter War.

As you may know, while the Soviets had thousands of tanks at their command, the Finns had very few indeed. They threw them into a desperate attack late in the war that they hoped would throw back the Soviet forces that were closing on Viipuri (only 15km away at this point in the conflict) and spearhead a larger Finnish offensive operation.

Well, it turned out to be a terrible day for the Finns, from losing more than half of their thirteen operational tanks to mechanical trouble, to friendly artillery falling on the heads of the supporting infantry, to a complete lack of reconnaissance that could have revealed the Soviets were planning their own attack operation at the very same place and the very same time!

While a conventional victory was probably out of the question, we decided to judge the results of this scenario against what the plucky and hopeless Finnish tankers achieved historically. And for all that, the Finns did very well during the game! Have a look and see what you think…

Introduction

Here is an historical map of the scenario. The village of Honkaniemi is shown north of Lake Näykkijärvi. The Soviets were deployed to the southwest and the Finns would attack from the northeast. The railway in the middle of the map runs from Leningrad to Viipuri (some 15km northeast).

The Karelian Isthmus front in February, 1940. Lake Näykkijärvi can be seen at the point of the advancing Soviet 50th Corps (50th RC), some 15km southeast of Viipuri (Vyborg). Image courtesy of Talvisota.fi.

The Game

Dave Lister

 
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Been trying out I Aint Been Shot Been Shot Mum by Too Fat Lardies today. Had a great game with Phil Turner and Jenny Owens. For our first game it went really well. Looking forwards to playing these rules a lot more.

Michael Curtis

 
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This battle is an updated version of the original which was written for an earlier version of IABSM. The ‘Big Man’ levels have been updated from the ‘D6’ method to ‘Levels’ and additional Big Men have been added in line with the more recent scenario format.

The game got off to a troubled start when I realised that I had constructed my hills the wrong way round so had to put them on the table on a different corner to the map and adjust the terrain accordingly, but the game played well despite my ‘faux pas’.

The British were commanded by Steve and Steve, and the Germans by Steve and Steve, so no problem with names and Steve got to go on every turn of the cards!

The British deployed on Blinds with five real and two dummies, whilst the 12th SS had the benefit of hidden troops so could deploy either marked on the map or by using their Blinds. Their allocation was five real and five Blinds, with the number of real Blinds able to deploy reduced for each hidden unit.

The 12th SS hidden deployment had their FOO in Belle Vue farm on top of the hill, with a good view across the terrain; one Zug across the two buildings of Ferme Vallé; their three MMGs in the orchard behind Ferme Vallé; the second Zug behind the east side of the hedge where the road turns south towards the pond. Finally, their anti-tank team was in the corner of the field across the road from Belle Vue. The Germans then placed their remaining Blinds.

Before the game commenced the British had three ‘stonks’. They placed one of these over a dummy Blind near the pond and the other two stacked on Belle Vue. The single ‘stonk’ was ineffective whereas the double barrage on Belle Vue caused six Shock on the lonely FOO who decided it was time to scarper. With the barrage over, when his card turned the German Big Man rushed from the orchard to Belle Vue in order that he could direct the four off-table 105s; fortunately for him the FOO left his radio behind in his frantic attempt to get out of the way of the ‘stonks’.

start of the game favoured the British who had two Blinds moves before the Germans could react.

As there were Germans hidden in Ferme Vallé looking straight down the road any British units entering on the road had to be placed on the table as automatically spotted. They decided to lead with their armour troop followed by 3rd platoon carried on the universal carriers. They had 1st platoon coming on a Blind to the west of the road and 2nd platoon and the support weapons coming on between the east of the road and the hedgerow running towards the orchard.

Their first two moves with the armour showed no finesse with the tanks tearing down the road with three dice plus road bonus each time. This took the two leading tanks around the first major bend with the third waiting to turn the bend.


Unfortunately for them the next card turned was the Germans Blind and they saw a great opportunity for an ambush. In an instant a Panzerfaust round hurtled into the rear tank which promptly exploded killing all the crew and Captain Roughshaft who was hitching a lift. There was collateral damage to the section in the carrier behind with two being killed and the Germans in the building also lost one man.

Whilst the Germans had been waiting for the British to come in to a firing position the Cheshires’ infantry had deployed off Blinds, thus giving them more cards in the deck. They managed to get a section within 4” of the building facing north on the bend. This initiated a close assault (the first of five such engagements in this very bloody game) with one British section fighting two Germans who also had the benefit of heavy cover, ensconced as they were in this thick stone farmhouse. The result was slaughter to both sides each losing a whole section. Meanwhile the Germans were desperately trying to call in their 105s. They were successful on the fourth attempt, which probably reflects the loss of their dedicated FOO. After all this effort their barrage was ineffective.

A Panzerfaust round then hit the second Sherman in the rear, the fire coming from the other Ferme Vallé building. This Sherman also erupted causing some collateral damage to friend and foe alike. In the meantime, a British infantry platoon managed to move through the orchard west of the road and close assault the western-most building of Ferme Valle. Although the German section in this building had the benefit of cover, they had suffered casualties and were carrying a lot of Shock. Following another bloody hand-to-hand combat the result was another 12th SS section eliminated.

Having lost the buildings, the Germans deployed their machine gun teams to fire on the farm buildings. This made the British realise that they should have used their 2” mortars to lay smoke which they promptly did. Following a further close assault by the remaining platoon of Cheshires on the second German Zug further casualties were inflicted on both sides and the 12th SS decided to disengage and withdraw.

A British victory, if somewhat a Pyrrhic one considering the high casualties.

Thank you to Steve, Steve, Steve and Steve for a very entertaining and friendly game.

Carojon

 
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Pictures from Scenario #05 from the IABSM scenario book Where the Hell have you been, Boys? played by members of the Vermont Historical Gamers Group.

 
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Wonderful news from The Other Partizan show at Newark today. Our WW2 Pacific Theatre public participation game of Peleliu 1944 played using TFL ruleset “I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum”was awarded the prize for Best Participation Game.

Well to to all the chaps in the team for the splendid effort in making this project come off the drawing board and turn into a reality.

Thanks to Barry Foster and Richard Hudson for enduring the role of hard-pressed yet sneaky Japanese defenders; to Dave Wilso, Michael Togwell, Chris Breley and Andy Sharpe for being exceptional ambassadors meeting and greeting prospective players and to Ralph Gibson and Dale Askew for guiding the more junior participants through the course of the game in their roles as Marine commanders.

We received lots of praise for our work, caught up with old friends and made some new ones. All around us were Lard based participation games and it was great to see the Group absorbed into the wider Lard community.

Better still was to receive great feedback from author Richard Clarke and IABSM scenarios scribe Rob Avery. Thanks chaps it means a lot to us.

Here a few photos of the game. The first taken by Steve Vickers.

And here are some more shots of the game taken either on the day or at another warm-up session at “The War Office”:

Tim Whitworth

 
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Mike Whitaker and crew brought their superb Omaha game to The Other Partisan 2019:

Spent most of the day (barring a couple of brief diversions) umpiring Bloody Omaha. An excellent day - one young gentlemen stayed pretty much all day and handled the bulk of the American attack.

We never got to wave 3, but by turn 8 the Americans had several breaches in the wire, having come under some pretty serious hammer early on - 2/3 of wave 1 was late, so the Germans had opportunity to concentrate their fire early on. The German artillery wasn't as effective as it could have been - partly Carl and I were swapping umpiring/running the Germans, and there was perhaps a lack of continuity for such things as 'are we walking the fire up the beach?'.

General Cota made it on in wave 2 (yes, I know he should be several beach sectors over, on Dog White, but Robert Mitchum in the rôle is a very iconic image and I couldn't resist :D) He led an advance up the western edge of the beach, almost directly at WN64 which was slow but being quite successful,..

Herewith a gallery with comments (largely me nitpicking, because the camera is unforgiving and it's my game and I can!):

All set up and ready to play. Newly watered marshes front and centre, as well as All The Beach Obstacles and some copious use of Woodland Scenics mid-green lichen. A no-prize if you can tell me what I forget to pack... (There are in fact two things.)

This is probably the one thing that really bugs me about the game that isn't fixable - the board joins. Sadly because of wear and tear and in some cases slightly out of tolerance boards, they can be very visible, even though we hide them with lichen and barbed wire, That said, the original plan was always a modular board (and we do reuse some of the hills in other games), so the square tiles and 'stepped' look are a deliberate design choice. Also, I need to glue the wire on to the barbed wire bases so it sits flatter on the ground.

Flames of War LCV(P) with passengers. I should retouch a couple of helmets but on the whole they've pretty evocative: I would very much like if Battlefront redid the castings when they announce the Higgins boat for the new late war range, as they are a bit scuzzy and a swine to get a brush in the gaps, even more so when you can't easily spot what's what on the casting!

Need to retouch the bases on the mine stakes to match the shallows rather than the deeper water. Usefully it's AP Army Green, I think, so easy to match...

An LCV(P) gets hit on its way in... Rob suggested a few floating body markers (and I thought I was obsessive!) :D It's a good job I have two packs of those explosion markers as as far as I can tell neither of the folks I bought them from still make them!

I love this shot - taken low over the hills at the back of the table, it almost hides the stepped contours of the board.

A new addition for this game (in case you missed me rabbiting on about it) was photographer Robert Capa., who appears on wave 1 on one Higgins boat and must leave with one of the empty wave 3 boats. He's very much being portrayed here as the legend, rather than what might be the truth...figure customised from a PSC heavy weapons team guy...

He has a card in the deck. On an activation, he has three actions with which he can move 1d6 each, or use one or two to take a photograph (much like AFV fire in IABSM, a second action means he takes time to compose his shot...) We then roll 1d6, + 3 if aimed, plus 1-3 at the umpire's discretion for choice of subject (the player gets to say what he wants to photograph). Still tuning the numbers, but a total score of 50+ means he gets to keep his job, 100+ means he becomes a legend. -50 for missing the boat back to England (and thus his press deadline).

And just for giggles, we get an iPhone down to board level and 'take' the photo (and crop it and turn it B&W). So, here's Capa's portfolio for the Magnum agency for Life magazine from The Other Partizan...

We have the Capa version of this iconic shot on our banner for the game. Part of me is really tempted to have a Higgins boat modelled with its ramp down expressly for Capa...

This is Capa's original... I also find myself wondering if I can find a small HD spy cam that would fit IN or on a 15mm Higgins boat :D And whether a backdrop behind the boards would look effective...

A BAR team from the Big Red One taking cover in the shallows. The team medic can be seen slightly out of focus right of centre.

Big Red One rifle sections shelter under a ramp obstacle.

German artillery plasters the beach - observe the elements of both the Big Red One and the 29th sheltering on the shingle below the sea wall while Capa himself takes cover behind a log ramp.

A mortar section of E company 16th RCT of the Big Red One takes cover behind a 'Czech hedgehog'. Ahead, engineer elements of E company are attempting to breach the wire protecting the exit from the beach.

So there you go. Thank you to everyone who played, came and said hi, or said nice things, to Carl, Rod and Rob for helping run the game, AndyM (as ever) for scenery, Rich Clarke for the original scenario, and thank you to the Other Partizan folks for inviting us!

Mike Whitaker

 
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In the weeks following the D-Day Boot Camp, I’ve been building an American force and adding to my existing Germans in preparation for a Normandy game I want to put on for my usual group of fellow-minded gamers

My group tend to prefer to play narrative-style games where all the players play one side with the opposition played by an artificial intelligence system, so the choice of which rules to play was important.

I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum, the original Two Fat Lardies WW2 company-based game with its random activations, its Blinds and spotting seemed ideal for the scenario I had in mind. Nothing wrong with FOW rules, but they are more designed for those epic WW2 massed armour games and, well, when you read the scenario you may understand…

The Hamlet of Le Mer(de)

Introduction

It is the night of the 5th of June at what had been a fairly insignificant crossroads in the village of Le Mer, some 5 miles North West of Carentan.

The tows of two gliders from the 101st Airborne, carrying a battery of 57mm Tank Destroyers ( towed 6pdrs to non-American readers), have overshot the drop zone and, being fired upon by AA, have been forced to loose their wards blindly. As it happens, the gliders land on our sleepy little village where, luckily for them, two platoons-worth of the 101st have also dropped nearby, and have started to converge on the sleepy little hamlet.

A platoon of 1058th Grenadier Regiment has been billeted in the village to protect a battery of anti-tank guns whose prime movers have broken down on the way to coast: left behind when the rest of their Company moved on to Carentan.

Neither side knows the other is there…

Background: The Germans

Lieutnant Shutlz stared angrily at the small glass of Cognac sitting on the makeshift table in the warehouse he had made his temporary headquarters in this shitty little hamlet of Le Mer: more aptly it should be called Le Merde, he thought. Famous or infamous for the factory that produced the awful looking bicycles everyone in the area rode.

The Cognac didn’t help his mood, he had risen from the ranks fighting in Russia and had never developed the taste for the stuff that his fellow officers had , it was only marginally better than the swill they called wine here. He was from Bavaria, now a good Bavarian Dunkel beer and you were talking. The Cognac’s only saving grace was it was alcoholic and you could get pissed quickly on it!

Why did he need to get pissed ?

His bloody Company Commander had left his platoon here to guard two shitty guns and their crews whose tow trucks had broken down. They’d all carried on to Carentan to deploy for the damn Allied Invasion!

Personally he didn’t know what the fuss was about: they could have France, bloody hole; they could keep Russia too. Why any self respecting German ever wanted to leave Bavaria, never mind Germany, eluded him!

To cap matters Private Dingler, or Private’s Dingler ,as he was always running off to take a leak, had run in from one of his 20 minute forays outside, (for a fag he’d said but the platoon knew better) had panickly shouted that he had a loud crash in the field to the wet of the Village, ‘Loud Crash’ he thought how anyone could hear anything over the noise of passing Allied Bombers , and the booms from their falling bombs!

To make matters worse he’d tried to contact Company HQ earlier in the night and found the Radio was on the Fritz ……again!!!!!

Probably a waste of time but he’d better deploy the platoon just in case, which was sure to increase his popularity with Sgt Muller!

Background: The Americans

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHITTY SHIT! was the 1st words that came to the mind of Sgt Dingler 101st Airborne. The only bright spot was the fact the two gliders bringing in his battery of 57mm guns had landed fairly safely, despite being released and abandoned by the bloody air Corp when they’d had a few flak guns shoot at them! Fairly being the term as the Lieut had been the only casualty, knocked unconscious on the ‘landing’.

So he was in command!!!!

He’d got the guns out of the Gliders and one of his gunners head off to reconitre the village he’d seen by a few window lights to the east of where they had landed, he guessed someone may have spotted or heard them crash!!!!

The only redeeming thing so far was another of his gunners had made contact with a couple of Riflemen from the 501st, who were part of a mixed platoon of guys coming in from the east of their position.

Willy Summers’ Platoon.

Lt. William ‘Willy’ Summers nervously crouched at the gap in the huge hedge, that led from the field he had crossed, on his way to the the village he had spotted on his way down, before he became entangled with the tree. There had only been one on the edge of another field , and no matter how he tried to manoeuvre somehow he had landed at the top. 20 minutes of quiet cursing   frantic cutting, and not a few cuts and bruises had got him to the bottom,  where he found 10 of his men from his stick, standing and crouching amusingly watching his predicament. 

Finding as much dignity as he could muster he had them through various more fields picking up various troopers from just about every company of the 501st and even a couple of 82nd Airborne,  he wouldn’t be totally surprised if there were not some Limey Paratroopers in the mix, though he had collected a mortar crew.

One of his scouts had found an opening on to a dirt track road, which he now intended to  use to take the village ahead. He signed his makeshift squad leaders to spread their squads on each side of the track, and hugging the hedgerow  they would advance towards what looked like a bombed out building on the edge of the village.

Preparation

The first half of the evening was spent sorting out the activation cards for the two sides. The Americans, being Elite, got a Rapid Deployment card which gives them an extra four dice of activation for moving when under a Blind. Two Tea Break cards were added , so initially the pack would consist of just five cards: a Blinds activation for each side, and the above two cards.

The initial part of the game is set at night so all spotting distances were halved.

For those not familiar, IABSM uses Blinds for units not yet spotted with at least one extra Blind to add the fog of war - it’s meant to represent a couple of scouts who are assumed to melt away if spotted.

The possible German units available were each given a playing card identifier, and an identical card was placed in a reinforcement pack. More cards were added of different suits, representing “non-units”. This pack was shuffled and a number of cards were drawn and assigned Blinds. We therefore had no real idea what German forces were in the village: if a “non-unit” card was drawn, its Blind would be removed on being spotted.

To add to the fog of war, rather than putting German Blinds down onto the table at the start of the game, we just put down four “zones of deployment”, and when it seemed appropriate, we would randomly deploy a German Blind a random direction and distance (a D6+4 inches) from the deployment zone marker, then place the Blind as close to available cover as possible.

The First Night’s Move

We then played out the first night’s moves…but nothing particularly exciting happened in these moves as units moved on Blinds, though there was a very cinematic feeling to the various units blundering around with no idea where the opposition was.

The American AT gun Blinds split: one headed for the hedgerows by the one road; the other, which was sitting a bit exposed , pulled their guns into the broken ground to the north of them, hopefully to get a firing position on the road coming from that direction.

Heading for the hedgerows

Occupying broken ground

The infantry platoon on the right (west) moved towards the road but sent a scout Blind to check out the group of buildings to the north of their position:

The platoon to east (Summers’ platoon) moved very slowly (bad dice roles) down the hedgerows each side of the road until it reached the crossroads, directing one squad into a ruined farmhouse:

The Germans sent out Blinds to the three buildings being investigated by the American scouts: two into the four storey building to the north of town and others to the building around the northern most crossroads. Others were deployed to the other four storey building, and two headed for the ruin that Summers was heading for.

The Blinds that were left were deployed either side of road from the German deployment zone placed on the southern entrance to the table.

Lots of failed spotting roles were made as evening went on, and only as we were about to call it a night was anything spotted: unfortunately for Lt Shultz he was spotted directing troops.

3rd Grenadier squad was also spotted, lurking near the base of a building, by eagle-eyed American gunners.

The Second Night’s Play

At the end of the first night’s play, Lt Shultz had been spotted standing in the middle of the road directing his troops around the village. Most had made it into good positions (we think) apart from 4th Squad that had been moving towards the four storey building nearest to him.

Lt Summers had sent his 3rd Squad into the bombed out farmhouse, but they they had spent the whole move getting to the first floor (second floor to U.S readers). We had originally just decided to take that squad off Blinds but in the break realised the whole platoon on the Blind had to be revealed. Likewise we realised that all of Lt Shultz’s platoon needed to be taken off Blinds, so we rolled for where they were: finding 2nd Squad at the far end of the Southern road by the bombed out Mansion. 3rd Squad had been one of cards pulled out in initially set up , so would have to randomly arrive as reinforcements on start of subsequent moves.

This decision turned out to be a wise one as the now revealed 1st Squad lurking behind the hedges directed them to Lt Shultz, and with a very easy spotting role (it’s still night) they opened fire on what was an easy target.

Lt Shultz must have had good hearing, and heard weapons being cocked, as he dived to the ground as his two aides were turned into pink mist by the volley of shots by 4th Squad.

It didn’t help him much, as two troopers from 1st Squad promptly crept round the edge of the hedge and let him have it. Despite trying to use the bodies round him for cover he developed two new body cavities and decided to retire from the game.

All the German Blinds tried to spot where the firing came from, and the German squad finding themselves standing in the road when a whole pile of gunfire started dived into the ground floor of the nearest building (although for game purposes they were stuck on the roof).

1st German squad on roof, figures at base are 2x Panzershrek teams taken off Blinds later

The German 2nd Squad at far end of table hearing the same shooting , dropped into the hedge line and started to make their way down to the crossroads.

2nd German Squad carefully moving back to village.

Then for what seemed to be a theme for the night, the second Tea Break card came out ending the move before the American Blind card came out, leaving the un-spotted anti-tank gunners and the 1st U.S Para platoon un-moved.

At the start of the second turn, it was decided to pull all the German units on table off Blinds, to ease play.

Having already deployed one German infantry zug, we needed to draw three cards for their reinforcements, and managed to pull out 3rd Squad; the armoured car unit of the Panzer Lehr; and a unit of old French tanks that were being used by the local German forces: a Somua and three Hotchkiss H35’s or Renault R35’s (I’ve forgotten which).

Then, working from the most likely Blinds already on the table to the most unlikely, we drew cards to reveal if it was a blank or real unit. This revealed that the two Panzershrek teams were in the lower floor of the building shown above; one of the Pak 40’s was in the lowest floor of the other four storey building ; and finally that one MG-42 MMG team was in the rough ground right in front on Para 4th Squad covering the road to the east.

The other MG-42 MMG team was in the one of the outlying hovels at the north west side of the table.

And finally the last PaK 40 was stuck by the ruined mansion at the the most southerly end of the table. Strangely enough its deployment and that of the German 2nd Squad fitted the original narrative in that was close to the road where it’s towing vehicle had broken down and the squad had been deployed nearby to protect it.

Despite all above being put on table, the next series of spotting roles led to a lot of confused troops as after the first flurry of gun fire any unit and the subsequent scrambles for safety, everyone had lost sight of each other.

The 6th Para Squad had moved to cross hedge and enter the ruined farmhouse, but had got stuck in the hedgerow and only just managed to get into the gap between the hedge and the farmhouse.

And before the US Blinds card came out we had the second Tea Break card…so despite their no show for last two moves the Para anti-tank guns and the 1st platoon of Paras were left on Blinds. The fog of war!

At this point we decided to role to see if dawn was breaking, but night was firmly entrenched.

We also rolled for reinforcements and the 3rd German Squad appeared on the northern edge of the table: gingerly making their way back after having stopped off at a local tavern

Summers’ platoon then sorted itself out with 6th Squad finally managing to move into the ground (US: first) floor of the ruins.

It was obviously a dark night because nobody could spot the MG-42 team in the broken ground, and they must have still been looking down the road as they spotted nothing either!

The German Panzershrek teams moved to either end of the building they were in, and the totally forgotten Sgt Mueller who was their commander ( and now to his horror platoon commander) was located where he was hiding with the first PaK 40 in the four storey building (he can be seen at top of building in photo above).

And, of course, the US Blinds card didn’t come out before the second Tea Break card came out again! We therefore left the unrevealed American units on their Blinds: they do get an extra activation dice on Blinds…if you ever get to use it!

We then rolled for the night again, but dawn had still not broken.

And Germans got more reinforcements: three Panzer Lehr armoured cars (Sdkfz 222’s) who randomly appeared on the western road leading into Le Mer right behind the Blind concealing the second half of the US anti tank guns. This could get interesting and a lot would depend on whose card would appear first.

Meanwhile, the German 2nd Squad was still slowly moving down the hedgerow and this continued.

Then the US 5th and 6th Squads failed to spot the German MMG and vice versa.

Then the US Blinds card was drawn: hurrah!

This quickly prompted a’ discussion’: Pete wanted to make the guns fire twice at the armoured cars, but I thought about this: the guns had still been effectively moving forward, and had not been unlimbered for action, so we used one activation dice for them to spot, one to unlimber and only allowed one for the shot. According to the rules, the first shot should be aimed, but we argued against that…despite which it hit the lead vehicle and disabled the armoured car: knocking out the engine and stunning the crew (two Shock) for two activations.

Meanwhile 1st Platoon dived into the hedgerow and moved up towards the crossroads on hearing the commotion behind them; and Sergeant Mueller dived over to the other side of the building and saw nothing.

The forgotten MMG team in the hamlet saw nothing .

The Panzershrek teams heard a bang but saw nothing!

The second armoured car (which had survived the anti-tank gun’s opening volley due to the ruling above) hadn’t spotted the gun which had taken out their colleagues, so decided to carefully move up behind their suddenly stopped lead vehicle, with the commander propping himself on top of the hull to peer over the hedgerow to see if he could spot anything. He didnt!

At this point it was 10 o’clock and Zeberdee called time for bed.

Game Session Three

We drew or daylight and finally the faint glimmer of early morning light began to dawn which we decided would drop spotting roles but only -2 as opposed to -3 and drop the multiplier for spotting.

We left it with the one of the anti tank guns having just disabled the lead SdKfz 222 on the road which came into Le Mer from the west; with the commander of the second armoured car standing on top of his car peering over the top to see what the hell had shot his comrade. As it happened, he was about to find out: one of the first unit cards drawn was for one of the anti tanks guns. Pete wanted to immediately fire at the disabled armoured car, but it had a stunned crew for at least another move and had he fired, the gun would have been a sitting duck for the other two armoured cars who could then safely scream round the corner and let them have it. So Pete reserved the gun’s activation, effectively putting it on over watch.

Meanwhile, leaving the warehouse building by the northern road they had come on, Squad 3 moved forward along the hedge and the 1st U.S Para platoon moved along the hedge on the western road, then crossed the hedge and took up positions around the western corner of the cross roads.

All the other units continued to try and spot what was going on, but the only success was Sgt Hawkeye in 2nd Platoon (the platoon’s other Big Man) who thought he saw movement in the rough ground in front of their bombed out farmhouse and spotted the MG-42 position. 1st Platoon’s card had already come out, but 3rd Squad had held back its action and opened fire on the hapless machine gun, and despite very lousy chances took out both its loader and commander.

The second Tea Break card came out, and the rules allow un-activated units to fire if they have a target at Close Range, so the reserved AT gun did, putting three shots into the hapless lead armoured car…but only blowing it up on the third shot: the first two just put more holes in the engine.

The end result was a spectacular explosion which pretty much buggered everyone in the immediate area’s night vision

On the next move the only thing that happened was the lone gunner left on the MG-42 returned fire taking out one of the paras (we were having a good set of die roles: he was on a reduced chance as a lone gunner) and the second AT gun on the western road deployed with the other gun to watch the armoured cars. It also got a bit brighter.

With the new move the first card out was for the second US platoon, who’s third squad promptly let the lone MG-42 gunner have it. This drew the first German squad’s attention, who moved from one side of the building they were in to the other to see what the hell had been shooting.

As it happened, one of the Panzershrek gunners in the floor below was able to tell them where it came from.

Likewise the second squad, on hearing gun fire to their front, moved off road to the shadowy building on hill to their right.

Everyone then had tea again.

As dawn was about to come down with a crash, Summers’ platoon could hear the sound of tanks and could see coming down the east road what looked like a column of tanks ( I had got another German reinforcement role: I needed a 6 , and four commandeered French tanks in German service arrived…a Somua and three Renault R-35’s).

To say both units sides were surprised was an understatement. Summers’ 2nd Platoon’s 1st Squad dived into the hedgerow, the bazooka team took up position on the crossroads, and the mortar crew stood amazed and told Summers ‘Tanks’ ! This was perhaps not their wisest decision. The tanks came to a screaming halt with their commander spotting the hapless mortar crew and diving into the turret and shutting the lid. There had been a discussion about unbuttoned or buttoned ( you could see the glint in Pete’s eyes about shooting the commanders or even his famous “mortar through hatch”, but I had been reading about British tanks moving at night, and if the Germans took the same practice only the lead tank would be unbuttoned, the rest would would just follow the light in front, a practice even more likely with all the gunfire). Then we got two more Tea Break cards again, and moved on to the next turn.

As it happened, the next move was pretty much the German response move. The tanks’ card came out first: the lead tank opened fire and killed one of the mortar gunners and Pinned the rest. Two of the others took up position either side of the road and machine gunned the the hapless mortar crew, putting more suppression on them. The mortar crew, in desperation, fired a smoke round to obscure their position. The fourth tank moved cautiously through the gap in the hedge row to get a flanking position on the farmhouse.

The third German squad had by now spotted the US anti-tank guns covering the southern road and opened fire on them, killing one of the crew, who returned fire and managed to annoy one of the local pigeon population.

The second German Squad opened fire on the farmhouse, putting suppressive fire onto their opposite number in Summers’ second platoon.

First German Squad opened fire on the farmhouse, putting supressive fire down on their opposite numbers in Summers’ 2nd Platoon; and 2nd Squad, having found there were no windows on the northern side of the barn they were in, decided to join the tanks on the eastern road.

Summers decided to send his Bazooka team to move up the inside of the hedge to ambush the tanks, not knowing about the German 2nd Squads’ move to join them.

It was home time for the players. Just to explain the slow progress of game , generally the other player don’t arrive till about 8 ish, and leave at 10 so by the time of a quick natter we probably only get about an hour and half’s play each week, which for most groups would be a problem but with the table being safely undisturbed in the games room is not a problem for ours.

So we leave it with the Americans currently holding the cross roads. Their guns are holding back the armoured cars on the western approach, but likewise cannot move due to their threat. The second pair of guns are in a precarious position under fire from German infantry and unable to move in case they are caught in the open.

Summers has the problem that he is facing four enemy tanks (he doesn’t know they are crap French ones) and currently has only two Bazookas with the addition of the one from 1st Platoon to deal with them as all the guns are effectively pinned in position.

The Body Count Begins To Rise

A slow session move-wise this week, we were slowed down by the fact our usual rules guru (every club has one: OTT has a Justin) Kevin was not feeling well, so there was more than a little delay as rules were checked more than normal.

There was upside for the Paras in this, in that we realised we had only been giving them three Actions and dice, when in fact they get four for Elite squads of eight men, which we only found out when we were looking at the the effect on squads when losing men.

The second thing was that the second Tea Break card on the first turn did not come out till the end, so everything activated.

So what we got last night was a game of two halves even though we only played two turns.

The first card drawn on turn one was the German infantry platoon. 2nd Squad, in the woods, continued its careful move through the wood toward the tanks. 1st Squad opened fire on the Americans at the bottom of the farmhouse, killing one. 3rd Squad had the most luck: reducing the 57mm gun crew to one man.

A couple of American Anti-Tank cards came out. We decided we needed to put the ones covering the armoured cars on overwatch lest we got a game-y charge by them before they could fire: perhaps one of the few faults of the rules is that all overwatches come off at end of a turn, maybe a local rule change for future games to amend so that units stay on overwatch till next activation.

Then the tanks card came out. The one already in position opened fire on the farmhouse, but only managed to Pin the troops in the top floor. In theory we could have given it a bonus for shooting at a packed target, but decided the floor would break it up (for the small gun anyway: we may have allowed the bonus for 25pdrs and 105s).

The 2nd American Para platoon’s card came next, and both squads opened up on the Germans across the road who had shot at them, forcing two casualties on them (this is when we spotted they should have had an extra dice as the ground floor squad had two dead so reducing its dice to three). The 1st Squad, with Summers, moved down the hedgerow to stalk the tanks, and the mortar crew scrambled into the safety of the hedgerow, not knowing that the tanks had moved off the road.

Various other cards came out. First up was German guns: the one at southern end of the table not spotting anything and the one at the north spotting nothing as well. The third American gun, the same; and the German Armoured cars successfully spotted the guns watching the road they were going to enter on.

When the American 1st Platoon came out there was a little bit of a discussion.

One was sit and do nothing, in case they got caught in open, which I thought was a great idea with two units of armour either side of them which could catch them in a pincer. The most it was going to do was delay the inevitable: staying where they were meant that the second hedgerow across the road prevented them from firing at the Germans in the four-storey building; moving to it would leave them into being chopped up by the armoured cars if they broke through at the end of the road.

So the Bazooka team was moved to cover the road , and two squads crossed the hedgerow and dived into the bank on the road side of the second hedgerow.

Then the Big Man for the US Anti Tank guns came up, so he helped man the the remaining gun and shot at German third squad: they now have two annoyed pigeons and a smoking kestrel!

We finally got the second Tea Break card but were not sure we would get a full move in before Zebedee said time for bed again. The pub was discussed, but Keith had forgotten his pennies, so we pressed on.

Again the German infantry and tanks went first, and with reduced numbers and lousy dice only managed to Suppress the squad on top of the farmhouse: the first we’d had, it had been remarked unusually for this game, casualties had been caused but no Suppressed results.

The first American platoon (above ) went next. Obsessed with shooting, Pete wanted to fire at the chewed-up German squad, but that could have left them open to being shot at by the armoured cars if the cards went wrong so, after some discussion it was decided to run a squad to the broken ground between hedges under the cover of smoke from their mortar. This would put them into a position from which they could assault the German position next activation; prevent the other Germans from firing at them (fire and movement: as old as the hills but seems to have passed everyone by!); and they managed to cause another casualty to the Germans, which becomes important later…

The German gun crew then tried to spot the troops on the road but failed: it took Keith about five minutes to convince Pete they had a line of sight.

The US AT guns and German armoured cars continued to pin each other down: I think the armoured cars were doing a grand job as this meant that the American AT guns could not turn to face the tanks.

Summer then activated 1st Platoon, which got to shoot at the chewed-up German squad for one more casualty, which dropped it to one activation and one dice, and the Bazooka crew tried a shot at a retreating German tank (the Somua had had lousy movement dice) as it was in partial cover as it was moving through the gap in the hedgerow: “I can see the back” was the cry, “But can you see three corners?” This last was pinched from Tanks. The gun missed - just.

The last Tea Break was pulled, and Zebedee shouted bed time again.

Cuharee!

Well with this session things began to heat up. Firstly the armoured cars on the Western Road activated first and decided to charge round the corner and blast the two guns, Unfortunately they were borrowing Gerry’s dice and only managed to Pin them.

The 1st Platoon Big Man activated next: ordering one squad to put down suppressing fire on the four storey building and the other to attempt to launch an assault. The shooting killed one more German , and the remaining three decided to vacate the building but only managed to get to second floor, The assault failed due to lousy dice , the squad getting stuck in the broken ground.

At this point the first of the two guns activated, and it appears American dice are better than German as they promptly blew up one armoured car.

The third and final gun activated and moved to the rear of the glider, moving slowly to get a shot at the tanks on the eastern edge of the table.

Summer, for 2nd Platoon then activated. Most of his platoon had no targets now, so he reserved his shooting, and the Bazooka tried again on the medium tank. This time it blew the arse off it, and its Big Man commander dived out to the nearest light tank.

Then the second gun activated and promptly blew up the second armoured car, though the Germans did manage to finally kill one of the American gunners before the explosion.

Sgt Muller, the German infantry’s hapless commander, gave up trying to to join his chewed up squad and retired after the Panzerschrek team that had shot past him the previous session (this would have an effect later on).

Tea Break

In the next move the the third AT gun activated first and fired a shot at the tanks: two hits were registered but one only managed to put a temporary movement effect in place, and the other bounced off. They fired back, Pinning the gun but otherwise little effect, German dice being lacking in pips.

1st Platoon’s Big Man operated again, so the mortar started to put down smoke in an attempt to allow 2nd Platoon’s squads to extricate themselves from the farmhouse in order to escape further fire from the enemy tanks and, with no targets left for the suppressing squad, the assault squad charged in . Taking one look at the screaming Americans, the three remaining Germans wisely decided they had an appointment in Paris and fled the table. So the squad charged into the building to find no one there and only an empty bottle of Cognac (Lt. Shultz last finally got some revenge). The other squad moved up in support behind the building.

In the meantime the third German squad, having run out of gunners to shoot, decided to cross the road and take up position in the building across the road from Sgt Muller. The MG 42 team sitting in the hamlet at the northern end of the road also moved position: into another building as they suddenly realised they had an American gun they could see.

Run Away!

Tea Break.

The three German tanks decided discretion was the better part of valour and moved out of the line of fire of the AT gun, realising their peashooters were having little effect.

Having sent his Sergeant back to fetch the rest of the platoon , 1st Platoon’s Big Man decided to launch his unused second squad at the second four storey building on the road. The third squad, in the building just captured , put down suppressing fire and killed one of the Panzerschrek crew. Second squad successfully caught the forgotten PaK 40 crew on the ground floor napping and wiped them out, but then was thrown out of the building by Sergeant Muller, who charged down with his two lads and the remaining Panzerschrek crewman, managing to kill four Americans for the loss of just the latter.

In the meantime the newly positioned German third squad opened up on 1st Platoon’s squad (who had been putting down suppressing fire) and killed one of them.

The forgotten MG 42 team, having spotted the AT gun, opened up on it, killing one gunner. This gun promptly moved around the other side of the glider, out of sight.

Then it was Zebedee time again!

Time To Go!

The final session of this part of the battle was difficult to keep track of. Despite intensive re-shuffles of the cards in the deck, the moves tended to be “Germans activate, an American unit activates, and then both Tea Break cards appear”.

The upshot of this was the German tanks were able to move right across the table to take up position by the warehouse that had been third squad’s previous home. Here they took up position and began to shell and machine gun their opposite numbers in the four storey building that had supported US 1st Platoon’s second squad attack on Sgt Muller . Sgt Muller decided to dash across the road to better direct the fire from his third squad on the same target. His completely forgotten second squad moved to the hedge to find that both the tanks and any Americans had gone: they felt a bit like the lone US Para at the end of the Longest Day , who spent all of D-day moving to the shooting to find it had all gone by the time he got there.

The forgotten PaK 75 on the end of the southern road could see lots of activity around the above building and, feeling bored, decided to lob a few shells at it…particularly as no-one could see where they were firing from.

This concentration of fire pretty much shot the American third squad to bits, with them now down to only two men, who had to be dragged to safety by their Big Man. On the odd occasion they activated, however, they managed to kill two men from the German third squad.

In the meantime, in the odd times they activated, the American guns had begun to move to the cross roads, leaving one in position to cover the Eastern road. Lt Summers, seeing that the tanks had gone, gathered his troops and leap-frogged his squads to assault the coal warehouse in preparation for attacking Sgt Muller squad at the end of the town.

Sgt Muller had a dilemma, despite the fact that he seemed to have taken care of the enemy troops attacking his position. Not knowing second squad’s location, he was down to around nine effectives: with his command squad and the six remaining third squad-ers. His tank support was down to three light, not particularly effective tanks. One of the guns his command had been left behind to protect had been destroyed by the American paras which, although he had momentarily dealt with their threat, he had no idea of the size of their force and, according to the tanks’ commanders, more Americans were gathering in the town and it was almost certain they would assault his position with possibly overwhelming force, using the various town buildings to cover their approach from his tank support.

Discretion being the better part of valour, he gathered his remaining troops, fired a Very pistol , the pre-arranged signal to withdraw to any of his men still surviving in the area, and used the cover of the tanks to withdraw in order to join up with units of the Panzer Lehr he knew were moving into the area.

The first day’s action was finally over.

Bob Cockayne

 
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Just play-tested Scenario 20 from the Anzio supplement. Neil, my regular opponent, took the Germans whilst I fielded my newly-painted Yanks.

The battle centres on the German attack on Able Company of the 180th Infantry Regiment on the third day of Operation Fischfang. Twelve German tanks head down the "bowling alley" with infantry following some turns behind. The Americans are defending a bridge over the Carroceto Canal with three platoons of infantry backed up by a number of cooks and bottle-washers sent forward in desperation. The Yanks have seen the Germans coming and called for armoured reinforcements, but there's no sign of them yet!

The first platoon of German tanks deployed on table almost immediately, and spotted the Americans as a swarm of bazooka shells headed their way. No damage was done, and the Panzer IIIs (yes, they were still using them!) swung round and began area firing on the American trenches. Another platoon of German tanks, Panzer IVs this time, joined in, and a terrific firefight ensued between the German armour and the four bazookas and single HMG that the Americans had.

The Germans couldn't overrun the American trenches as the canal was in the way and their infantry hadn't arrived yet, but were, as history, able to blast away at anything in a Vallejo Brown-Violet hat! The Yanks quickly began taking casualties: one section racking up nine wounds as their men threw themselves desperately on top of the accompanying bazooka team in an attempt to prevent the loss of their only anti-tank assets!

The Germans, however, were a bit like ducks in a shooting gallery, as the road was the only hard surface around: everywhere else was a sea of glutinous mud and the "Bogged Down" card an ever- present threat. Lined up neatly almost track to track, they lost three tanks in as many minutes, particularly as the Yanks could move around to fire at their side armour. The "Cooks & Bottle-Washers" were particularly impressive: Cook-Sergeant Landau proving that his bazooka firing was infinitely better than his meatloaf!

The Americans were, however, starting to run out of men, and once the cannon fodder had been, er, eaten, as it were, the bazooka teams started suffering as well: two being KO'd in the same turn. At that moment, the first of the German infantry arrived as well, who could cross the canal, and things were looking a bit grim for the 180th.

The Allies had, however, now obviously recovered from the initial shock of the German advance (General Lucas had finished his grits presumably) and their superior off-table assets started to come into play. First an air-strike KO'd a tank from the third German panzer platoon (more Panzer IIIs) and then the shells from a battery of 105mm guns started landing. Two German platoons were caught right in the blast area, suffering badly, and a Panzer III was blown to bits by a direct hit!

With three American Shermans appearing along the Dead End Road, the Germans began to retreat: not realising that their four infantry platoons (slightly battered by artillery, admittedly) and remaining three tanks now faced only two US platoons, both of which were under strength (suffering from the depredations of the previous few days fighting) and the three Shermans, who couldn't reach the fighting anyway as they had reached the end of Dead End Road and were faced with traversing the same sea of mud that had caused the Germans such problems.

A victory for the 180th mainly due to a loss of nerve on the part of the German commander. A strong push might have cracked the American morale or, better, forced them to fall back due to simple lack of manpower to continue the battle. The American victory conditions also meant that he could not have just left the Germans in place, but had to clear them from the field. A little more faith in Fischfang, and it could have been the Germans eating the Cook-Sergeant's evening meal rather than the victorious Yanks.

Robert Avery