After a long discussion about spectacles, marketing and car engines (over bacon and egg rolls) we got down to it.
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| A nice touch by Ian - Churchill looking over my shoulder during the battle. |
I was the British, defending an airfield against a German battle group. My tanks would turn up in batches (Turn 2 and Turn 8) wheras Russ could get pretty much all his units on from Turn 1 - so I knew I had to hang on for some time until the cavalry arrived. What I didn't know was that Russ could also call in six lots of heavy artillery....
Each 'kill' would be allocated points (tanks, guns, infantry units) - with the main objective holding 20 points. So the incentive was there to get stuck in but also to hold the airfield at all costs (as it cost the equivalent of 6 German tanks and an 88mm gun!).
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| The battlefield - all that open space! |
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| The objective - the airfield buildings. |
I therefore dug in around the airfield in a semi-circle with my 25 pounders fanning out and protected by entrenched infantry and waited for the Nazi scum to turn up.
Another good touch in the rules was that (in the desert) dust is a double-edged sword. It shows where your enemy is (if moving at full speed) but also masks the numbers involved. So a dust cloud could be a solitary scout or an armoured division. They had to get close and the dust to settle before you could find out.
Soon enough, dust clouds appeared to the front and left as the Germans looked to overwhelm the defences quickly.
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| An unknown unit throws up dust as it appoaches the airfield |
After a while, my hunkered down infantry called down indirect artillery fire on the nearest units. These proved to be a tank and a soft-top vehicle. Being unlikely to kill the tank, all fire was directed at the soft-top which was destroyed. It then transpired that this was the HQ vehicle! So the following column ground to a halt. First blood to the Brits!.
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| Tank and soft-top (HQ) spotted. Open fire! |
The 25 pounders also opened up and killed a Panzer II and two trucks full of infantry.
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| The 22nd Armoured enter the fray and head for the nearest German dust cloud. |
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| The 25 pounders providing a fire base - but Russ hasn't spotted the infantry guarding them. |
Russ however was getting an idea of what he was up against and tried for an oder chage. He threw a 1 and couldn't (and so had to follow his 'arrow). This meant his infantry moving up on the right and trucks moving in on the left.
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| German infantry deploy from their trucks - and head into a world of hurt. |
So the British tanks charged in - rather than engaging in a long range artillery duel they were likely to lose. Russ managed to evade with his infantry as their trucks headed back from whence they'd come, leaving an 88mm and some PAK 38's to face the Crusaders alone. Russ also deployed a second line of guns (81mm and 38mm) behind the line being attacked - this was a crucial move.
The Germans got some shooting in before the Crusaders could get there and Russ called in some artillery - the net result was 4 Crusaders lost before they contacted the German guns. The barrage was particularly brutal (3 tanks lost) and it was only some poor rolling for the PAKs that ensured the damage was limited. Luckily, as the charge got home the artillery spotter high-tailed it and was unable to call in anything for a few turns. Just as well!
In the contact, the British killed off all the guns facing them except one lucky PAK.
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| The Crusaders charge in and kill all guns but one. |
I then buggered things up. I had the chance to pull the Crusaders back for a couple of turns. It was a tricky decision. If I could punch through the second line of guns, I could run an entire Rifle battalion off the table - and pretty much secure victory. But if I lost the tanks, the infantry and 25 pounders would be on their own for at least 3 turns. But I also wanted to relieve the pressure on the left flank infantry and guns (as they still faced a Panzer battallion - albeit one which had lost a couple of tanks).
So although I won initiative I passed it to the Germans. They used this time to close assualt my infantry. I was confident my boys could kill at least one tank - but managed to miss with 6 dice (another bad dice week loomed again).
Making it worse, I then charged the second line of guns with my Crusaders, hoping I could get enough numbers in to swamp them. However, Russ rolled much better - killed three tanks and forcing all the rest to rout from the table. This is where I knew I'd lost the battle. I had no armour on the table at all and despite killing another 3 Panzers their morale was higher and they stayed in the fight. My infantry and 25 pounders would have to fight alone. A stupid mistake by me!
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| My boys manage to miss a tank despite having 6 shots at him. Good grief! |
This also meant half his Panzers could swing around the front of the airfield and attack the right-hand infantry and guns (which were already under pressure from a second Panzer battallion that had arrived).
The only bright spot for me was that the German infantry attacking from the right were being cut down in large numbers.
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| On the right, half the German infantry have already been killed. |
However, the Panzers that had swung around the airfield now contacted the infantry on the right. Once again, the British opened up with everyting and failed to hit again! At the end of the game, I calculated that they'd had about 18 chances to kill a tank and failed every one. Why didn't the British have RPG's in WW2!!?!!
So the tanks were starting to make inroads into my infantry and guns and the game was just about up. I know that the 4th Armoured were due to turn up soon but it would take a few turns to get into the fray - by which time there wouldn't be much to save.
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| More panzers appear on the right and charge the infantry as more aim to get into the rear. It looks bad for Blighty. |
Again I cursed my rash decision. If I hadn't charged the Crusaders, they could now engage the panzers coming into the rear of the British positions - and also been well clear of the German anti-tank guns which the 25 pounders could have taken on and beaten in an artillery duel.
As it was, I was being rapidly overrun on both sides.
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| German panzers arrive behind the airfield my troops get overrun on the right. |
Finally, the 4th appeared and made a bee-line for the Panzers behind the airfield. Luckily for me, those tanks had stopped (rather than continued into the rear of my troops on the left) but by this stage Russ' second infantry battallion had stopped running away and had come back to assault the airfield. They also had the artillery spotter and my left units got hammered by incoming fire (while trying and failing to deal with the first Panzers).
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| The cowardly German infantry come back once all the fighting is pretty much done. The remaining British infantry and guns face them off. |
Eventually, the pressure told and the right-hand side routed - leaving the Germans an open route into the airfield.
However, we managed to kill another tank of the first Panzer regiment - which routed itself. Again, had I kept the Crusaders back....
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| The British get some good shooting in. |
The remaining British infantry and guns opened up on the only available target - the returning infantry - and kill 2 guns and an infantry unit. In retaliation, the off-field artillery (with their spotter now in place) plaster the British position and kill all remaining guns (only missing with 1 shot!).
All that remained to do was to see how the 4th Armoured fared. Their Honey tanks raced in and traded shots with the second Panzer group.
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| The 4th arrive - too late! |
But there were two other factors to consider. The British did not have enough infantry to re-take the airfield and Russ still had 3 more off-field artillery strikes to call in. I was contemplating rushing his anti-tank guns and artillery spotter with my infantry but the spotter could easily evade and call down the strikes.
So in hindsight, I'd probably calll it for the Germans. My stupid mistake was the main factor for this, and I'd like to have another bash to see if I could play it better.
Reflections
Ian ran this scenario as its a fun one with plenty of action and it certainly won me (and Russ) back over from the Milne Bay scenario. Playing it in one day helped, as did (for me) the spotting element which worked so much better in this battle than in Milne Bay. That element of the fog of war - combined with the fluctuation of fortunes - made it a very enjoyable game.
I'm now contemplating building a 6mm WW2 army (maybe a Russian or American one). With the cost of building an army in the £25-£30 range, it's a no-brainer! Indeed, I might look at a German one as well.
We also played this to get a better feel for the rules in preparation for Tarawa. It certainly helped me understand the rules a lot better and would certainly want to have a few more battles yet.
Thanks again to Ian for staging it, and to Russ for playing a blinder.