AAR: Take the Village!

Cracking game at Entoyment in Poole today, played in 20mm using Rapid Fire Reloaded rules.

SCENARIO

A village somewhere in Normandy during 1944, a British infantry brigade with supporting Churchills and arty have to dislodge a couple of well supported Wehrmacht battalions.

ORDER OF BATTLE

We’ve used forces from the Rapid Fire Normandy Battlegroups book.

British Forces

Infantry Brigade (2 battalions)

Royal Artillery Regiment (2 batteries of 25 pounders)

Anti-Tank Battery (M10)

Machine Gun Company (MMGs and 4.2” mortar)

Anti-Tank Company (Towed 17 pounders)

Tank Squadron (Churchill)

German Forces

A German Infantry Division Kampfguppe consisting of:

2 Infantry Battalions

Support Company – Gun (150mm and 75mm towed guns)

Support Company – Anti-Tank (towed PaK 40, Panzerschreck team)

2 Artillery Battalions (towed 105mm guns)

Anti-Tank Companies (Marder and StuG)

THE GAME

German forces were all hidden at the start, and the British moved up in force on the left flank, with a feint on the right. The idea being to then hook into the village from the left flank. As it turned out the main attack got hammered and the feint made the most progress!

Well-hidden German ATk teams took a heavy toll on the Churchill squadron early on. Effective fire from German mortars, 75mm infantry gun, and a battery of 105s wreaked havoc on the advancing British on both flanks, with the East Yorks routing on the left flank half way through the battle. This left 4 Commando at the mercy of indirect HE fire, eventually routing on the right flank. British arty didn’t really get going before a shower of 105mm shells took them out.

THE RESULT

After a few hours the British had taken significant casualties and only managed to push a small recce force into the village – which was promptly counter attacked and surrounded by the Germans.

With heavy casualties the recce force surrendered and the few battered remnants withdrew, signalling a German victory. The stalwart defenders achieving a ratio of at least 2:1 casualties..!

British casualties:
2 infantry battalions plus support companies
Churchill squadron
25pdr battery
ATk battery of 2x 17pdr, M10, Achilles
MG Company (all casualties apart from 4.2” mortar platoon)

German casualties:
2 Grenadier battalions sustained just under 50% casualties each
1 StuG
1 75mm infantry gun

Mention in Despatches for the British 4.2” mortar team, and to the German indirect fire which caused 75%+ of the British casualties. Well done Ian for a sound victory!

Much learnt and plenty of laughs. Next games planned are Hill 112 on 28th April at Entoyment, and then the big Sword 80 game on 6th June.