FoW - Operation Sealion - AAR - The Pincer that never was...

Last night Brett, Paul and I played our third game in our Operation Sealion campaign. To set the scene for the report I thought I would briefly recount the prior two games...

Our campaign kicked off a few weeks ago. I'd hoped to launch it as a beach assault scenario, but my beach terrain was not finished in time, so instead we came up with an idea to play a game where the setting for the game was a German panzer force has landed at the beaches with minimal resistance and has pushed inland and is heading to capture a village.

The village was held by a mixed force commandos and paras and Yanks, with Allied forces rushing to help. To hinder this support arriving, German FJs had landed in the Allied rear areas. So we had two games going at once, the main battle and with a smaller side battle.

This was great fun and kept all three players busy, from the start. The mission was thus a variation on Hold the Line/No retreat. As it turned out my small German FJ force didn't have much hope of stopping the reserves arriving but did hinder them enough to delay their arrival, and knock off a few elements. I was very wary of assaulting my panzers into a village held by paras, with gammon bombs and yanks with bazookas, but with a bit goading, and instruction from the more experienced player, I was 'schooled' in how to make a successful assault capture the objective.

 It was very good because I finally got to fully understand the assault phase and the '8" bubble'. So a win for the Germans in Game one.

Game two, saw a German advance to the next village, in which British forces were dug in, this time using the Cauldron scenario. 500 points of Brits had to hold on for 3 turns against an assault by a mechanised armoured infantry company (Panzer Lehr), until Yank armoured reserves arrived to save the day...

I got so enthused by the idea of crushing this meagre force of Brits holding out against me, I ended up stacking nearly all my forces in one quadrant, I was determined to outnumber my enemy somewhere and overwhelm him.

This I did but my troops actually got in each others way, and whilst the assault was successful in capturing one half of the village, I lost the chance to capture both sides at once, which could have been quite possible (another lesson learned). In the end my assault bogged down... a couple of fluffed motivation rolls to unpin etc... It gave the Brits just enough breathing space to hang on, and the Yanks armour arrived to save the day in true cavalry charge style, though it has to be said they got a bit of a shock to start with when all the arriving platoons shots missed, and the return fire from 3 panzer IVs wrecked a platoon of Shermans. But the good luck of the 3 panzers couldn't last and eventually they were overwhelmed.

Another fun game and more stuff learned once more. So allies win Game two.

On to Game three... I had found the opening game (two games in one) very entertaining and decided to replicate this idea.

The scenario was that after their loss the Germans pull back to reorganise their forces. The Allied forces push on to keep the pressure on the Germans, and attack with what forces they have in the area, a Commando Company. The German 'second wave' seeing what happened to their premier Lehr forces in the last battle are a little de-motivated and not first line troops anyway. Brett wanted to try out a force from his new book Blood Guts and Glory, and also for a change of pace wanted to try playing the Germans, so his forces were Reluctant Trained.

I set the main game as Pincer of approx 1200 points each, with a side game of Free for All, of 600 points of armoured forces facing each other, the idea being Allied armoured elements trying an outflanking manoeuvre, running into German armoured elements rushing to aid their beleaguered comrades. The victor of the armoured game would be able to bring what was left of their forces onto the main battle from the turn after they win their side game. So here's some pictures from our game last night.

The side game; 4 Brit Shermans and 2 M10s, vs German armour including cannon halftracks, AA halftracks and Panthers (proxied by Stugs)

The main force deployments pictured from the Allied side. The Germans are actually a mechanised company dismounted and dug in. Technically the Brits should have been defending, but we were playing a scenario for the campaign so anything goes!

Commandos eager for the off...

The stalwart German defenders, this doesn't look much does it? The Allies should brush this aside no problem...

OK first dice roll of the game, things start going wrong for the allies... the wind direction was not in our favour... our smoke and pin idea lost a bit of its umph! But the allies advance as best as they can expecting artillery to start wrecking the German forces. Sadly our naval guns ranged in but missed the panther in the open, and the paras battery did minimal damage to the dug in Germans.

On the side show, M10s deploy...

As do the Brit Shermans, who move up to take some meagre cover from a hedge covering one objective. At this point I went to make some tea... (does that sound British?)...

...when I returned the Panthers had wrecked the platoon, but the last tank passed its motivation!

Now Brett is never one to hold back...even on the defensive... having seen our artillery whiff, and faced with a bunch of fearless veteran troops in the open... he called up his halftracks , remounted and advanced, and deployed his ambushing half track cannon platoon, and let rip... it wasn't pleasant... sadly my Allied para commanders saving rolls for my commando were not the best, and brave men started falling. After this the Allies dug in, hoping to weather the storm of machine gun fire and wait till our artillery changed the course of the battle. The commandos in the marsh failed to dig in repeatedly, obviously the ground was too soft, and they paid the price over subsequent turns...

Back to the side show and the M10s bring the hurt to the German halftracks

Whats left of the marsh dwelling commandos...it aint looking good...

The panthers, having witnessed naval shells landing all round them, push forward to assault the end of the allied line held by a para platoon.

Back to side show, the Panthers at the double forward to 'claim' the objective, but fall to the M10s who reposition for side shots...

The panthers win the fight, losing one tank...

It was at this point that Brett spotted a crucial problem to our plan; waiting for our artillery to wreck the Germans and allow us to advance... we needed to be beyond the half way point of the board by turn six or we would automatically lose! Paul and I had lost sight of this small detail, and paid the price...

Brett pulled all his forces into line to prevent the Brits advancing. The side show had developed into just that, and wasn't going to influence the main battle either way now.

Paul and I managed one last assault to try and break through on our right flank, and got smoke and artillery to work and managed to attack and wreck some of the German defenders but it was not enough and the counter attacking Germans managed to defuse this thrust.

A last what the hell charge followed up the centre, which was as expected thrown back by defensive fire...

And that was it, the Germans hold on and win.

It is often said in tactical discussion that dice luck should not come into it if you plan correctly. Would somebody tell the dice that. Our artillery was terrible... and the so called 'Reluctant' Germans were anything but, passing nearly all key motivation tests with aplomb and only a few bailed halftracks refused to remount...

Still it was a great fun game, that at times still felt could have gone either way.

I look forward to the next game, getting back to command Panzer Lehr, I need the practice for Call to Arms!