Op Martlet Campaign Battle 4: Striking at St.Nicholas

The next battle in the series is the British attempt to break-out from Fontenay by taking a strong farm position at Saint Nicholas.  I took the following support options to stuffen the British infantry platoon.

1 x Rifle section
1 x Sherman
1 x 17 pdr (this was in error, I shouldn't have been able to take this in this mission, it should have been a second Sherman.  I don't think that it made a major difference, in the end)
1 x FOO + 3" Mortar battery

The plan was to have a section probe cautiously into the open ground and try to get the Germans to expose their positions whilst being supported from the rear and the flank, while the main infantry assaulted through the woods.

All the game details as for previous battles: WRG 1925-1950 rules; GHQ, Heroics and Ros and Adler troops and vehicles; Total Battle Miniatures and Baccus scenery; Too Fat Lardies Op Martlet Campaign for the scenario and Miniature Wargames 373 for the solo Threat Generation System

The Battlefield:

The farm complex towards the top-right, the woods centre and left, the ploughed fields towards the bottom

The view from the German side

The view from the British lines

The Battle:

The British infantry, supported by a tank and an AT gun, advance through the woods (and the attached section advances through the ploughed fields)

Closer-in to the British advance in the woods

The flanking section encounters a stray German who is eliminated in short order

The flanking section comes under fire from a German position at the edge of the fields

Just as the advancing British infantry suppresses the German infantry squad and moves up to assault the position, up pops a hull-down Panzer IV! Gulp...the leading British tommies fall to its fire.

View from the German tank towards the farm and wood...what are those indistinct shapes...?

That got him!  The concealed British anti-tank gun gets it, first shot,,,the force was with the crew on that shot, did the gunner use to bullseye rats with his shotgun back home?!?

The concealed AT gun

Jerry isn't daft! Another Panver IV pops up!! Blimey....

Luckily his shooting doesn't match his ground appreciation, he misses and the sweating AT gun crew sigh in relief....

Wider shot of the battle

The British gunners knock out the second panzer....maybe the British tank can stop skulking at the back now!

The British infantry moved up to assault the farmhouse but immediately four men fell to the German riflemen concealed in the top building

The British tough it out though and in the exchange of fire, the German defenders are killed

More German infantry pop-up and pin down the flanking British section

Same position

And another German section engages.  However, the cumulative German losses up to this point have told upon their morale

and both sections retreat off the board, leaving the British in possession of the farm complex

Game Notes: The Threat Generation System continues to provide an exciting and tense game: I literally never know what to expect!!  I think my plan was good but it worked better than I had a right to expect because of some really good British shooting and because the larger German infantry sections were activated later in the game rather than earlier. 

British casualties: 10 infantrymen
German casualties: 9 infantrymen, 2 Panzer IVs