The Scottish Corridor Campaign - Battle 03 Encounter at Le Valtru revisited

Scenario One (Second Attempt): Encounter at Le Valtru

The third battle of the campaign saw the Germans of SS Division "Der Fuhrer" again trying to take the village of Le Valtru against British opposition from the Seaforth Highlanders.

As before, this battle is from TooFatLardies' Pint-Sized Campaign, The Scottish Corridor.  Details of the first battle can be found here.

 Again I picked a British Infantry Platoon supported by a Churchill tank.  The Germans are an SS Platoon with support randomly generated.

The village of **** about to see action for the second time

Another shot of the village, looking lovely in the sun!

The British advance again.  An infantry platoon supported by a Churchill tank.

On this occasion it was first blood to the Germans! A hidden PaK40 opens up with devastating effect on the British infantry tank

Very smartly, the British infantry platoon puts in suppressing fire and then destroys the anti-tank gun, killing or capturing the road

A German gun covers the road

British infantry advance through the village bound-by-bound, systematically clearing the houses

A German tank (Panther) attempts to change the balance and the British infantry suffer some casualties from the fire of the supporting gun.  The relentless advance is continued however

The Germans fled after losing further infantry positions within the village: understandably perhaps, the Panther crew did not fancy its chances in the close confines of the village when its supporting infantry were killed or captured.

Outcome:
The German defenders got off to a great start by eliminating the British Churchill tank early on but after that, very little seemed to go their way.  The systematic advance of the British infantry through the covered approaches in the village rendered the Panther of limited effectiveness, although the German gun did manage to cause half-a-dozen casualties in one of the British infantry sections, proving very capable against infantry in buildings.

Germans: 21 killed and captured, 1 Pak40 lost.
British: 6 killed and wounded, 1 Churchill destroyed.

Game Notes:
The systematic use of covering fire and covered approaches makes it hard for the German defenders, even infantry in buildings, when they are activated piecemeal: the weight of British support fire silences the defenders and renders them very vulnerable to close assault, which is (realistically) deadly.  At the ranges involved in these campaign battles, armour is very vulnerable, even the heavier tanks.
The game took around 50 minutes to complete, played on a 3'x2' board.  The buildings are from Total Battle Miniatures and the figures are a mixture of GHQ and Adler.  The vehicles are GHQ, the artillery from Heroics and Ros.  Rules as ever are the WRG 1925-1950 set, used with the "Threat Generation" solo rules in MW373.