WRG 1925-1950: Race to St Leger I

Issue 27 of Battlegames, the first done in the Atlantic Publishing era, featured an excellent article on scenario featuring the "Race to St. Leger", a company-level game designed to showcase the Too Fat Lardies' I Ain't Been Shot Mum rules.  However, there is nothing that would stop one using it is as a scenario for any company-level rules - in my case, the WRG 1925-1950 rules supplemented by the Threat Generation System from Miniature Wargames 373.

I took the British forces for this first game.  The scenario is about the advance of the Green Howards and the Royal Dragoon Guards in D-Day, trying to maintain the speed of their advance in the face of resistance by 352 Fusilier Bn and 352 PzJg Abteilung.  I wasn't too strict about victory conditions, considering that if the British destroyed all the armour opposing them in relatively short-order, then that would be a job well done.

The Forces:

British

Royal Dragoon Guards:
2 troops of 2 x Sherman M4 and 1 x Sherman Firefly VC

Green Howards:
1 company of 3 rifle platoons (each platoon has a PIAT team, and 2 have a 2" mortar)

Germans

352 Fusilier Bn:
1 company of 2 grenadier platoons (1 with 3 squads, the other with 2 - all squads have a single Panzerfaust 30); and 2 x HMG belonging to the Coy

352 PzJg:
3 x Stug IIIF SP guns

However, I couldn't find my Stugs on the day of the game, so I gave the defenders 3 x PzIVG instead.

The Battle:

The first rifle platoon advances cautiously onto the table by the road

They are quickly supported by a troops of tanks from the Dragoons

This advance does not go unobserved however...

From the German Fusilier Coy commander, concealed on the high ground

The British advances develops, with infantry and armour working closely together, always with "one foot on the ground" - with static weapons able to fire at anything that should show itself, whilst other elements advance

One of the platoons goes left flanking and reaches the edge of the orchard on the hill on the British left

Against a surprising lack of resistance, the lead platoon reaches some cover about halfway down the battlefield

One of the concealed Panzer IVs (bottom-left) overlooks the valley, although the actual road is invisible from this position

A closer look

The overall situation at this point: the lead platoon is in the centre, a German PzIV to the bottom-right, another at the bottom near the German company commander, the supporting British to the left

The PzIV fires first on the British Shermans but misses; the British tankers make no such mistake and the German tank is knocked out

A closer view!

The British trip up an ambush by a concealed German squad - the lead section suffers casualties but supporting fire quickly suppresses the Germans

British riflemen going through the orchard (right) are spotted by more Germans - the Germans open an ineffective fire and are soon suppressed by the British Bren and Lee-Enfield fire

Note the supporting British tank troop has advanced further down the road (left); meanwhile, British infantry assault the German squad with grenade and bayonet (centre)

A Sherman erupts into flame as it is knocked out by a Panzer IV

The German tank commander smiles a grim smile of satisfaction...

But return fire from the Shermans quickly silences this second German tank; note that a second British tank has been destroyed near the German CP (top-left)

A dug-in German squad opens fire against the British at the edge of the orchard

The third Panzer IV opens fire from its perch on the hill - but misses again!

A Firefly doesn't make the same mistake and knocks out the final PzIV - the road to St. Leger is open

 Game Notes:
It was great to get back to WW2 after the recent concentration on Ancients and the War of the Three Kingdoms.  The solo game was fun and the threat generation system worked reasonably well, although I think its design is more suitable for a kind of wider, looser battle - it is hard to randomly generated well-organized, layered defences I think, so there was a certain lack of coherence in the German defensive positions.  On the other hand, the lack of predictability does at least keep one on one's tactical toes.  I would advise modifiying the system from all-round danger to generating defenders only in the frontal arc - this avoids making it too easy for the attacker, as otherwise defenders will often be generated right in the sights of concealed attacking supports.
Otherwise the German defenders just need to shoot better first time!  In contrast to many WW2 rules, at these kind of ranges most medium tanks are pretty vulnerable to direct hits, even to the shorter 75mm weapons.  I continue to use my mild modification to the machine gun rules, where MGs which hit can have further shots against other targets within 25m of the first.  Otherwise, a very good game from a very solid scenario using very solid rules.  The only slight complaint is that the scenario uses "turns" as the measurement of time.  If scenario writers are going to do this and not use real time, at least tell the reader what the movement of a vehicle or a foot soldier during a turn is, so it can be converted into a suitable timeframe for the reader's preferred ruleset.  I know that games designers often like to keep time a bit fuzzy and flexible, but it is hard to avoid it when converting real life actions into scenarios.

Note that although the Germans lost more armour (3 AFVs to 2), they were more efficient (66% - 50%) - funny how these quirks work, since the Germans were supposed to be about that much more efficient in Normandy overall.

And for interest, here is a link to another take on this scenario.