Capturing Ceasar's Camp: Action 01 - Attack on Hedgehog Wood

Two first's today - the first battle of the Too Fat Lardies' Capturing Caesar's Camp pint-sized campaign, and also the first game using the published version of 'The Farquhar Version' - John D Salt's creation of the 'missing link' in WRG WW2 company-battalion level tactical rules, to match the 1979 'Modern' set.

 

 

This first action features B Company, 4th Cameron Highlanders attack on an outpost of the German 217 Infantry Regiment. Each side must try and defeat the other and drive them from the field...

The British Force:

A Platoon, D Coy, 4 Cameron Highlanders

1 x Rifle Comd Gp

1 x 2" mortar team

1 x Boys ATR team

3 x Sections of 2 x Rifle Gp, 1 x LMG

Attached are:

1 x 2" mortar team

1 x FOO and 3" mortar section

1 x Bren carrier

The German Force:

A platoon from 217 Infantry Regiment, supplemented with two engineer groups, a 37mm anti-tank gun, a car with a rifle group, and a sniper.

Both sides are attempting to recover some documents and possibly some survivors from a disabled scout car on the road.

The British have already bombarded Hedgehog Wood. When any troops are activated in the wood, they are 'instantly' attacked to represent the effects of this.

The Set-Up:

Hedgehog Wood to the top-left, the Cameron Highlanders will approach from the bottom. Difficult to see, but the abandoned scout car is on the road (top-right)

Easier to see here

The Battle:

The action begins pretty much instantly - the leading section of the Camerons' is ambushed by a German squad (centre); the Camerons' 2 Section accompany the FOO through the wheatfield (left); incidentally the Bren carrier has already driven up the road to get to the scout car - the Germans clearly held their fire to avoid giving away their positions.

Six of the Camerons are cut down in an instant!

Luckily 2 Section (bottom) is in position to begin some enfilading fire to suppress that German squad but, if you look...

A second squad on the far side of the wood

The flanking suppression has allowed the Camerons' platoon commander to bring the remainder of the platoon up; and it has taken a little while, but the FOO is just about to bring down the fire of his mortar section onto the troops

It does little harm to the forward German squad, but the rear squad has been devastated by the 3" mortar fire.

This cues up the assault of the Camerons, which wipes out the first German squad. Note that the Bren carrier came back and forced the remainder of the rear squad to surrender too.

A weird cameo! A car with some Germans in turns up! (top)

The Bren carrier shoos it away with some pretty inaccurate fire

2 Section and the FOO advance somewhat gingerly through the wheatfield, whilst 3 Section and the Platoon command element (which has taken the remnants of 1 Section under command) go right flanking, covered from the wood by the hedges and trees

Eek! the Bren Carrier comes face-to-face with a German anti-tank gun!

The British actually get the drop on the German anti-tank gunners, but the fire from the Bren carrier is wildly inaccurate!

The German gunners make no such mistake and destroy the carrier; the crew is then killed or chased off by the British Lieutenant and his Sergeant

The German Platoon commander is at the edge of the wood, but no-one can quite see each other properly. He seems to have escaped the preliminary bombardment just fine,

The British Platoon sets up its base of fire in the hedgeline.

The German platoon commander has his own base of fire in the wood. But 3 Section is snurgling up behind the hedgeline.

There are a couple of photos that apparently didn't turn out too well. Essentially, there was a firefight which caused few casualties on either side - and then the 3" mortars arrived and caused lots of casualties amongst the Germans

The remaining Germans bug out. A few of them surrender to the advancing 3 Section.

Position at the end of the action

first game. for posterity!

Game Results:

A hard and well fought victory for the British. The Germans lost 34 (8 Killed, 26 POW, including 18 WIA) and the 37mm anti-tank gun. The British lost 3 killed, 6 wounded and the Bren Carrier.  The Cameron' platoon commander and platooon sergeant, and the attached FOO, really carried a lot of the battle. And as a plus, the British managed to recover the documents from the scout car too.

 

Game Notes:

Really good fun, with both the rules and the scenario. For solo play, I am using my system which had its roots in the 'The Threat Generation System'. In this case, it effectively generated a forward ambush on the Cameronians, which devastated 1 Section. Only the slightly fortuitous positioning of the FOO enabled the British force to concentrate direct and indirect fire and then turn the tables.

Obviously I have switched from playtesting John's other WW2 tactical rules back to this set. Happily, once I had played for about 10 minutes it was pretty easy to get back into the swing of it. It is very much of a fit with the two WRG WW2 sets designed for this level, slightly more complex than first edition but less complex than the second edition. The things you would expect to see are all there, and the basic systems are all very similar. But I will write a full review in due course.

Models mainly by Baccus 6mm, with a couple of the vehicles from Heroics and Ros and a couple of figures by GHQ in there.