Capturing Caesar's Camp: Action 04 - La Ferme de Caubert

The next action in this TooFatLardies' pint-szied campaign, Capturing Caesar's Camp, features the attempt to capture Caubert's Farm, the jump-off point for a subsequent assault on Mont Caubert. It features the same platoon from B/4/Cameron Highlanders as in the last action...

 

This time the platoon has the support from its trusty FOO and his mortar men, a Vickers team from 1/Princess Louise’s Kensington Regiment, a scout car from 1/Lothian & Border Horse, and, most importantly, another French Char B1 bis.

When I played this game, the real weather conditions changed a lot, so some of the lighting/appearance of the game changes quite a lot also. For this, my apologies! Hopefully the narrative can guide you through.

The Set-Up:

The overall battlefield. The Scots are advancing from the South.

 

A slightly closer look at the farm and its environs

Another perspective

The Battle:

The advance begins, two sections up.

Hopefully you can spot the Scout Car advancing through the gap? And then the Germans in the treeline beyond?

A wider view - the other section is working around the right using the cover of the treelines

A better view of the German squad behind the treeline

As the British section moves up to engage - the Germans had gotten the worst of the initial exchange and pulled back - when they see a flamethrower team set up in ambush!

A wider view - note that the French armour support (another Char!) has turned up

The flamethrower team is eliminated, but not before they had destroyed the British platoon's mortar team!

A wider view - note the scout car by the junction (left) and the pulled back German squad can be seen at the second treeline (just!)

Okay, whilst the action is happening on the left flank, maybe the right-hand section can get up to the farm.

The British left section also goes flanking, preceded by the scout car and supported by the Char. It is taking the Vickers MG team with them too.

A wider shot, so you can see the British Pl comd controlling the final section and the platoon support weapons as a base of fire, if needed.

A bunch of Engineers are helping out the German section

Ouch! the right-flanking section walks into a well-concealed German ambush!! (It is well concealed too - you can just make the German squad out at edge of the hedgerow, top)

Okay, the fight by the farm got a bit weird - the British section managed to get close enough to launch their own ambush on the first German squad and eliminate a rifle group and the engineer group. But it turns out there was another squad concealed at the top tree line, in some kind of all around defence. The British have the firepower advantage with that Vickers though.

A few minutes later: about half the Germans are casualties, a few are still in the fight, a few have escaped back into the farm.

The wider perspective

King Kong arrives. Wait, what?

The French tanks have outflanked the Germans and are adding their firepower (top, by crossroads)

Over on the other flank, the British are heavily suppressed by the Germans. Unfortunately for the Germans, this is where they had sited their AT gun though...(right)

Okay, sensing the moment has come, with ony a couple of MG34 teams still holding off the British, the remainder of the British platoon advances a bit (bottom)

The British call in 3" mortar fire onto the farm complex

The British platoon suffers a couple more casualties in the advance, but the Germans have pretty much shot their bolt in the centre; more of their troops have become casaulties as some of the farm buildings are hit (note the fire in the near building)

Some of the reserve section go to help out the isolated British right-hand section

The stalemate has persisted on the othe flank - seeing the game is up, the Germans withdraw

The withdrawal carried out successfully.

The British advance on the farmhouse - all goes very quiet

Game Notes:

A fun and interesting game, although the British seemed to get the upper hand quite early and the Germans were never quite able to wrest any real initiative back. Their deployment against the British Right was in a very dangerous spot, but on the Left they kept on getting outflanked - the position just wasn't that great and probably needed to be held a little further forward...although against a French tank, that probably wasn't going to work either. And then the final German squad was activated in a really annoying place (for the Germans) - they ended up being in a horrible, enfiladed position.  OTOH, a more straightforward British attack up the centre might well have ended in a horrible defeat as they would have ended up in the enfiladed killing zone instead. But with the British superiority in firepower and support, the Germans were always going to struggle here, despite putting up a decent fight. The British lost 2 KIA, 6 WIA, the Germans rather more: 5 KIA, 5 WIA, 6 POW (although half of these were not part of the platoon core, so this platoon is still reasonably operationally effective).

 

As always in this campaign, rules used were Wargames Rules for Armour and Infantry 1925-1950. Most of the infantry was from Baccus, with a smattering of GHQ; the vehicles were from Heroics and Ros. the buildings are from Leven.