Capturing Caesar's Camp : Action 03 - Up the Route Nationale

This is the third action in the TooFatLardies' Capturing Caesar's Camp pint-sized campaign. 

 

This picks up the actions of the Cameron Highlanders (who had featured in the first action) as they try to destroy or outflank the German outpost line as they continue their advance to Mont de Caubert.

The British are a fresh platoon from 4th Cameron Highlanders, the Germans a fresh platoon from 2/217 Infanterie. The British have an extra Bren Carrier, plus a FOO with a 3" mortar section on call.

 The Set-Up:

The British approach from the left-hand side. The Route Nationale is the road at the very top of the board. The other road is considered to be slightly sunken.

One of the British sections is marching right up it (left)

Another section is placed to advance, rather gingerly I imagine, through the fields...(the intention being to trigger any German fire to the front, which can then be enfiladed from the cover around the Route Nationale)

The Battle:

The British platoon advances up the Route Nationale. The FOO and his team make themselves both comfortable and invisible at the end of the treeline.

You can see the Tommies advancing through the trees

Okay, the first shots ring out, as German engineers in the wheatfield spot the British advance

The German engineers disappear under British fire. The British are unsure whether they have eliminated the Germans, or they have just gone OOS.

A sniper shot rings out, suppressing the nearest British rifle group (behind the bushy tree); the main body of the British platoon has moved onto the top of the track

The Scots infantry located a German AT gun covering the road

The Pak 36 only has one real target...the Bren Carrier...

Which it promptly knocks out! Black smoke starts billowing into the air...

Of course, the forlorn German AT crew cannot last long that close to so many British infantry, and they are eliminated.

A small group of German engineers is located at the top corner of the board

Meanwhile, a British rifle group has managed to work up close to the German sniper, who is quickly dealt with

The Camerons advance towards the woods through the wheatfield

The advancing British catch more German engineers at the top of the board

The lead British infantry advances into the woods...and comes under fire from the German command group

The lead British section comes off distinctly worse in the firefight - it brings up the Bren to try and restore the situation

The rest of the British platoon was more positioned to isolate and cover the advance on the wood than to assist in the wood itself...

So it takes a couple of moments, but the British Platoon Commander gets another squad to advance on the wood from the flank (towards top-corner of board); the German Platoon Commander's group is eliminated.

 

From a slightly higher vantage point

Another German squad was hiding in the woods - it opens fire on the British

However, given the loss of the German platoon commander and the approaching British infantry, they choose to bug out rather than stay and lose the firefight.

Silence descends onto the battlefield.

Game Notes:

A somewhat more interesting game to play than it might read, because there was quite a lot of tension as to what and where the Germans would activate. Unfortunately for the Germans and the game, what they activated was pretty rubbish (an AT gun, a sniper, and three engineer groups) and not in amazingly useful places either, so the battle was a somewhat desultory affair. The Germans lost 4 KIA, 4 WIA, 6 POW and an anti-tank gun, whilst the British 2 KIA and 4 WIA and the Bren carrier. At least the Germans will have a more or less full strength platoon to take into the next battle (the effective loss is one base to each side's core platoon).

This game also shows the value of Rod's suggestion on The Wargames Website that non-player guns should be defended by at least some infantry when they are generated, if possible. That makes sense, and would have made a much more interesting and challenging problem for the British platoon at the end of the Route Nationale. 

One thing the observant reader might have noticed was that non-player units that are physically able to do so can move out-of-sight (OOS). When this happens, the models are removed from the table and their activation card goes back into the pack. This allows out-gunned groups of opposition to escape the player me) and hopefully be re-generated in a more useful/difficult location. This happened a few times in this game, as German engineers kept on getting activated in tactically useless and exposed positions! 

Rules as ever in this campaign are the Wargames Rules for Armoured Warfare 1925-50. Figures by Baccus 6mm, other models by Heroics and Ros.

 

 

 

Capturing Caesar's Camp: Action 02 - The Seaforths at Trois Foetus

The next scenario in the TooFatLardies' Capturing Caesar's Camp pint-sized campaign (the first action was detailed here) has the Seaforths attack a German flanking position, a necessary preliminary before the Camerons can launch the main attack.

 

The Set-Up:

The battlefield: the Germans are defending the hamlet; the Brits could come from the top of right-hand sides.

A closer look

The Battle:

The British platoon advances two-up one-back through the wheatfield on the left-hand side of the board, trying to see if they can get close to the target without being spotted. They bump into the German command group! Presumably out on a recce...

The German platoon commander very sensibly makes a withdrawal

The Seaforths continue their advance, getting the drop on a German infantry gun

Fire is briefly exchanged...

And the Germans are eliminated

The German command group meets a nuch of German engineers - presumably they knew they were there and are warning them of the British advance

The German engineers bravely try to delay the Seaforths' advance, whilst the German commander gets back towards his CP

French armour puts in an appearance!

Jerry seems to have been caught rather on the hop this morning: a bunch of engineers by the trees are a bit stuck between Scottish infantrymen and French armour.

The German command team at last reach some kind of safety...

And get one of the German squads to hop to it.

Meanwhile, the British come up against the first real resistance - another German squad is located - around the trees at the corner of the hedgeline - but this one knows its business, and stops the Scots' advance in its tracks

Another look - note that the British FOO has sneaked up too (bottom-left)

The Germans were trying to move, but are caught by the machine guns of the French armour

The Scottish infantry are currently checked by the German fire

The German company commander turns up, trying to investigate the commotion; and immediately realizes he is pinned, unable to cross the road for fear of the French tank!

The British manage to get a section forward to the hedgeline and eliminate the valiant group of German engineers; note the reserve section is starting to go right flanking (bottom-right)

The French armour's incessant machinegun fire starts to cause some casualties amongst the German infantry, rather than suppression.

Things happen slowly and then quickly! The British manage to suppress a few defenders in the buildings (including the Platoon commnad group), advance and then eliminate them. The British are then checked by the remaining Germans on the other side of the road - however, that is a pretty precarious position.

Those Germans retreat, whilst the remaining pocket of Germans (at the corner of the hedgerows, centre) begin to surrender

Game Notes:

All very satisfactory from the Seaforth's point-of-view: only a few casualties amongst the infantry platoon (1 KIA, 3 WIA), against two-thirds of the German grenadier platoon destroyed (7 KIA, 8 WIA, 15 POW). All the luck was with the British, the Germans kept on being generated in not-very-useful places, although this was perhaps the minor problem: the major problem was a flaw in my solo scenario design. To explain: rather than the core platoon plus points-buy in the published campaign scenario, I use a core platoon plus random draw for the side the system is playing. This adds to the unpredictability (I do not know what I am facing) and usually the difficulty (it is more likely that the non-player side will be stronger, sometimes much stronger, than that envisaged in the written scenario). However, I think this is the first time where the non-player faction has really needed specific choices: given the possibility of French armour and the lack of integral anti-tank weapons in the German grenadier platoon, it needs some kind of anti-tank choice to be guaranteed. Now, one could argue that it is realistic, since in many of these campaign scenarios the Germans did get anti-tank support, so that is just too bad for them that they didn't get some this time. But it does feel that the British were going to win whatever, here. Note that it doesn't apply in reverse - becasue the British platoon gets an integral ATR, they would always have a chance, even if a small one, against German armour. That, to my mind, is fair. But in this case, the Germans were toast, faced with French armour and British mortars, and they had neither AT weapons or any artillery support of their own. Ho hum.

Anyway, that aside (I didn't know the Germans had no support until after the game and checked the card deck) it was quite a fun game. There was a brief moment when I thought the Germans were going to make a fight of it, given the heroics of their Engineers and one of their infantry squads. But the disparity in combat power was too great. 

Rules used were the Wargame Rules for Armoured Warfare 1925-1950, aka the Farquhar version. I thought they worked well, no issues, all the results seemed believable. Given the relatively small numbers of troops on the table at any point, it was very easy to remember who had acquired who at any point, which helps.

 

 Figures were by Baccus 6mm, vehicles by Heroics and Ros. Buildings are a mixture of Leven and Timecast here, I think.