Normandy - Battle Report

As if by magic a date appeared in my diary, a day off work, a Saturday off work.   The first for over 3 months, and the thought occurred that perhaps a nice wargame would do for the day.  I had missed out on a couple of Deeside gaming weekends and a trip to York thanks to my job and it seemed only fair.  Initial hopes of an English Civil War bash were dashed by a lack of players with specific armies, but undeterred a Flames of War game was organised, and a venue (Phil’s Ellesmere Port haunt – an excellent spot for a big game) booked.  Six players, including me, were engaged to bring 2,000pts each, and with Aidan writing a scenario, Phil providing the venue, and me bringing most of the scenery the scene was set.  It was supposed to be Normandy, but the scenery was a generic one based on the Total Victory scenario, but whose inner workings were mostly confusing to all but Aidan, luckily he was the one keeping score on who was claiming which of the 9 objectives at the start of each turn.  The battlefield did look European, and La Haye Sainte seemed to appear at one point.  I've given a general indication of how it played out, no blow by blow detail however.

The Setup

The German players set up with Phil and his heavies (Jagdtigers x 5!) in a wooded area on the right of the 14ft long table, me taking the centre with my panzer kompanie of mostly panzer IV’s, and Andy with his SS Panzergrenadiers on the left in and around a built up ruined town.  Aidan’s British infantry faced Andy, Dennis and his Yanks (mostly infantry with 2 lots of tank destroyers and lots of artillery) faced me, and finally David and his British armour faced Phil across the 5ft wide table.  The German plan (god knows if the Allies had one) was to wear Aidan down with waves of troops from Andy and my army, leave Dennis stranded and impotent in the central area (where there was only one objective), and for Phil to wade through David’s inferior Shermans and win the battle for us by gaining the bulk of the objectives on the right.  I almost changed my deployment at the last moment to support Phil instead of Andy due to a concern about the number of British AT guns on our left, but after some bickering with the German heavy CO switched back and left him to his own devices!

The whole table, with the German left and Andy's SS Panzergrenadiers in the foreground on the right facing Aidans British infantry. 

Better view of Andy's troops.

Aidan's Cromwells.

Capturing the length of the table.

This time from the wooded end of the battlefield; Phil's big cats to the left in the foreground facing Davids British armour.

An elephant pretending to be a tiger.

The whole battle can be explained best by divided it into 3 sections; left, right and centre, and explained in those terms, although the troops that started in each section often didn’t stay there.  

The Left

The left was where the closest fighting took place as Aidan bore the brunt of a good 3,000pts of Germans against his 2,000 of Brits.  The Germans began by securing the farmhouse and contested the two objectives in no mans land, before moving on to wear down the British troops.  Aidan’s Cromwells were lost to an ill-judged attempt to flank Andy’s 88mm guns (perhaps forgetting they were on turn tables), while his Shermans and a platoon of Dennis’ tank destroyers were seen off by my Panzer IV’s, although with heavy casualties amongst my men.  Aidan resorted to using smoke from his big mortar platoon to reduce the effectiveness of the German guns, and to his 17pdrs and 6pdrs to fend off the armour, which the 17pdrs did admirably; wiping out Andy’s Panzer IV platoon.  His universal carriers caused a problem throughout; darting in and out of the action and contesting objectives willy-nilly.  They proved almost as difficult to kill as my 8-rad armoured cars which we used unsuccessfully to try and defeat them.   The armoured cars also supported the attack on Aidan’s infantry platoons, which had moved up to within striking distance of the objective in the built up area, only to be ‘revealed’, and then attacked and wiped out by Andy’s armoured panzergrenadiers. 

My Panzer IV’s continued to cause a nuisance at the join between Aidan and Dennis’ forces, with a platoon succeeding in breaking through and wiping out the 6pdrs on the way to the enemy board edge – the furthest any unit advanced in the game.  I lost my own armoured panzergrenadiers to a poorly co-ordinated attack on the last of the British infantry platoons in a ruined area at the join.  One thing which should have heavily affected the fighting was Dennis’ artillery, but while most of his bombardments came in my direction in an attempt at relieving the pressure on Aidan he failed to range in most of the time, to my relief because the 12” square devastating bombardment template was available to him!  He even had an aerial observation post, which took me 3-4 turns of chasing it around with AA guns mounted on trucks to shoot down!  Overall on the left by the end of play (7 turns in total and 5 and a half hours) Aidan’s forces had been ground down to a point where they were nearly disappearing – questionable whether he should have been taking company morale checks or not, and the Germans were at the point of finally claiming most of the 4 objectives in that area.

It kicks off on the left, and Dennis' US tank destroyers come off worse in the opening exchanges.

Aidan's smoke covers Andy's positions as his infantry move forward.

Heavily defended British positions - Aidans again with his Shermans, 6pdrs and infantry covering an objective - the fork in the road.

My Panzer IV's try and pressurise the fork in the road, while Andy' troops hold the farmhouse.

Aidan's Cromwells and their ill-fated attack on Andy's 88's.  There were no survivors.

Looking at the table from Aidan and Andy's end - the German left.

Wider picture; flames are starting to spring up in the far wood.

My Panzer IV's breakthrough the British line on the join between Brits and Yanks.

Andy's SS Panzergrenadiers in their halftracks, and covered by artillery and armoured cars move in to wipe out the British infantry in the town and secure that objective.

Panzergrenadiers subsequently deployed, but Aidan pulls a contesting fast-one with his universal carriers.

Wider picture.

SS artillery.

The farmhouse secured after an earlier scare.

Very few Brits left.

The Right

On the right it was a very one sided battle amongst the trees of the large wooded area.  Phils Jadgtigers (two being represented by Elephants – if it had been spotted earlier he might have been told to switch units!) advanced as the RAF screamed overhead and artillery bombardments from the British 25pdrs bracketed them.  The large German AA presence took care of the typhoons which were dogging them, while the artillery had little to no effect.  In desperation David threw in platoon after platoon of Shermans, with Dennis’ adding a tank destroyer unit as well.  They could not penetrate the armour of the Germans. 

Even when the fighting became close up and personal – Davids tanks alongside the enemies blasting at their flanks – they still could not cause a casualty.  What they did do was to keep coming, and Phil’s advance started to slow down to a crawl.  With enemy tanks coming from all angles he struggled to keep up the speed needed and his rate of fire.  David hit him from the flanks continuously; platoons of tanks fleeting through the trees to encircle the Germans.  The German AA vanished in a cloud of smoke, and a Jadgtiger was finally hit by Dennis’ artillery. By the end David’s army had virtually ceased to exist, having given its all to slow the enemy down - and it had been enough.  Time ran out and Phil’s big cats were still quite a bit short of their objectives.

Elephants/Jadgtigers move forward.

Their opposite number has no fear, and also advances.

Shermans make up the second wave.

Woods, Stuarts, table, volksgrenadiers.

The troops Phil had left behind to hold the German right flank and the objective there.

It gets messy in the forest as Phil pushes forward.

The yanks dispatch a tank destroyer platoon to help.

More burning tanks.

Phil's company HQ breaks cover, and is strafed (to no effect) by Davids typhoon.

Final scenes, with Phils Germans falling short of their objectives by a distance, but Davids army being virtually no more.

The Centre

The centre looked like the quiet spot to be for most of the battle.  Some of Dennis’ recon grabbed the centre objective in the village there before some of my recon infiltrated into the buildings and contested it.  Dennis responded by bringing up his infantry, and moving house to house, clearing my troops out as he did so.  His recon went on to threaten my artillery and a platoon of pioneers left to guard an objective at the back of our lines in the centre.  Concerned out the infantry advance, and with no obvious route towards Aidans flank, I brought a platoon of Panzer IV’s and AA guns back to challenge this, with the infantry in the village taking heavy casualties from the AA guns and the American recon being hit by the artillery over open sights. 

The Panzer IV’s, however, got too close to what turned out to be a hedgehog of bazzokas in the woods, and were lost except for the company commander.  The American infantry then used the trees to good effect to reach the flank of my pioneers and roll them up and away from the objective, contesting it.  Aidan announced with glee that this single act had wiped over a third of our victory points in one fell swoop and that the Germans had lost, and the battle was over.

Recon units from both sides are first into the village in the centre - Germans in the near building and yanks on the road.

The Americans brought a bull dozer.

The Americans also brought lots of artillery, which was ineffective all day.

The American advance through the village was slow but purposeful.

Looking from the centre to the German right.

US infantry taking the objective for good.

A Stuart brews up after being hit by a Panzer IV sitting on the edge of the village.

American infantry pass their burning recon on their way to win the battle by taking the German central objective.

Post Game Thoughts:

The Germans, with quite a lot of feeling, cried foul play at the result especially when two of the three allied armies had virtually ceased to exist, and all the allies had done to win was contest one objective out of 9 on the last turn.  Then I turned on Phil (as is tradition) and observed that he was tasked with winning the battle on the right for us, and as such it was clearly his fault ;-).  Happy days!

Onto real analysis and I felt Andy and I teamed up well to wear Aidan down; he had set up a very good defensive position which he didn’t advance far from (a good idea given the weight of attack aimed at him), and we still managed to push him backwards, and claim or contest all the objectives he was overseeing.  In this we were helped by Dennis’ artillery failing horribly throughout.  In the centre I made a mistake of not closing the door on Dennis’ infantry sooner, and we paid the price in losing the objective.  On the right David fought gamely against an invincible foe in Phil’s heavies, and in my, and the overall general, opinion was the player who won the battle for the Allies; slowing the Germans down with constant attacks and hanging in there despite being unable to damage their giant enemies.  Overall then a good game and a good day, and a demonstration that perhaps you don’t need 3-4,000pts a player to have a good big multiplayer game – 2,000pts worked rather nicely.

And Finally....Aidan has his say

On saturday, 6 slightly odd blokes got together at ellesmere port for a game of FOW. Late war, in normandy. Dave Astbury brought his british Shermans of the Guard, Dennis brought his yanks and I added my 11th Armd Div infantry into the mix for the Allies, While Andy, Rick brought a lot of panzers and big guns , with Phil bringing a couple of kitties for the Reich. 

We decided to play the Total Victory/war scenario with 2 minor modifications. Firstly accumulated victory points for holding an objective only counted if you didnt at some point lose control of it: if you did you started counting again! If you lost it, even contested any VPs gained so far were lost! And we used 9 objectives for kicks and giggles, rather than the usual 6. Terrain was layed out to look pretty: a ruined town at one end, a village in the middle with farm land all around, and Woodland at the far end. 

With my largely infantry force I took the right flank amongst the ruined town, squaring off against Andy. Dennis filled the village with Arty, While Rick, opposite tried to wrangle a way to fight somebody else, even if this meant opening a large hole in the middle of the German line. On the left Daves tanks faced off against Phils unkillable things.

I didnt get to see the whole game alas so I wont give a blow by blow report, suffice to say I found myself facing a wave of panzers trying to drive a wedge between myself and Dennis, which they eventually managed, albeit at great cost and to little gain. Meanwhile my infantry advancing through the town found itself smothered by artillery, though the wall of recce kept the worst of the german fire away for a while. Unfortunately I was compelled to pull back the Carriers for a short spell, and by the time they re-engaged the damage was done and most of my infantry was done for. However they were at least able to restabalise the line, more or less, though I suspect they wouldnt have held much longer. I also lost my Cromwells on their first jaunt in a rather foolhardy attempt to rush an 88. Id outflanked it and intended to gun it down, but missed and found myself with little choice other than to charge! It didnt work...

Recce seemed particularly stubborn in this game with the 8rads and carriers on both sides absorbing a huge amount of firepower, and being right up at the sharp end for the entire game. it was only towards the end that carriers and 8 rads alike finally started to wilt under the repeated battering by 88s and 17pdrs...I think weve sussed how best to use it, making great use of the cautious movement rules and cover to make sure killing them is as hard as possible. Ive even stripped my carriers of the bulk of their additional weapons as in their true recce role they are a waste of points. Strangely tanks are so much easier to kill than recce: the tanks evaporated very quickly on both sides!

In the event with my infantry disappearing under barrages and my AT guns being picked off one at a time, and my tanks all being on fire my carriers with mortar support were unable to do much except make sure as many objectives as possible stayed contested, ensuring a local stalemate...

In the centre Dennis's arty was struggling to hit the myriad of massed targets before them, but the threat of invisible tank destroyers kept Rick worried for quite a while! His infantry advanced to take one objective, turfing out some huns who got there first and then seeing off their reinforcements. He even managed to start making some headway into the german lines to contest another. 

On the Left Daves tanks were getting chewed up and spat out by the jagd-somethings. Unable to scratch them dave could only watch as his tanks were brewed up until the woods were filled with the wreckage of british tanks and tank destroyers. the sudden arrival of Dennis Tank destroyers helped somewhat but Dave seemed to be getting a little despondent at what seemed like an unstoppable wave of ridiculously well armoured tanks. 

However despite being down to throwing rocks and bad language it was Dave that actually won the battle for the allies...or rather, it was Phil, who seems to have forgotten what the objective was and to have ignored it in favour of annihilating Daves tanks...as a result Daves camping of two objectives went uncontested for the entire game,single handedly beating the German total! 

I rather enjoyed the game and getting to fight proper panzers was a rather nice novelty! I dont think my mods to the victory conditions made a difference at all to the actual outcome, but Rick didnt like the sudden swing at the end, though in truth the VP counter had been swinging first one way and then the other all day. He might have felt robbed that turn, but if the game had ended a turn earlier we would have felt the same! 

I cant see a way to avoid this with an accumulator style scenario of any sort. I think post-battle discussions regarding player specific missions (like in Risk!) might work better in the future. Something to try certainly. 

I didnt get any pics though I hope Rick/andy did and can add some. does andy have a blog for wargaming? Im sure I heard talk of it. 

Anyway I thought it was fun, despite my nearly getting crushed, and some silly mistakes!