Poor Bloody Infantry by Peter Pig WW2 in Bournemouth 2012
Game 2 1943 Germans vs French
Game 1 1943 Germans vs 3rd Shock Army Russians
Game 3 1944 US Infantry vs Polish Partizans
Game 2 - Here come the French!
There was still a residue of frost in the air as Commander Auchan lit his first Gitane of the day, shielding it against the chill breeze blowing in from the east. The wind cut through the thin fabric of his training-ground uniform and seemed to carry straight on to his very bones, where it mixed uncomfortably with his other easterly-originated concern, the Germans who since Wednesday had been unleashing their "Blitzkreig" attacks into the territory of his beloved France.
The reserve company of men he commanded had been dragged from their beds that morning and asked to occupy take up positions in a small town some way behind the current French lines, but which had been the target of a savage attack by the Luftwaffe the previous evening. The original garrison had been rotated back suffering from both casulaties and shock. As Auchan's raw recruits gradually arrived on trucks that had clearly struggled to form a succesful convoy in a French rural night where streetlights had been ordered to be extinguished, he offered words of encouragement to the painfully young men as he assigned them positions in a rown of houses overlooking the woods to the east of the town.
Division assured him that he should not expect any German in his sector for at least a week, but which time his men would in any case be relieved by a more experiencd formation, but something in the wind did not sit well with him, and his old soldiers instincts, honed in any number of "police actions" in France's North African outposts, told him that it was may not just be the cold providing an unsettling presence that morning.
The battle is now transferred to somewhere in France, in a bizarre mashup between 1939 and 1943 as having forgotten that the Americans first combat operations of WW2 were against the French (Vichy French, in North Africa) I again selected the Germans to give my opponent a historical matchup. Good dice rolling meant I started with almost all of my force attacking against only a handful of French n a table that I had managed to rotate twice, so the objectives - laid by the French - were actually all now very close to my start positions.
There are three objectives placed on table by the defender. The attacker decides which is his primary one (in secret), as capturing this scores more points at the end of the game. Once they have decided, both sides dice off 3 times to turn the table and with it the axis of attack and defence. This can lead to objectives being very easy - or very hard - to capture.
The French have only a thin line of troops, all of whom were dug into a row of bomb-damaged houses - here the Germans open up with MG34's on the unsuspecting French recruits and then creep forwards under a heavy cover of the MG34 fire, making good use of the available walls, hedges and damaged buildings to get close to the dug-in French - and prepare for a rapid attack
The French simply did not have enough men to hold the most forward objective, and the Germans soon overran it, and then using its cover poured close range fire into a damaged villa where French were holed up cowering in fear - both MG teams move up, firing their guns and advancing by using the ammo-carrier's shoudlers as a makeshift tripod rest
In the treeline to the right of the town, a German platoon commander orders his men onwards - although the panzerfaust team has litttle to do with no French AFVs on table as yet
The second German platoon makes a run for it, outflanking the French on the left with a daring dash across open ground and then quickly digging into a freshly ploughed field to enfilade the French. This creates valuable breathing space for the Flammenwerfer teams to follow as a second wave. They are now poised to sweep the French from the line of houses, and as yet no French reserves have been sighted.
The under-strength French are being decimated, and soon a StuG adds insult to injury by simply driving into the main street and opening up on what is by now the last remants of the French forlorn hope at the far end of the street. Germans have now occupied the second row of houses, and are setting up their own firing positions from which to interdict the inevitable advance of the French reserves
For weeks before the German invasion started, Auchan's dreams have been haunted by images of wars bubbling up out of his past in Africa, and now those dreams are made real - although in his worst nightmares he had no soundtrack to compare to the buzz-saw noise of the German MG34 which seems to be a continuous drone assailing him and his men from all sides.
Stone chips fly above his head as the rounds home in on any position where his hapless, and in most cases hopeless recruits attempt gamely to return fire. At least in his dreams of Africa it was he who commanded the firepower, and the natives who would scurry away in fear - but here the Germans have turned the tables, and for the first time Auchan starts to comprehend how those desert tribesemen felt as his men drove them in terror from their homes and farms, striding across the countryside like immortals, drunk on cheap brandy and Belgian-built rifles 3 decades more advanced than anything a local could hope to muster.
The boys - not yet men - under his care were already falling, and the tide of Germans continued to boil out of the woods without end. They should not be here, not 30 kms behind where Division had told him the front lines were drawn? Lighting War indeed, even as the bass rumble of a German panzer builds and echoes against the floral wallpaper on the walls of the makeshift command post he has set up in a just-abandoned living room.
He peers out of a broken window, but then realises the sound is coming from behind him - the Panzer is driving down the main street! With a flash of foreknowledge, he realises that it will be but days before the scene now unfolding on this small, rural village street is recreated in the Champs Eleysee..
The second objective is cleared, and the French fall back as their morale starts to waver. German infantry and MG teams prepare to advance and put them under even more pressure as their comrades take up positions blocking any hope of reinforcement from the far table edge...
The French reserves arrive - but all that meets them is not the welcoming cries of colleagues in arms preparing a nice breakfast of croissants and jam. Instead it is the buzz and whine of MG34 bullets arcing out from the line of buildings they had been led to expect were occupied by theor own men. The French have a difficult advance across open and partial cover - and it is not one they are enjoying so far
Two platoons have arrived at the same time, one on the left and one dangerously clustered in a sunken road. The village is now entirely clear of French defenders, and a solid line of well entrenched German troops is poised and waiting at the edge of the town for the French Adrian helmets to appear over the hedgelines
A German sniper takes up position alongside regular infantrymen and takes careful aim at the French formations advancing incautiously across the firlds before him.
The first time a sniper fires during a game, the square he aims at all count immediately as "pinned". Normally "Pinning" is done by regular shooting but declaring that it is intended to "pin" - and requires 3 hits to be recorded on a square. "Pinning" hits represent less accurate but higher volume fire - so they cannot cause casulaties, only "pinning"
The French are all Peter Pig figures, and show the French army off in it's most picturesque era - brown coats, brown helmets and brown boots and weapons. At least they have some cover in the shape of the hedgerow and sunken bocage road
Troops packed into a single square are more vulnerable to automatic weapons and mortars - these French are out of sight of the German MG teams at the moment, but will need to reduce their density to less than 4 bases per square if they are to advance succesfully
The QRF StuG eases gently into position between two shell-damaged houses and takes careful aim at the messed French infantry.
The French support platoon has also made it onto the field of battle, and here German infantry scurry between blocks of cover as French machinegun teams set up in the shade of a grove of trees in the distance
The French are nowhere, as their advance has become bogged down almost immediately as their officers fail to motivate the poor quality troops to advance. With gametime fast running out the Germans move decisively onto the front foot and a team of flammenwerfers rush forward to do some werfering at the shellshocked French - an option which ends up not working particularly well, as the exposed werfermen are wiped out by a determined French counterattack, scoring valuable points for the French along the way
A similar advance on the German right hoping to capture the French HMG positions before they can fully deploy also runs into trouble as the German's advance here is not fast enough and the men are cut down and replaced by casualty markers just short of their objective.
The Result is a strong victory for the Germans, with all three objectives taken.
Post Match Summary from the German Commander
I'm very happy with the result today, very happy indeed. This is the second game for this squad and already I am getting a sense for what they're able to do and what they're not able to do. One thing is clear, I have a squad here who's natural instincts are to be really attacking-minded and they have all the options to go forward and create chances to win the game and all that.
Obviously in the first game we would have loved to have more depth in the reserve pool, however it is what it is and what we showed here was that if we can get all, or nearly all of the first choice platoons on the field at the same time, and right from the start we have a really potent array of attacking options, and we have no need to be scared of anyone. And once we start to go down that road I think we're forced into a position that maybe except for perhaps Japan, in this competition we can look to develop a style of play that is more attack-based and more possession-oriented because we know that, like the French, many opponents would rather react to our style than be proactive. All the other nations are in a more holding-back role when we face them, if it's France, The USA, Belgium or even some of the minnows like the Polish Partizans
Here we attacked well in the first half, and really caused the French a whole lot of problems they had no real answer to - although they did have a lot of players out so I have a lot of sympathy for the French coach, as I've been in similar situations myself and it is always very difficult without your full squad to choose from.
However even though I am pleased with our attacking movement in the first half, our defensive display in the second was very solid, very disciplined. That's something we have worked at a lot in training recently and so it is always pleasing to see the results of all that hard work playing out on the battlefield. There is still a long way to go here, but I think this is a result we can definately build upon going into the next round
Montgomery Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Fighting against the French, and still you somehow make a bit of a meal of things at the end - how apt! To borrow again from the canon of all things French, to say I am cheesed off with your serial incompetence is undercooking things to a level somewhat below "bleu". In fact, the moment this whole competition began, I was cheesed off. Within ten minutes of you deploying in the first game, I finished the cheese and moved on to the coffee and cigars. And at this late stage two games in, I am in a cab with two lady companions on my way to The Pink Pussycat in Lower Regent Street.
I suppose I can see some merit in a plan which involved dramatically outnumbering the enemy then executing a massive fairly frontal attack supported by a barrage of firing to pin the enemy down. however you put it all at risk with that reckless fast outflanking maneuver. It was purest folly and I am sure that no proper general, never mind a German on would consider a lighting like war maneuver that bypasses the enemy's main concentration of forces and cuts off their lines of retreat or reinforcement. At least you followed it up with a strong defensive line supported by mobile artillery deployed in a non-mobile manner - something I heartily approve of
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
Game 1 1943 Germans vs 3rd Shock Army Russians
Game 3 1944 US Infantry vs Polish Partizans
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