Kampfgruppe Von Luck

With no end in sight I have gone back to solo for my gaming fun for now. As you know I had just finished the British Airborne platoon so the mini campaign "Kampfgruppe von Luck" was perfect to get them on the table. This involves the defence of Le Bas de Ranville to protect the Orne bridges before the invasion starts, the first game involves 12 Para and the forces available have to be diced for, I was very unlucky and only got one section and two Bren teams, up against me Matt had chosen four panzergrenadier squads, my hopes were not high.

Jerries.

12 Para.

The terrain was very open and was all cornfields, I chose to defend the only hedge line in the area and easily got my Jump Off Points where I wanted during the Patrol Phase. Matt wanted to advance on the hedge tactically with two squads to save casualties while sending the other two along his right flank, his JOP's were a lot further back than he wanted.

I  got my section on very quickly and they settled down behind the greenery, it would be several phases later before the Bren's turned up, however the Jerries were not having everything their own way. With four squads to operate you need the command dice to fall just so, and of course they don't, so the whole advance was not seamless, one squad did manage to continue to put covering fire down but the others were hard to coordinate. Eventually I decided to just send as many as possible forward as the numbers would surely grind the Paras down, well they should have but my die rolling was deplorable, at one point I hurled 50+ dice to get 1 shock. Despite this the Germans managed to break one Bren and force the other back, although German casualties were not horrendous the shock on the left wing was mounting and causing problems.

I persevered with the attack and at last got the right flank squads into close range and the British section began to take some punishment, soon their Bren team was heading for the hills and bodies dropped around the section commander, it was time to go.

 I decided that the mortar would be part of the Rifle team in the section rather than have three teams, if the section moved then the mortar could not fire, if the section did not move then it could otherwise they used their normal weapons. This worked well as the mortar crew were more valuable in this game as part of the firing squad than lobbing smoke. For the marksman I let him reroll a miss, he turned out to be a crack shot in this game and that too worked well.

The Paratroops had done well to hold out for so long but it was really down to the piecemeal attack that they had lasted so long, I had hoped to make the Germans suffer before retreating but their losses were minimal, 3 dead 2 wounded, the British had 4 dead and 2 wounded. The Germans are now on the outskirts of Ranville.

We braved the plague ridden outer world last Sunday and took my grandaughter to the Roman Fort at Vindolanda near Hexham, the weather was not so good when we left but once at Vindolanda we had it good all afternoon, Gabrielle enjoys history. Vindolanda is one of the larger forts on the Wall and is set in a very pleasant place, most of the fort has been excavated but there is still a lot of work to be carried out. The Fort is famous for the small writing tablets found there, these have been cleaned and deciphered and are all the more amazing for their mundane contents, stores lists, invoices, birthday invitations, troops numbers, and requests for socks and underpants to be sent, all recognisable as part of life as we know it today. The museum is small but well stocked and the staff more than helpful, the only place that required a mask was the museum, the outdoors and cafe were mask free. The only book I could see, unless you only wanted a cursory introduction to the Romans, was a hefty tome by Patricia Southern "The Roman Army", I have her book on the Late Roman Army and it is very good, this book covers 753BC to 476AD. I quickly thought I could get it online cheaper but then discarded that idea, at least this way I have done a little to keep Vindolanda viable.

I have managed to clean, base and prime my sailor squad but got no further, I seem to have mislaid my painting mojo, having said that the days are taken up mapping and now getting on with the KvL campaign and my evenings have to be shared with the grandaughter and the missus. Normal service will resume next week.