'Lucky' George

 Another game out of the blue, Paul gave me a shout and I spent some brownie points and sorted a late war do for the Sunday morning. I found three sort of linked scenarios in the WSS archive and we decided to do the first, it was an American Armoured Infantry Platoon vs Panzergrenadiers, in the book it was a Probe scenario but for V1 of the rules, for simplicity we played it as per V2, this proved very different.

Both sides were limited in the support options they could take, so when Paul pointed this out, out went my infantry gun and mines in the verges, instead in came a sniper and a 5cm mortar, Paul added a second 60mm mortar, an M8 (my Humber pretending to be the M8) armoured car and an M3 halftrack, more on the latter later. We both took a Red die.

Somewhere in rural Germany '45.

Paul put a couple of scouts on my right and two LMG's on my left along with the mortars, and then an infantry squad, the M8 came in on the road. I had put one Grenadier squad down and shot the two scouts, very quickly I had all my forces on the table, two on the edge of a large wood and a third hiding for now behind a small wood in the centre of the battlefield. The M8 slowly inched forward and swerved towards my left flank, a panzerfaust shot put paid to this and further blocked the line of sight towards my lines. An Ami infantry squad tried a run to get closer to the little wood but I caught them in the open and quickly pinned them, things looked grim for the Americans, I did not envy their attempt to run a section off my table edge. 

I hold the small wood.

American recce, yes I know it's a Humber.

Things began to pick up for the Yanks as they concentrated fire on my far right flank section, it slowly took casualties and I dropped a smoke grenade to help, while these guys held Paul could not attempt a rush forward on that flank. I felt fairly confident, I had forced the enemy machine gun section back into the trees and my right flank refused to run. Then, out of nowhere the M3 complete with a squad turns up, and at last my right flank was left with only a sniper to protect it, and a mortar with no ammo. Paul used a CoC die to move a Jump Off Point and all of a sudden he was within decent running distance of my right and his halftrack was approaching my left, I only had one squad left with panzerfausts and they would be firing at long range, I would also have to move them out of the protection of the wood to manage it.

An unfortunate squad.

Panzerfaust victim.

Having moved his JOP Paul set a squad running forward to kill the sniper and head for the nearby table edge, he tried a smoke grenade and suppressing fire to help the move but I caught his men in the open, pinned then wiped them out. This left him with an opening to run the halftrack towards victory, but he would need some old fashioned luck. All during the game we had both been praying for a double turn without managing it, Paul especially to build up a decent assault, but the gods favoured me on this occasion, as they had already done with my morale throws. I managed to move the 'faust armed squad forward and let fly at the halftrack, the first shot missed but the second hit the M3 in the flank, Yankee morale broke, I sat back relieved.

A dash for victory, oops.

The second push about to be hit.

A great game despite a shaky start for the Americans. At one point I needed two fives for a CoC die to end the turn and claim victory, I sweated whether to continue firing at the enemy in the open on my right by using three of the four pips I had been keeping or hope for two fives with my next throw, I chickened out and used the three pips, what came up in the next throw, two fives! It was a tough game for the Americans to win but at the same time I only had three squads to hold the line, if my guys on the right had not held out for so long it would have been difficult to hold the Yanks off. The next scenario has the Americans fighting for the outskirts of a village, the third game will be inside the village. I can take the Grenadiers again or Volksgrenadiers or Volksturm, interesting.

I see my wargaming has now come full circle, apart from mucking about with Airfix 1/72 in domino castles and battles under the sideboard my first real wargaming was WWII. Charles Grant's 'Battle' kicked things off along with, yes, Airfix kits and soldiers, back in those days you simply could not get say, a Panzer IV or a 'Hanomag' so you did what the movies did, improvised. I moved on of course and with more time and money I went full medieval for years, no idea what happened to the WWII stuff. After medieval I jumped into the American Civil War, then it was Ancients and Italian Wars, with a couple of speed bumps along the way, Wings of War, X-Wing and Dux Britanniarum. Now, as you can see from the posts over the last wee while I am firmly back with WWII. I still have my Ancients and ACW but it is increasingly hard to get games with them, sadly especially with the former, all my own fault as I will not play Hail Caesar. No matter, I can get WWII games and as you can see I am enjoying CoC2.

 Anyway, I am having a bit of a break this week, Matt has a cold so I won't be making my way North to Penrith and the club is still in limbo, I did offer a game but there were no takers. So I will finish my Fallschirmjager, got the last MG yesterday, get on with some Roman cavalry and some mapping.