Battle Reports

[Quite Tall Mike]

I expect there to be a fair few battle reports because of the up coming Flames of War tournament. So when I play a battle, it shall be recorded here.

[Quite Tall Mike]

1250pts game vs Phil's 6th Airbourne Division

Setup
As this game was round 1 of the Flames of War tournament, it was a free-for-all mission.

The board layout is as in the attachment, with the grey blocks representing buildings, the brown representing roads and the bridge, the light green lines representing hedges, the black lines representing walls, the light brown blob representing a hill and the blue representing a river.

I won the roll to decide who the attacker was and who the defender was, so I placed both my objectives, shown in yellow on the map, as far apart as was possible to try to stretch Phil’s forces out. Phil on the other hand decided to place his objectives close together, shown in red on the map.
I placed my 105mm Sherman’s behind the hedge next to the church near the centre of my line, my armoured infantry left their half tracks behind and decided to cover both objectives, my AA guns deployed on the road next to the church, whilst all my M4 Sherman’s deployed in the field surrounded by walls on the far right.
From my point of view, Phil placed his howitzers on the right just in front of the hedge, his 17 pounders limbered up to their trucks on the road, a platoon of paratroopers in the field in the centre of his board edge, and then two platoons of paratroopers across the river, one behind the hedge, accompanied by his 6 pounders. I assumed that this would be the force moving to try to take the objectives.

Before the battle, because of a special rule in the Cobra book, I was able to make a reconnaissance move with one platoon of Sherman’s on the far right of my line, bringing them up to the wall.

Turn1
I won the roll to decide who goes first, and began the battle. The Sherman’s made the reconnaissance move smashed through the wall and moved towards the howitzers, knowing that they could do nothing to hurt them. Unfortunately, one of my Sherman’s bogged down on the wall. The other platoon of Sherman’s moved over the wall onto the road to try and destroy the 17 pounders at the opposite end. The AA guns also moved up the road to cover the Sherman’s flank against the paratroopers in the field beyond. In the shooting phase, I managed to kill one base of infantry from the paratroopers in the middle of Phil’s line with artillery fire from the 105mm Sherman’s, pinning them down. I also managed to destroy one of the 17 pounders, and managed to machine gun the howitzers, causing 6 wounds. However, they managed to pass their motivation check, enabling them to fight on.
In Phil’s turn, all units unpinned and he unlimbered his remaining 17 pounder ready to shoot next turn. The paratroopers behind the hedge on my left flank dug in, whilst the other platoon of paratroopers and the 6 pounders moved towards the bridge. The paratroopers in the middle of the table also moved forward. To my surprise, there was no reply from the Brits in terms of shooting this turn!

Turn 2
Again, my Sherman’s moved forward read to fire at the 17 pounder and the remaining howitzers. My AA guns also moved into position behind the hedge ready to fire at the paratroopers moving towards them. The artillery again managed to hit the paratroopers in the middle of Phil’s line, again killing another squad of infantry. The Sherman’s on the far right managed to destroy Phil’s unit of howitzers under a hail of machine gun fire, but the Sherman’s in the middle failed in destroying the 17 pounder.
Phil’s paratroopers across the river again moved forward, the 6 pounders unlimbering ready to return fire next turn and the paratroopers moving onto the bridge. Having unpinned themselves, the paratroopers in the middle of the board again moved forward. The return fire from the British 17 pounder claimed the platoon commander of the Sherman’s on the road.

Turn 3
The Sherman’s on my right, having achieved its first objective, began to move over the hedge round the back of the house on the left, where it spotted one of the company commanders. Inevitably, one of my Sherman’s bogged down on the hedge. However, the Sherman who had bogged down on the wall in turn one managed to un-bog themselves and move up to the front lines. No other movement was made this turn, as all things were gearing up ready to fire back. The artillery changed targets this turn, and decided to range in on the infantry on the bridge, destroying 3 squads of paratroopers and one of the jeeps which had towed the 6 pounders into place. The AA guns opened up into the paratroopers in the middle, causing a number of casualties, and causing the paratroopers to flee for their lives. The Sherman’s on the road again opened up on the 17 pounder, killing their command team which ultimately led to the remaining 17 pounder crew fleeing. Machine gun shots from the Sherman’s behind the house on the right put many holes in the company command team they had encountered.
With very little left, Phil decided to go all out to try and take one of the objectives on my board edge. The brave paratroopers behind the hedge across the river moved out of their fox holes and began the long trek towards the objectives. However, the 6 pounders and the remaining paratroopers on and around the bridge were still pinned from the artillery fire last round. Because of this, there was no reply from the British lines in terms of shooting.

Turn 4
With no opposition now on the objective to the right, I moved my Sherman platoon onto the objective. The AA guns moved next to the hedge to the left of the church ready to open fire on any paratroopers coming across the bridge. Artillery fire again played a big part in shooting this turn, as it managed to destroy another jeep and gun from the platoon of 6 pounders. Machine gun fire from the infantry sat on the objectives also claimed more paratroopers.
With the 6 pounders and one of the paratrooper platoons still pinned down under heavy fire, the final paratrooper platoon moved up onto the bridge ready to try to get to their objective.

Turn 5
With the platoon of Sherman’s on the objective on the right, the British paratroopers retreated.

Result:- Victory to the Americans!

The result was an outstanding one for the American 3rd Armoured Division, but it could have been so different. I think if there were more anti tank things facing opposite my Sherman’s, for instance the 6 pounders, it would have been a lot more difficult to move around the back of the houses. Also, I think if there was more infantry on that side of the board, it would have proven a lot tougher to claim the objective. I certainly learned more about my army playing this game, and I hope you were able to take something from the game as well Phil.