Another of the Newbridge Gaming Clubs large games from this year... This time D-Day again in 20mm!
The game consisted of a 10 x 6 table with a 6 x 6 attached to form a large 'L' shape. Two British Brigades would land on the beach and fight through the defences to link up with an Airborne Brigade already in position guarding the road to a vital bridge.
The Table
Ruardhi and myself would be landing on the beach (a recipe for disaster from the start with us pair playing together...), Cyril would be leading the Airborne Brigade into action, while Skip had the lonely job of playing the German defenders.
While Cyril wonders why he has no tanks, Ruardhi fulfills his advertising deal with Rapid Fire...
Now... All of us at the club know Skip cant roll dice to save his life... So we felt a little sorry for him on his own playing the Germans. However Skip decided that today was the day to improve... We lost count of all the sixes he rolled! By the end of turn 1 on the beach we had lost nearly a battalions worth of infantry to his
MGs and artillery! By turn 2 Ruardhi and me on the beach had already forgotten our pre-arranged battle plan and while I threw men at the major German stronpoint on the beach he tangled down the other end trying to get into the village. I lost count of the number of times my British troops tried in vain to capture the 'Von Bimmler Strongpoint' in the centre of the beach... But it cost me the best part of three battalions to fail... By the end of the game we had resorted to trying level it with naval gunfire. It was only on Turn 12 that the garrison, after having all but one casemate destroyed by Naval gunfire, having lost two thirds of their men and under close assault from RM Commandos and Churchill tanks, that the gallant defenders finally surrendered. That was the story accross the tabletop. We had to fight for every inch and British losses were horrifc. Despite a follow up wave of more infantry and tanks, and a glider landing, by the end of the game we had only three battlions worth of infantry out of nine deployed. Bizarrely our tanks survived on the whole as Skip seemed unable to do anything more than light damage to any of them, although one of his 37mm guns did knock-out a Churchill!!!
Skip fought a tenacious and dogged defence but eventually our numbers overwhelmed him. He played it like a true German and even withdrew his Panzer-Grenadier re-inforcements from the table instead of committing them to a pointless battle. With just over two battalions of infantry he caused such losses that although we got inland and linked up with the airborne troops, it was certainly a moral German victory and we would have been in problems if time had permitted a bigger German counter-attack.
So we decided a draw was the best result all round but with a gracious nod to the Germans for their excellent defence. It was also nice to see my KM Battalion do so well in their first outing and causing serious losses to the Airborne who had to launch an attack to save the idiots on the beach...
So... On with the pics...
