Last night was a return to Normandy in the continuing grudge match between my British and Skip's Germans! This was out third and largest battle so far with 600 points aside. This time we got 'Defence-in-Depth' and Skip elected to defend, making the British have to attack for a change.
600 Point British Infantry (with 6 x 3" Mortars off-table)
600 Point German SS (with 2 x 105mm Howitzers off-table and a single RTP)
We started slow and for once we elected to wait for our to arrive before moving out. This threw Jerry and he threw a few Panthers towards us. In a rather dissapointing gun battle, they did little, our heavy supporting guns (from two high priority requests) did even less and my 17 Pounder A/T gun, on its first outing, found itself out of ammo on turn 3 after Skip pulled an out of ammo chit... But then a gaggle of Churchills turned up and put a round through the side armour of one of the Panthers and the remaining two withdrew to indulge in some long range fire.
Once our troops had arrived we began our attack. I elected to push forward Gary on the left flank in an attempt to force a breakthrough, but it stalled in the face of the Panthers fire and German artillery fire. It seemed a bit of a stalemate until we drew an aircraft chit and a Typhoon zoomed in and planted a few bombs along the road, one of which scored a direct hit on a Panther. Although the Typhoon was promptly shot down by German
AA fire, he gave us the break we needed. By eliminating the Panther, he gave my platoon on the right the chance to advance in the blindspot of both German FAOs. In a fusilade of fire from infantry, Churchills, a Wasp and the mortars my troops killed off the farm defenders and advanced to the walls.
With the farm secured, we swung over to the left flank, and although taking some artillery fire, we despatched the two Panthers in a close range duel, the armour on my Churchills standing up to the Panthers rounds. The Wasp then darted for a gap in the bocage and toasted a German
MG team. With the Churchill Crocodile following, the rest of the German infantry fell back. The British mortars now redirected onto the enemy held church and after a few misses, managed to score a clutch of hits that left several units, including the remaining German FAO, suppressed.
With their centre occupied, many of their remaining units suppressed and only one effective Panther, the Germans conceeded victory to the British. With only 5 morale points left out of 42, lots of units suppressed and the British easily able to knock-out several units in their next turn, the Jerries threw in the towel. Remarkably, we still had 12 morale points left out of our total of 35. Sadly we cant blame Skip's dice this time as both he and Cyril playing the Germans did pretty ok on the dice, especially for artillery and activations (plus Skip scoring a six to shoot the Typhoon down). What really lost the game for them was choosing at the start to have the Panthers all ontable and most of their infantry as the reserve off-table till turn 4. When it finally came on (staggered over several turns) it had to walk on from their table edge as they didnt buy any trucks. By the time they got near the church, the front had collapsed and the Panthers were burning wrecks. Had they left the Panthers off to act as reserves, their high speed could have allowed them to charge into action down the road from the table edge and given a far stronger defensive line. Also a number of the Germans units (the Pak43 and the 88) did very little and they would have been better served with more artillery support in defence. I think if they had used the infantry to form a stronger frontline, things would have been rather different for us.
