A couple of recent games

The blog has previously seen no evidence of a couple of games recently held at Stately Counterpane Manor, mainly because neither of them was particularly photogenic.

A few weeks ago I ran what I hope will be the first of a series of games based on Unternehmung Nordwind - the final major German offensive on the western front during WW2. We used Chain of Command to recreate a typical German platoon attack in the early hours of New Year's Day 1945.  

At Schlietzen Hill just west of the Alsatian village of Rimling, Panzergrenadiers of the 17th SS Götz von Berlichingen Division assaulted positions held by the GIs of the 100th Infantry Division.

The German command believed that they had achieved strategic surprise in launching the attack in a quiet sector of the front. They would achieve tactical surprise by attacking with no preparatory reconnaissance or bombardment, using troops who had only arrived in their attack sectors in the last twelve hours. The men were fired up on alcohol and stimulants to make up for the fact that they mostly hadn't slept in the last 24 hours.

In fact, the Americans were fully alerted thanks to radio intercepts and prisoner interrogation. From units across the sector, accounts uniformly describe the German attackers as advancing drunk and shouting insults in English and German.  I considered it reasonable to field that unusual beast, the Panzergrenadier platoon rated as Green!

The battlefield was largely open. A single low hedge (with a couple of breaks) crossed the hillside. At the eastern end of the battlefield was a single house next to a clump of trees. Near the western end was a small rocky outcrop. Richard P's Germans were attacking from the north with Dex's Americans to the south.

After the patrol phase Richard ended up with a deployment point behind the hedge, another on his baseline and a third a little way up the western flank side of the table. Dex had one behind the house, one on his baseline and one behind the rock outcrop.

Early in the game Richard deployed a squad and an attached tripod MG42 behind the hedge.

Dex had a couple of minefields - one in the clump of trees by the house and one on his left flank between the rock outcrop and the hedge. He quickly deployed a squad in the house and another, dug-in on the rocky outcrop.  

Richard got four squads deployed in positions where they could fire on the GIs on the rocky outcrop.  The second American squad, in the house, were not in a position to make a significant contribution.

Eventually the action bogged down into a static firefight. With eight MG42s available (Richard had bought a tripod MG and an additional infantry section with his support points) the Germans just about had the advantage in firepower. They were taking heavy casualties from the GIs' M1 Garands and BARs hitting Green troops on 3-6 and rerolling ones but the Americans never got a decent crossfire going. In the end the American Force Morale was whittled down to zero.

In retrospect, I think the Americans made a couple of mistakes.  Firstly, they had a very limited choice of useful cover. They'd been able to buy foxholes for two teams and then there was the clump of trees by the house and the rock outcrop (which would both have given soft cover). They mined the woods and put one team in the house but they never had line of sight to the enemy. The foxholes were put on the outcrop, thus giving them room for only one squad's worth of firepower from a covered position facing the enemy.

Finally, Dex rushed to deploy too early. If he'd waited, the Germans would have been forced to advance beyond the hedge line and could have been hit by devastating firepower from American troops suddenly appearing in front of them.

The second recent game was a first try at using Jamie's sixth century Byzantines and Vandals. We set up a very simple action using To The Strongest! We plan to run the North African battle of Ad Decimum (533CE) at the Joy of Six this year (if it happens) and Jamie is providing the armies.

Ad Decimum will get its own dedicated terrain board (my contribution) but for this game we just used my existing 6mm TTS board.

Moorish cavalry

Vandal foot approach the Roman centre

We'd both forgotten a fair amount of TTS and we made a few mistakes so it was good idea to get this practice game in. For the record it was a narrow Byzantane victory, Belisarius's right wing cavalry having seen off the Vandals' Moorish allies and turned their flank.