The Joy of Calais

As Sheffield just began to get over the hump of the recent hot weather, a few hundred wargamers descended upon the multi-room sauna that is Sheffield Hallam University for the annual Joy of Six event. Despite the thermal discomfort it was a really enjoyable day and I was delighted to meet new people and introduce them to the TacWWII rules.

As regulars here will know, this year the Cold War Commanders group were putting on Calais: Encounter on the St Omer Road, a scenario depicting events on 23rd May 1940, just prior to the start of the siege of Calais.

Early in the planning it looked like the rest of the group fancied a year off from staging a game.  Accordingly I planned to do what I fancied, thinking I'd be running the whole thing myself. This at least had the advantage of speeding up the decision-making process and allowed me to develop the game across most of the preceding twelve months.

A couple of months into the planning period, though, a plan to wargame a 1980s Soviet invasion of Iceland emerged so a two table, two-rule-system offer was planned for. Until, that was, our terrain maestro Richard P suffered a serious health set-back and suddenly we were back to a single game. Get well soon Richard!

Among the innovations I wanted to try were a couple of Keynote (I'm a confirmed Mac user) presentations. One of these was running continuously covering the background to the battle, forces orders and organisations, and telling people how to get the rules and engage with the on-line community.

The other presentation was advanced as needed and served as a turn-by-turn progress display and a reminder of scheduled events such as the arrival of reinforcements.

In the end, the TacWWII Calais scenario happened with sterling help from Andy T and Ian S. They set up the Germans and British respectively before we were joined by show attendees and new friends Ian F (for 1st Panzer Division's Aufklärungs Abteilung) and Les H (for 3RTR).

The area bounded by Windmill Hill, Fréthun station and Nielles-lès-Calais would be where the British forces began to muster for the fight.

With the two sides almost bumping into each other this isn't a scenario where the action is delayed by long approach marches. To reflect the confusion of the unexpected collision, only one company on each side can dice to change Mode on game turn 1. 

Point of Contact!

Andy (before Ian F's arrival) had elected to have the Kradschützen (motorcycle infantry) company lead down the road and with British tanks to their front, they rapidly got out of the way and tried to outflank them along the road to Nielles.

This left an armoured car company in the front window. As reported previously, I'd distinguished the cannon-armed armoured cars from their machine-gun-only compatriots by use of air-recognition flags. This worked well for players not familiar with my model collection.

B Squadron 3RTR at the level crossing.
Regt HQ in the field.

The lead armoured car company managed to get into Deliberate Attack Mode.

Early on, a strafing run by a Hurricane took out the German engineers' Opel Blitz.

By game turn 3 a complex melee was in progress.

Les looks confident as 2pdr rounds make short
work of thinly armoured German machines

Things looked bad for the Kradschützen as two squadrons on British tanks converged on them.

They would, however, take out one troop of Cruiser tanks before being destroyed in fighting between the Fréthun road and the railway.

A few British reinforcements were scheduled. Unlike their German opponents, they would arrive automatically, selected by card draw. I did this because they were very much there for historical flavour rather than fighting power. On game turn three a RASC petrol convoy arrived, its drivers dismounting to form single rifle platoon, and on turn 6 a searchlight battery (commanded by Lt Airey Neave) deployed behind a roadblock in Nielles.

The Germans, however, had to roll each turn to see if reinforcements arrived. This they proved sadly unable to do to any useful degree. Turn after turn the reinforcements failed to appear at all or if they did turn up, it was in the form of two companies of truck-borne infantry: not ideal against tanks.

Even a Stuka strike proved ineffective.

With a regular trickle of casualties causing Company Morale Tests it was inevitable that bad rolls would come along sooner or later and although the British had one company flee entirely, it was the Germans who failed a Battalion Test. The Aufklärungs Abteilung received a Halt result. 

Although division HQ got an order through to restart their attack, and a light tank company with Panzers III and II arrived on the penultimate game turn, it was clearly not going to be possible to clear the Calais road in the time allotted.

We therefore agreed a British victory with 3RTR still holding the line at Windmill Hill.

I was very pleased with how the game went and owe hearty thanks to our recruits to the cause of resurrecting TacWWII:

Left to right: Andy, your host, Les, Ian S and Ian F

Now on to packing for next weekend's West Mid Lards event (after a much-needed beer!)