Monday we played a scenario from the Iron Cross Rulebook, set in North West France in 1944 with the Germans on the attack and British on the back foot! The scenario was the Breakthrough one. Dave played the Germans George the British, re the special rules Dave selected the Command Point bonus of an Aggressive Force against having a Pre-Game Bombardment of the defenders.
With no infantry support (!) a Pz IV advances on the British line...
Forces
German Attackers 415pts
1 x Foot HQ
4 x Infantry Sections two with ATW
1 x HMG Section
2 x Mortar Sections
3 x Pz IV Late Models
1 x Stug III Late Model
British 401pts
1 x Foot HQ
6 x Infantry Sections two with ATW
2 x HMG Sections
1 x Mortar Section
1 x 6lber ATG with Truck
2 x Shermans with 76mm Gun
The AAR
The Germans massed near the centre and right of the battlefield from their perspective advanced rapidly taking advantage of the sparse terrain of north eastern France! The British held fire to keep their concealment in the trees and villages while concentrating their spread out force.
Turn two and the British opened fire on the attackers and also counterattacked, on their right infantry advanced on the open German flank while on their left a Sherman advanced to take on the German armour!
Quickly the Germans were in trouble even though they destroyed both the British tanks they had lost two of their own and two sections of infantry! Then to top it all off for them a British section advanced into a position with a line of sight of the Germans HQ and Mortar sections and started directing indirect fire onto them!
A last lung forward by the Germans cost them another Pz IV and foot section they were now too weak to achieve the victory condition of getting a third of their Break Point value into the British defensive zone in the allowed time. We complete 5 of the 7 allocated turns (an eighth turn was in the offing).
A good British Victory!
Some Pictures (not many unfortunately was busy umpiring!)
British anti-tank gunners await a suspected German attack!
The German force advances with their HQ and Mortar Sections in the foreground
The British launch a counter attack!?!
The main British defensive position was strong on a forested hilltop...
The lead German Pz IV brews up!
The battlefield at the games end, the British defensive line in the foreground...
After Game Stuff
A good game to get back into the rules but we forgot we had played this scenario before and it is an uphill battle for the attacker! We played the rules as written but in four weeks will play them again with our house rules.
Dave did make a serious mistake and did not take advantage of being second to set up, he placed his main attack facing the deployed British ATG instead of facing the weaker British flank! Given that it we believe this is a hard scenario to win as written.
