WW II West Front 1944 British vs Germans AAR - Iron Cross Rules

Played the third in our trifecta of Iron Cross Rules games last Monday, in this one the Jerries took on the Poms! we played the 'unprepared defenders' scenario set in north eastern France 1944.

The German's PzJg IV made short work of the British Firefly tank!

Forces;

British Attacking
1 x Churchill
1 x Firefly
2 x Sherman 75s

1 x Staghound Mk I

7 x Infantry Sections ( 1 x HQ, 5 with LAW)

7 x Trucks

2 x HMG

2 x Mortars

Germans Defending

1 x JgPz IV
2 x Pz IV Late

1 x PaK 40 with Transport

7 x Infantry Sections ( 1 x HQ, 4 with LAW)

3 x Trucks

2 x HMG

2 x Mortars

Game;

The Jerries were spread out whilst the British thrust their left forward refusing their right flank. The Allied Commander chose the pre bombardment option for this game and scored very well hitting several defending infantry units, the PAK and it demolished the PAKs towing vehicle!

The initial British advance was screened by smoke the Germans reacted by pushing a Panzer IV forward which was promptly reduced to a smoking pile of iron by the lumbering Churchill. Revenge was sweet though and the German JgPz IV took out the Poms Firefly as it probed through some woods.

The British left/German right now became the centre of the action!

Hot close quarter action as the British advanced into a hail of German fire, soon a Staghound was in flames and the German PAK was blasted by Sherman’s pouring H.E. into it. Now the Germans counter attacked, a Pz IV with a Platoon of Infantry (with LAWs) in support charged. A close range action ensued and it was a bloodbath! Two Shermans were cooked and some British infantry were routed but the attacking Germans were shattered, the Pz IV was a smoking wreck and the Platoon of infantry was scattered!

The British still had the edge and were ready to exploit the open German right when the Kampfgruppe Commander launched a final attack with his trump card, his mighty JgPz IV! The tank hunter rumbled forward and was offered a flank shot at the British Churchill but the Brits got the first shot off and it was a good one, the mighty Panzer rolled to a halt and was out of action (the British successfully interrupted the German turn, but on a second try using the HQ reroll option then rolled a 10 on the to hit die, followed by another 10 on the AP roll with a 4 on a D6 putting paid to the Jerry! Some lucky dice).

A small German incursion by foot troops occurred in the centre whilst the final tank dual was in progress but it was too little too late, even though it did put the fear of god into the British mortar support units one of which was wiped out!

It was now the end of turn 5, the Germans had lost over 2/3s of their force and had no armour left they conceded the battlefield to the British retiring their remaining forces, so a Pommy Victory!

Some Pictures;

The British refusing their right advanced onto the table as the pre attack bombardment ceased...

The Germans countered advancing a Pz IV which the British Churchill quickly destroyed!

In turn the Britsh pushed their Firefly forward which too was promptly knocked out the the Germans JgPz IV...

German mortars successfully pinned down some of the British Infantry...

Another British probe this time well supported by infantry resulted in the German PAK smashing the Staghound armoured car, the infantry and Shermans then pounded the PAK into oblivion...

With the German flank now open the British charged forward...straight into a German counterattack. The German Pz IV took out the leading tank...

The Pz IV was in turn knocked out by the second Sherman reacting...

The final stage of the German counterattack saw them knock out the last British Sherman, they were then pounded by the British Infantry supported by a Vickers HMG! The casualties were piling up...

In a final throw of the dice the Germans tried to take out the British Churchill...

Only to see another successful British interrupt and a very good shot...scratch another Panzer!

Our battlefield at the end of the action...

Summary;

Well another Allied Victory, a great game of Iron Cross with the Jerries having  their arses handed to them on a plate yet again! The concentrated British attack with some good dice rolling by Rolf ensured they took the day BUT it was a hard won victory losing four AFVs and some infantry, again the side with  surviving armour was successful. The Germans lamented their useless Pz IVs calling them POSs built in bombed out factories by non German labour! Each of the three recent games started with the first losses to the Germans being a Panzer IV which each time was hit critically and exploded! During this game Guderian gave Hitler a call asking for new dice but was told sternly there was no budget as Goering’s V1s had run over cost 😄.

Next time we’re going to have a go at a Dark Ages Battle with Impetus 2 Rules. Plus got a Blucher Napoleonic Scenario ready to go!

WW II West Front 1944 - Iron Cross Rules AAR

Last week we played another game of Iron Cross pitting the Yanks against the Jerries late in the war situation. We used the Escalating Engagement scenario.

USA OOB

4 x M4s

2 x M18s

7 X Infantry Sections 4 with LAWs (includes HQ)

2 X HMG Units

3 x Trucks

German OOB

3 x Pz IVs

1 x STUG III

1 x PAK 38 + Transport

7 x Infantry Sections 4 with LAW (includes HQ)

2 x HMG Unit

3 x Trucks

The Game;

Both sides deployed armour with tank riders initially and looked for the best terrain in which to deploy, the vehicles duked it out over the first few turns  while the balance of the forces arrived on the field of play!

Vehicle losses quickly mounted, the Mark IVs were on equal standing with the Yanks vehicles and the STUG had slightly better frontal armour but was knocked out spectacularly exploding on Turn Two! The duel of armour which featured some tank hunting infantry prowling from cover to cover ended with the Americans retaining two M4s while the Germans had only their PAK 40.

Using their mobility to avoid the PAK the remaining Yank armour whittled away at the Jerry infantry breaking their sides morale, a Victory to the Allies!

Some Pictures, not many though I was too busy playing!

The Yanks gained control of the central ridgeline but the German PAK 40 sorted them out, not before they took out a couple of Panzers and an Infantry Section!

A US Hellcat ran rampant through the German lines it became the target of the PAK 40, a Pz IV and some tank hunting Infantry who in the end took it out...

Th infamous Germán PAK 40, it was the most prolific Unit on the table when tallying up Kills but the Yanks prevailed!

Summary;

This game went well, the forces were balanced and aggressive 🙂! Ended up with the side with remaining AFVs wins (Yanks)! We did again mange to forget a step in the rules but it was across the game and effected both sides equally. We’ll be playing Iron Cross yet again in a couple of sessions time and will try to get the rules down pat!

WW II East Front 1945 - Iron Cross Rules AAR

Early July we played a game of Iron Cross pitting the Soviets against the Germans late in the war. We used the capture an objective scenario with the Soviets on the attack.

Soviet OOB

6 X T-34 76

3 X T-70

7 X Infantry Sections (includes HQ)

2 X HMG Units

2 X Mortar Units

German OOB

1 x Pz IV

2 x PAK 38 + Transport

4 x Infantry Sections with LAW (includes HQ)

1 x HMG Unit

1 x Mortar Unit

The Game;

The Soviets using their mortars to lay down smoke (quite effectively) and refusing their right flank advanced with their infantry using woods as cover and their armour going hell for leather toward the objectives, a risky tactic with the defenders hidden setup and the effectiveness of the German Panzerfausts.

The mix of smoke, massed armour and poor German dice rolling led to the Soviets rolling up the German right flank destroying a Panzer IV, two infantry sections and their mortar support in the process! The Nazis were in deep trouble having inflicted no losses on the attackers at this point.

In the centre of the battlefield the Soviets repeating the same tactics were again successful wiping out another German section and their HMG support taking a few hits in the process and losing a T-70. The losses were inflicted by the German PAK units which were unlucky deployed facing the flank the Soviets ‘refused’! They did redeploy and were effective but at this point with the German centre and left virtually overwhelmed their moral was broken and the Soviets secured what turned out to be a relatively easy victory!

Some Pictures;

The Germans under pressure finally get a break when a PAK38 knocks out a T-70 with a flank shot!

The German Panzer IV tried to ambush the T-34 Column it missed with several shots and when it hit twice the rounds were ineffective...

...unfortunately the Soviet return fire was accuarte and when the Panzer was hit the effect was deadly!

It then became an armour rampage!

Unluckily even the Germans Panzerfausts were faulty on the day, normally they'd tear a T-34 apart.

The German centre was overrun with a combined arms assault!

Both the PAK 38 were able to redeploy but the Soviet smoke was very well placed by their mortars.

Summary;

This game was the first time we used hidden deployment and it didn’t help the defenders to much 🙂! Also the first time we used house smoke rules which in hindsight were a bit too generous next time we’ll adjust them. Last thing to note on the first turn of combat the Umpire (ahem me) stuffed up the base to hit number but due to the poor German rolling luckily it didn’t have too much of an effect. We’ll be playing Iron Cross again in a couple of session to iron out the bumps as we enjoy using the rules! In the meantime I'll try catching up with posts here and on Captain Darling's site!

Iron Cross Rules - 1944 NW Europe Game

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.

Wings of War WW II Night!

Monday July 18 two brave TSGOGgers donned their flight gear climb aboard their kites and hit the air! Over to Dave...

FLt 'Whizzo' Al in his trusty Hurricane did battle with Leutnant 'Schmutzy' von N in the Me109 over the green fields of Kent. Through head on passes and deflection shooting from interlocking S-Turns the Hurrys multiple 303s delivered the goods. In the first sortie the 109 carried 16 out of the required 17 hits for a few turns before disintegrating. Undeterred; Schmutzy eluded the home guard and swam back to Calais for sortie 2 where the first burst of Whizzos 303s gave 8 hits (ach these Englanders fight like madmen!) and the 2nd burst had one of those darn explosion chits. For Schmutzy it's PoW life with incessant rain, bad plumbing, bread and dripping...

A couple of pics from the night!

CoC AAR - PTO Tulagi Beach Blue 1942

2nd of May Dave hosted a CoC PTO game for us, turning over to Dave...

The first US offensive in the Pacific was in August 1942 in the Solomon Islands and the initial landings were on Tulagi, the administrative centre of the island  chain. Tulagi is a small island north of Guadalcanal, nestled below the larger Florida Island. Unlike the landings on Guadalcanal, which met no initial resistance, Tulagi was contested strongly by Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF) troops of the IJN. The USMC landing force under Merrit Edson consisted of  Carlson's Raider Battalion and 5th Battalion of 2nd Marine Regiment. 

This Chain of Command (CoC) game focussed on a platoon of 5/2 landing on Beach Blue on the mid-southern edge of the island and probing inland, heading towards ridge in the centre of Tulagi in their drive to capture the NW end of the NW-SE oriented island. As a probe scenario, the USMC needed to exit one team from the far end of the board for victory. 

The extra points available to the sides were spent by the SNLF on entrenchments and barbed wire. The USMC 5/2 added a .30 cal LMG and 60cm medium mortar teams. Both sides rolled high on morale to start on 11. The patrol phase developed into the SNLF moving as far forward as possible with three Jump Off Points (JOPs) evenly across the board in the jungle and the 5/2 deploying three JOPs, two on the left flank either side of the cemetery and the other on the far right flank on the edge of the golf course. The nature of the jungle cover meant that JOPs could be deployed at only 6" back from patrol markers so the opposing JOPs were relatively close compared with open terrain.

The USMC landing didn't open well with confusion allowing only one squad and the Sarge landing on the left flank and moving to the edge of the jungle from the cemetery. The SNLF began rapidly deploying units from the JOPs and an attack was immediately mounted on their right flank against the recently landed USMC squad. The units didn't get to hand-to-hand but settled into a prolonged firefight at close range. 

Some of the less than well coordinated USMC landings may be attributed to Major Clarence E Pitts taking personal command of the landings. The SNLF rapidly established their whole platoon well forward and began to infiltrate towards the beach before the full USMC platoon was ashore. Most of the USMC strength consisting the three rifle quads and one BAR squad were deployed on the left flank around the cemetery as it seemed like a good idea at the time. Another firefight developed at medium range near the centre between several squads. To ensure the right flank JOP would not be overrun, the mortar and LMG teams were deployed from there to the nearby golf course. This turned out to be a problem later due to the intervening jungle between them and the rest of the platoon on the right flank, so they were not mutually supporting.

The firefight in the centre was going against the 5/2, due to some units being in lighter cover in the cemetery compared with SNLF, and some lousy shooting manifested by lousy rolling. The firefight at close range on the 5/2 left and SNLF right was swinging towards the USMC due to the high number of SMGs in the squad and most of its members growing up on Jimmy Cagney movies in the 1930s "Take that you doity rats...dakadaka...daka". A counter-battery duel developed on the SE side between the SNLF type 89 grenade launcher squad and the USMC mortar and LMG teams from the edge of the golf course. 

In the centre the 5/2 BAR team moved obliquely onto an exposed small hill in what seemed like a sensible flanking move by Corporal 'Machine Gun' Kelly. However the firepower of SNLF quads soon reduced the squad to just Kelly and two comrades who yelled 'Semper Fi you SoBs!' and headed inland into the jungle with shots whizzing at their heels. A fierce hand-to-hand struggle depleted another USMC squad, who retreated towards the cemetery. On the NW edge, Mr Thomsons inventions deadly effectiveness at short range had wiped out most of the opposing SNLF and the jarheads began to advance.  SNLF Lt Imashita and his trusty flag bearer were not too far behind this squad, and suddenly felt exposed as an enemy squad approached from their right and Cpl Kelly chomping his cigar from the left, so they hotfooted it inland up the ridge.  

The USMC had taken very heavy losses in the centre and the remaining squads began moving towards the breakthrough on the left, concentrating almost the entire platoon infantry strength along the left flank. Just them Clarence E Pitts rolled the statistically improbable five 6s initiating a random event. This was an errant indirect fire barrage, courtesy of a USN destroyer sailing close to shore, onto the left flank affecting only one SNLF squad but all of the USMC infantry. Amazingly, minimal casualties were suffered by all thanks to USN gunnery. 

The USMC got lucky with many 6s on command dice, resulting in extra moves, and the advance on the left surged forward. As the USMC centre was now open the SNLF sensed a way to split the landing force, the aim of every Japanese island defence by driving straight for the beach across the golf course. Nor being distracted by the imperialist game of golf, they swung right towards the left flanks of the hapless LMG and mortar teams who were engaged in the firefight with the SNLF grenade launchers and infantry up the hill. The USMC support weapon teams were easily overrun and the SE end of Beach Blue was in SNLF hands. Meanwhile on the NW end inland up the hill, Lt Imashita had managed to outrun Machine Gun Kelly and join up with one of his squads to direct fire into the flanks of the USMC advancing inland. 

The USMC had suffered so many casualties on both flanks, but particularly the support teams on the gold course, that their morale was lowered considerably, and they lost a command dice. The advance began to falter but one mauled squad reached the far side of the board up the hill and victory was achieved. But at what cost? Pyrrhic indeed. For a probe to assess enemy strength for a following multi-company assault, it stirred up a hornets nest and lost most of the platoon. The SNLF held most of Beach Blue making follow on landings difficult. The USN destroyer captain received the Navy Cross, Maj Pitts was  given commendations, posted to the Rangers training for Europe and then posted to the UK near the town of Studley Constable in Norfolk. Lt Imashita received a personal commendation from Admiral Yamamoto but him and all of his men were overwhelmed by US firepower in the next two days. 

Overall this showed how precarious these beach landings could be if the defender skilfully defended forward with aggressive moves to the beach to divide the landing force, something that was not achieved in reality in the Pacific. 

First contact, SNLF troops bravely attack the invaders for the Emperor!

They also deploy on the flank of the first USMC troops...

US automatic fire starts to take its toll on the island's defenders!

Marine BAR teams deploy to cover the advance on the Yanks left flank, they suffered heavy loses but did their job!

The beachhead!

Yank view of the very nice terrain!

The Marines hammer the Japs, but the resilient SNLF troops just soak up the losses and return fire! This is not good for the SNLF but they buy time with lives while they attempt to redeploy!

View from the Jap perspective as more and more Marines well equiped with automatic weapons appear on the edge of the jungle!

The Marines deploy all their resources save their MG and Mortar team on their right flank, The Jap Commander is concerned!

But the Japanese surprise the USMC attackers and attack themselves they quickly capture an American Jump of Point! After initial firefights the battle now starts to become mobile!

SNLF Lt Imashita and his standard bearer put some distance between themselves and Marine Sergeant Machine Gun Kelly who can be made out in the background, note the Lieutenant's report back to his superiors described this movement as a ‘redeployment to more favourable ground' rather than a case of fleeing for their lives!

Despite their success in the centre and on their left the Japanese right flank crumbles, in a firefight against the well armed USMC the SNLF struggled and then succumbed!

The Marines 30 Cal MG Team keep up fire despite a hail of knee mortar bombs landing all around and ON them!

Then 5 sixes were rolled by the USMC player an EVENT, first time we have had this in CoC...

...turned out to be a barrage which targeted mainly their own troops! Turned out to be a fizzer with little effect...good overall picture sows the USMC about o capture a Japanese Jump of Point and turn their right flank!

Japanese rampant behind the USMC lines...bravely the Marines commander pushes on for their objective rather than be distracted!

The SNLF overruns the Marines Mortar support...

...and the a second Marine Jump off Point, the Yanks morale is teetering...

US Morale is further tested as the Japs take out the 30 Cal MG Team but still they hang in!

Japs occupy the beach after destroying the Marine support elements!

Yanks successful, a Marine squad prepares to exit the tabletop!

Catch ya next time!