Yet Another Silly After Action Report

Just as there are a couple of comedy routines before the main drama so World War 2 was preceded by a couple of trivial (compared to what was to come) squabbles between the tinpot dictatorships of Eastern Europe.  In 1939 Germany occupied the left hand half of Czechoslovakia and convinced the right hand half to declare "independence" as the brand new nation of Slovakia.  This was great news, for the Hungarians who promptly invaded and ripped off a bit of the country for themselves.  To deter future attempts the Slovakians decided to formalise their vassal status with Nazi Germany by means of an alliance.  The immediate result of this was another invasion as the Hungarians attempted to snatch a bit more territory before the German and Slovak diplomats could get ink onto paper.  Unwilling to let matters stand the Slovaks gathered their travesty of an army and attempted a counter attack.

This then is scenario J148, "Last Minute War" which pits a small force of elite and first line Hungarian squads (which would count as second rate in any serious army) attempting to defend their ill gotten gains against a rampaging mob of Slovakians with approximately the same military capacity as your local neighbourhood watch group.  To bolster their rather thin defence the Hungarians have a 37mm anti tank gun, a 20mm anti aircraft gun and some seriously unreliable artillery on speed dial.  To add a little edge to their attack the Slovaks have scraped up some of the crappiest AFVs you will ever encounter outside an Italian order of battle.

My opponent Ivan Kent took the attacking Slovaks and found himself the proud possessor of fourteen first line squads, eight conscript squads, four OA vz 30 armoured cars (slow, mechanically unreliable and no reverse gear) plus one LT vz 35 tank (for the time and place actually not a bad machine) plus a complement of automatic (but heavy) weapons.  My Hungarians defend with eight first line squads, a single elite squad, a few foxholes, some dummy counters to spread the pain and the aforementioned guns and artillery.  For laughs both sides also get air support.

I sacrificed a goat to the artillery gods and started to plan my defence.  My initial impression?  Oh crap!  There are so many Slovakians.  OK they're not fast and they're not well motivated but if they just continue oozing forward there is a distinct likelihood that the Hungarians will run out of bullets before they run out of bodies.

Ivan has to get his troops across the width of board 44 in order to seize at least eleven buildings in a village on board 56.  I can set up anywhere on board 56 and on hexes with a number of 4 or less on board 44.  Board 44 can be divided into three rough sectors.  The northwest where forest, brush and a small hill hinder but don't really block a flanking movement, the centre where a road leads straight into the village and the south west with lots of open ground to cover.  I can't possibly cover all of this with my forces.  To defend up front might work for a turn or two but would probably then result in my entire force being swamped.  Defending from the rear gives away much of the village and allows Ivan plenty of time to take what's left.  A bit of mix and match is in order.

In the woods and brush in the northwest I set up groups of dummies nestling in foxholes for added verisimilitude.  Hopefully these will persuade Ivan to try somewhere else.  Alternatively he might waste a turn or two on a formal attack.  Either would be good.  To keep him honest I've included one genuine squad among the dummies just so he doesn't waltz through.  Further back on board 56 I've posted the 37mm in building K7 where it can either shoot up a flank attack and also has a line of sight to the centre road.  A squad in L8 provides the gun with a little protection.

Most of my remaining troops go in the village.  A pair of lmg squads defend R9 and P9 and are essentially there to provide a little delay before falling back to the stone buildings behind.  Building Q9 is my fortress with an lmg squad on the ground floor, a 9-1 leader with an elite half squad and an mmg on level one.  A second squad is on level one in R4 to add as a machine gun fetcher should the others go down.  The other mmg is with the second elite half squad and the 8-1 leader in building R6.  Hopefully they plus whatever survives of my delaying force can hold Ivan at bay.  A couple more dummies and a squad go in the village buildings to the south and the entire western flank is covered by a single squad in building Y4 and the 20mm in W7.  Both are hoping to get some shots along the road.

In summary I'm defending the north by bluff, the centre by fire and the south by (cross fingers) artillery.

Ivan attacked in two main groups in the centre and south.  In the south a mass of infantry (largely conscripts as it turned out) bolstered by the tank moved slowly onto the board.  In the centre a second mass of infantry with the four armoured cars parading down the road pushed directly at the village.  Two half squads were all that Ivan devoted to my bluffing force in the north.  Fire from the single real squad killed one of them but in revenge an armoured car broke the squad who would never return to combat and would wind up as prisoners.  Still the bluff worked, with the exception of one half squad Ivan was committed to the centre and south and my northern flank was pretty safe.

I called in my artillery and had the pleasure of watching my spotting round wander about as far away from the target as it could and still remain on the board.  Ivan would ooze forward with impunity in this turn.  Over in the south Ivan was learning why conscripts should not be brought on too far from the action.  Slowly they moved forward and spent the first two and a half turns completely out of position.  To add insult to injury Ivan had shocking luck with his tank, the finest weapon in his armoury.  It came on, moved three hexes and bogged.  The next turn it dragged itself out of the mud, moved forward another couple of hexes and bogged again.  On turn three it broke down completely and was immobilised in a totally useless position.  The conscripts were on their own.

In the centre I corrected my artillery and started bringing down harassing fire on the centre mob.  The results weren't spectacular but the writing was on the wall and Ivan started being very careful with his troops.  A few pins and the odd break later and he wasn't much further ahead at the end of turn two than he was on turn one.  Except for his armoured cars.  Ignoring the shrapnel clattering off their shells they continued on down the road towards the village and my 37mm which managed to kill two of them.  The other two got past and rumbled gamely onwards.  In my turn two my air support turned up, failed its sighting task check and went off to sulk in the corner of the board for a while.  Over in the south the conscripts crawled a little closer and a 9-1 encouraging a first line squad took the point, straight into the LOS of my AA gun.  Snakes on the IFT roll and and Ivan's best leader and a first line squad were dead.

Turn three saw Ivan moving very cautiously through artillery fire with a few more pins and breaks but not much forward movement.  Another black chit for battery access ensured the pain would continue.  The surviving armoured cars rumbled into the village and stopped next to my outpost position where they would endure a positive rain of mg fire with good humour and little damage.  Turn three also saw me unleash my aircraft on his conscripts pinning and breaking some more (yes, a successful air attack yippee!) but the remainder continued their slow but apparently remorseless march positioning themselves to take out the AA gun in the next month or two.  A half squad that ventured into artillery fire in the centre was in quick succession battle hardened, produced a hero and got killed all in the same fire phase.  The hero led another half squad into close combat against one of my outpost squads where both he and his half squad died.  In my turn I had a brain snap and abandoned a perfectly serviceable building to engage one of the armoured cars in close combat.  I failed to kill it and with the defender out of position Ivan pushed a half squad through to capture a building behind him.  The only good thing about this move was that I survived the fire put down by the armoured cars and actually managed to kill the damn thing in CC next turn.

Ivan's attack was now looking rough.  The artillery had badly beaten up his centre force, partially through breaks and partially by forcing them to keep their heads down when they really had to be moving.  Over in the south my scanty blocking force was about to be overwhelmed by a surging mass of conscripts which even another successful air attack couldn't discourage.

Feeling the centre to be under control I moved the artillery over to the south (another black chit thanks very much) and brought down a rain of steel on the unfortunate conscripts.  Due to their position I also had to bring it down on my AA gun crew as well.  Guess who broke?  While my gun crew fled yelping for a building the conscripts shrugged off 1MCs and prepared to move forward.

His fourth turn finally delivered his air support but I was mostly in buildings and the ongoing artillery storm finally started doing some appreciable damage to the conscript mass.  In the centre the remnants of his force were reduced to exchanging fire with my outpost line and his building taking half squad jumped into CC with a 7-0 leader I had left unaccountably unprotected.  Neither of these two worthies proved capable of killing each other and the melee would still be going at game end.  In the south he had managed to break the squad in building I7 and my defences were open but his poor conscripts just couldn't do it.  Moving out under artillery fire they pinned, broke and disrupted.

At the beginning of turn five with only seven and a half good order squads remaining to him Ivan surrendered giving me a win which had far more to do with good luck than good management.

How did I win?  Simple, artillery and air support.  These things worked almost flawlessly for me all game.  Scarce ammo bedamned I pulled three black chits in a row and Ivan paid the price.  The air support also did far more than I expected.  This, plus Ivan's bad luck with the tank (and it really was a terrible set of numbers he rolled trying to get that damned thing moving) pretty much doomed him.  I would not like to contemplate how the battle might have gone if I had pulled a red chit or two and if my aircraft had continued to fail their sighting checks.  Ivan made a couple of mistakes, he needed to push harder than he did (easy to say when you're not the one sitting under artillery fire) and some judicious VBM sleazing on the part of his surviving armoured cars would have helped him forward as well but if there was luck hanging around it went my way.

Hero of the day was undoubtedly the artillery.  Half my force didn't fire a shot.  Stalin called artillery "the God of War" and Louis XIV called it "the final argument of kings" both of which I toss in just to show how damned well read I am.