Silly After Action Report

SS Obersturmfuhrer Michael Wittman peered out from behind the none too solid protection of an armoured car towards the Polish positions.  He'd come a long way, put up with far more than any human should but he'd made it through and this was his opportunity to prove himself.  Ahead lay the Poles, barring the way to Warsaw, behind him were his SS troopers athirst for massacre.  They had only been moderately disappointed when he told them they would have to do some fighting first.  His first command, a trio of armoured cars, would provide the punch to get the troopers forward.  He had planned this meticulously, nothing could go wrong.

"There you are JO, sorry, Obersturmthingy Wittman!" cried an appallingly familiar voice.  Wittman screamed and turned to see the figure of Oberst von Kattelrussler striding towards him while the SS troopers nearest reluctantly straightened to attention in the presence of this heavily bemedalled representative of the old order.

"Just on my way back from headquarters," said von Kattelrussler cheerily, "another decoration, honestly they must be giving them out with the rations nowadays."
"My thoughts exactly," muttered Wittman wondering if there was time to hide under his armoured car.
"Thought I'd pop in and see how you're doing.  Your CO tells me you've got an attack of your very own.  How exciting.  What are your plans?"
"Feint in the centre and punch hard on the right," said Wittman still looking around for an exit.
"Really, I thought you'd like it straight and hard up the middle. Oh no sorry, that's your wife.  Von Kummerbund sends her his regards by the way.  Plus some silk stockings and a book from India with lots of pictures."

Wittman could almost see his sanity leaving his body.  He gripped the armoured car so tightly his nails left dents in the armour.
"Please sir, I must prepare the attack."
"Of course, off you go.  Don't mind me, pretend I'm not here."  Von Kattelrussler produced a camp chair and a box of popcorn from somewhere.  "I'll just watch the show."

Well this is an all SS attack and I had to work von Kattelrussler into it somehow.  This is Scenario BFP 127 - The Road to Warsaw.  Here I shall command a small and strangely unmotivated group of Poles trying to hold a position against the ravening maniacs of the Leibstandarte (and for the record I don't know if Michael Wittman was involved in this attack and yes I do know he wasn't married).  I have eight and a half first line squads (but with a meagre ELR of 2) commanded by a mere two officers.  They have a heavy machine gun, a medium machine gun, an antitank rifle and a 46mm mortar (which I am slowly coming to love) plus a bunch of foxholes and concealment counters.

On the other side Ivan Kent commands the asphalt soldiers, ten elite 4-6-8s, a trio of officers, a trio of light machine guns and a trio of (dangerously open topped) armoured cars.  Ivan's mission is to control seven of the buildings on board BFP R currently inconveniently still occupied by the people who own them.

I had what I thought were a couple of bright ideas and which rapidly turned out to be rubbish.  I had noticed in the previous scenario how the pillboxes had been a trap for Ivan's hmgs and decided not to place anything too valuable in the foxholes.  Instead I put hefty dummy stacks in them hoping to draw fire.  Secondly I set up a powerful force in the centre (bolstered by the hmg and my only leader with a modifier) and another somewhat less powerful stretched out in the eastern (right hand) woods.  I figured I could defend sternly in the centre and trade space for time in the east.  The west with all that open ground was defended by the mortar and a bunch of dummies.  I also had a couple of squads and my only other leader in the rear buildings for what I intended to be my last stand.  It's fair to say very little of this went according to plan.

The above shows the situation at the end of the first turn.  Ivan totally ignored the left and with the exception of a couple of half squads shepherded by a pair of armoured cars he ignored the centre as well.  Instead he threw pretty much everything he had against the right (my left if you want to be pedantic).  The only good news was his point armoured car broke its main armament on its very first shot (this armoured car would go on to break its cmg and then get blown up by a mortar by which time it was little more than a fancy jeep).  Despite this the mass of firepower he produced swiftly blew away my dummies and then dealt the same courtesy to a real squad as well.

In the centre he pushed his luck with the half squads a little too far and a pair of them fled yelping to his 8-0 in the rear for succour.  In his next rally phase Ivan attempted to rally the half squads.  He rolled boxcars.  "Well thank god that's out of the way," said Ivan and promptly rolled another boxcars attempting to rally the second half squad.  The battle had barely started and Ivan had just murdered a squad of his own troops.  These boys take their massacring seriously.  Perhaps understandably he didn't try and repair the gun on his armoured car.

I meanwhile had attempted to implement my fall back defence in the east but it was more of a fall over defence.  With 8 morale and an ELR of 4 he pushed forward aggressively daring me to fire while my surviving Polish troops in the region proved incapable of hitting a barn from the inside.

End of turn two, things aren't getting better.

My eastern flank had gone.  My defence was a broken, floundering thing.  Ivan didn't even bother picking up the medium machine gun whose owners had fled shrieking for the rear.  On the plus side Ivan did break the cmg on his armoured car.  It seemed my best plan of defence was to sit there and wait for Ivan to wipe himself out.  Sadly not even Ivan's dice could be consistently bad.

After a stellar, if not bloodless, start Ivan's push slowed down over the next couple of turns as he snaffled a group of undefended buildings and repositioned his troops for the next assault.  No prizes for guessing where it would come.  He would swing some troops on a deep flanking mission to the north while the bulk of his force would come west through the woods to hit my centre strongpoint.  He sent one armoured car swinging far west to come at me from behind while the other two rolled forward to provide firepower and, more importantly, protection for his assault.  Amazingly my broken squad managed to flee to the rear (it probably helped that the rear was now quite a bit closer).

Better is definitely not the word I would use.

Ivan cheerfully blew a squad's worth of defenders out of a building near the woods and my defensive position was now little more than a thin line.  Things weren't helped when my mortar got a UK on his useless armoured car (naturally it would fail all recovery rolls and wind up dead) but I felt a little better.  Far to the north his flankers started menacing me.  In the centre Ivan dispensed with menacing and simply settled for killing me.

Worse, that's the word I would use

 

With victory in his grasp Ivan went for broke pushing flankers around to my building cluster in the north (my defensive fire broke his 10-0 but his 8 morale boys passed their checks fine, go figure) while using an armoured car as cover allowed him to snatch another building.  This left him with only one building needed to win and my position was desperate.  Actually my position had been desperate a couple of turns ago.  Now it was looking back at desperate with fond nostalgia.

Then one turn changed it all around.  My 46mm mortar of blessed memory took out another armoured car and my hmg until now noticeably largely by its impotence went on a maniacal rate tear which smashed Ivan out of two of the buildings he had captured.  I would snatch them back and suddenly things looked very much better.

OK, suddenly things are better

Then another turn changed it all back again.  Ivan still had the troops and time to do the job.  He went in hard.  In the north he pushed a half squad through the woods.  Defensive fire turned it into a half squad and a hero.  In the centre he threw the bulk of his force against my newly recaptured building.  Defensive fire pinned most, but critically, not all of his attackers.  His newly minted hero charged into CC with my mortar halfsquad, his halfsquad went into CC against a concealed 7-0 and in the centre a squad and leader went into CC against a full squad.  You'd think I might win one of those or at least prolong the melees?  Nope.  I lost all three and with it any hope of winning the game.  When the close combats were over I was left with three and a half squads of my original force.  Ivan hadn't quite got the buildings he needed but there was virtually nothing left to stop him.  I conceded at that point because I saw little point in going on.

And even more suddenly much much worse

Basically I cocked up my initial set up and the entire game was an unsuccessful struggle to recover from errors made before the game had started.  Much thanks to Ivan for the game.  We shall continue to burn Poland in the new year.

Obersturmfuhrer Wittman moved among his troops issuing words of praise.  He couldn't help noticing that a number of them backed away from him nervously especially when his hand strayed towards his pistol.  He also couldn't help noticing that quite a few of them were eating popcorn.

"Nice result lad," said von Kattelrussler cheerfully, "but next time don't worry about shooting your soldiers, that's what the Poles are for.  Bit of a bugger you dropping your cigarette butt into the petrol tank of your armoured car when that mortar round hit but I guess you'd already broken all of the weaponry anyway.  Just tell your CO it was a lucky hit.  Would you like some popcorn?"