Silly After Action Report

Major, the Honorable Evelyn Augustus Roderick Percy Slovenleigh-Attyre frowned in irritation.  Around him the men of his company huddled under burning trucks and attempted to avoid the German bullets zipping in from all directions.  It was fair to say things had not gone entirely according to plan.  It wasn't really his fault, thought Slovenleigh-Attyre.  After all he certainly wasn't the first person to hold a map upside down when giving his orders.  Dropping a cigarette into the back of the ammunition lorry hadn't been ideal but the Germans had already ambushed them by that point so they would certainly have hit it sooner or later.  Now his men expected him to get them out of this mess.

"Righto chaps," he called striving to make himself heard over the crackle of automatic fire from front and rear, "we need to push through this."  He had had concerns about calling his men "chaps" it seemed to invite far too much familiarity but then he had realised that if he called them chaps he didn't need to remember their names.  Now his company had more chaps than a leather bar.  They certainly looked ready to push through something but they were waiting for him to give a direction.  Indecision gripped the major like a vice.  Then one of his corporals approached.  Slovenleigh-Attyre seized gratefully on the distraction.

"Ah, Corporal, er, um chap," he said a little desperately.  "What do you want?"

Astonished that the major remembered his name Corporal Chapp saluted and pointed to the north.

"Look sir, the armour."

Slovenleigh-Attyre blinked through the smoke and saw tanks of the 1st Armoured rolling north to hit the German positions.  That was it, if everything went haywire he could just say he was supporting the armour and blame them for what happened.

"To the north chaps, support the armour."

Corporal Chapp frowned as the company shook out and moved northwards, Slovenleigh-Attyre bellowing his desire for stealth and secrecy at the top of his voice.  The corporal did in fact think this was the right move.  He was just a little concerned at the decision making process that had produced it.

It was Ivan's turn to pick the scenario and after much deliberation and shuffling through options he simply settled for turning the previous scenario card over and playing what was on the back.  This therefore is ASL scenario J161 - Riding to the Rescue.  Here a bunch of second rate British troops have to try and break through a ring of ambushing Germans with the assistance of a less than stellar collection of British tanks.  Ivan will command the British and I the Germans.  Since the British appeared to be the less favoured side we gave them the balance, swapping out the 7-0 leader for a 9-1.  The dice presented me with the Germans so I discreetly turned my head while Ivan set up his British.

As the German I had ten first line squads, a trio of officers led by a 9-1, a medium machine gun, a pair of lights and an antitank rifle.  Supporting this force are a pair of early model, open topped armoured cars carrying a 20mm cannon.  Ivan has eight squads of second line British troops led by a trio of officers including the balance bestowed 9-1.  These have a pair of light machine guns and an antitank rifle.  These set up surrounded both by burning trucks and only slightly less incendiary Germans.  Supposedly riding to the rescue are a trio of Vickers VIC tanks.  My father will know what they look like, I gave him a Dinky Toy version of one for Christmas (or possibly his birthday) one year.  On turn three he gets another pair of tanks, an impressive (for the time and place) A13 and what is basically a self propelled smoke mortar on tracks.

 To win Ivan has to exit nine VP worth of non crew personnel either off the south edge or off the bridge in the north.  Additionally at least one tank has to have either exited or at least still be mobile at game end.  Thus killing all the British tanks is an automatic win for the Germans.

Set up, my troops are in the wrong place

Above is the initial set up.  Ivan set up his troops first, then I set up mine.  Finally Ivan set up his three at start tanks.  I have to admit Ivan faked me out.  Looking at his set up I assumed he was going for the southern exit and I set up the bulk of my forces to prevent that.  I had only a small force in the north plus the two armoured cars that have to set up there.  Having thus seen most of my troops including my 9-1 and mmg set up in the south Ivan promptly did an about face and rushed north while I stared at the map and shouted that that wasn't fair.

And now my armoured car has broken its gun.

Ivan left a delaying force so that I couldn't simply race after him and pushed towards the distressing close bridge.  Meanwhile his tanks rolled down off the hill to challenge my armoured cars.  One circled far to the north to get behind my defences while the other to raced up behind one of my cars which was inconveniently facing the wrong way.  All in all I was off to a bad start.  Which got worse when my badly placed armoured car cranked its turret around for a shot at a tank and promptly broke its main armament.  Figuring that at least we'd be finished in time to play another game I persisted.

Then things got unexpectedly better.  Not only did I repair the MA on my armoured car but the weapon itself redeemed its earlier hiccough by blowing up one of Ivan's tanks.  His squad with the antitank rifle (fearsome against this early war rubbish with tinfoil armour) was broken and ELR'ed.  The reduction to green status obviously indicated the death of the only man in the squad who knew how to handle an antitank rifle because throughout the course of the game Ivan would take half a dozen shots at a stationary armoured car only a couple of hexes away and either miss or bounce every time.

It may seem a little silly not to move the armoured car since there was a nearby squad taking potshots at it but the truth was I had so few troops up north that I absolutely needed it to help cover the road Ivan needed to take to get onto the bridge.  Meanwhile Ivan, rallying gamely from the sudden death of his tank abandoned his positions in the south and threw his entire force northwards leaving my troops down there literally choking in the smoke of burning trucks.

Up north, I had very little space to trade for time but I did my best, slinking and skulking and managing to keep concealment on my main force (a squad, lmg combo led by an 8-1).  My remaining force up there consisted of the armoured cars and two other squads.  Everything else was far south and peering through the haze looking for opponents that didn't come. Fortunately with his troops heading north and his tanks otherwise occupied I was able to dash a squad with my antitank rifle up to the east side of the forest to somewhere at least adjacent to a useful position.  Which was useful as Ivan, showing far more faith in his second rate troops than I would have, had sent a squad into close combat against one of mine and of course, killed it.  I did manage to take out a half squad in return.

Meanwhile the rest of his force was pressing up against my increasingly hard pressed northern defenders.  I had tried sending some of my southern troops north which was useful as it gave Ivan something else to shoot at apart from my northern troops.  He obediently did so and soon I had a pair of squads broken and weeping in the forest.  I moved my 9-1 (with squad and mmg in tow) up to rally them but soon realised that I needed the firepower further north.

As turn three rolled around things were looking bad for the good guys (ok, historically the bad guys).  Ivan had built up what seemed like a battalions worth of troops against my sole remaining unit in the forest.  One of his Vickers had crashed through the hedge in the north and was menacing my units (actually only one squad plus a pair of dummies) in the village and his extra tanks had come on.  His A13 had combined with his other Vickers to catch one of my armoured cars in a cross fire and I looked completely done.

Thing suddenly turned for the better

Do you ever have a day when absolutely everything goes right?  Me neither but my turn three came very close.  I took out another Vickers with an mmg and then a squad with a lmg far to the south took a long shot at his mortar tank and destroyed it as well with a snake eyes and I also managed to extricate my lmg squad in the forest back to the somewhat dubious protection of the village.  Shocked but determined Ivan rolled his A13 around behind my armoured car.  My armoured car was opened topped and his tank was running CE, the end result was that each of us wound up being stunned by machine gun fire which took both vehicles out of the game for half a turn.

Despite my heroics I was in a precarious position but Ivan was running out of time.  The propensity of his tanks to fall apart in a gust of wind wasn't helping his cause and the inability of his atr squad to take out my other armoured car meant he still had to run a gauntlet if he was to get off the bridge.  It has to be admitted that my atr squad wasn't doing any better.  It had broken under a lucky shot before it had an opportunity to do any harm and spent the rest of the game fleeing from one location to another as various units and vehicles moved next to it.

Ivan sent a halfsquad charging out into the open in a mad dash for the bridge but I disdained to fire on it. There would be more juicy targets later.  It almost didn't work out though.  Using his remaining Vickers as an infantry killer Ivan managed to eradicate most of my northern defences.   Fortunately for me rescue was coming from the south.  My mmg team and another squad with an lmg had tiptoed up behind his remaining forces while further to the south a pair of squads had moved into position in the village to the west where they could fire on the bridge.

Ivan has one turn to escape

The last turn came and Ivan made his final dash, first his remaining Vickers rolled up to the bridge in the hope of dropping some smoke grenades.  It failed and, unimpressed, my armoured car shot into its rear destroying it.  This was perhaps a little silly as now there some cover at the bridge entry.  Things got worse for me when Ivan sudden charged his A13 into a forest hex to lock up my lmg team.  Then his boys made their dash for the exit.  One squad made it but my mmg team laid down a firelane along the approaches and my troops in the village broke another that attempted to run the gauntlet.  This left Ivan without enough troops to escape and gave me the win.

End game

Major Slovenleigh-Attyre wrung the water out of his moustache.  After things had gone so badly to pot at the bridge he and a handful of others hand plunged into the river to escape.  Now he had to explain himself to Brigadier Sir Aylwin Hartie-Bellow who had come forward to find out what had happened to the battalion.  Had spent the last five minutes studying the reports on "the incident" and now he looked up shaking his head sadly.

"Pity you were let down so badly by those armour wallahs Slovenleigh-Attyre.  Damned bad show.  I've already had a word with the general, he'll be giving them a rocket.  Honestly, they should go back to horses.  At least they don't explode.  Glad to see you got out.  I've put you in for an MC just to quiet any criticism."

"Thank you very much sir."

"Not at all, must stick together what? Off you go and get a dry uniform and some moustache wax"

Slovenleigh-Attyre saluted and squelched out of the brigadiers officer.  Corporal Chapp was waiting for him.

"How did it go sir?"

Slovenleigh-Attyre sighed, "I think it's going to be a very long war."