Silly After Action Report - French Civil War in Gabon

Capitaine Raoul Oveurfluor crouched and crept silently through the jungle.  Every nerve was alert, every sense strained to penetrate the gloom.

"Hey Raoul, whatcha doing?"

Oveurfluor screamed and leapt several feet into the air before landing in a particularly recalcitrant patch of sticky mud.  Struggling to free himself he glared at his opposite number.  Sous-lieutenant Recalcitrant watched with polite interest as the capitaine hauled himself free of the sticky goop.

"I am trying," hissed Oveurfluor between clenched teeth, "to sneak up on the shy and incredibly rare Gabon lowland gorilla."

"I'm more worried about the pushy, depressingly common Gabon Vichy soldiers.  You do know we're on a reconnaissance mission right?"

"Of course," snapped Oveurfluor, he waved a hand vaguely, "they're in that direction.  Feel free to go back and tell the others."

"I think they might expect your presence in the attack as well."

"In the name of God why did I join the Legion?"

"Wasn't it something to do with outstanding arrest warrants?"

"Shut up.  It was out of love for La Belle France; and outstanding arrest warrants.  I swear to god that donkey looked sixteen."

In keeping with a recently discovered taste for exotica Dave Wilson and I decided to play FT161 - French Civil War in Gabon.  As scenario descriptions go its all in the title really.  In late 1940 General de Gaulle was still trying to prove to the British that he wasn't an ill tempered irrelevance and attempted to persuade the French colonies in West Africa to rally to his cause.  Success was mixed, French Congo was enthusiastic and French Senegal did their best to kill him.  Which left Gabon.  Imagine being so desperate that the accrual of Gabon to your side could be counted a success.  The governor of Gabon being less than enthusiastic about joining up de Gaulle sent in such troops as he had at his command.  The Vichy garrison of Gabon resisted, hence the scenario name.  Given that de Gaulle's troops were Legionnaires and the garrison was mostly colonial the number of actual French people involved in this civil war was probably about three.

Dave will command the Vichy troops rallying to the defence of oppression.  He has nine first line squads, two leaders and three crews.  The crews are to man an hmg, a pocket sized 37mm gun and a 20mm gun filched from random bomber.  Lest this force prove inadequate he receives three squads of first line reinforcements on the fourth turn carrying an lmg and guided by another officer.  He also got five trenches to shelter his cowardly troops from fire.

To light the flames of resistance and inspire the souls of the French people (most of whom had probably never heard of Gabon) I command eleven and a half elite squads (represented by British counters which must make de Gaulle turn in his grave).  They have two medium machine guns, an lmg and a 60mm mortar.  These forces must brush aside the no doubt feeble Vichy resistance and capture half a dozen huts inconveniently located at the other end of the map from their start point.  Lest this seem too easy I have to do all this without suffering 10 CVP.

Below is my at start set up.  As you can see I weighted heavily on the right hoping to punch through his defences there and head for the huts while my kill stack (two squads, both mmgs and a 9-1) and my mortar dealt with his defenders in the centre.  Over on the left I had a pair of squads and a second rate leader to divert attention and tiptoe down that side of the board.

Subtlety didn't play a big part in my set up

I was certain that Dave's hmg would be in the centre to sweep the airfield and,for once, I was right.  Sadly the cheap French mortar I'd been equipped with didn't have any smoke rounds but I banged away and gained an acquisition.  This would be my mortar's sole contribution to the game.  Shortly afterwards Dave's sniper broke the manning halfsquad and, in case I couldn't take a hint, subsequently killed him.

Elsewhere there was a bit of a disaster on my left where Dave managed to break a squad ploughing through the kunai but a half squad managed to avoid all fire to charge into the bamboo (totally illegally, we had forgotten we were playing PTO rules).  On the right I eschewed movement for firepower and smashed his forward defenders and pushed an lmg team forward.

End of (Free) French turn 1.  Not too displeased

It was a modest beginning but one which seemed to auger well for the future.  What I didn't know was that I was running headfirst into one of Dave's strongest positions.  I was about to find out.  In Dave's turn I managed to break one of his squads in the centre and would follow that up in my next turn by breaking the hmg crew.  Dave's centre was falling apart, unfortunately I had absolutely nothing to capitalise on that.  Virtually everything was committed on the right.  On the right they would fight and on the right they would die (spoiler alert).

End of (Vichy) French turn 1

With the forest on the right denuded of enemy troops I brought up my main force.  I knew he had more troops just behind but I didn't realise exactly how many.  Things started to go wrong when Dave unveiled his baby 37mm in the trench just behind the woods and started peppering my force.  I wasn't too concerned, ok I might take some casualties but I had numbers, surely I would be able to roust them out.  But that wasn't all that Dave had there.  As well as the gun he had another two squads as well and, as I rapidly and painfully learned, behind the trench was his 20mm gun.  I had walked into the entrance to Hell.

Over on the left my half squad continued on its lonely journey largely because I couldn't think of anything else to do with it.  I think I had some visions of snatching a hut or two despite the fact that a pair of squads were now bearing down on him.

OK that's a bit ugly

Despite some casualties I still thought I was in good shape on the right.  I had built up a powerful force in the trees and the fall of his position was surely just a matter of time.  Have you ever seen a 37mm gun go on a rate tear?  In one fire phase Dave crushed my hopes and dreams.  At the end of it a squad and a half were dead and a squad and a half were broken.  The sniper having taken out my mortar team in back play meant that I was already halfway towards to casualty cap.  I did eventually manage to break the other squads in the trench with the 37mm and Dave finally boxcarred a roll and broke the gun but the tattered remnants of my force that now faced his 20mm were in no shape to go further.

I did manage to slip one squad around the gun, simply because Dave disdained to fire on it in favour of better targets but this sole unsupported lunge in the direction of the huts was never going to win me the game.  Over on the left I rallied the squad and his sniper promptly broke it again.  My deep roaming halfsquad fell to fire and absent any decent terrain put their hands up in the air.

I finally rallied my squad on the left (again) but by this time we were four turns in, I hadn't got through Dave's first line and his reinforcements were due.  Also I was desperately close to the CVP cap (the prisoners didn't help) and there seemed no chance of getting through.  Dave had forgotten his reinforcements until I reminded him (I should have kept my mouth shut) and felt that despite my casualties I was on the verge of a breakthrough.  When I reminded him my concession became understandable.

So defeat for me.  I had thrown what I hoped was an unstoppable force at what turned out to be an immovable object.  Not the cleverest game I've ever played.  Bugger the exotics, next time Dave and I will be playing a thoroughly normal game of Germans vs Soviets.

A shy and incredibly rare Gabon lowland gorilla moved cautiously into the clearing.  There had been a lot of noise and screaming but that was gone now and the beast was curious.  Approaching the sprawled figure of a legion officer it stared in disbelief.  Surely this was the shy and incredibly rare French gorilla enthusiast.  The gorilla fumbled for its camera, the wife and kids simply wouldn't believe this.