Silly After Action Report - Today We Take Hyeres

 A runner handed Sous-lieutenant Raoul Outlebarrel a message.

"It's from the commandant."

Outlebarrel cast his eye over contents,

"Sous-lieutenant Outlebarrel, you are without doubt the most wretched officer I have ever had the misfortune to command.  Your actions alone have set the cause France Libre back more than six months.  Our allies snigger behind their hands and the Germans are emboldened!  Never in all my years of service have I encountered anyone with as little aptitude for warfare as yourself.  You are stripped of your command and will be posted to Indo-China immediately for guard duty in the asparagus mines of Laos.  Hand over your command to the nearest officer and report to the nearest coal barge for transit to your new posting."

Outlebarrel handed the message to the sergeant.

"Have that decoded sergeant and then report back to me."

For some reason I persist with attempting to gain a victory for the Free French despite the fact that they would obviously benefit from almost anybody else in command.  We have passed the halfway mark on my road of pain and have now played PP5 - Today We Take Hyeres.  Having got past the Golf Hotel on the outskirts (not really) I am now expected to capture an entire town.

Once again I command a formidable collection of Free French fighting material that is once again divided up into various bits and pieces.  The victory conditions appear to have been designed to force the players to spend more time with a pen and paper than rolling dice.  The Germans win if they exit 30VP or more off the west edge.  Failing that the Germans win if they inflict 60CVP or more on the French.  Failing either of the above the Germans win if they control two or more multi-story buildings at game end.  Failing all of the above the French win.  But wait, there's more.  For every French AFV destroyed the Germans can deduct the number of exit VP required by one.  For every German gun captured the German exit VP requirement goes up by three.  I hope that's clear to everyone.

To capture Hyeres I have twenty four squads (holy crap), sixteen of them elite and eight first line.  These are goaded into combat by seven leaders the best of whom is a 9-2.  They have eight lmgs, four mmgs, four dismantled 60mm mortars and (for no reason whatsoever) two PIAT launchers.  Rolling on in the first turn just sufficiently far away to make a combined arms attack impractical is my armour.  Four Stuart tanks led by a 9-1 armour leader, four M3A1 scout cars led by an 8-1 armour leader and four M-10 tank destroyers who are apparently leading themselves.

Dave's Germans are equally plentifully equipped.  He has eighteen squads (two elite, four first line and twelve second line).  These guys are short of leadership with two 8-1s and two 7-0s between them.  They do have three hmgs, an mmg, three lmgs and two panzerschreks to distribute amongst the ranks and a grand total of thirty concealment counters.  But I mentioned guns didn't I?  In addition to the above he has three 88mm guns, three 20mm guns (which by SSR can lay firelanes) and two 81mm mortars.

The French infantry have to set up north of hexrow R on board twenty.  Oh and they can't set up on roads.  The three German 88s have to set up on board 18.  The French armour has to enter on the north edge of boards 18 & 22.  Below is my set up.  My plan involved punching hard along the east edge while moving somewhat more circumspectly in the middle.  My tanks would enter as close to the infantry a possible in the hopes that their canister rounds could help rout the Germans out of the buildings.  The scout cars would roam far and wide shamelessly trailing their coats in the hopes that the 88s would reveal their position by firing on them.  The M-10s would move more circumspectly, hoping to get into a position where a couple of them could gang up on an 88.  Some parts of that plan worked.  Most of it didn't.

Here is our at start positions.  Check out the unit I've circled in red.  This one squad would be the rock on which all my hopes would break

So things didn't start off too badly.  Along the east (bottom) I poured troops into his first defended building and once that was done started infiltrating troops past them as well.  In the centre things were more modest but I hopped a road in defiance of a firelane from one of his 20mm and started challenging for that building as well.  Further west my troops snuck around behind woods hoping to encircle his defenders and meet up with the armour rolling on in support.  My scout cars were spattered all over the board but so far only one 88mm has revealed itself.  Ominously my casualties started mounting when a squad was caught in the open and killed to death leaving an lmg homeless and bereft.

A modest start but surely promising better things

In Dave's turn his 88 dutifully fried one of my armoured cars and somewhat embarrassingly a 2+2 shot stunned another.  You will note in the picture below that the German 447 in 20O8 which was in CC the previous turn now isn't.  This one squad killed five French squads in CC and tied down three more.  The only effect on it was the generation of an 8-1 leader.  Literally a third of my infantry was removed from contention for the entire length of the game.  The CC was still going on when we finished.  The only time it faced 1-1 odds was when it had already killed some of the French in the hex.  At the time it seemed like a temporary issue that would soon be solved.  Meanwhile my troops elsewhere pushed forward.  Dave had obviously decided the centre buildings were indefensible because once I got through his outliers I was able to push forward and grab a few multi story buildings (dear god there were so many).  With the way at least partially cleared my Stuarts rolled forward and took his 20mm under fire.  

End of German turn 1

Way up on the hill to the east I had an unexpected and totally undeserved success.  In keeping with my ethos that the scout cars were expendable I rolled one up onto the hill and parked it next to his 88.  My intention was that while he was destroying the scout car my M-10s would position themselves to hit the gun.  As it turned out Dave missed the shot against the scout car and return fire broke the crew of the 88 who fled scene in terror.  Of course I pushed my luck just a little too far when I tried to unload the inherent halfsquad to take possession of the gun.  A German hmg opened up from across the way and broke them, they would spend the next couple of turns cowering in some convenient trees.

With tanks far down the board I was able to discover his mortars, both of them located in the same hex lurking behind a rowhouse guided by a 7-0 spotting from an adjacent building.  Before we go on just a word on the mortars generally.  Totally useless!  OK that's two words and more than they deserve.  Technically mine have WP but the one time I tried to use it it turned out that they didn't.  I had four mortars, I fired one of them twice.  The other three didn't fire at all.  Dave had two mortars they also fired about twice.  The most useful thing one of my mortar boys did was to stand well away from the action and attract Dave's sniper to him.

Moving on.  I was indeed.  Still suffering under the delusion that the CC in my rear was a temporary issue I pushed forward.  A blast of canister from a Stuart broke the crew of the one 20mm I had found.  My troops in the centre pushed towards the next obvious batch of defenders while to their east a tank and some troops tried to get around behind them and others pushed for the clutch of multi-story buildings that seemed temptingly poorly defended.  To the rear I knew he had a pair of squads with heavy machine guns but I hoped a combination of M-10 firepower and infantry attacks would deal with them.  The scout cars invigorated by the 1-1 88 to scout car ratio puttered around likely looking places other 88s could be hidden but first wanted to make sure that the crew of the one 88 I had found stayed broken.  This turned out to be a mistake, I brought a second scout car up to join the first.  Dave had two hmgs in buildings across the way.  They killed one car and stunned the other.  Not a great outcome but I had also brought up an M-10 which happily killed the crew next turn.

I do seem to be getting somewhere but time is passing

Oh yes and I overran his two mortar crews in the street.  I didn't really intend to.  I moved my tank out of the smoke to where I could take them under fire and then figured why not keep on going.  I broke one crew but the other hung tough.  I didn't have enough movement points left to get to safety so I stayed in the hex in motion and hoped for the best.  The best did not eventuate.

Despite mounting armoured casualties I was pushing forward but now I started glancing uneasily at the turn counter.  There were many, many multi-story buildings still in front of me and that damned melee raging behind me.  In the centre I started moving forward for what I intended to be the final push (two full squads with hmgs in front of me but I had four M-10s, what could possibly go wrong?

Forward to victory mes ami

As it turned out a fair bit could go wrong.  As is traditional a goodly amount of what went wrong was boneheaded idiocy on my part.  For right now let's focus on what went right.  In the centre under the watchful gaze of not one but two M-10s I pushed forward and grabbed another building.  Down on board twenty I was shuffling along the rowhouse and had finally brought a squad or two around the melee to move towards the the large building in the southwest.  I "discovered" another 20mm gun when it started taking potshots at a convenient Stuart, fortunately without success.  I also beat up on his nearest defenders to challenge for another building.  So far so good.

What went wrong?  Well with my troops in the centre encroaching on his heavily defended rear most buildings I brought up my M-10s for close fire support.  I roared one right up to the wall and parked it next to a German unit on the other side.  That German unit had a panzerschreck.  My excuse, I had overlooked the unit entirely because it was under a WA counter and I completely forgot that there must be some troops under that counter.  I didn't deserve what happened next.  Dave rolled boxcars with the schreck and my M-10 lived; for about three seconds until he revealed an 88mm gun a couple of hexes away.

Not good

Yeah, well that was awkward.  I had an M-10 on the hill where it could (and did) pound the 88 but to little effect.  Meanwhile back in town Dave had reverted to a skulking strategy.  With two turns to go and his troops lurking under concealment counters in the rear of the buildings it was obvious that I didn't have the time left to capture all but two.  And even if I did I scarcely had the troops.  A significant chunk of my force had been swallowed up trying to kill a single second line squad.  Five squads and an officer were dead in the attempt and three more squads were locked in melee.

And that's a wrap

 With about a turn and a half to go I gave the concession to Dave and slunk off in defeat.  I think this one is a bit tough on the French (although I would say that wouldn't I?) but I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Much more than the previous couple.  I had been prepared to give the pack away but now I'm invigorated to try one more so tune in next time when we play Under a Sky of Lead.

The sergeant looked across at Sous-lieutenant Outlebarrel and shook his head.

"You are going to love the asparagus mines."