Silly After Action Report - A Hunter in a Hurry

 The Sherman tank lurched to an abrupt halt.  There was a sudden metallic clang as it was rear ended by the Sherman immediately behind it.  All along the long line of tanks there was a series of further metallic clangs.

"Keep it up boys," snarled the commander of the first tank, "the Germans will think they're being attacked by the glockenspiel appreciation society."

Ahead of the long line of now somewhat battered tanks was a small cluster of houses and a series of imposing but curiously flat topped hills.  Naturally there were vineyards because this was the south of France and vineyards were issued to each citizen at birth.

"What are those big question marks up on the hills?"

The commander gave them a cursory glance, 

"Probably nothing.  Let's move!"

"What about the infantry?"

For answer the commander pointed to a collection of well equipped soldiers led by a man wearing a t-shirt with a bullseye printed on it.

"Who's that?"

"A a 9-2," replied the tank commander, "may God have mercy on his soul."

The tanks started up again almost drowning out the muttering of the driver in the lead tank.

"I quite like glockenspiels actually."

So yes here we are again in the south of France.  Once again my Free French are attempting to liberate not particularly important sections of their homeland from such Germans as haven't already deserted.  It has to be said this series has not exactly been a road of triumph for me.  This time I was determined it would be different.  My task is simple, I have to get a bunch of armoured vehicles from one end of the board to the other.  In contrast to most of the preceding scenarios the victory conditions are really that simple.  I have to exit 40 VP of AFVs off the south edge of the board having inconveniently entered on the north.  

The fact that the victory conditions require the exit of 40 VP mean that I must be overflowing with armour.  Indeed I am.  I have ten Shermans, three Stuarts and an M8 GMC.  To support this cavalcade of metal I have eight elite infantry squads led by a trio of leaders ranging from mediocre to quite good and, ominously, a pair of very elite squads that were both assault engineers and sappers.  They were led by a 9-2.  Don't bother getting familiar with him, he won't be around for long.  Also in the mix are a trio of lmgs, a pair of bazookas and two 81mm mortars which might be quite helpful if  I can drag them somewhere useful before the end of the war.

So what does Dave have to oppose this glittering array of steel?  Ah yes.  He has three guns, one 88mm and two 76.2mm antitank guns all of which are quite capable of recycling my armour into petfood cans.  He also has eight squads evenly split between first and second line, a hmg, an lmg, a panzerschreck and a 50mm mortar.  To back this up he has twenty factors of AT mines and twelve concealment counters.

At start

Above is our at start set up.  At this point it has to be admitted that both Dave and myself made an almighty cock up of this particular scenario.  I have set up the bulk of my force where it is because I figured (correctly) that Dave's guns would be on the hill.  I assumed he would have at least two of them positioned to cover the wide open spaces in the bottom half of the board and therefore there might be an opportunity to bludgeon my way along the road at the top and exit for the win.  I had misread the VC which state that the French tanks have to exit off the bottom left corner which resulted in an almighty traffic jam and some desperate redirecting of my forces.  Just for the record neither shell holes nor cliff sides exist.

Dave did his set up in a hurry and to spare his blushes I won't go into his mistakes in great detail I'll just note that while twenty factors of AT mines seems impressive they rapidly become less impressive if you think they're AP mines and group them accordingly.  I shan't even mention that he was permitted to HIP two of his squads but didn't.  

My plan (before we reread the victory conditions) was to edge gently forward along the top road until the guns revealed themselves.  I accepted that I would lose a few tanks drawing their fire but hoped the combination of numbers and my infantry would be able to take out the only one covering the road and my surviving tanks would roll forward to victory.  A small force consisting of the M8 and one of the mortars would position themselves where they could take the other two guns under fire and at least give them something else to think about apart from my main attack.

End of French turn 1

The first turn went pretty much the way I expected.  I put a Stuart up on a hill and it was promptly immobilised by one his 76mm much to the surprise of both of us (we were expecting it would be destroyed).  Dave had placed his heavy machine on the first floor of a convenient farm building and managed to chop up some of my infantry which was annoying but all in all I wasn't displeased.  The bulk of my tanks and infantry were still immune from harm and all three of his guns had revealed themselves.

Dave's first turn had a mix of fortunes.  My 9-2 naturally got shot dead by a sniper before he even saw a German.  My 9-1 was broken and wounded.  Fortunately this game would not be won by infantry leadership.  The immobilised Stuart was killed and another burnt but in return his 88 malfed.  That was worth the price of two tanks quite frankly.  The worthless clowns serving that piece never repaired it and took every opportunity to break.  Still Dave had his two 76mm guns and an overachieving sniper to hold back my forces.

End German turn 1, a mixed bag but I think I'm ahead

While his guns and sniper took on the job of forward defence the bulk of his infantry fled rearward to set up a last stand position around the hexes I needed to exit through.  It was at about this time that I realised my misreading of the victory conditions.  This required a little mental readjusting but not very much.  Given my tanks were where they were really the only thing I could do was hope to take out his guns and then roll down the road.

With the 88 down (permanently as it turned out) I turned my attention to his remaining guns.  I also discovered Dave's mistake with the mines when my infantry marched on to a six factor AT minefield and steadfastly refused to be blown up.  To add icing to the cake of disaster for Dave I managed to break the crew of one of his remaining guns.  With only one gun left in action my surviving tanks got very brave indeed and rolled up onto the hill to take on the survivor.

End of French turn 2.  Things shouldn't be going this well

Of course it wasn't quite that simple.  His surviving gun took out a Sherman and he actually managed to re-man the other gun (killing a halfsquad of mine in CC along the way) and killing another tank.  His sniper, in a murderous rage, took out his frustration on my wounded 9-1, wounding him twice more the second time fatally.  It was not a good day for French officers.

I've never cleared a minefield before so more for practice than anything else I moved a sapper squad up to the minefield I had discovered and attempted to clear it.  Here we discovered something rather odd.  As far as we could determine you actually have to be in the hex in order to clear the mines which seems to imply that the sappers have to enter the hex, get blown up and then, assuming they survive, start clearing the mines.  I pointed out that that was insane.  Dave agreed with me but we couldn't find a rule to counter it.  I decided I would just drive around the AT mines instead.

Meanwhile I had finally decided to do something about the hmg that had been carving up my infantry.  A Sherman dropped a WP round on its hex which broke the squad manning the machine gun but drove the 9-1 commanding it berserk.

His final gun is down, time to charge

 Bereft of nearby infantry targets this lone maniac charged towards the congregation of armour that I was now rolling forward, braving all the fire I could throw at him.  I wasn't too worried, what could one man do?  I found out in my next turn when I rolled my last Stuart past him and the demented bastard produced a faust and fried it with a critical hit.  Three ones in a row.  I wasn't standing for any of that nonsense and I overran the guy with three successive Shermans.  On the last I too rolled snake eyes and we just hosed the guy off the tank afterwards.

Ok so the charge has been delayed until a single berserk guy is dealt with

That's pretty much the end of anything interesting.  With his guns down I just had to roll to the exit locations and beat up his infantry until a path was cleared.  With half the tank strength of Free France bearing down on him Dave conceded when I broke his halfsquad with the panzershreck which he had deemed his last chance.

It can't be said that I really won this game.  Dave's misreading of the scenario card far outweighed my own mistakes and pretty much crippled his defence from the outset.  Do I feel as though its a slightly cheapened victory given that it didn't really come from my own efforts?  Hell no!  After six straight losses I will take it any way it comes.  I shall crow my victory from the rooftops all throughout La Belle France.  I'd better, with his lesson learnt I'm sure Dave will be reading the scenario card for our next game far more closely.

Weary, grimy but elated with victory the armoured column rolled into the village and came to a sudden halt.  In the village square was a shabby, unshaven man in the tattered remains of what might have been a uniform.  He was was sitting on a pile of crates.  The commander of the lead tank got out and approached the stranger.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Name's Outlebarrel," replied the other patting the crates.  "If you're interested in black market asparagus I'm the man to see."