Silly After Action Report - Midnight in the Steel Garden of Good and Hopelessly Incompetent - Part 1

Finally it's here.  This is the fourth scenario Ivan and I have played from Poland in Flames (created by Bounding Fire Productions perfect for all your lebensraum needs) and at last we have a proper Poles vs Germans scenario.  The first two scenarios had Slovak understudies playing the part of the Germans and the last one had a collection of overweight deadbeats somewhat implausibly claiming connection to the master race.  Now, however we have BFP 132 - Steel Garden which pits a solid team of German infantry backed up by a wealth of early war tanks against their Polish equivalents.  What could go wrong?

How about everything?  If your reading of my AARs has been limited to the three previous Poland in Flames scenarios you might have a slightly inaccurate opinion of my abilities at this game.  Two wins and the barest of losses make up my record so far.  Sadly this flatters me tremendously as you shall see.  The scenario pits sixteen first line German squads led by six officers ranging from mediocre to John Wayne with a trio of medium machine guns and four light machine guns.  Backing up this impressive assault force is a collection of eleven tanks.  Four Pz Is, six Pz IIs and a solitary Pz IV.  Ivan would command this blitzkrieg made flesh  whereas I would take charge of the noble Polish warriors defending their homeland from the fascist beast (ok, so Poland's government at the time was pretty fascist beasty itself but at least they were locals).  My defending force consisted of twelve and a half squads (four green and the rest first line), four officers of mixed quality, a pair of medium machine guns, a single light machine gun, an antitank rifle and a 75mm gun which could only fire HE.  To challenge Ivan's tanks I too had armour.  Very, very slow armour.  I had three FT17M tanks which were only armed with machine guns (like his Pz Is only much worse) and five FT18C tanks which were armed only with a 37mm gun.  In armour they were no worse than the bulk of Ivan's tank force and the 37mm gun was a genuine killer against Ivan's thin skinned vehicles.  The real problem with my tanks was their speed.  They moved at a rate normally associated with glaciers and continental drift.  If Ivan could get past them they certainly weren't going to catch up.

As defender I prepared a set up and sent it off to Ivan the day before we were due to play.  Ivan sent it back shortly afterwards gently pointing out that I had set my tanks up on the wrong board.  Some hasty revisions later and I was ready to play, or so I thought.  As we began the first turn Ivan politely inquired what had happened to the six concealment counters the scenario had allocated to me.  Fortunately Ivan wears headphones when playing online with me otherwise his children would have a vastly expanded vocabulary by now.  I was prepared to eschew the concealment counters as punishment for being a complete babbling halfwit but Ivan insisted I place a few (honest officer) so I dropped a couple onto existing stacks and left it at that.

Ivan's goal was to cross approximately two and a half boards of territory in the teeth of no doubt furious Polish resistance and seize three buildings deep in the rear of the Polish position.  Furthermore he had to do this and destroy at least four of the eight tanks that made up my armoured force.  Since tank kills are essential you might think hiding said tanks would be a good idea.  I thought so, hence my faulty set up.  However the game designers ensured that the Polish tanks would be up front where the action was and they were too slow to run away.

My problem was that there were plenty of routes to the victory buildings and I couldn't cover them all effectively.  As you can see from the set up picture above I spread my troops across the width of the board, mostly in the rear near the victory buildings.  You can also see that I made a mess of my tank set up with four of my eight tanks illegally placed on the rear board.  My thinking was that whichever way Ivan came I would have enough time to redeploy my out of position troops to cover the threatened area.  In this I was completely correct, its just that the redeployed troops totally failed to stop the Germans. 

Over on the right I had a leader led mmg and half squad hidden on the first floor to act as tank flank defence.  Over on the left I boldly placed a pair of FT18s well forward to cover a flank move in that direction.  On the right an FT18 and an FT17 lurked behind a wall looking to guard the right flank.  With my mistaken deployment corrected I had a pair of tanks right in the middle of the northern edge of board 6 hoping to shoot up some approaching armour.  I had no hopes that these guys would survive for long but hoped they might take a tank or two with them, they didn't.  My last pair of tanks (an FT18 and an FT17) were deep south of board 6 positioned to make a "run" for the gap in the trees behind which were the victory buildings.  My 75mm was also set up in those trees and I hoped the three would form a formidable gun line (nope).  Although the bulk of my infantry was in the rear I had a halfsquad set up concealed in the large middle building and another, toting the antitank rifle HIP in the same building.

Ivan set up virtually his entire force in the middle.  It was obvious he was going to crash though my upfront defenders and charge straight down.  To keep my flank guards honest he deployed a pair of tanks against each of them.  I'll deal with them first as that story doesn't take long.  Over on the (my) left Ivan roared a pair of Pz IIs up to my FT18s.  I fired and completely failed to hit anything.  In the next turn I did indeed manage to kill one of his tanks but in response the survivor went on a rate tear with its MA and took out both of my tanks.  The left was open.  Over on the right Ivan nudged a Pz II cautiously up onto a hill overlooking my FT18 on the right.  I fired my 37mm gun and broke it.  In response Ivan fired his 20mm gun and broke it.  The next turn each of us would roll a six on our repair dies and both tanks would slink off the board in embarrassment.  This left a single machine gun toting FT17 on the right which (being bereft of radio) needed to roll a task check before it could start moving.  It also needed to roll for mechanical reliability as the tank engines really were rather crap.

But these were the preliminaries.  With them out of the way Ivan picked up pretty much the rest of his OB and threw it at the two tanks defending the centre of the board.

I failed to hurt any of his tanks as they ploughed forwards but somewhat to my surprise my own survived the first turn despite a 9-1 led squad and a half charging into close combat with the FT18.  That couldn't last of course and in the next turn my tank was torn apart by battle hungry infantry.  Whereupon drunk with power they promptly charged into close combat with the FT17.  However the FT17 has machine guns as was demonstrated to Ivan when, after surviving the initial close combat I broke all three units in my next prep fire.  This prompted Ivan to do the sensible thing and he destroyed the FT17 with a tank.

Meanwhile his infantry was trotting south.  A Pz I rolled past my HIP unit and I managed to immobilise the thing in a reasonably inconvenient position much to my delight.  After two turns I had lost five tanks (including the one recalled) and the one on the right was so far our of position that four turns later it still hasn't got back into the battle.  My other two tanks did indeed make it back to form a gunline.  Whereupon his Pz IV  rolled up and shot it to pieces.  I'm not sure if it was the 75mm gun or the FT18 that immobilised the Pz IV but in return it destroyed the FT18 and broke the crew manning the gun.  The other FT17 is now the only Polish vehicle within range of the fighting.

Gun crew gone and FT18 doomed.  Eventually Ivan would break the gun on the PzIV which was the only thing that stopped it.  Don't be too impressed with my concealed troops in the woods to the left.  Ivan blew them away with nary a problem.

While this armour inspired misery was rolling on I had, according to plan shuffled my troops to focus on the threatened areas.  I have tightened my perimeter and garrisoned one of the victory buildings.  I also built a defence line in the woods to slow Ivan down.  It didn't slow him down (although it did cost him another tank) and he smashed my defence on the left (the right hung a little tougher).   Over on the left I did something I thought was clever.  I had a concealed green halfsquad next to a CX German squad.  I sneaked into close combat hoping I might be able to get an ambush on him.  At the very least I would have some modifiers for his CX.  Ivan just captured the halfsquad and didn't even break a sweat.  He now has two squads worth of Polish prisoners or he did until he pushed his luck too far and moved their escort out into the street.  Despite the multitude of human shields his guys broke (and a squads worth of prisoners died) and there is now a prisoner halfsquad running around unsuccessfully trying to scrounge some weapons.  Ivan appears too busy to give these losers a merciful bullet.

 With two turns to go Ivan stands poised on the brink of total victory ready to sweep across the open ground towards the remaining victory buildings.  To stop him I have a single FT17 (ok one more if its comrade can ever catch up) and about five remaining squad equivalents.  I am not hopeful.  As for Ivan's dice I will just say if you're going to roll my sniper number twenty times could I at least get more than four sniper results? 

It's cost him a few tanks but Ivan rules the battlefield.

Still I must not be down hearted or permit Ivan's evil combination of skill and gentle good humour (I know what you're up to Kent!!!) distract me from what needs to be done.   He only has two turns and he has to take (and then hold) all three victory buildings.  So far he has a toehold in one.  Perhaps the dice gods will be kind or possibly I can fake a heart attack and mess with the set up while he's calling an ambulance.  Options abound.