"Beautiful," he murmured, "just beautiful." Idly he flicked his swagger stick at a butterfly floating in the air between him and the building. The butterfly dodged and he flicked a little harder. Again the butterfly danced out of his way.
When Junior Officer arrived ten minutes later he found his commanding officer spreadeagled full length on the road cursing hysterically and thrashing at some invisible target with his swagger stick. Although still low in rank Junior Officer was far too experienced to ask questions like, "What are doing sir?" or "Are you all right sir?" or even, "Pardon me sir but you appear to be batshit crazy." Instead he saluted awkwardly, his bandages still pulled, and waited for his commanding officer to wipe the foam from his mouth and acknowledge his presence.
Reluctantly von Kattelrussler pushed himself into a standing position and returned Junior Officer's salute. Von Kattelrussler prided himself on being able to read the facial features of his men and he knew immediately that Junior Officer was unhappy.
"Problems at home Junior Officer?" he asked sympathetically. "Have you found out about the wife and the milkman? And the dustman, and the carpet salesman and the staff of the Hyperion Café in Bitburg?"
"What?"
"I'm not surprised it's all round the regiment, tough luck old man. The thing is to buck up and look on the bright side."
"Actually I was a little concerned about our deployment here sir? We're sitting in this village, the guns are being hauled down this road, our reinforcements are coming up that road and von Kummerbund is off with the armour somewhere. We're badly spread out."
"Don't worry your pretty little head about it JO. The Poles will never see us behind all those trees."
"You mean the trees which would be ideal for concealing a counterattack?"
"Those are the ones, keenly spotted."
"Very good sir," lied Junior Officer, he turned to go but then, "honestly sir, a carpet salesman?"
"Fraid so, he's my cousin."
We shall leave Junior Officer to his marital problems and focus on the AAR. The latest Poland in Flames scenario Ivan and I have taken it upon ourselves to play is BFP 122 At Sword's Point. I don't know why its called that there isn't a sword in sight. In a current change from the "German's trying to capture a village scenario" we've seen so often this time the German's already have the village and the Poles are trying to take it back.
I am commanding the Poles who start with a big advantage in numbers and support weapons an advantage that dwindles over the course of the scenario as casualties mount and a plethora of German reinforcements arrive. I gain victory points for casualties inflicted and also for any troops/support weapons with LOS and range to the road running through the middle of the board area. Ivan starts up with a handful of second rate troops (von Kattelrussler's long suffering staff) plus a couple of officers in the village. Over on the left truck loads of reinforcements are trundling in and far to the right artillery pieces which appear to be being pulled by oxcart are (very) slowly making their way to the battlefield. Ivan gets some elite reinforcements on turn three, a whole mess of tanks and motorised infantry a turn or two later and at around the same time a pair of fighter bombers carrying a staggering bomb load.
The Poles have a large collection of squads, four tanks of reasonable quality, a trio of 75mm guns that can kill anything on the board, two of those wretched 46mm mortars that always work for Ivan but never for me and artillery support.
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| Starting positions. |
For the Poles the job has to be to pretty much wipe out the onboard German force and seize the village before the reinforcements arrive. I'm afraid I was too cautious and didn't press hard enough when I should have. I set up a massive kill stack (three squads with two hmgs and an mmg guided by a 9-2 leader. My artillery spotter I set up to cover the village while I posted a gun and one of the mortars out to the right to see what they could do about the guns Ivan had approaching. Another gun was posted next to my kill stack where it could cover the road and the front of the village while the third was set up to protect against any flanking attack from the left. To help cover the left flank I set up another kill stack with two squads and an mmg guided by my 9-1 plus a few other squads in foxholes.
The first couple of turns were reasonably quiet. I opened my account by killing a couple of trucks and the squad one of them was carrying. Oh, and of course I broke one of the mortars. The other would survive the game by the simple expedient of not being used. In the centre I started infiltrating through the woods to try and capture the village. In retrospect I moved to cautiously here. I should have gone for a little more speed and taken the associated risks to get into the village more quickly. In revenge for losing his squad Ivan managed to break my entire left hand kill stack with a crappy 1+1 shot which broke both squads and the 9-1 leader. These clowns wouldn't rally for three whole turns and only after killing a half squad in the attempt. My artillery proved mediocre at best but did break a squad and made occupying forward positions in the village problematic at best. On the right his horse drawn guns approached the battlefield at a speed normally associated with continental drift.
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| A slow start, maybe a little too slow |
I had split my tank force into two groups of two to cover the left and right but with my troops now pushing towards the village I sent my right hand tanks to assist. Or rather I sent one because Ivan unshipped one of his guns from its oxcart and burnt the other with a critical hit at over twenty hexes range. In return my right hand 75 killed another cart, gun, crew and all without losing concealment. The surviving right hand tank duly assisted my infantry getting into the village until it was killed by the 20mm AA gun which frankly I'd forgotten he had.
Ivan brought his assault engineers in on my left flank as anticipated. Despite the crushing of my kill stack I had a couple of other squads in good positions and a pair of tanks to support. Ivan however used a brilliant tactic (running in the open through pointblank -2 fire) and swiftly unhinged my position. Rolling low is definitely a winning strategy. One of the left hand tanks held the line for a while until it was toasted by a flamethrower. Still I managed to patch together enough troops to make it look like I had a defence. Ivan's armoured cars rolled up to support his village garrison but proved vulnerable to atr fire.
The next couple of turns were a desperate scramble on the left to persuade his assault engineers not to sweep over the top of me while my village force managed to grind slowly forward. I drove off the crew of his AA gun and gleefully seized it for my own which at the very least made Ivan a little nervous. Meanwhile Ivan managed to battle harden a wounded 6+1 leader into a heroic wounded 6+1 leader. We're still not entirely sure whether that's a good thing or not. Naturally one of his half squads managed to kill an entire squad of mine in close combat and at some point I managed to destroy my 46mm mortar attempting to repair it. Good riddance. Of more significance Ivan had done the same with one of his artillery pieces leaving only two plodding slowly towards the village. My 75mm was waiting for them. One moved into my line of sight, I fired and broke that gun too. On a positive note a half squad on my left had plunged into close combat with an enemy leader, ambushed it, killed it and then withdrew covered with glory. It would die soon.
Ivan's armoured reinforcements and air support turned up simultaneously. The tanks and mounted infantry raced towards the battle while the air support suddenly made moving very difficult for me. Attempts to reinforce my position in the village left nothing but shreds of bloodied cloth lying about in the street. I had most of the village now but it was thinly held and the number of German squads charging towards the battle was positively frightening.
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| Midgame, the last time my position would look good. |
Casualties on both sides had been appalling. I had a handful of squads in the village and a couple more plus my 9-2 kill stack still hiding in its foxhole in the woods at the top. Ivan's left flankers rolled almost up to the position but some pointblank fire from my last 75 managed to stop them from rolling right over the top of me. With tank and gun assistance Ivan remorselessly reduced my position in the village grinding me down over the next few turns until my total force there consisted of a couple of squads and a leader hiding out in the church praying for their lives. It all cost casualties though. Ivan was pressing hard trying to wipe out the last of my force and an ill advised flanking attempt with a PzIV left another burning wreck on the battlefield.
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| Last turn and somehow I've won |
At the end of turn 7 I was preparing for the destruction of my remaining force when Ivan realised to his horror that he had forgotten to use his air support on the final turn it was available. He had been saving the bombs to take out my kill stack and 75mm which would have drastically reduced the firepower I could bring onto the victory road. The casualty count was close to equal and those points were the difference between victory and defeat. Reluctantly Ivan conceded; he couldn't get close enough to my troops in the woods to hurt them and the casualties he had taken meant he absolutely needed to take those guys out. So I guess I won. In actual fact I won because of a fit of absent mindedness on Ivan's part. Two mistakes were critical, mine in not getting into the village faster with more troops and Ivan's in forgetting his air support. Fortunately for me it was the last that was decisive. Thanks to Ivan for the game, we'll play again when I get back from Borneo.
Major von Kummerbund brushed shattered bits of PzIV off his uniform and crossed the devastated street to where Oberst von Kattelrussler stood in front of a church with tears in his eyes.
"Why did you dismiss the air support Herr Oberst? That last attack would have been successful if the Luftwaffe had helped us out with their bombs."
"I was afraid they'd damage the church," replied von Kattelrussler. "It's a medieval treasure."
Von Kummerbund looked at the church, it was smouldering and riddled with bullet holes. Antitank rifle rounds had punched large holes in the brickwork and Polish artillery had scored at least one direct hit. He peered closer at the foundation stone.
"It says here the church was built in 1935."
"That's medieval isn't it?"
"No sir, not even in this part of Poland."
"It's still beautiful," replied von Kattelrussler reaching out and patting some of the shattered brickwork. A dreadful creaking interrupted him as the whole structure collapsed, from somewhere inside came an agonised scream. Von Kummerbund stared in horror,
"Was that Junior Officer?"
"Fraid so, he hasn't been having a good time lately."
"I know, my brother is the head waiter at the Hyperion Cafe in Bitburg."
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