Silly After Action Report

In June 1944 the Allies landed in Normandy.  They found the place so appealing that they wound up staying there for much longer than they expected.  Since they weren't planning on going back to England any time soon they brought everything they thought they might need with them.  Tanks?  Hundreds of the armour plated fire spitting monsters.  Aircraft?  The sky was black with aircraft, thousands of aircraft thundering through the sky and peeling off for that photogenic dive so beloved of propaganda films.  Artillery?  I cannot emphasise how much artillery there was.  There was so much artillery there was barely any room for all of the tanks and aircraft.

Which means that the colonel of a US infantry regiment was entitled to feel a little aggrieved when his attack orders went something like this;

"Take your boys in and dig out the Germans!"

"No problem sir, I assume we have tanks?"

"Er, no the tanks are all busy doing other things at the moment."

"Oh, well I presume our air support will make up for that.  The Germans hate our support."

"Actually General Patton's having a bit of an airshow so no can do I'm afraid."

"Now I'm starting to hate our air support.  Dare I ask about the artillery?"

"They've got the day off, apparently it's St Barbara's birthday."

"So what do I have?"

"Twenty squads of infantry and a "can do" attitude."

Over on the German side of the lines the conversation went a slightly different course.

"Of course we don't have any tanks, when was the last time you saw a tank?  Air support?  Do you really want that fat, drug addicted prick dropping ordinance near you?  Artillery?  For god's sake man, don't you know its St Barbara's birthday?  You do have a heavy machine gun but headquarters wants it back at the end of the scenario so try not to get it dirty.  Have a great war, I'm off to start my memoirs blaming everything on Hitler."

Life is tough at the sharp end.  That's why its called the sharp end and not the soft and cuddly end.  Life's pretty good at the soft and cuddly end but before we get there Adam Lunney and I sat down to play BFP 20, Bypassed Lehr.  This would pit Adam commanding the aforementioned twenty odd squads of Americans (led by a mighty 9-2) with a collection of medium machine guns and bazookas against yours truly.  My Germans consisted of five elite squads and ten squads of second liners making up the numbers.  I had a heavy machine gun, a pair of mediums and a panzershreck.  Adam was attacking and had to drive my troops out of the buildings on board six (the bottom one), if I could hang on to four of them I would win.

Thanks to buildings, woods and bocage lines of sight were problematic which meant our troops would soon be up close and personal which given the firepower disparity wasn't good news for me. I decided that the buildings far in the right rear would be my final defense line. I set up the hmg to fire down the only convenient road which neatly sliced through the battlefield and a few throwaway squads on the flanks. Up front a mix of dummies and the occasional real squad would hopefully slow him down.  The buildings in the centre would be my main line of defence and I set up a force on the left and right to hold them.  The plan was to slow Adam down and slowly retreat hopefully presenting a solid defence at the end.  As it was there was more dying than retreating but still.

Set up, Adam has decided to go hard in the centre with a flanking force on the (my) left

Adam's initial shots vapourised some dummies but otherwise didn't achieve the results he wanted but nothing loath he started to press forward anyway.  I very rapidly learnt a painful lesson; when the Americans have squads to burn they're incredibly difficult to stop and their firepower is appalling.  He pushed his flankers forward on my left and I dropped concealment to break a squad whereupon the remainder simply rained lead on my hapless troops until they lost all interest in proceedings.  In the centre he swarmed forward daring me to fire, I really had to if I didn't want to die for no result.  I fired, I got some result and subsequently died.  Barely inconvenienced the olive green tide swept on.  Except on the right.  There he had a pair of squads, a pair of mmgs and his 9-2 leader.  You know how this goes, when did a 9-2 ever have an affect on a game?  He stuck his head up, got a sniper bullet in it and his two squads broke for losing their leader.  That relieved a little pressure on my right.

His 9-2 is dead but his flankers are pushing forward

Which was good because pressure was coming in abundance in my centre.  Adam's plan was almost Soviet in its simplicity.  A mass of firepower first then a charge towards my position.  Yes, defensive fire would take down a squad or two but the survivors would plunge into close combat, slaughter my underarmed troops and move on.  This is a great tactic if you have the troops to spare and it seemed that Adam did.  Meanwhile on my left his flankers, having chased off the (now broken, conscript) defenders pushed forward to threaten my left hand position from two sides.  I had a half squad with an mmg in a building forward and another hs with the schreck in a foxhole directly behind.  The plan was that when the building fell as it inevitably would then I could blast the victorious attackers out of it with the schreck.  Believe it or not this actually worked, briefly.

In the right centre Adam's troops poured into the woods pushing towards the large building that was the centre of my defenses there.  He still had enough firepower left over to break my forward mmg team while I was on the horns of a deeply unpleasant dilemma.  If I fired at Adam as he moved I dropped concealment thus opening myself up for massive vengeance.  If I didn't fire then Adam simply walked up to me and killed me at pointblank range or in close combat.  I tried both methods throughout the game to determine which worked better.  Neither.

With my right flank apparently ignored I took the opportunity to scuttle the squad I had there forward to keep DM on his machine gun squads.  This one squad wound up conducting its own personal flanking manoeuvre deep in Adam's rear.  Unfortunately deep in Adam's front he was grinding remorselessly forward.  His left flankers swung inward (except for a squad which made the mistake of crossing the road and was crushed by my hmg) and started to menace my left hand positions.  Far to the rear I started pulling troops from unthreatened areas to take up positions in the village.  This was pretty much the only tactical decision I made once the game started and it turned out to be important.

On the right my one squad flankers are keeping his broken guys honest.  The AR counters are doing service as snipers btw)

Now in position Adam let rip, recklessly expending squads he threw his troops forward.  I fired, broke some, pinned others but yet others survived to plunge into close combat.  I think I've mentioned before that close combat is not my friend.  So it proved again, I didn't win a single one but I survived longer than I had any right to and tied up some of Adam's units that he needed to keep the attack moving.

Plans of a fall back defence largely went by the board.  Adam surrounded my guys and beat them up.  The only troops who "fell back" were those that had broken.  Still Adam's casualties were mounting, time was running out and I still had my rearguard largely untouched.

Broken American squads litter the approaches but the survivors are in CC with my hapless defenders

Eventually the close combats were resolved in Adam's favour and he pushed forward again, now heading towards the final buildings he needed for victory.  Gathering his forces he threw them towards their new targets while my now depleted troops whimpered in fear.  I had pulled in all the troops I could, there was nothing else left.  Either my guys would stand firm or Adam would blast through them.

Readying for the final charge

The final two turns were a blizzard of fire as Adam's troops stormed forward, bocage, walls and orchards cut down the amount of open ground he had to cross but my troops fired until their barrels were red hot.  The American tide poured forward and finally broke, just short of the buildings he needed.  Somehow I had clung on by my eyelids for a win.

From the report above it sounds like I was heading for defeat.  The simple truth is I thought I was.  Adam's pressure was relentless and there wasn't a moment in the game when I didn't think I was a hair's breadth from disaster.  It wasn't until the final turn or two when I looked at the situation and saw what Adam saw, that he had one final shot and if it failed he was done.  This was a grinding high pressure game and at the end I had a little difficulty believing I had won.

Endgame, not much of anybody left

I think I had the better of any luck going with the dice (sniping the 9-2 virtually at the start was a gift) and even though I didn't win any CCs I clung on for longer than I had a right to.  That plus my hmg which dominated the road Adam needed to cross to reach the last buildings.  Literally nothing crossed that road and lived.  Thanks to Adam for the game who put up with my whining about close combat (I can't help it, CC hates me) and was more gracious in defeat than I probably would have been.









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