The ancient French staff car wheezed to a halt and sous-lieutenant Hugo Beformé alighted, tipped the driver and saluted the capitaine who was waiting for him.
"Did you get the helmets?" demanded the capitaine.
"I'm afraid not mon capitaine. The Americans don't have any to spare. Apparently they sent them home as gifts for their children."
The capitaine shrugged, not because he had to but because he was French.
"It's too late anyway Beformé, look over there."
Beformé stared in the direction the capitaine was pointing, clusters of soldiers were making their way purposefully towards the ill armed French positions. Their helmets were adorned with what appeared to be feather dusters.
"Oh crap," muttered Beformé. A sudden roar filled the air as an ancient artillery piece belched fire and shed rust in response. Where the shell went neither of the two officers saw as both of them had hurled themselves beneath the dubious protection of the staff car at the noise.
"Get to your position Beformé," ordered the capitaine. Beformé couldn't help noticing a column of armoured vehicles lurching towards that same position.
"I'd really rather not," he replied.
So this is ASL scenario J205 - Goats to Lure the Tiger in which I forego taking the Italians in favour of commanding a force even more wretchedly equipped. I shall command the gallant Recently Free French as they attempt to defend a small but apparently vital part of Tunisia from the depradations of a combined German-Italian force commanded by Richard Weilly. We actually played this game some months ago but I went overseas before I had a chance to write it up.
To win the Axis need to gain more VPs than the French. VPs are awarded for possession of buildings controlled on or west of hexrow M. Also the Axis gain 2VP for each French gun eliminated and the French gain 1VP for each Italian AFV and 3VP for each German AFV eliminated. Finally a VP is awarded for every inherent FP factor from good order MMC that can be applied to any road hex from 25Y1-V6. Forget tactical ability, I'm not sure I'm up to the mathematics required for this game.
To defend this position I have ten squads, six second line and four green. These heroes are led by a single 9-1 with a pair of 8-0s making up the numbers. Equipment consists of a single mmg, three lmgs plus a 37mm squad served gun. In support are two 75mm artillery pieces dangling VP options for the Axis. On turn one armoured support arrives in the form of four FT-17 tanks which one can only assume were included to make the Italian player feel better about the quality of his own armour. Nobody even pretends they are worth victory points.
As the Axis Richard has a mixed Italian/German force consisting of fourteen squads of bersaglieri equipped with five lmgs and led by a trio of officers including their own 9-1. Entering on turn one are no fewer than eight armoured vehicles, two M14/41 tanks and six SMV 75/18 self propelled guns commanded by an 8-1 armour leader. As if that wasn't enough on turn 3 German reinforcements in the form of one PzIIIJ and two PzIIIHs turn up to add weight and professionalism to the Italian attack.
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| Here is the at start set up. |
I set one of the guns up on the highest hill I could find and hid the other in a batch of trees on ground level. In the south I focussed on defending the road approaches the the victory village while for the most part I let the terrain on board 25 do my defending for me. I hoped to slow his progress in the south long enough for the world's slowest tanks to creep forward and bolster the village defence. The village holds both victory buildings and victory road hexes and thus must be defended to the last.
Richard did indeed send his main force down the road in the south but with subsidiary efforts in the north and the hill mass to the south. I had written the southern hill mass off as undefendable (although I did leave a squad on the reverse slope) and hoped that the ability of my 75 to sweep it with fire would dissuade Richard. I had forgotten that an integral part of the "sweeping with fire" theory is that said fire has to be effective.
Down on the road Richard bulled past a dummy stack sitting forlornly out by itself and closed up with my forward defences. His armour was, shall we say, discreet lurking out of LOS of my 75s and cheering the bersaglieri on from the rear.
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| End of Axis turn 1. Richard has named his armour after warships in the Italian navy |
Things went rather well for me in the first turn or so. The bersaglieri's first attempt to storm my forward positions was shattered by French musketry and so far the 75mm shells his SMVs were lobbing at the defenders had had little effect. In the south however his forces had rounded the hillmass and were getting ready to bring fire from two directions. In the north his flankers inched their way painfully over the rough terrain. A problem for the future but not right now.
With his infantry temporarily down Richard was forced to bring his armour a little further forward and a combination of tanks and semoventes started monstering my forward positions. Except for the one that broke its MA of course. The B11 on the SMV's main armament would be a curse for Richard throughout the game. Meanwhile in the rear my reinforcing FT-17s are inching towards the battlefield at a speed that can only be described as "bureaucratic".
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| End of Axis turn 2. A grey tide is enveloping my defenders. |
My forward defences were now little patches of blue in a grey sea. But they held out, buying precious time which I did remarkably little with. So far my 75s had not been the superweapons I had hoped. The one down on the valley floor had signally failed to destroy a SMV as it made its way along the ridgeline and the one on the hill had actually managed to hit a moving M14 only to see the shell bounce off its armour. So much for sweeping with fire.
And now the Germans had arrived. Richard managed to repair the MA on his SMV and celebrated by breaking the MA on another. Nevertheless the writing was on the wall for my forward defences. Completely surrounded and under fire breaks started happening. My squad manned 37 managed to stun a M14 but otherwise things were looking grim. Far to the rear my FT-17s were still limping towards the battlefield.
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| End of Axis turn 3. Another day another SMV MA malf |
In my third turn my gallant forward defenders finally fell to the weight of fire and Richard disabled the MA on his SMV. Delay had been imposed but now there was a formidable armoured force (less one SMV) ready to exploit. On the plus side Richard's broken Italians had fled to a building within LOS of my 75 on the hill and in another week or so my FT-17s would be ready to join the fray.
In turn four Richard's force swept forward and in doing so paid the price with a SMV and one of his PzIIIs going down to a modest rate tear from my 75 on the hill. The other was amusing itself taking potshots at the SMV with the disabled MA despite the serious situation developing right in front of it. My FT-17s arrived just in time to become targets for vengeance crazed German panzers.
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| End of Axis turn 4. Axis casualties are mounting but defenders are increasingly thin on the ground |
In my turn 4 I shot up the SMV with the disabled MA. Yes bottom feeding I know but a VP is a VP. Somehow my FT-17s survived the first burst of fire from the German PzIIIJ. In return a FT-17M pointed its stubby 37mm at its persecutor while the crew searched frantically for an AP round. The AP number on these vehicles is 7. Richard made the comment that given the age of the vehicles I should be searching for an OAP round. I curtly informed him that I make the jokes in this blog. He apologised and promised not to do it again.
A small patch of woods shielded the victory locations from the onrushing horde. This patch was home to one of my 75s and an lmg squad which was all that was left of my forward defences although my forward FT-17s were now placed to add their machine gun fire to the defence. The FT-17s are in position, the French are saved!
With time starting to get a little tight Richard decided the time had come. Rather than trade blows with my FT-17s his PzIIIJ roared right past them and into the victory village. Second line French infantry held few fears for these mighty panzertruppen. Meanwhile such of the Italian infantry as could be cajoled back into the fight were hurled forward to take on my 75mm gun crew in CC. There were casualties, there was pain but it could not be denied that my defences had been cracked open. The remainder of the game would be a desperate struggle to survive.
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| End Axis turn 5. The French are crumbling |
Struggle desperately I did. He sent some troops up the hill to take out my remaining 75 but some lucky shooting delayed them beyond the end of the turn. The close combat in the woods turned into a mutual bloodbath which wiped out everything in the hex including the 75. Suddenly bold his remaining armour rolled forward (losing another panzer to my 75 on the hill) and started crashing into buildings. The point behind this was simply to hold my troops in melee and thus prevent them from bringing firepower down onto the road as per the victory conditions. Richard naturally broke the MA on another SMV but otherwise his plan worked to perfection. I had a slight last fillip when a green squad that had been hiding in a sangar in the south all game sallied forth and snatched back a building at the last while Richard's troops were focussing on more important matters further north.
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| The end. Now for the mathematics |
Once the game was over we sat down to the serious business of trying to figure out who had won. It was close, very close. Richard had more buildings but I had eight points worth of armour kills. It all finally came down to who could place the most firepower on the road. And here I think I screwed Richard over although I assure you it wasn't deliberate. He had rolled a tank into a building containing a concealed French squad. I had forgone CC in order to maintain concealment and thus was not held in melee. However in retrospect I'm pretty sure that if a vehicle stops in your hex you lose concealment and thus I would have been held in melee. That squad's firepower placed on the road was the difference between victory and defeat.
So a "victory" to me courtesy of a blatant rules violation that we were both too addled by mathematics to notice at the time. Apologies to Richard please feel free to amend the result on ROAR.
Sous-lieutenant Beformé peered around a convenient olive grove.
"Did we win?" he whispered.
"If we won we'd be shouting," replied the capitaine equally quietly. "No we didn't win but if we keep our mouths shut we might be able to pretend we did."
"What's the point in that?"
"It'll make the wikipedia entry look better."
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