This game mirrored some real events that took place in the Winter War … but for our purposes, the mission takes place in North Africa, just after the Vichy French forces joined the Allied cause.
Some isolated German paratroops have taken possession of a broken down Tiger tank. A French armoured car patrol has run into them and called up support.
The game is PBI and support for the Germans will come in the form of 2 ‘platoons’ of Saharianas … for the French, infantry is arriving and there will be an airstrike.
As you can see on the picture, the French player has been allowed to place a small platoon in ambush.
Objectives:
The main objective is the broken down Tiger in the middle of the table. It is not manned and has no function other than as a marker.
There are two secondary objectives …
The Paras transport assets …
… and the field kitchen and its essential victualing resources. Because you just have to have one.
The Game:
At the start of the mission, some Laffly armoured cars are in a firefight around the gates to the old Casbah …
The German AA truck was actually taken out by an anti-tank rifle from some of the Legionaires approaching from the East.
But there was also a MG42 crew on the roof.
… which effectivel pinned the Laffly’s down … and ultimately took them out.
(one of these is destroyed, the little dice means the other is immoblised but might be recovered – unfortunately it got hit again … )
Meanwhile, the Arabs burst out in the buildings and close assaulted the Paras.
Actually the placing player forgot they were in the square and machinegunned it. So the first action was resolution of those hits … one of which went on the old jaloppy … and, on a saving roll of 1, turned out to be the group leader (PC equivalent and a Regular French Officer as it happens) …
If only you could plan these things.
In a bloody melee, the Arabs were thrown out …
(PBI-style … the French airstrike lands in 3 empty squares)
Equally frustrating, the Hawk fighter missed its target (the required die roll allowing the defender to define the ‘off target’ drift).
Reinforcements:
We diced for these in traditional PBI style (which caused some predictable consternation as not everyone likes the mechanism) … I usually build arrivals into the scenario, but for this gathering I wanted to retain some flavour of the basic game.
The Axis did rather well, getting their Company Commander and his jeep on early …
A fresh patrol …
… and my newly painted Semovente – bought at Campaign, painted during the week – and straight onto the wargame table. It had to be done.
Amongst the French arrivals were these truck mounted Hotchkiss AA guns … quite vulnerable but about the best support weapons available to the French commander.
But by this time the game (and real) clock was running it – and the intitial ‘coup de main’ had failed.
Although a bigger engagement could go either way, at this stage the French held none of the objectives and had lost a number of key vehicles (indeed all of the Lafflys … ) …
Fortune had allowed the Axis build to be more immediate and, as the picture shows, a strong grip was closing around the French footholds.
Many thanks to the players for entertaining me for a coupe of hours – I really enjoyed seeing it play out.
This game still works for me.
Nice Semovente, Phil.
… and the Laffley with the ariel has a veri interesting rear left wheel. Do tell!