Campaign Game - Taking the Gembloux Gap turn 3-4 - Chain of Command

Same day we played the first scenario, we also managed to play scenario 2, The Culverts at Noirmont. In this scenario the French have to demolish 2 culverts to win the game.

While the French start with a fresh new platoon, the Germans decided to continue with their first platoon. Although the German platoon had lost about a third of its number, they did decided to give it a chance after their great performance in the last game. To aid the platoon an extra infantry squad was given as support, as well as a PzII tank.

The French jump-off points were situated on their right flank and back just by the one culvert. So concentrating around their objective.

The German jump-off points were spread evenly across the field to allow for a flexible attack. One jump-off point is barely seen behind the hill to the left.

The German started their attack on their right flank, sending the support infantry squad forward. Meanwhile the main platoon squads (of which 2 were reduced to teams due to casualties) began taking position in the big central field to provide fire against the French position behind the hedge at the road.

The Germans also brought forward a PzII to increase their firepower. The French immediately responded with a 25mm AT gun, who hit the tank with its first shot making the tank unable to activate in the following turn. Fortunately for the Germans they rolled a double phase, so managed to get the tank away from the AT gun's field of fire.

The French then brought on a squad of infantry to prepare to halt the German advance on the French right flank, and to protect the demolition team when it arrived to demolish the culvert. Unfortunately for the French the combined lack of 1s and effects of a pre-game barrage meant the demolition teams where unable to arrive.

The French forces in the center began to take heavy casualties from the German fire. A squad took position in the house close by to strengthen the defence, but it soon came under fire from the PzII, who had advanced forward.

As one French platoon arrived to take position in another house, the French forces in the center began to pull back, while they still were able to move.

This gave the Germans the opportunity to advance forward in the field and they promptly took it. In fact they were now seriously threatening the French forces' line of retreat, which was problematic as this French platoon was assigned to defend scenarios 2-4.

Even worse the Germans managed to capture the 2 French jump-off points on their right flank, making even more difficult for the French to retreat. Fortunately for the French their Force Morale was pretty solid, so they were still fully in the fight.

In the mean time a French demolition had finally arrived to set charges to the culvert furthest to the back and managed to destroy it.

The French did manage to kill 2 teams and a junior leader, and thus preventing a total overrun.

But the Germans relentlessly continued their advance, and the French finally decided to withdraw, leaving the field and one intact culvert in the German hands.

So another win for the Germans, and this time even more devastatingly as the French platoon was left severely mauled. The destruction of the one culvert meant that the Germans couldn't deployed wheeled support for the next scenario, but that was unlikely to stop them much. So the French commander decided to give ground and surrender the third scenario to the Germans. So turn 5 will be the Germans attacking scenario 4. Once again the German first platoon took little casualties, so even though they still lacked a third of their numbers, it would probably continue the attack against the weakened French platoon.

So we managed to play 3 games on the same day, and they were quite fun and interesting. I even managed to employ some better tactics, at least in the second and third games, which I'll probably forget all about, when we find time to play again. 

Painted - 15mm WW2 early war Germans - Chain of Command

 Tomorrow I'll start the CoC pint-size campaign Taking the Gembloux Gap against my regular opponent Steffen. I'll be playing the Germans, and therefore had to paint up a German platoon.

As always I have used my simple style of painting by using a base spray, doing a few details and wash. This means that not all the miniatures has the right colour details, but from a distance I think they look just fine.

The platoon consists of 2 senior leaders, 3 squads with 10 men each and a mortar team. I also painted some support choices which includes 2 Pak 36, a sniper team, a demolition team and a forward observer.

I already have a good selection of armoured vehicles painted and ready for the campaign, so I am quite prepared to start the campaign. I will write up reports of our games as they happen.

Game - WW2 US vs. Germans - Big Chain of Command

Sunday Steffen and I had a full day to play and we decided to play a truly Big Chain of Command game with 4 platoons on each side. Steffen played the Americans and I played the Germans. Steffen had made a scenario based on the Normandy campaign. With the help of Google Maps he found a place which we recreated on the table.

Steffen's scenario:

Northern France, west of Saint Lo on the road towards Periers. The strategic focus point is a few scattered buildings around a crossroad. The scenario will be a mix between the Going with a Bang Scenario from the 1940 Blitzkrieg book and the Attack on an Objective scenario from the main rulebook.

Steffen had forces from the 30th infantry division and armoured support from 3rd armoured division. I had forces from the 352 infantry division and armoured support from the Panzer Lehr division.

Each player have 3 infantry platoons and one armoured platoon. 2 of the infantry platoons can enter play from the start, and one of the senior leaders from these platoons is a ranking leader, who can use all his command points to call for reinforcements. If he does so the remaining infantry platoon and armoured platoon can enter play from the next turn.

The table and jump-off points. The 2 starting infantry platoons have 2 jump-off points each. The Germans had to demolish 2 buildings and the crossroad. (The US used Russian jump-off markers)

One of the American platoons had to enter the battlefield from the jump-off points at the edge. One squad came under heavy fire as soon as it entered the field. The US forces responded fire with Bofors gun.

The other American platoon had jump-off points further up the field and began an attack in the tree-line, while the Germans tried to setup defensive positions.

A German squad had taken position in the house at the crossroads and fired on the Americans across the field. At the bottom of the picture a demolishing team is preparing to set charges on the other building.

The Americans take heavy fire and their advance is completely halted.

The Americans call in mortar fire on the crossroads.

The American ranking senior leader has managed to call in reinforcements and a Sherman 105 is the first tank unit to heed the call.

The Germans respond quickly with a Pak 38. Although hitting the US tanks repeatedly it was unable to knock out any tanks during the battle.

Heavy fighting in the tree-line. The German platoon tasked with holding the tree-line has taken heavy casualties and the Americans keep on coming.

The Germans setup another defensive line on their left flank but come under sustained fire from the Americans, who now has another Sherman 105 on the field (seen at the top of the table).

After some delay the German ranking senior leader finally gets some reinforcements to help their defense. A SdKfz 222 recons forward and realizes that more help is needed.

The American advance through the tree-line has been halted after heavy casualtis but more troops are advancing forward.

German panzer come forward in a desperate counterattack. The SdKfz 222 at the crossroads was destroyed by an 76mm AT gun.

Random event! Suddenly unknown mortar fire hits the area around the tree-line, preventing the Americans from pushing on their attack.

The German counterattack is stopped. One pzIV is destroyed at the crossroads and the remaining two panzers take heavy fire.

More US tanks and troops have arrived on the field and the Germans losses are mounting. Soon after morale breaks in the two of the infantry platoons and the armoured platoon, and the Germans flee. The Americans have won a great victory.

This was a truly big and epic game of Chain of Command. Although the end result never really seemed in doubt it was still a great game. The Germans just couldn't kill any of the tanks, despite several hits. I also made a great tactical error when I placed one of the jump-off points to far forward in the tree-line on the right flank. Steffen played a good game and just kept on pressing forward, despite some initial losses to his infantry. 

Steffen and I don't get to play as often as we would both like to, so it's great to play Big Chain of Command when we do. That way we get to put a lot more troops on the table. We actually had time to play a regular game as well, and once again the Germans were severely beaten. Thankfully there are no photographic evidence of this battle.

 

Game - WW2 Germans vs. Americans - Big Chain of Command

 Last weekend my regular gaming buddy, Steffen, and I got together for a full days gaming. Originally we were going to introduce a third friend to Chain of Command, but unfortunately he was unable to attend. The plan was to do a Big Chain of Command with 3 American platoons vs. 2 German. Now Steffen and I do enjoy big games so we decided to just play the game anyway just the two of us.

The Americans had an armoured rifle platoon, a D-Day parachute platoon and an armoured platoon with various AFVs. The Germans had a panzer grenadier platoon and an armoured platoon with various AFVs. All the platoons were made from army lists in the rulebook.

We decided to play scenario 6 from the rulebook, as we believed that felt appropriate for the selected forces and the table we had made. The terrain were from both our collections and we were very happy with the table.

The main objective would be the village and the Americans started in opposite end. The patrol phase ended with Germans deploying jump-off points rather far up their left flank, and conversely the Americans also got far up their own left flank.

The 3 German jump-off points. Not the best deployment but I'm still struggling with doing the patrol phase well.

The Germans fortunately also had a jump-off point in the village as this was the main objective.

The Americans had 2 jump-off points far up their left flank. These 2 belonged to the parachute platoon.

And 2 more in the hedgeline along the dirt road. These 2 belonged to the aroured rifle platoon. Because we where playing Big CoC the Americans had an extra jump-off point. A minefield placed by the Germans is also visible on the photo.

The Germans started deploying an infantry squad and a Pz IVH in the village to prepare their defenses. In response the Americans lined the hedgeline with 2 infantry squads, a MMG squad and a mortar squad. A 57mm AT gun and a sniper was placed further forward.

This was a shooting fight, that the German squad was losing quickly. The Germans decided to put more armour on the field to even the odds. Even so the German squad quickly started to take casualties and became pinned.

The American infantry forces were unable to deal effectively with the German tanks, but wanted to clear the minefield before they deployed their AFVs. Unfortunately the engineers were struggling with their task, so eventually the Americans started with deploying some M8 scout cars.

The Americans tried to to push the attack on the village and deployed some paras far forward. The German infantry squad was unable to extract themselves from their position and eventually broke. The Germans responded with more tanks to halt the Americans. Even though one of the M8s managed to destroy the main gun on the Pz IVH, they couldn't stop the German armour.

As the American left flank was halted by the German armour, they tried to advance on the right flank instead. An armoured rifle platoon was sent over the hill, but was eventually decimated as the Germans deployed an infantry platoon in the woods, out of sight from the rest of the American forces.

Then the Germans really went all in and deployed their last tank. The Americans looked on in horror as a Tiger II rolled into the village. As soon as it could the paras in the field outside of the village, it started shelling the poor troopers.

At the minefield the engineers still struggled to clear it. One of the M8s was destroyed by a Tiger I and the Americans were struggling to get anywhere.

The Germans had destroyed the 57mm AT gun so the German tanks fired away on the poor paras in the field.

If the Americans were going to have chance of victory in this game, they had to deploy the rest of their armoured assets, despite the minefield still wasn't cleared. 2 M10 tank destroyers and Sherman platoon leader rolled onto the field.

The hero of the battle was in fact the Pz IVH, which had taken a lot of fire from the Americans. It had lost its main gun from a shot from one of the M8s, but survived shots from both the 57mm gun and a bazooka team. It then drove straight into one of the para squads, killing 3 men. It was ready to drive into the next squad when a shot from one the M10 immobilised it. But it was still alive.

The final shot of the battle came from an infantry gun which deployed in the woods and managed to kill a bazooka team and wound a senior leader. The Americans then finally gave up and retreated.

While this was a great looking game, it has to be said, that the result never seemed in doubt. The Germans still hadn't deployed an infantry squad, 2 bazooka teams and their infantry senior leader when the game ended. However, if the American AT shooting had been a bit more effective, perhaps it would have been more close.

Part of the fault lays with me and my rather evil choice of tanks. I simply could not resist the temptation of using some of my heavy tanks. While Steffen had picked a more realistic and appropriate force, I certainly did not. 

Nevertheless it was still a beautiful game, and we were both very happy to see our fully painted armies in action on a nice looking table. We actually played another game after this with an infantry platoon and a AFV platoon each. However, I didn't take pictures of that game, so Steffen can claim that he won that one.

We are talking about doing another Big Chain of Command game in the future as we both really liked this version of the rules. Some times big really is better.