General Rommel's 7th Panzer Division crossed the Somme River on 5 June and continued west cross-country in box formation. Two days later, at the road through the village of Villers-Vermont, two Laffly self-propelled guns were set up in an ambush position. The situation was chaotic; the roads were full of civilians and French armored cars operating in the area. The French guns remained silent and concealed until the German tanks were not more than 100 meters away. . .
Attacker: German (Elements of Panzer-Regiment 25 and Kradschutzen-Battalion 7, 7th Panzer Division and elements of Panzer-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 37)
Defender: French (Reinforced elements of 54e Batterie D'anti-chars Automoteurs)
5 turns
Players: 2 OBA: None Night: No
Unit Counts:
Squads: A:8.0 D:10.0
AFVs: A:6
PSW 231(8 rad) PSW 232(8 rad) PzKpfw IVD x 2 PzKpfw IVC PzKpfw IIF
D:3
Laffly W15T CC x 2 AMD 35
Guns: A:0 D:3
Canon AC de 25 SA-L mle 34 Canon de 37 mle 16 TR Mortier de 60 mle 35
Misc Rules:
Map Board(s):
42
62
Overlays:
NONE
Errata (source)
Players wanting to play this game/Request a match:
Virtual Paddington Bearz - August 2020. Pretty easy French victory. My opponent eschewed the use of the motorcycles, launching an infantry attack along the western board edge while the majority of the armour pushed down the board 42 road. The French defence was focused on this axis, the 25LL (42O5) quickly picked off two German tanks and the Laffly on this flank (42U3) got a third. The German armoured cars tried a coup de main along the lines of Captain Graebner at Arnhem. I allowed them to push through to the victory area and then picked off one with the 37 inf gun which was on level 1 in the multi-storey building (42V2/1). I used the Panhard and about five squads to bottle up the German infantry drive through the woods and when it became clear during his turn 4 movement phase that he wasn't going to be able to break through my opponent conceded.
2020-01-16
(D) Chuck Dye
vs
patrick palma
German win
winter offensive
2020-01-16
(A) patrick palma
vs
Chuck Dye
German win
2017-11-02
(A) X von Marwitz
vs
Armin Deppe
German win
In this 5 Turn early war scenario of attacking Germans vs. the French, the former must quickly rush a considerable force of VP value into an area quite deep in the French field. The Germans force consists of 3 Panzers of the PzVIC&D variants and a PzIIF accompanied by elite Motorcyclists & Sidecars. In German Turn 3, two more 8-Rad PSWs enter as reinforcements.
The French have a 25LL AT Gun, a 37* SW INF Gun (which may HIP by SSR) and a MMG, LMG, and 60mm MTR each. The real killers are two Laffly W15T CC trucks equipped with a 47L gun that sport a TK of 11 that both may set up HIP. The problem for the French is that with 10 squads and only two leaders, they need to cover quite a wide area that contains considerable grain hindrances. Basically, there are two approaches the Germans can take: The first would be pushing through a village, the other would be pushing through a valley.
As my opponent set up strongly in the village and did not use the option to have some French troops (except for a AMD35 AC reinforcement) enter during turn one instead of setting them up on board, I elected the way through the valley.
I would attempt to freeze some forward French units with tanks, then see how far I would get with the Motorcycles and Sidecars and afterwards move the remaining tanks to put pressure on any French units that would have revealed themselves hoping that they would not get hit by anything serious.
This plan worked out quite well with numerous Motorcyclists/Sidecars and a few tanks reaching the valley. Furthermore, I could take care of frozen French infantry by moving up and dismounting some Motorcyclists or corner them in a way that would make retreat precarious. With a bit of luck, I was able to advance into CC what „smelled“ like a lone leader and indeed turned out to be the French 9-1 who was killed. The loss of the best French leader in the first halfturn out of a total of only three available surely was a blow.
With the „central woods“ under control early, I used the second turn to consolidate and move up more units to the far edge of the valley while the French had had his hands full to fall back from the forward village area to get into my flank when my Germans would have to exit the valley.
Exiting the valley as the Germans is probably the most difficult thing for the German in this configuration of the scenario to pull of. I suspected that at least one Laffly and one of the less dangerous but by no means unperilous AT-assets would lurk on board 62 somewhere waiting for just that to happen.
Some German infantry, I had moving through the Board 62 woods on the boardedge side to take care of the few French units that protected the flank there and of which I rightly suspected that they weren't supported by a leader. This was a prerequisite for getting the German infantry to the larger board 62 woods more in the back across more open space.
The clearing with the road within the large backward woods was my overall objective as the trees would screen my AFVs and would provide cover for any German infantry that made it to there. The latter would protect my AFVs and help to fend of French infantry, that would invariably attempt to get into the woods and to my vehicles.
Turn 3 and 4 saw the Germans exiting the valley and hastening to the woods. During Turn 3, many French were still in the process of redeployment and the Germans were partly able to clear the forward board 62 board-edge woods. I parked a few tanks close to the farther backward board 62 woods in preparation to engaging the French infantry that would attempt to deny German infantry the crossing into the backward board 62 woods. Unfortunately, a number of them were parked just ADJACENT or very close to one of the French Laffly-Trucks. Uh-oh...
The cursed Laffly opened up to kill one of the non adjacent PSWs and kept ROF. Then it engaged the ADJACENT Pz IVD – and malfed his Gun... Phew! This Laffly was soon after dispached of by the ADJACENT tank and some other German units. IIRC, another German tank was killed by the second Laffly further in the back, so it would become more difficult for the Germans to collect the needed VP for which surviving AFV are essential. A third German tank, who had reached my objective, was killed by the French AC which had driven that way in Turn 2.
At this point, the German situation was precarious: With the French AC in my target area alive and kicking and my vanguard tank there dead instead of the other way around, I figured, that it would be too dangerous to move more AFVs in there at that time. Furthermore, French Turn 4 saw a lot of their infantry taking up positions to hinder my infantry crossing into the backward board 62 woods. Luckily, the surviving Laffly was not interfering with his Gun but opted to leave the board upping my VP requirement by an additional 3.
I decided for a change of plans. Instead of driving my remainng tanks into the protection of the woods, soured by the presence of the French AC, I turned them around to frontally attack and overrun the French infantry on my flank that would prevent my German infantry from crossing into the backward board 62 woods. As the French infanry was Grain or Orchards at best, I was able to wreak quite some havoc and to place some Smoke by sD. This allowed a substantial portion of my infantry to make it safely into the backward board 62 woods and hopefully to protect the back of my remaining AFV against the French AC.
The French AC sortied out of the woods to get at the back of my AFV, survived numerous MG TK shots but was finally killed by one of the AFVs before causing any damage. It might have been better to just leave the AC where it was. The French infantry tried to kill at least one of my tanks with MG or in CC but luckily failed.
German Turn 5 saw the remaining AFV to pull back into the protection of the now safe backward board 62 woods and to stop there to fulfill the VC requirements. The French had no choice but to run towards the woods and attempt to get though to some of the vehicles to kill units and thus lower my VP total.
This proved futile, however, as now the edges and area between the French and my AFV were firmly held by German infantry.
A tense game that could have gone both ways in Turn 4 especially.
A fun scenario that I can heartily recommend.
My German win also gave me victory in the mini-tournament.
