Chain of Command - Scottish Corridor, Pint Size Campaign, Probe at Bas de Mouen & Le Valtru, Games 3 & 4

The latest meeting of the Devon Wargames Group saw the second instalment of our Chain of Command ‘Pint-sized’ campaign: The Scottish Corridor. Having been rebuffed once already at the Eastern end of the campaign ladder, we Germans had a second go at pinching the allied salient from both sides. 

Probe at Bas de Mouen

Background

The Leibstandarte attack the isolated troops of the 3rd Monmouths in Bas de Mouen. They must break through quickly in order to push on to their objectives.

Despite a poor advance roll from German attackers, the patrol phase gave us a good spread of jump-off points on the northern half of the board (extreme right of picture below) of Bas de Mouen. Early phases not only allowed the establishment of a broad attacking front behind a hedge, but units were also able to move south and capture the house on the other side of the road, ultimately capturing the foremost British jump-off point and forcing them to start further back. 

A Tiger 1 as reinforcement caused ripples amongst the enemy too, and despite several PIAT ambushes it ground its way forward, with at least one squad using it as cover as they choked and coughed their way through the clouds of smoke laid down by British mortars, towards the barns on the enemy side of the table.

As the Tiger and two squads crossed the Northern field, the third squad which had moved out of the house and onto the enemy jump-off point ran into increasingly stiff resistance from units trying to flank them in the woods to the South.

The sneaky (or daring, depending on who you ask) Scottish troops popped out of the woods to put flanking fire – including a PIAT – onto the Tiger and the squads crossing the Northern fields.

In support of their suppressed colleagues, the third squad turned North and attempted to get a bead on the Brits on the edge of the woods, but no sooner they do so than the enemy retreated into the woods again to try and flank them. 

Wanting for targets, they laid several men cold who had been sequestering themselves in the barn, providing sufficient support to allow the Tiger and the first squad to cross the hedge by the barn and make it over the objective line. This was a tactic suggested by Chris, and without whom I would not have broken my run of losing games to date. Indeed, when he had to depart mid-way through the second game, I then floundered and lost again. Enjoyment is why we do it, right, not winning?

With progress made on the Eastern map, we turned our attention to the Western side of the ladder for a second stab at Le Valtru. Experience told me that the long straight road from East to West across the board would provide a lovely shooting arcade for any tank that came on.

Background

This scenario sees Der Führer launch their attack at Le Valtru just as the 7th Seaforth Highlanders

attempt to move into the village. launch their attack into the eastern outskirts of Mouen. This is a Patrol

Scenario, albeit one with a lot of support to reflect this encounter action.

Despite my best intentions, for the second game in a row a Churchill came on first and effectively divided the map in two. 

Close support barrages on both games meant that getting units onto the table was no certainty, and it was several turns before I was able to get the Flammpanzer onto the table. It did a good job of scaring several teams away from the Northern side of the long barn, but this backfired on me later on: they then moved South and threatened to add to the firepower shooting down the line of the river at the two squads trying to make a run for it out of the woods first. 

Meanwhile, an additional squad of support troops did their best to advance along the middle of the table. Learning the hard way that you don’t just climb over a wall and walk across open ground when the enemy has Bren guns on the opposite hedge, they promptly retreated back over the wall again. 

The superior firepower of their MG42’s might have been enough to resolve that long range fire-fight, were it not for the weighing in of the ever watchful Churchill back down the table.

Ultimately the Churchill became the ultimate gate-guardian, turning it’s attention to anything that dared to cross its gaze. In full retreat, one German soldier was heard to mutter ‘why didn’t he use the Panzerfausts?’ T’was a very good question…….