Chain of Command 24 Hours to Basildon Scenario 4 "A Delaying Action"

 After successfully holding the Germans up in the previous scenario then fallen back after the second German attack the Home Guard finds itself defending Hey Bridge at 04:00 in the morning. Since they failed to get the despatch rider away in the last game they can only deploy three teams in the first turn though they do get a Bofor's gun emplaced covering the road and some Barmy Land Army girls to bolster the remaining Home Guard.

Looking at the map it appeared there were three routes down which the Germans could attack, along the road (covered by the Bofor's though) or down either flank. Both provided decent cover to move through and it seemed likely that unless the first turn ended quickly the Germans could easily over-run the position quickly. 

The campaign is at a crucial stage now where Gary can't afford another loss but has a new platoon available while I can afford another loss but am rapidly running out of men! As a result the best plan I could come up with was to try to kill as many Germans as possible while losing as few as possible of my core platoon. For support I went for the fairly useless Beaverette armoured car (it has no leader so only activates on a 1 and then can only move or shoot not both!) at 3pts, the ever-useful Vickers MMG at another 3pts and an upgrade of the squad BAR to a Lewis gun at 1pt.

The game started well with British force morale at 9 compared to the German's 8 and the patrol phase gave us both jump-off points not that far apart as I'd suspected. The red roofed house near the bridge has been made into a "Keep" as per the British national characteristics:

The emplaced Bofor's gun covering the road, this is actually Gary's model as I didn't bother buying one:

First to appear for the Home Guard is the Beaverette armoured car. I was hoping it could move to either flank depending on where the Germans attacked. In fact it never moved or fired again in the whole game!:

Germans start to appear and move forwards:

More Germans start to advance on the other flank:

The first squad of Germans moves towards the river bank. The British have a JOP in the house with the blue door but will they be able to deploy anyone?:

The British have some luck with the Vickers MMG successfully deploying and a double turn at the same time! The Germans, caught in the open, suffer two men dead from the opening fire:

The Vickers fires again and takes out three more Germans! Though it is a support squad and so the losses won't be carried over into the core platoon the losses are still painful for the Germans:

To bolster the Vickers the Barmy Land Army girls also deploy in the house:

The recently promoted Home Guard Sergeant joins the Bofor's gun crew to direct their fire (otherwise, not having a Junior Leader, it only activated on a 1 as will the Vickers and the Beaverette!):

On the other flank the Germans continue their advance with a second squad backing up the one in front. No British have appeared here yet:

The battered Germans fall back out of the line of sight of the Vickers:

More good news for the Home Guard as a full CoC dice lets them end the turn removing the three team restriction on deployment. The squad with the Lewis gun deploys in the keep just in time to prevent the German infantry just walking into it:

With few targets the Home Guard Sergeant decides he would be of more use in the house with the Vickers and Land Army girls. He does not move as far as he had hoped however:

An oversight from the Sergeant, if you look in the distance the German squad between the houses has a line of sight to him and he is alone. Oh dear:

The Germans open fire and get a single hit on the Sergeant. Being a Sergeant in the Home Guard appears to have a very, very, very short life expectancy as he tumbles to the floor dead!:

The Germans that were attempting to advance around the British right flank have given up and are now moving along the hedge next to the road having been reinforced with the remnants of the core platoon's third squad and the mortar team:

At this point I think both Gary and I were fairly confident what the outcome was going to be. The British were in a strong position and there didn't seem to be many options open to the Germans at all. More in hope than expectation te Germans decide to launch a handgrenaten attack on the British squad in the keep (there was another squad upstairs as well!):

With 19 dice against 13 the odds were very much against the Germans though helped by the fact they they had a SMG with their leader and the British had no automatic weapons at all. The outcome was disastrous for the Home Guard though as they only killed two Germans (against an average of 6 expected kills) while the Germans killed five British (against an average of 4 expected kills)! the Germans had also managed to shoot three of the Bofor's crew despite them being in hard cover:

In a matter of minutes the situation had changed from very optimistic to disastrous for the Home Guard as the section in the Keep fled out of the back door of the house leaving the victorious Germans holding the lower floor while the second British squad held the upstairs:

The Home Guard Captain had deployed with the Vickers MMG and the Land Girls but there was little for them to shoot at. As a result he had decided to move out and take control of the Bofor's but now the crew had mostly been killed this didn't seem such a good idea!:

Fire from the German squad in the distance breaks the squad which had fled from the house, killing two more men. The situation is now looking very bad for the Home Guard and force morale was rapidly falling:

I wanted to withdraw but realised that if I did all the men in the upper floor of the Keep would be captured. Figuring that a Do or Die charge was the only way out the valiant Home Guard charged down the stairs into the waiting Germans. This time the odds were very much against them with a mere ten dice against the Germans sixteen or so. There was no miracle on this occasion with five Home Guard going down and the Corporal being wounded for only two Germans hit. 

The Germans had one more phase but didn't achieve anything much before the Home Guard withdrew having suffered huge losses again:

The British losses were devastating, fifteen men from the core platoon including the Sergeant yet again with another four from the Bofor's crew. The Germans lost, I think, around 10 men but as they were mainly from their support squad and they had a three force morale advantage that's only one permanently lost.

Neither of us had ever seen a game of CoC change so quickly from both Gary and I thinking it was all over for the Germans to it being (almost) all over for me! I had some luck of my own though of course, ending the turn quickly and getting to deploy mostly when I wanted to. I also made some mistakes which I should learn from, I shouldn't have moved the Sergeant from the Bofor's gun and I should certainly have deployed both sections in the Keep on the ground floor as we'd agreed that men in the upper floor couldn't see over the hedges anyway so it didn't actually improve my field of fire. An expensive lesson but hopefully one I will take forward!

I think Gary played it well in addition, taking an extra squad was something I'd not anticipated and he cleverly managed his losses so the vast majority came from that extra squad. He took a big chance with the charge (inspired by the playing style of one of our club members, Jerry, who plays in a much more mobile and aggressive way than the rest of us!) but it paid off for him.  

As a result the next game will be Scenario 5 "St George and the Dragon. The battered Home Guard will be down 15 men leaving only 17 available including the Captain (whose men are almost ready to shoot him 'accidentally'!) and the third (or is it fourth?) Sergeant to sew his stripes on in the campaign! My force morale dice will be at -2 and I'll have one less support point as the C-in-C has lost confidence in the Captain. Backs are certainly against the wall.

Having said that Gary still needs to win the next game at 05:00 to achieve a minor victory. He has a full new platoon available (though it is a measure of how caught up in these campaigns you can get that he was worried that his original platoon would be 'upset' if he replaced them after they had fought so hard so far!). 

We rolled for support and got a full 12 points (or 11 in my case) so I will be able to bolster my men and position with some reinforcements at least and, having come this far, it seems only fair to finish the campaign though I have little confidence it will end well. 

Still to quote our inspiration, Winston Churchill, "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!" and all is not yet lost, perhaps we can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat yet!