Rommel: Late German v Allies, Breakout scenario

Having played all the scenarios in the rules with mid-war Western Desert armies in 3mm Andy and I thought we would have a change and play the Breakout scenario again with Late War Germans trying to stop the allies breaking out. We used Andy's 10mm figures for this game though unfortunately the only gridded cloth we have is the desert one so the battlefield looked a bit arid!

My force consisted of an Infantry KG supported by some Stug's, a Volksgrenadier KG with some attached Marders and a Panzer Grenadier KG equipped with Panthers. Andy's British consisted of a Paratroopers Brigade supported by some Churchills and a mixed Armoured Regiment of Shermans and Comets.

I wasn't too sure how to use the Germans to the best advantage, assuming that I'd have to attack the Infantry and Volksgrenadier KG's seemed weak and slow to move.

In this scenario the Germans have to keep 1/3 of their force off table to arrive as reinforcements while the remaining 2/3 are deployed on the flanks of the battlefield. Initially I was going to use the Volksgrenadiers as the reserve but decided to use the Panzer Grenadiers instead as they would be able to choose where to arrive and attack swiftly when they did.

The battlefield had a number of towns, hills and woods with the British objective being a town at the opposite end of the table. To win they had to hold the town until nightfall and exit at least 7 units from the table edge where the town was

The Para Brigade was deployed on the right and the Armoured Regiment on the left for the British.

 The Germans deployed the Volksgrenadiers on the right flank of the British with the Marders.

 The British Armoured Brigade ready to roll!

 On the British left flank the German Infantry KG deployed.

The British Armoured Brigade and around 1/3 of the Para Brigade dashed forward for the objective. The remaining 2/3 of the Para Brigade held back.

The idea behind holding this much of the Para Brigade back was to try to maintain a line of communication, isolated units are much harder to move.

Using more Op's to move the British take the objective with the Armoured Brigade.

After the initial moves by the British the Germans got to react. Elements of the Infantry KG on the left attacked a lightly held town not far from the objective and more infantry attacked some Shermans in mountainous terrain near next to the objective.

The attack on the town was successful with the German infantry moving in to take it giving the German forces an outpost behind much of the British army. The Shermans took some hits but held on to the mountains.

Meanwhile the Volksgrenadiers advanced to cut off the forward British forces from their line of communication.

The British had placed much of their artillery on a hill in the centre of the table, with little support nearby the Volksgrenadiers moved towards them to assault the hill.

All the British forces near the objective were now isolated. The British counter-attacked against the German Infantry KG but met with only limited success, causing some German losses but taking several hits themselves.

The Germans held on to the town in the middle of the British force.

The Para Brigade elements which had stayed back also attacked the Volksgrenadiers, again with little success.

At this point the Panzer Grenadier KG appeared on the British left flank. The British units were isolated and had already taken losses so it seemed unlikely they would be able to hold up the Panthers and Panzer Grenadiers for long.

Given this the British conceded that they would not be able to break out and would have to attempt to escape individually or surrender.

This game went better than I thought it would, deploying the Volksgrenadiers and the Infantry KG initially worked well as they isolated and weakened the British prior to the arrival of the Panzer Grenadiers who could also choose the best place to attack from.

I think Andy left far too much of his Para Brigade back to try to stop his attacking force being isolated. Having played this a few times now I don't think you can prevent your main force being isolated so it is best to accept this and put everything into the attack with nothing holding back. In our last game that worked well for me when I was the attacker. Having said that Andy did have miserable combat die rolls which probably didn't help.

Compared to the 3mm tanks we have used previously the 10mm ones did look nice but there were not many of them. You could certainly see the infantry bases better!