Chain of Command Abbeville 1940 "Mesnil Trois Fetis"

The second game of Gary and I's latest PSC saw the Germans attempting to delay the BEF at Mesnil Trois Fetis.

With 6 support I went for the infantry gun, a shabby nazi sniper and a fifth columnist on the basis that Gary would inevitably choose some armour again.

The table was even more open than the last one with little cover other than some wheat fields across most of the table:

Our old friend the British armoured car makes an early appearance and heads for a German JoP, I had not realised wheeled vehicles move double distance on a road so with three dice it instantly moved 20 odd inches down the road! I failed to bring on my gun due to Gary's barrage so lost a JoP almost immediately.

The armoured car races on passing over the JoP and heading for the next road:

The British set up firing lines in the buildings and send one section forward through the wheat field towards the woods where the Germans are lurking. No Germans have appeared at all so far:

The armoured car crew get nervous and approach the junction slowly, maybe there are no Germans here at all?:

The final British section deploys behind a pile of wood:

At last there is some action! The shabby Nazi 5th Column sniper pops up and targets the British section advancing through the wheat field inflicting some shock on them:

The armoured car turns onto the main road, in another couple of minutes it will shut down both of the remaining German JoP and win the game for the British. A German squad manages to deploy though and opens fire on it with their LMG inflicting a point of shock and forcing it to retreat:

With the barrage finally over another German squad deploys to take on the British advancing through the wheat field and the German gun appears to take on the armoured car:

With the armoured car looking a bit inadequate to brave the German gun the British move up a French H39 tank, a much tougher opponent:

The British now have a section approaching the woods covered by smoke. However, with visibility in the wood only being 4" they will have to close assault the Germans to drive them out (if you come within 4" of an enemy unit you automatically go into close assault and you can't fire at things you can't see):

The H39 prepares to move down the road:

The German gun, despite it's commander being wounded, hits the H39 putting some shock on it and killing the gunner. As the gunner is also the commander we weren't sure if this meant the tank commander was killed or not:

The German gun is very well handled today, another round forces the H39 crew to abandon their tank and the next shot results in the armoured car crew doing the same. Iron Crosses all round for the heroic gun officer and crew!:

With the loss of their armour the British advance their third section:

With the loss of their armour British morale has dropped and they have no option really but to close assault the woods. They bring up all of their men to make the attempt:

The Germans deploy their last squad and await the attack:

The first British assault goes in and is repulsed with heavy losses, the defenders having a large advantage:

The British send in a second section against the same German squad, again the assault is repulsed but the Germans are pinned and few in number:

The Germans launch a counter-attack and finish off the second British section but take heavy losses themselves:

With only one section left, morale low and the Germans firmly in control of the wood the British call it a day and retreat:

This game showed some of the limitations of both the campaign and the early war period in CoC.

As regards the scenario, given the vast amount of open terrain and the large amount of support available to the British the only sensible choice for the Germans was to hide on the baseline while Gary did exactly what I would have done in his place.

The patrol phase, normally an important part of CoC, was pretty redundant with it being obvious where both sides would start from.

The tanks also to some extent unbalance the game I think in this period. Firstly it forces the defender to use their support points on some form of anti-tank gun or a tank of their own. Secondly it tends to mean that whoever wins the tank/anti-tank gun duel then has an element that is almost indestructible (though we did realise that the armoured car with only 2 armour was very vulnerable to LMG fire).

In this game if Gary had destroyed my gun his H39 would have been able to wipe out my infantry at will, whereas when I knocked out his tank and armoured car he had no option but to launch hopeless charges into the wood.

The next game sees the British attacking again, after that the initiative passes to the Germans with both sides having limited forces which will hopefully make the games a little more varied.