It is 05:00 on the 5th of July 1940. Since the Nazi invasion of the UK the LDV and Home Guard have attempted to slow the German advance but have only managed one success so far, in Scenario 3 "In the Steps of Boudiccea". The LDV were dispersed after the second scenario while the Home Guard had taken catastrophic losses in almost but not quite holding Gary's Germans back in the last engagement.
As a result the if the Germans succeed in this attack they will be able to take Romford before the Regular British army can intervene giving them a minor victory. On the other hand if the remnants of the Home Guard can somehow hold on at 06:00 the Regulars will arrive to reinforce them and Romford should be held.
I reorganised the remnants of the Home Guard into two sections of nine men with the Captain and Sergeant both being reduced to two command initiatives and only a 6" command radius. With 11 support points available I chose the almost ever-present Vickers MMG, a Smith Gun, an upgrade for the section BAR to a Lewis Gun, an extra BAR, an entrenchment and two minefields. I also had a free group of 'Have a Go Hero's' .
The terrain was reasonably suited to the defence. Gary provided the titular pub, the "St George and the Dragon":
The Germans are approaching from the left, the British the right:
The plan such as it was had the two minefields placed behind the fencing on the German right hopefully preventing the Germans setting up a powerful fire support base behind them. This would force the Germans to either attack in the open on the right or concentrate their forces and advance through the gardens and buildings on their left. Perhaps if they split their forces it would be possible to destroy one half before the other half could get into action?
The Germans commence announcing a Stuka attack which damaged some of the buildings and by deploying an infantry gun in the open:
An infantry squad appears and begins to advance:
The infantry continue to advance supported by a second squad:
A mortar team and the Lieutenant join the infantry gun. So far the British plan is sort of working but they have not been able to end the turn to remove the Stuka attack or have any useful command dice to deploy:
The German infantry are making rapid progress through the gardens and will soon be shutting down the British jump off points. The end terrace building contains an unexploded bomb dropped by a Stuka so both sides are somewhat wary of going near it!:
Again the British command dice are not kind, they can only deploy a single team, the Vickers MMG, and the Stuka attack results in 4 shock for the team. With no leader they will find it hard to recover from this shock:
The German infantry push forwards again:
After picking off one of the German mortar crew and wounding the Lieutenant the Vickers MMG crew break from a combination of losses and shock in the German return fire:
The Smith Gun manages to make it through the Stuka attack with only a single shock point. It opens fire on the Germans advancing towards the pub and kills one:
The Germans quickly respond by moving out of the line of fire:
The final German squad is advancing in the open on the British left. The only JOP the British have left is behind the hedges though they have at least managed to end the turn finishing the Stuka attack:
Finally the Home Guard manage to deploy a section, partly behind the hedge and partly in the entrenchment which the Vickers had been occupying. They open fire and kill the German mortar team together with wounding the JL commanding the infantry gun:
The last few defenders, all there is left to deploy is a single section which has failed to come on yet:
The Germans concentrate fire from their infantry gun and the squad advancing in the open. Eight hits from the infantry squad at long range on men in hard and soft cover results in four dead and two shock after three men had already gone down in the previous round of firing:
The remaining man and the Sergeant break taking the British force morale down to one and winning the game for the Germans!:
The plan I had actually went quite well, Gary did split his force and would have had difficulty supporting each part with the other. However, the Stuka attack combined with the lack of ability to deploy caused by having only four command dice meant that I couldn't get my limited force into action quickly enough to take advantage of the situation resulting in my having to deploy piecemeal and each unit I did deploy being quickly overwhelmed by German firepower.
At the end of the campaign after six games the Germans won a minor victory, to win a major one they couldn't afford to lose a single game! Given how weak the British are that's probably fair enough and there were a couple of occasions when, if things had gone slightly better or I'd made some different decisions, they could have won more.
We both really enjoyed all the games, looking forward to the next one each time and giving each game quite a bit of thought beforehand both on the support choices and how to approach the game. I bought and painted a lot of new figures and kit for the campaign and the quirkiness of some of these added to the fun of playing, in the end everything made it onto the table apart from the Blacker Bombard. Gary made some buildings specifically for it as well having already umpired one play though of the campaign between Dave and Jerry.
I'd certainly recommend this campaign and would happily play it again either as the Germans or British. For now I'll be continuing the Saipan campaign against Tim and looking at what Gary and I can do next, ideally I'd like to use my Russians for a change!
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