Wednesday 5 October 2011

South of Cheux, Normandy 1944 - part 3

More action from Normandy now.  The second Sherman troop joins the fray as the Germans continue to give away their positions by blowing up John's tanks.  The British could win by exiting AFVs (ideally 4) from the southern edge of the table.
The heroic Shermans lurch forward - led by my elderly Roskopf plastic model.
A German PAK 40 skulks in a wood - and notches up kills!
The work of the AT gun can clearly be seen!
The second Sherman troop rolls up to (but not yet over!) the crest line.
The mighty Honeys roll forward - disregarding all danger!
More burning German recce - and the Daimler pushes on.
An overview of the battlefield.  My Shermans have moved forward.  What could go wrong?
John's carrier burns, while the infantry section clears Panzerfaust-wielding infantry from the ruins.
John's Daimler puts the wind up the German mortar crew.
My Shermans advance to take on the PAK crew.  Plain sailing then?
Bugger.  A pair of Tigers.  So much for our plan!  Where is reverse gear in a Sherman?
A final overview.  On the plus side, a couple of the burning vehicles are German.
The surviving Shermans (3 of them!) and the Honeys pulled back behind the ridge line and called it a day.  Astonishingly the game was a narrow Allied victory, due to the German stands we killed.

16 comments:

Ray Rousell said...

Nice looking game! What are the playing cards for? hidden units?

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

A narrow victory is better than none I say.

Tim Gow said...

Ray Rousell
The playing cards indicated possible German locations. Most were blanks, but not all....

Tim Gow said...

Ross Mac
Quite right. And it was mostly the other troop (Johns) which suffered!

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Wow

Nice looking game

Those burning markers are very effective

Tim Gow said...

Geordie
Thanks. The minimalist terrain was really quite effective. The burning tank markers were originally made by Martin for my 'Sgt. Pavlov's dogs' game which we ran a show a few years ago. I really should post some photos of that game.

Karcuss said...

Did the Germans, Do the burning of thir own Vechiles, like those markers

Paul said...

A nice little encounter with good results achieved.

I doubt if anyone with half a brain would hang around to face a Tiger.

Still time to disprove my theory though!

Tim Gow said...

Karcuss
A couple of the burning German AFVs we from the previous game, when the Daimler's Littlejohn Adapter was put to good use. We managed to brew a couple of halftracks this time.

Tim Gow said...

Paul
I'm not convinced that anyone with half a brain would describe the appearance of two Tigers as a 'little encounter!'. Everything had been going so well until they appeared.

west1871 said...

Good to see all the hard work in action mate.

Tim Gow said...

West1871
Strictly speaking it is mostly Martin's hard work - and in 15mm too!

Al said...

Such a great range of kit on a big layout, 'dummy' markers make excellent playing additions eh?

Tim Gow said...

Al
Having so many cards on the table certainly increased the tension as the tanks approached them - is it a dummy card or a bunch of glassy eyed fanatics with wall to wall Panzerfausts?

Martin Rapier said...

For smaller games (like the first scenario in this 'mini campaign') I usually just deploy the defenders hidden. In a bigger one, it is faster to use dummy markers but still provides some tension.

I'm a bit dubious about tactical games where everyone knows where the other side is one turn one. My experiecne of creepign around the woods at weekends is that the very last thing you ever know is where thw enemy actually are! (or even your own side half the time).

Tim Gow said...

Martin Rapier
I know my own 'situational awareness' while airsofting is particularly poor, but I can't believe that event the best troops have a very accurate picture of what is going on.