A bit further from Carentan AAR

Last night we played out the next battle in the Normandy campaign pitching the 6th Fallshirmjager Regiment against the US 101st Airborne.

Armies were the same as the previous game at 1500 points, but this time the players were myself and John (who has been playing Commandos up until now). 

The bocage for this game was heavy and the 101st were attacking in an encounter mission once more.

Aerial photograph of the table after deployment.There were hills at either end of the table with bocage surrounding a small hamlet in the middle. Germans on the left, US on the right.

German HMG advances to take up position next to the bocage.

The LG40s deploy near the objective.

The 101st HQ group and a platoon of Shermans from the 2nd Armored.

The Shermans advance down the narrow lanes

One platoon of airborne line a row of bocage alongside the lanes.

Fallshirmjager platoon advance to line up opposite (but out of view) of their enemy.

'Get over that hedge boys!'

The first blood to the LG40s - one burning Sherman blocks a narrow lane and convinces John to back off.

The first reserves appear in the centre of the US position.

An HMG team takes up residence in a building opposite which the US HQ unit is stationed.

Another reserve unit for the Americans arrives. This time the LMGs on the hill to the left of the US position.

The rival paras sit behind opposite hedgerows completely oblivious to each other...

The first German reserve unit appears and it's the Panthers*!
*The Panther tanks are sitting at John's house, so these half painted Panzer IVs are the proxies. 

After far too long not staring at each other across the road (because bocage blocks line of sight) the Fallshirmjager storm forward preparing to assault.

The last thing that John needs is to roll poor dice and fail to pin the enemy from defensive fire. But it is the first thing that happens before the Green Devils roll a host of high dice and wipe out his platoon.

The Reserve Fallshirmjager arrive and move up into the battle-line. They assault the US HQ unit and wipe it out.

The US artillery takes revenge by rolling sixes and taking out the German HQ unit.

The first German reaches the enemy objective, but doesn't claim it before the 101st fail their company command roll.

OK so I forgot to take photos of the happenings on the other flank where the Panthers machine gunned and wiped out the US Sherman platoon, AT gun unit and the mortars (I wasn't keen about taking photos of proxies - even extremely effective ones). The death of these three platoons plus the assaulted platoon led to the Company Morale check which John no longer had an HQ to take. But it was a close run thing. The Germans had also lost their HQ and nearly had both infantry platoons wiped out. Final result was 5-2 to the Fallshirmjager - their second victory in our campaign.

I am now looking forward to shipping them elsewhere, because I HATE bocage! This 1500 point battle took three and a half hours and 12 turns to play out. With high morale/skill infantry heavy armies it was like a drawn out game of chess. In the end my bold assault on the right flank was the result of boredom and impatience - but it paid off!

Tomorrow night I'll try and post the landing of Commandos vs the 716 Div on Sword Beach that was played out on Sunday. Again - not a great one for the Allies.

Nate