Banjaxed Day of Battle

Saturday came and we had three players, one panzer grenadier  and two british, we chose to play a delaying action the panzer grenadiers would use 650 points but deploy completely on table, against two 450 battlegroups. A 50% point advantage.  The British would play as two separate Battlegroups given their propensity to suffer from command chaos.  Starting will all their recce on table and getting 1d6 reserves each a turn

Battlegroup Preston

Bettlegroup Midders

 Midders had lost all the support vehicles, no comms team, recovery, ammo, 6pr, off board mortars, FAO Dingo had gone and the FHQ was back in their Jeep.

Sherman Platoon commander

 I had two scout carriers and Jp had three Stuart Tanks to wrinkle out the Germans on the 4x10 table, the germans chose the direction of attack and we were playing up the length.



German recce on the hill armed with a 37mm picked off the lead Stuart

From the half tracks we could see this was a well supported pair of Panzer grenadier platoons but could only see one tank a Panzer Ace Tiger with an armoured ammo wagon

 The Tiger 70" away. in this picture it is a coloured blur just to the left of the farmhouse on the far wooded hill , takes out its first kill Stuart no2

One Stuart does make it spearheading the Shermans of Battlegroup Perston onto the flat hill and out of the Tiger firing line this triggers a charge by panzer grenadiers forward and into the attack.  Most of Battlegroup Preston's dying was on this hill

Scouting carriers gets taken out by a panzerfaust 

 Now working my way around to the left I had tried to got right up the middle but changed my mind after the panzer grenadiers flooded the buildings in the centre and then tried to pick off my forward HQ.  20 -30 inch Mg fire from the houses had hit them as they pushed up through the woods however af ter the first shot I rolled a successful Beyond the Call of Duty and hastily drew back to the jeep.

The carrier platoon was formed up the engage the panzer grenadiers in the houses while I hoped the Shermans with the Rams scooted up the left.  the attack on the left knocked out  a hanomag but paid for it in Shermans.  A single survivor of a panzerscheck team blighted by a low ammo counter still put a single successful round into the Sherman Firefly.  in turn he was killed by the bren carrier survivors

Battlegroup Preston battling the Tiger, 17pdr brews up

Rams get into action, the Platoon Command Team is pinned after failing a close assault order

Time was called and the British had lost 25 BP(Preston) and 21(Midders)  The Panzer grenadiers held all of the objectives and had lost 40 from 42 BP

Banjaxed by the Panzer Grenadiers pre battle

 re configured my British this time for a 600 point battlegroup, I was inspired by this garden in Moffat,

ex RAF pilot has his own Spitfire in the Garden

My own mark IX

FAO in Dingo with rocket firing Typhoon

In the battle they didnt appear

Recce Carriers

Sherman tank troop with a n ammo truck and a wrecker

Carrier platoon

Rams

a 6pdr with a llyodd carrier

I was expecting this to be a hard fought attack/counter attack scenario battle and to be mauled by panzer grenadiers.