Flames of War- The Battle for Caen Continues

 Last Sunday, my friend Evan and I played another game of Flames of War for the ongoing Firestorm: Caen campaign, detailing the British/Canadian half of the Normandy invasion. My grenadiers, along with their kameraden from the 2nd Panzer and 12th SS Panzer divisions, strove valiantly to hold back the British onslaught from Juno Beach. This is the third campaign turn, and... I feel like Evan won both of the previous games? I don't really remember, truth be told. I know he won one of them 5-4, a narrow victory, which was his same result this time.

I've been playing against Adam and his Paratroopers from the British 6th Airborne, and we've been taking turns royally stomping each other of late. First, he thoroughly trounced me, and the following game was trounced in turn, with the victor scoring 6 points to the loser's 1. My loss is documented in an earlier post, while my victory was un-photographed, since we played with shoddy, makeshift terrain. Anyway, here's the battle.

Game 2: Attack from Juno Beach
Allied forces on Juno Beach have been successfully landing for days. As reinforcements pour in, the Allies launch an offensive into Bretteville L'orgueilleuse (B-3). The Canadian forces tasked for this mission are eager to prove they are the equal of any Commonwealth troops. In their way, the 12th SS Panzer Division has deployed a company of Panzer IVs. The Allies must contest with stiff German resistance and the natural fortifications of the dense bocage hedgerows. Can the Germans hold their objectives long enough to thwart the Allied attack?

*Note-This matchup is pretty tough for the Germans. Make sure both players are okay playing with the unbalanced troops. You can modify the FS troops to create equal forces if you prefer.

Mission: Fighting Withdrawal
Attacker: As per mission
Terrain: Bocage
Allied Firestorm Troops: 3 Candian Infantry Infantry Division-CT Rifle platoon with Command Rifle/MG, 6 Rifle/MG teams, 1 Piat team, 1 light mortar (all have sticky bombs) (Canadian) (or 100 points)
AND

2 Canadian Armoured Division-CT 2 Shermans and 1 Firefly (Canadian) (or 200 points)

AND!

Limited Air Support Typhoons (or 150 points)

German Firestorm Troops:

12 SS Panzer IVs-3 FV Panzer IVs (or 250 points)

AND

2 CT StugG or StugIV (or 100 points)

My army. Three platoons of Grenadiers, two platoons of MG-42s, 3x Panzer IVs, 3x Fearless Veteran Panzer IVs (12th SS Panzer, free firestorm troops), 2x StuGs (2nd Panzer Division, free Firestorm troops for this turn,) 3x StuGs, some PaK anti-tank guns, some 7.5cm infantry cannons, a platoon of mortars... I think that was it, I'm writing this a week late. 

Evan's Englishmen. Or, should I say, his Scots. A platoon of Churchill tanks (and they're right bastards, let me tell you!), two platoons of Shermans with Firefly tanks (One of them was a free Firestorm unit, I believe), a 25lbr battery, another smaller caliber cannon battery, three infantry platoons (and he's been working on painting, hurrah!), mortars and air support. (Plane not to scale, (and technically German) but it was lying around the shop, so what the heck, we used it.)

The scenario was Fighting Withdrawl. All forces start on the table, but at a certain point I have to being withdrawing troops. The objectives are the two purple tokes and one white token above. At a certain point, I think turn 5 or 6, I get to remove one a turn. Evan wins if he starts a turn holding an objective. This lets me sneak them out from under him, if he takes too long to get there. Of course, my challenge is that starting in turn 3, I have to start removing platoons from the board.

Another view of the board, with the objective village in the lower right hand corner.

With my PaK anti-tank guns hidden in ambush (off the table), my Infantry platoons dig in, a strong, in-depth defence being the plan, with my two infantry cannons dug in on the hill overlooking the road Evan's tanks are sure to come down...

My 7.5cm infantry guns. There's some long abbreviation for them, but they're not PaKs, just. small cannons. 

And they wreak a fearsome toll on the allied tanks as they advance on the dug in German infantry!

Smoke billows from knocked out tanks, and a big yellow chip means that the platoon commander has bailed out of his beleaguered tank, discretion being the better part of valor.

... Just as my Own tanks run in to a spot of bother, their elite SS crews scrambling to escape as their entire platoon is wiped out by some Canadian Shermans on my right flank (Evan's left)

A pointless close up of my infantry in the village, the knocked out Shermans billowing smoke in the distance.

The Brae Scots advance on the village, even though well-sited MG-42s and supporting StuG assault guns force them to pay a high price for every yard they take.

I admit my picture taking got pretty spotty as we went, since things heated up and left no time for photography, in the midst of battle. My right flank collapsed under the hammer blows of the Churchills and Shermans, even as my PaK guns revealed themselves in the woods and blew a Churchill to pieces.

Evan's air support also did a good job, knocking out several StuGs and pinning down my troops time and time again over the course of the game.

In the end, the objectives didn't matter, since after several hours of intense fighting, the courage of the Germans broke first, and they were forced to flee the field, leaving it in the hands of the battered Scots. Since I'd destroyed a sizeable portion of Evan's force, the victory points totaled out at 5 to 4.

For more on this campaign, check out http://rustandthecity.blogspot.ca/