The Second World War, Rapid Fire Reloaded, 12mm 

A few months ago a scenario appeared in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine which looked interesting. It was set in Normandy, but it was  simple enough to rejig it for Sicily instead. In this one, as a Yorkshireman, Sean took the British 15th Brigade,  part of the 5th (Yorkshire) Division, supported by the Shermans of the County of London Yeomanry (CLY). That left me the  Recon Battalion of the Hermann Göring Panzer Division to command.The idea was for the infantry battalion (The Green Howards) to capture Grangemello, with the help of A Squadron of the CLY and off-table artillery. It would then drive on off the table to the north-east. The under-strength Panzer Recon Bttn. held the place, supported by an attached Panzer IV tank and a Stug III assault gun. We used numbered ‘Concealment Markers’ – some of them dummies – to hide the Germans at the start.The British came on at the corner marked B-B above. the Germans could deploy anywhere north of the G1-G1 line, but I opted for the back half of the village, ignoring the church which seemed too easily overrun. Here’s one of the markers below. I’d meant to make them a bit more scenic, but ran out of time… My two pieces of armour were hidden in the trees on the eastern side of the Arcile stream, with a good field of fire overlooking the main road into the village.  I just needed to catch those Shermans. Still, Sean played it fairly cautiously at the start, and wisely held his three tanks back for a bit.The cautious probing paid off – the British scouts – the battalion’s carrier platoon –  soon found that the church was empty, and went on to clear the small wood and the walled cemetery beyond it. With that done, and the first Germans spotted in the rest of the village, Sean ordered his tank squadron to advance up the road to help clear the German-held buildings. A firefight developed between the Howard’s ‘A Company’ in the churchyard and Germans in the nearby building, the  Trattoria Vittoria, while ‘B Company’ engaged a company of panzer-grenadiers lining the wall of a nearby field. When the Shermans arrived they soon dealt with the machine gun team in the Trattoria, but ‘B Company’ took casualties in their firefight with ‘3 Company’ of the panzer-grenadiers. Those German infantry were well-placed to mess up the advance of the Green Howards from their ‘start line’ at B-B to the church.  Better still, they had a stone wall for protection, while the British only had some scrappy roadside hedges. The British lost three bases there – six figures – to one base of Germans. At that point the Shermans’ advance up the main road led me to tip my hand and reveal my armour, hidden in trees beyond the steam. It was a wasted opportunity though, as neither the PzIV or the Stug managed to hit the British tanks before they were hidden by the village buildings.Meanwhile the Shermans were taking on my ‘Armoured Car (Halftrack) Company’. This seemed a very one-sided context, but one of the 20mm-armed Sdkfz. 250/9s bugged out up the road to the north, while the was damaged, but limped away into cover. While all this had been going on the German’s  artillery Observation Post had managed to call down a barrage which hit the British grouped around the church and cemetery, causing a couple of stands of casualties. The British OP – linked to a 25pdr battery off-table wasn’t in position yet – he was still looking for a good spot, and so the British guns didn’t join in. Neither did Sean’s air support arrive, as he kept rolling a ‘1’ each turn, instead of a ‘5-6’…

There was a natural pause in the fighting at this point, as the British consolidated their position, and the Germans tried  to firm up their defences. So far, all the British casualties had been caused by the off-board artillery and the Recon Battalion’s own mortar (in an Sdkfz. 250/7) I was missing the presence of the heavier element of the recon battalion – the armoured cars, including one with a 75mm gun, but at least reinforcements were now on their way. On Move 8, both sides got reinforcements – a fresh infantry battalion and Sherman squadron for the British, and a Fallschirmjager battalion for the Germans. So far, both sides had lost about 20-25% casualties – a lot less than the 50% cut-off point for a battalion’s morale. So, we were both still in the game, even though the Germans didn’t have anything that could effectively deal with those Shermans, apart from my own poorly-placed AFVs. So, we decided to halt the game there, and will take it up where we left off in two weeks time. It was a good point, just before all those reinforcements arrived. So, I took lots of pictures, so we can lay out the table again, and we packed everything away. As for the rules – Rapid Fire Reloaded – I really like them, for speed of play and enjoyment. I might tweak a few things, like the indirect fire rules, but essentially they work really well – especially in 10/12mm. 

Tags: Rapid Fire Reloaded