Second World War, Battlegroup Panzergrenadier, 20mm

This is where Dougie Trail had his revenge for his Back of Beyond drubbing. He supplied all of the figures, and against my better judgement I played one of the German commanders, along with drouthy cronies Bob n’ Jim. Actually I let them do most of the gaming, while just got in the way. My heart’s not really into it when I play the Nazis.Anyway, a German armoured force was charged with breaking through a heavily-defended portion of the French line, somewhere between the Ardennes and Sedan.  There wasn’t room for manoeuvre – this was an all-out frontal attack, as the panzers hadn’t known about the French defensive position until they reached it. As you can guess, the scenario was designed by Dougie – the French commander – who likes stacking these things in his favour.Still, we had more tanks, and probably better ones. At first it all went rather well. Then though, we started taking damage from French tank fire, who had hitherto been lurking hidden in the woods. Their fire proved scarily accurate – Dougie kept rolling near-perfect dice for a few turns. Those Somuas proved difficult to hit with our 20m  and 37m guns, so we tried cutting across a cornfield, and driving up a country track which skirted a small village. That’s when we discovered the minefield… As I said, the scenario was rather rigged! We lost one tank dmaaged and another disabled, so we pulled back, looking for another way through. It turned out there wasn’t one, unless we wanted to go through a village or woods, both bristling with French infantry and anti-tank guns. So, The German armoured thrust bogged down, the tankers waiting while the supporting Panzer Grenadiers cleared the village. The German grenadiers made  slow progress, fighting from building to building, and they suffered heavy casualties. They never managed to force a way through the village before the game came to an end. So, the Germans were forced to concede the game. Inevitably we blamed the defeat on a near impossible mission, and of course .. on those initial lucky French dice!

Tags: Battlegroup Panzergrenadier