Action at Galmanche Blitzkrieg Commander AAR

Action at Galmanche is the Too Fat Lardies take on this July 8, 1944 battle between the British and Germans. This scenario is found in the I Ain't Been Shot Mum rulebook and is the 3rd scenario, meant to introduce tanks and AT fire.

table

The Brits have a a mix of command values ranging from 7 to 9. The Germans are all pretty much 8 except the AT gun (7) and FAO (7) and the commander (9).  We have 3 full British platoons attacking 2 full platoons and one that is a squad short.  In this I also experimented with creating a tank killer team made up of small stand, carrying a PzShrek and also a similar PzFaust model. In addition, I created stands for the 50mm mortar units that went with each squad for the Brits...more on this later.

Basically, the British have to clear out all 6 buildings and destroy the AT gun. Tall order because I made the Germans SS. They were given 7 trenches and also could hide in the buildings. The forests north of the town were impassable by tanks.

I posted infantry units along the forest to get the boys while they traveled in the open. So dug-in and in forests. In addition, i placed the two tank killer teams in the middle behind the woods to react and move where they needed to go after the tanks.  I placed the AT gun looking down a road where the tanks were more than likely to come because of the woods.

Going back to the British, I decided I  wanted to push everyone through the woods and orchards to the Germans right. The Tanks would go through the orchards. We would overwhelm the right and then sweep to the buildings on the Germans left.

Now to the Game - the videos below go through the whole game - its a 5 video playlist.

A pregame British stonk gave a few hits here and there.

Here's a photo from the end of turn 5.

end turn 5

It's not looking good for the Germans because the forest is cleared and the orchard is open. The problem is that the tanks would sit 6cm or further back, out of range of the fausts in the hands of each squad and just blast away at them for a few turns. Not a problem for the Brits of course. But a hard lesson is coming for the Brits. I'd failed command rolls a few times for the Brits and this was slowing me down quite a bit.

The Orchard was going to be congested, and I realized the success of blasting away at the infantry so decided to route the CV7 led tank troop (3 Sherman 75s and a Jumbo) to the German left to start clearing out the buildings.

end turn 6

Good thing I did that, the group stalled at the orchard hedge and if the tanks would've waited, they would've just sat there. Instead they were able to move and then clear out the ss out of the woods, next to the houses on the right of the road.  The problem with the Germans, the AT gun had limbered up to move toward the right when the Brits started rolling. They were led by some weak ones and would miss a couple turns.

Turn 7 was very tough for the Brits, this is where they learned the toughness of infantry in close fighting. Whoops.  Two Sherman 75s lost to faust fire. You can see them smoking on the right. In addition, I'd forgotten to give the command rolls a -1 for the tanks driving in dense terrain. I added this later.

end turn 7

Turn 8 saw the German FAO finally have some success and put a bunch of units in Suppression including the CO and other HQs.  More on the German arty later. Suffice to say it was damaging but not terrible.  In addition, the AT gun finally woke up and took out a Sherman on the German left. I also believe it was here that the Brits on the German left had a bonus round and took out the troops in the front 2 buildings and then moved up to the orchard to finish off the next building. The Germans were going to abandon the buildings to protect the AT gun.  at seeing an opportunity, I decided to keep them there behind the building to get the tanks as they approached through the orchard. The attack on the German right by the Brits was stalling a little. However, the Germans gave up a building to hold the rear one before that squad took any more hits. (They were sitting at 4.)

Also, the German CO blundered to go off the table. They came back on turn 9 with -1 CV and only able to do something on turn 10.

end turn 8

Turns 9 and 10 went fast without a picture for 9 'cause it was getting hot and heavy and I thought for sure the Brits were going to clean up. And they would have except for the German FAO on turn 10 hit again and really laid waste. I believe 3 units were lost during this barrage. Including a tank. The middle was destroyed.

The Germans hiding behind the building on the German left, did their job as well and took out the Sherman 75 in the orchard. Also the Shermans went for broke and tried to destroy the AT gun, but only forced it to suppress and fall back, right to the edge of the table. 1 more CM and it would've been knocked out!

Also during this turn the British CO was Suppressed again.

At the beginning of turn 11, I rolled for the British breakpoint. It was 10 and they were right at it. Therefore, the roll had a modifier of 0, and i just needed lower than a 10...I rolled a 10. Game over, the Brits pull back.

end of game

Very fun game. According to boardgamegeek, this is my 10th playing of Blitzkrieg Commander and I'm really enjoying it. The last couple of games have been quite memorable.

A couple of changes I would make to the scenario. I wouldn't put separate 50mm mortars on the table. BKCII doesn't even have stats for them because they're modeled in the squad stats. Though it was fun having them...I will keep my stats, but they were quite useless. Though in the open, they may be ok.

I used the wrong stats for the German arty. They should've been 81mm mortars. Instead I used like 105mm stats. Basically every time they hit is was 18-24 dice against each unit. With the mortars, as prescribed by the scenario, it would be 6-8 dice. However, I'm slightly concerned this would hamper the Germans chances a bit.

The placement of the AT gun may have been ok if they'd come down that road, but they didn't until turn 6. But once it was hit, it was pretty weak.

And now, here are the videos.