Battlegroup Match Report

Whilst Tony’s Pacific Australians fought French, German Volksturm and US Paras at Lost Ark, myself and Greg maintained some modicum of sanity by playing a “Battlegroup Blitzkrieg” game set in France 1940. Those who went on the Ardennes trip before the Pandemic may recall the trip to the village of Stonne.

Here French and Germans fought a series of vicious actions to control the hilltop vantage point, and unlike much of 1940 the Germans didn’t have everything all their own way. So unlike the proceedings at Lost Ark we kept standards up and played a game set during French counter-attack early on the morning of May 16th. I took the French and Greg the Germans of 10th Panzer and IR Grossdeutschland.

The Germans started with some units in possession of the village, and the French all entered from their table edge. Despite decent firepower, command and control was going to be the main French problem with only two officers, and lots of units as each infantry section comprised two teams. However, things started well for the French with a lucky mortar barrage that killed the PAK36 and its towing vehicle, meaning Greg drew two BR chits. The French moved their light armour up the left flank

infantry through the fields on the right and pushed one Char B up the road. The Germans responded with their armoured platoon moving to meet the H39s

infantry occupying houses and the lone Panzerjager I bravely taking on the mighty CharB.

Greg scored a hit on the Char B but needing a double six rolled an eleven. The dice gods were not with him.

Greg’s luck got even worse when his artillery strike onto the French positions was diverted back onto his own troops. The result was only one “pin“, but things were definitely not going the way of the Wehrmacht. The French infantry tried fire and close assault, with their VB sections “pinning” the German troops leaving the rifle team to close-assault. However, the élan of the “inferior” French failed and soon two rifle teams were “pinned” in the open. These are not the infantry of 1914! Frustrated by the lack of “punch” of the Panzer III vs the front of a H39, Greg decided to gamble all on a flank charge. It was almost as if Tony was in the room. The H39s, hampered by the “one man turret” rule, failed to react and soon a H39 was ablaze, and the others in danger.

A German artillery strike then caused infantry casualties plus destroying several Laffly trucks.

The French continued to fight on, destroying a Panzer III

but when the two infantry teams who had failed to charge were finally wiped out by rifle and MG34 fire it was all over. The French morale collapsed and Stonne was left to the Germans.

Both of us agreed it had been a fun game, played out in just less than two hours. It was fairly small given it was using 20mm figures on a 6 x 4’ table. I had learnt the lesson from our last late-war game where I packed too much stuff onto the table leaving the attacker with no manoeuvre room. Unlike late-war Battlegroup games which tend to be armour/artillery battles, this proved to be a real combined-arms encounter, with the infantry playing a crucial rule. Even the role of the French transport lorries was important. Normally lorries are rushed back off the table, but with so few orders available for the combat troops I left them on-table and had to draw chits when two were destroyed. The “campaign specific” Battlegroup rules for the French armour worked well. For 1940 they are tough armour-wise, but the “one man turret” rule that gave a spotting penalty proved quite an historically accurate handicap.

I may be inspired now to build a full Char B platoon plus acquire some R35s. Why didn’t I buy the ones Greg pointed out to me on the Bring-and-Buy at Colours last week? An opportunity missed!

Simon