After Action Report – Second Playtest of 6mm Flames of War

SURROUNDED

Fortunately it wasn’t me who was surrounded – I once again took control of the DAK Panzerkompanie and faced off against an 8^th Army Heavy Armoured Squadron led by AR. The 1.500 point army lists stayed the same but I reshuffled my Panzer Platoons to concentrate the Panzer IV F2s in one platoon and Panzer IIIJs in another. I particularly disliked having variable ranges and gun powers in the same platoon 0 a setup which forced me to manoeuvre to close with the enemy with one part of a platoon while other tanks in the same platoon should optimally be stationary and shooting.

Battle summary

Deployment
We were using the big table again (90x122 cm, with centimetres representing inches for all purposes). The scenario provided me with two deployment zones, and two objectives, which I of course placed at opposite corners of the objective area within the central British deployment zone. Because of this, AR was quite stretched with his deployment options. The most defensible objective on a hill he defended with a dug in Indian Motor Platoon with left flank protection from the scout Bren Carriers. The objective at the other corner in the open he gave to his Grant Platoon and the command Shermans. The 25pdr Royal Horse Artillery Battery deployed on a small hill in the centre, able to cover approaches to both objectives and guard the rear of his infantry.

British artillery on the central hill. Background - Allied fighters lurk.

The tanks face off over the objective in open ground.

Wary of the tank strength on the objective in open ground I elected to deploy so as to concentrate my attack on the objective on the hill held by the Commonwealth infantry. The Nebelwerfer Battery and Panzer IIIJs deployed behind a forest on my left while the Afrika Schutzen mirrored them on the right. Having to place at least one Platoon in the deployment zone at the opposite end of the table, the hopeful Panzer IV F2s were sent to sit on a hill and face the Grants and command Shermans.

AR deployed his immediate ambush Sherman platoon at the open objective to face the Panzer IV F2s as well. This Panzer Platoon now had the honour to face the entire British armoured force alone!

First phase

I leapfrogged the Afrika Schutzen to gain the most ground as quickly as possible – moving to the trucks, mounting up and then pushing forward the full 12cm to dismount with a successful (yay) stormtroop move. I repeated this pattern to get the infantry up to an olive grove on the British left. The move tempted the Bren carriers to emerge from hiding and open fire but they were unable to get kills. If my men had still been mounted up these machine-gunnings could have been a real problem.

Indian infantry dig in on the hill objective. Can they hold the position against Panzer attack?

The Nebelwerfers spread out to minimise the risk of air attack or bombardment, then dug in and begun belatedly to drop ordnance on the Commonwealth infantry. The Panzer IIIJs and command Panzer IV F2s moved cautiously up to the Indian Motor Platoon, aiming to keep in the shadow of buildings and trees or else get too close to the Commonwealth forces for an air attack to hit them (I was pretty paranoid about 3 Squadron RAAF at this point). Focussed fire from these units did some serious damage to the Indian unit dug in on the hill objective (much to AR’s dismay).

The Panzer IV F2s tried and failed to do any damage to the Grants and Shermans and then stormtrooped to get behind a low hill. This did not sav them however, as a fusillade of firepower from three Grants and five Shermans wiped them out in the first turn.

The Panzer IV F2s are slaughtered on turn one.

The initial Luftwaffe air attacks were seen off by Allied fighters while the Allied Desert Air Force, lacking any other viable targets, intermittently and unsuccessfully bombed the Nebelwerfer Battery.

Second phase

As the open ground objective was now completely secure, the entire British tank force about turned and doubled to rescue the beleaguered Indian Motor Platoon. Doubling tanks in the open attract aerial attackers like a bird bell so of course JG 27’s Bf.109Es swooped in at every opportunity. Unfortunately they only managed to kill one tank.

Results of a Luftwaffe air attack.

The Panzer IIIJs continued to rake the hapless Commonwealth infantry with close-range fire – a fire they could not be returned (the Indians’ AT weapons were only AT 4, a Panzer IIIJ frontal armour is 5). The 25pdrs helped out when they could but were unable to damage a single German tank. The Afrika Schutzen pressed on toward the objective, ignoring the Bren carriers, which managed to gun down just a single MG team before they were bailed or driven off by the German command tanks.

A bypassed Bren carrier tries to gun down advancing German infantry.

Advancing in strength on the hill objective.

 

The final phase

The Indian Motor Platoon, who had stood bravely against all, finally broke after its teams were whittled down to just three and the Panzer IIIJ Platoon moved in to hold the hill objective. With the British armour still about two turns off and the Bren carriers in no condition to fight, victory went to the Germans.

The objective is taken.

Note: I'm particularly happy with my objective markers which I made to scale myself in Microsoft Publisher. Printed out and backed with a homemade thick cardboard (four-ply glued Weetbix boxes) they are sturdy, look pretty nice and totally customisable as well.

German victory – 5:2

Campaign Scores:

DAK:                      6

8^th Army:             8

 

My Panzerkompanie will need to win and win good next game if they hope to win this mini-campaign!

Lessons Learned

For the game itself:

·       Stormtrooping is awesome, and my skilled Schutzen used a ‘pick-up-and-drop’ technique to expedite their advance: 6cm move to transports, 12cm transport move then jump off the trucks using stormtrooper movement for another 4cm (total 22cm if you weren’t counting). Even if you don’t pull the stormtrooping off, this is much safer than doubling and practically as fast! This is beardy as, but then with water rationed at 4 litres a day max you won’t be expected to shave regularly!

·       Three isolated Panzer IV F2s versus eight ‘heavy’ tanks – an unfortunate but necessary sacrifice.

·        When the enemy has air support – hold on to his belt and kick him hard!

·        AR possibly should not have concentrated all his tanks on my Panzer IVs. If I had faced armour near the hill objective I would have had considerable difficulty cracking it open and wouldn’t have been so bold with the Schutzen.

·       For my part, I should have deployed the Panzer IV Platoon somewhere more survivable and not have held such high hopes for first round kills. If they had survived the first turn they might have been a thorn in AR’s side, holding up any tanks he deployed to that side of the board with sneaking manoeuvres.

For 6mm Flames of War generally:

·       Again we slightly tweaked the victory condition turn limits but the sheer size of the table put AR at a significant disadvantage. He was unable to redeploy his tank force fast enough to save the hill objective before I started my turn four holding the position. Although a big playing area is good, it might be necessary to shrink the table a bit to ensure such fights as these don’t devolve into two separate combats at opposite table ends. Perhaps a 100x90cm (equivalent of 8.3 by 7.5’) table would be more suitable for 1,500 point games. 122x90 might be best for some 2500 point Tobruk, El Alamein and Kursk games I have planned (!)

·       Air support and artillery was significantly less effective in this game than the last one thought I suspect this was principally the result of chance. However, I was very careful about positioning my vital units. Area effect weapons still discourage bunching up, doubling and carelessly driving about under the wide open skies.

·       I had hoped, but did not, get into any assaults again. Ranged weapons are playing the pivotal role as you might expect on such a large area. Although I expected to have to assault the dug in Motor Platoon my tanks’ shooting was very lucky. One more turn would also have seen an assault between some isolated Bren carriers and my Schutzen. We may have to wait for me to complete some infantry-heavy formations before we see how assaults play out in 6mm scale.