wargaming in 28 mm and sometimes smaller: Gembloux Gap-The Culverts at Noirmont (2)

This past Tuesday we had our 2nd game in our Gembloux Gap campaign. This game had a quite a bit more action than our first. What was fun, was that the game was based on the "Going with a Bang" scenario from the Blitzkrieg source book, one of my favourites. Essentially the French have to blow 2 culverts one in the west and one in the south before they retreat from the table. If they do the campaign advances 2 turns, thus making a significant German victory less likely.

Here are some photos of the terrain I set up before the game.

We were again joined by my Finnish friends despite the game starting again at 0200h Helsinki Time.

Dice were rolled and the game started:

Germans (FM 10) (3 Shützen Regiment)

Schützen Platoon

Supports (12)

IG 18

Jean-Claude

Stuka

Red Dice

French (FM 11) (110e Régiment d'Infanterie)

Infanterie Platoon w/demolition team

Supports (6)

Sniper

Pregame Barrage

Demolition Team

The Action

We played the Stuka phase and 2 buildings were taken out but neither was on the forward line of defence, I was really hoping to take out the garage or the white house to the north. There were 2 UXB's, but again not in a place to threaten anyone in the short term.

P-Y started the game as he had the higher FM. He was keen to lay down his defence early in the game. An infantry squad suffered 3 shock coming in and then it was my turn, I threw three 6's, so much for the Stuka attack! P-Y's focus was certainly to take out the southern culvert as quickly as possible, so he placed another squad in the south with his V-B team. He also placed a sniper in the garage to harass my deployment.

I had decided to focus half my forces in the south along the hedge east of the garage and half in the north in the forest. I felt that I really had to advance 2 squads as quickly as possible along the northern edge of the table to counter the 2nd French demo team when they deployed to take out the western culvert. A SL was going to go down both in the south and the north.

In the south, I placed a IG18, an infantry squad with Jean-Claude. I also placed my 50 mm mortar team with LOS to both the north and the south. P-Y almost took out the southern culvert, but I was lucky with double phases and was able to overpower him there and his Demo Team broke. I was taking some fire so I took my infantry squad and IG18 out of LOS, they had done their job.

I was curious at this point what P-Y would do, would he place his 2nd Demo Team in the south to have a 2nd go? I needed to distract him, so the 2nd infantry squad went down in the forest, they both advanced towards the infantry squad protecting the JOP just southwest of the White House. I also moved the IG18 to a point where it had LOS to the north. Another double phase, not much a single squad can do against 2 German squads firing at close range. They were chopped up and at this point P-Y withdrew. Another German victory. We missed that if the French take out one culvert, the Germans do not get vehicles for the next game. I felt it would have been quite easy for him to take out the westerly culvert though as I was still quite far away, so we felt it only fair to say that this had happened.

Photos taken at the end of the game.