Steve and I continued our campaign following the fortunes of Panzer-Lehr and CCA of the 2nd Armored Division on the 26th July 1944 last night. The defence around Saint-Gilles crumbled quite quickly and the Americans have pushed towards the crossroads town of Canisy, south of Saint-Gilles. For last night’s game we used the Battlegroup rules with the following forces:
I used the excellent Battlegroup Builder to make out the lists. They’re not symmetrical, with the Americans having more armour, but the German’s have more infantry and guns. Steve opted to control the Germans again and we used the Recce Screen mission.
Here’s the map and deployment.
We ended up with 6 turns in this Scout Battle phase. The Germans grabbed the central objective, but the Sdkfz 222 on the road broke down, the Kubelwagen was destroyed by the Greyhound’s MGs, which then went on to trade shots ineffectively with the 222. Here’s how that phase ended.
From there reinforcements started to arrive and the battle got going.
The road became the focus of the battle, with the Shermans taking shots towards the PAK40s and the Panzer IV.
The Greyhound also harried the advancing Germans, pinning several and even wiping out an MG team. German fire and a number of Out of Ammo draws for them put pressure on the American infantry in the closed off field.
We called a halt to play as it was beginning to get late, but the Americans were in a pretty strong position. The Panzer IV had been destroyed, at the cost of a Sherman, and the American armor was in a position to seriously threaten the PAK40s.
I’m sure we made some mistakes, but I’ll reread the rules and we’ll play some Battlegroup again next week. Battlegroup looks great on the tabletop, even on a virtual one. I look forward to adding more elements to our games like artillery, snipers, air support, etc.
Until next time,
Owen