Battle Report - 28 Oct 2019 - Chain Of Command

View from the German's end.

Dougie from the TFL mob has been working in Peterborough for the last couple of weeks, so generously offered to run a historical game of Chain of Command scenario last night.

Essentially, I got the Germans (with assistance from Carl) defending a village with a platoon, a Flakpanzer and a Pak38 against Gary and Colin with a well-supported US platoon (3 Shermans, apart from anything else). I was slightly distracted by trying to talk my wife through fixing her mother's Mac and iPad (from a distance of 70 miles) so I sadly failed to take notes on the historical details of the scenario, but...

Interesting patrol phase - I got a very well advanced jump off point on the left hand table edge behind a hedge, and a rather withdrawn right flank, which ... didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Gary sent his Shermans down the road, and a scout party and a section across the field (top left) towards the hedge while plastering it in covering fire. With hindsight, given the insane rate at which I was amassing Chain of Command dice, I should have just pulled it back (the picture above shows it after I did so, just behind the further house in the middle). Instead I got clever with an extra phase: the plan was to pop up, nail the scout team and leg it across the road. The covering fire and overwatch rather put paid to that :D You can see what's left of the broken section cowering in back of the house bottom left.

That done, I used one of my CoC dice to move the jump off point, and the other to... well, check the photo on the right. Having moved the jump off point we could (at Carl's suggestion) just managed to use the other Chain of Command dice to pop a Panzerfaust across the road and get a side shot on a Sherman.

Boom.

Heh.

Sadly, that was the high spot of the evening. I popped up the Pak38 for a shot at the second Sherman, doing it one shock and engine damage. With further hindsight (and advice from Dougie) I should have then pulled it back, rather than left it to get shot at by the Sherman in the hopes of a second shot. While I did get one ('so what do I need to hit?' '10' *rolls" 'No problem!') I only did another point of shock and gunsight damage, which... well. Lets just say the Pak38 crew and junior leader joined the huddled and pinned masses behind the house. And got liberally plastered with a 30cal or two.

Force morale down to 2. Were this a campaign, I'd have called it a day, so since it was well gone 10pm, we did :D

Many thanks to Gary, Carl and Colin, and especially to Dougie for umpiring and providing forces. I am, it would appear, a bit rusty at CoC :D