WWII AAR

Played a World War II game in 28mm at the club today using house rules. My first WWII game and second time playing with the mid anglian wargamers club. 3 of us played Americans and 2 played Germans. I commanded two units of Marines in half-tracks.

Here is the beautiful table we played on. Americans entered on the bottom left corner, in the village, and our objective was to exit at the top right corner.

Our units would enter along the road.

This bend in the road by the church is where I would fight out most of the game.

Most of the terrain, including this beautiful river and the buildings, where custom built my club members.

The Germans started with 2 infantry units and a tank at the bend in the road with a line of fire down to our deployment zone. They would kick off the game with the first shot at our lead tank. Lucky for us the round glanced off the armor.

With the known threat of a superior enemy tank we moved one tank into a covered firing position behind a building and the other two around to flank. My two half-tracks full of men followed the tanks to provide infantry support.

In response one German unit started across the road towards the church. At the same time German reinforcements entered the table from the far corner.

The German unit moved behind the church and their tank moved to block our advance down the road.

 

 A half-track load of Army Rangers and one loaded with support weapons moved up and deployed into the nearest building to the church. At the same time the two tanks accompanied by my units continued to move up the German flank.

 

A well placed shot from our tank behind the house took out 5 of the 9 Germans in the unit covering the tank. At the same time we continued our advance along the right flank while the Rangers moved towards the church to intercept the German unit.

 

 

US reinforcements entered the table as our right flank push continued. The Germans made it into the church and a MG team rained inaccurate fire down on my half-tracks. Fearing the two tanks on the right the German tank moved behind the church to support the unit there.

 

 

The two tanks on the flank turned in towards the church to support the Rangers as I pushed forward along the table edge. Using my half-track's 50cal. i drove off the few Germans still holding the bend.

After tossing back and forth a few grenades with the Germans in the church their tank came around and nearly wiped out the Rangers to a man.

As the German column grew closer I deployed my Marines under the cover of smoke

 

I then moved my two units up along the hedge row with the half-track providing support.

 

Meanwhile our reinforcements started to move up the center to engaged the bulk of the German reinforcements that where doing the same

 

The Germans pulled back from the church to join their reinforcements using smoke. A German tank (just visible behind a tree on the road) and an infantry unit was pressing towards my marines and one of our tanks.

 Seeing this, I deployed more smoke and moved one unit to support our tanks to the left of the church. The other unit moved to support our tank moving to the right of the church while my half-tracks provided cover.

In the center we lost our strongest tank to a luck shot by the enemy.

The German tank, on our right, managed to flank us and destroy ours. One of my half-tracks survived two rocket attacks by the German unit coming through the smoke.

In the center a German tank had pushed pretty far but was later taken out by a brave soldier who climbed on top and chucked a grenade down the hatch.

 A German mechanized infantry unit had moved along the rivers far bank in an attempt to put pressure on our left flank.

 Another German tank and unit had moved to engaged our units by the church.

The game ended soon after and I forgot to take anymore photos. My Marines managed to avoid the German tank and wipe out a German unit. The tank did run off one of my half-tracks but the other sped down the road towards the bridge and put down some hurt on a HMG team and some infantry that where their. We ran out of time and the game was fairly balanced at that point and could have easily swung either way. I'd say it was a draw but all in all it was a load of fun.

At the table next to us was a 100 Years War game in 15mm using Hail Cesar rules that looked quite good.

Hope you liked this AAR (after action report for those who dont know) as its the first one I have done. Will try to get more and better photos in the future (maybe us a camera and not my phone).