BKC Solo Game of Juno Beach

[Techno II]

Seconded !!

Cheers - Phil.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Very impressive.

[holdfast]

Moves seven and eight.
To recap, the Canadians have A Battn in the west opposite open country and eventually a hill; B CBattn in the Centre opposite the beach town, with open country behind; C Battn is in the east facing open country and eventually a wood.  All have landed in three waves, the first two waves are all engaged and the third wave is making its way up the beach to join them. The Germans have a two company group in the town, one company in the open to the east and a pair of PAK 88, a pair of SP Artillery and a pair of 222. German reinforcements are starting to arrive.

In the west: The third wave fails its command roll and has a picnic on the beach. The group fighting the single bunker suppresses the MG in the bunker and fails its command roll. (This group has not had much luck with command rolls). The main group, which has got off the beach via a ramp and is storming inland, bypassing the built up area on its left. There are 5 tanks in this group, the lead one being in an unmarked minefield. the three tanks with a clear line of sight fire at the two PAK 88. Both are hit but not suppressed. The PAKs use opportunity fire which brews up the tank in the minefield. The surviving tanks fire again at the PAK and again fail to suppress them, then fail their command roll. When it is the Germans' turn they again fire at the tanks and brew up the Sherman Flail (7 hits, 3 saved but 4 are not).The Canadians use opportunity fire and miss the PAKs. The PAKs get two more shots in which suppresses the Churchill Crocodile but fails to destroy it (Crocodile saves on 3+).

In Move Eight the third wave manages to advance and again the group fighting the bunker suppresses it and runs out of steam. The group in the west smokes off one PAK but the other PAK uses opportunity fire to destroy another Sherman. When it's the German turn they have one PAK with the smoke clearing and one suppressed. The unsuppressed PAK brews up another Sherman. This leaves just the Churchill Crocodile. it's been a hard slog for the Canadians, but concentrating the PAK in this sector has left the other flank open! I will cover the other two sectors in the next post.

[Big Insect]

Those 88's are causing a real issue - time to call in some artillery or mortars maybe 

Great report thanks

[holdfast]

Continuing my solo journey, golly it will be nice to roll dice against an opponent once Boris lets us.

In the centre the Canadian B Battn is in a firefight from behind the sea wall, which has only just been breached, and not in the ideal place. They lose a squad to Opportunity fire and it's essentially a stalemate. However, east of the town a group of four tanks gets off the beach via a ramp. They first suppress the PAK 75 bunker at the Southeast corner of the village and then knock it out. As they start to deploy south of the village they are ambushes by the pair if 222 which tickles them but does no serious damage. In the German phase the 222 pull back, which in retrospect is a sensible thing to do. Likewise the German infantry in the village pull back to the back edge of the town.
The next turn sees the Canadians assaulting the vacated positions which again develops into a stand-off. The group of tanks east of the town are hit by German artillery, directed by the FOO on the hill. The fire is on target (I use a dice with 2 HIT sides and 4 drift direction arrows. The fire HITs and 3 of the 5 tanks are supressed, which slows down the pace of the advance.

In the east C Battn have made a breach in the sea wall and the lead company, supported by two shermans, takes on the German company. The German FOO retreats in a huff and manages to call down artillery fire onto the infantry which is securing the objective. The infantry are suppressed and one Sherman is destroyed. (Not sure if that was really allowed, perhaps it was only suppressed but the decision at the time was destroyed and there are plenty more where they came from). Beyond that the German fails his command roll, which is about time as they had been doing far too well.
In Turn Eight C Battn pushes the infantry that hasn't been suppressed forward and the remaining Germans break clean back to the wood. They are reduced to one HQ, one FOO and two 222 in this sector. The 222 both have a go at the leading tank and are spectacularly unsuccessful.

Reinforcements -wise, the Germans have a platoon with a MG in the area, plus the armoured might of a pair of 222. The war is coming to them, so nothing can possibly go wrong.
To be continued, probably it will take ac ouple of days as I absorb the rules advice on winkling out the occupants of bunkers.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Wow, looks amazing

[paulr]

 

[Steve J]

Beautiful looking game and nice AAR too .

[Techno II]

Cracking !

Cheers - Phil.

[sean66]

looking good :-
maybe its time i resurected my Sword Beach game.
Regards
Sean

[holdfast]

Reply 47 describes the overall situation. This narrative takes the battle on for three moves, moves 9, 10 and 11.

In the west A Battn makes heavy weather pushing forward with caution. (Justified because this group has lost most of its Shermans to the PAK line). However the PAK are having trouble dealing with the Churchill Crocodiles which are considerably tougher than the Sherman (Save on 3+ as opposed to 5+ for the Shermans). In two rounds of fire the PAK get 11 hits on the Croc but 8 are saved and the tank is only suppressed (probably some interesting discussion inside the Croc, whose crew has seen most of the accompanying Shermans brew up around them). In the response the Croc knocks out one PAK 88, while smoking off the other.

Further west at the edge of the board an infantry company with tanks are struggling with the last remaining bunker. They only manage to isolate it. The third wave is still moving very deliberately up the beach (not helped by a command blunder).

The Sdkfz 222, of which there are four available, may have been very useful for swanning around terrorising the French and enforcing the curfew (maybe useful for Boris' lockdown) but they are quite useless against real tanks; their only use is firing into the flank at short range.

Meanwhile German reinforcements arrive in a trickle; a weak infantry company plods in and sets up astride the road. Eventually a lone STUG arrives at the end of Move 11.
The two photos show the Crocodiles and the German reinforcements with the STUG.

By the end of this period the Crocodiles have been reinforced by a pair of Shermans so they look set to push forward.

Reviewing the three moves, in this sector the Canadians have managed 12 actions and the Germans 9.

[holdfast]

Continuing the saga, this time in the open ground to the east, where C Battn is facing very light resistance.

The Germans have pulled back to the wood at the south east corner of the board and have been reduced to a comaby HQ, one FAO and a lone Sdkfz 222. But the Canadians couldn't know that the opposition is so weak. (But how to portray that against a real opponent?)
That said, the lead Canadian infantry company is unsupported and moves forward by bounds with some elements able to give covering fire if needed.

The second company has linked up with some tanks and has joined the fight to clear the village, in this case attacking into the village from the east flank. The first Close Assault bounces but a subsequent Close Assault takes its objective on the edge of the village.

The last company, with some tanks, are moving off the beach when the AVRE advances into an unmarked minefield.
As in the previous post, the Sdkfz 222 have a pot and again fail to make any impact.

The only German success in this area is when the FAO manages to call down artillery fire. The dilemma  was whether to target the infantry advancing on the wood, or the tanks on the road south of the village well on their way to breaking out. The decision was to go for the tanks, hoping at least to suppress them to buy time for reinforcements to arrive.
The fire managed to land astride four Shermans. Luck favoured the tanks this time. When the smoke cleared only one had been suppresses and the others were relatively unscathed. (Although it could be argued that the minor damage may have damaged antennae and hence the ability to communicate).
The

The disparity between the number of moves achieved by each side was greatest here. 17 Canadian actions and only 4 German actions. Even if the Germans had had more action sit would only have allowed them more shots from the 222 though.

[holdfast]

Oops forgot the accompanying photos.
The one shows the artillery fire hitting the tanks, using a home made template. As recorded, this fire is only marginally effective. It might have been better directed at the infantry company in the next photo, who would have been seriously disrupted by it.
The other shows the lead infantry company formed up short of the almost undefended wood, probably trying to get some artillery fire onto the wood before they venture in. With no FAO they will have a slim chance of getting help.

[holdfast]

And finally for the time being, the action in the centre where B Battn is working into the village.

The town garrison has held its own until now, assisted by its ability to shift between strongpoints through passages. But the balance is shifting. The Germans try to suppress 6 units by spreading their fire out but only suppress one group. The return opportunity fire suppresses three squads and takes out one machine gun. With 2/3 of the defence suppressed the Canadians are able to make progress (assisted by the Garrison failing one of its command rolls).
Two separate Close Assaults are put in and succeed.

At this stage the situation in the village was such a mess that I despaired. In the end I rolled a  D6 for each of the five surviving German units. On 1 or 2 the unit would surrender, on 3, 4 or 5 the unit would fall back to the allotments south of the village, on 6 the unit would move back into the village via the passages. The results were that the HQ, two platoons and a mortar pulled back, one machine gun moved back into the front edge of the village to make a nuisance of itself. No-one surrendered. Perhaps the surrender dice should have been 1/2/3?

The two photos show the remnants of the German garrison regrouping in the allotments south of the town and a shot from the west of the town, showing the Canadians on the right consolidating after their tow successful close assaults. The cheeky German machine gunners who have moved back towards the beach are in the building obscured the the church on the left.

The Canadians managed 14 moves in this period, the Germans only 4.

That gets me to the end of move 11. It remains to be seen whether the German defence will last beyond the next couple of moves.


While the action inside the village was clearly visible to the Shermans on the road, I decided that they would have been concentrating on looking forward not backwards and would have kept away. Had there been a real opponent that would doubtless have triggered some debate, and an umpire would have been useful at that stage.

[Steve J]

Thanks for the update and am really enjoying reading how this campaign is unfolding