Early War AAR: Vichy French Foreign Legion vs. Deutsche Afrika Korps Schutzen Company in Hold the Line

AAR: Vichy French Foreign Legion vs. DAK Schutzen Company in Hold the Line

Seeking an escape from the damp drizzle of February in London, Alex and I decided to play a 1250 point early war desert battle. We have both been collecting our early war armies for a few months now, but this was the first time we have been able to throw down and try them out on the tabletop.

My Army and list explanation:

German Force Composition

As soon as Alex and I decided to play an early war game, I vowed to myself that I would only play with painted models. After a vigorous painting session the night before in which I finished 3 platoons (the stuka, panzerjagers and 2nd infantry platoon), I was left with the list above. One may notice that I'm below points and missing my light mortars, but I thought it was an ok sacrifice in order to put a complete army on the table. I would have liked to have a mortar platoon instead of the machine gun platoon and I think that 8-rads will serve me better than the Sdkfz 222s, but overall I was happy with the list. The light panzer platoon is brilliant with a huge number of machine gun shots while the infantry is rock hard. I hate spending so many points on priority air, but as the game shows, sometimes it is worth it.

German Battleplan

I knew that this list was not well suited for attacking. My complete lack of smoke and lack of heavier tanks meant that I would have a very uphill battle on the attack, especially against dug in vets.

Luckily, I "lost" the roll to attack and got to hunker down. My strategy was to hold the center and let my mechanized elements harass his infantry while avoiding his guns. Extremely beneficial objective placement helped me greatly with this strategy.

As the mission required me to leave half of my platoons in reserve, I kept the two infantry platoons on the table and the light panzers in ambush. In hindsight, I think I would have been better off to have kampfgrupped a couple of stands from an infantry platoon into a 7th platoon and combat attached my machine guns to the remaining platoon. I should then have kept the panzerspah and light panzers in ambush to give me a concentrated, mobile MG force.

Alex's army and list explanation:

 

French Force Composition

The makeup of this force was (sadly) largely dictated by what models I actually had available to me,  although I would have preferred to run the 75mm anti-tank guns as 75mm artillery. However, I felt that their points cost (380?!) was prohibitive given the small size of the game and the fact that I did not have the French heavy artillery that (in my opinion) makes the 75mm artillery worthwhile.

 

French Battleplan

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this list is overwhelmingly defensive in nature, and as such most of my general thinking has been based around digging in, ambushing, before maybe, just maybe initiating a small counter attack.

 

However, all these cosy assertions were quickly cast aside when it transpired that I was attacking along a narrow front, negating my advantages in numbers and emphasising my lack of mobility. Faced with a wall of German MG fire and the prospect of highly mobile ambushing armour I elected to follow official French doctrine and go for a mass infantry assault, supported by armour and covered by artillery (not that I had much option otherwise).

This translated into a two pronged attacked: one a feint using the majority of my assets (2 tirailleurs pltns and the R-35s) supposed the look big and scary, supported by the mortars blanketing the targets with a massive smoke bombardment before switching to live to pin the defenders down. With the defenders distracted a smaller contingent of the foreign legion sappers assaulted round from the south and worked up through the German position. Both groups were supported by AT guns in an effort to deter the ambushing armour. However, as they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Table and Terrain

This is the table from the prospective of the German's short table edge. Most of the action (and both objectives) ended up around the double-wide building in the center of the photograph.


Deployment

I deployed centrally. You can see the two Panzer III tanks functioning as objectives. I played the first objective in the wheat field. After listening to the WWPD podcast, I wanted to try out their objective placement advice. Alex placed the second objective nearby and utilizing the French special rule, moved the objective 4 inches towards the centreline (the well). I think I bunched up my infantry a little too much, and I could have had my second unit in those woods at the top of the picture and done well.

Alex deployed his monster of an army across the entire table. The main striking forces were the two infantry platoons and r-35s at the center, and the pioneers (who hit on a 2+ in assault!) with his 75mm artillery to the north. The machine gun platoon sat in the center and rained fire down upon any infantry of mine that dared peek their heads out of their foxholes.

Early Turn Highlights

We began the game taking notes for the AAR, but as the action grew and the battle became more tense we quickly stopped recording individual events. Accordingly, I'll provide highlights of the game that show the general flow of the battle.

Alex lays a monstrous smoke screen by using a resupply section to give himself 8 guns. This was repeated for each of the first three turns. I'm not sure that using the sections for smoke was the best idea, as the bigger templates and re-rolls to hit may have come in handy later. However, the huge smoke template did stop my infantry from inflicting many casualties during his advance. 

I popped my ambush 16.1 inches away from his exposed southern infantry platoon and proceeded to light them up. The light panzer platoon puts out 17 machine gun shots on the move and with stormtrooper I was able to reposition after the shooting. I was wary of his R-35's main gun, but felt with veteran and its meagre AT4 I could risk this unit.

The leftovers of Alex's platoon after the ambush. I stormtrooped badly and his AT guns were able to move up and take out a Panzer I. Oops.

My stuka was all over the place in the first few turns. He ranged in nearly every turn and pinned many units. While this particular attack whiffed completely, he ended up killing 4 of Alex's guns and several infantry stands while stalling his advance in the center.

Alex was so eager to use his Truscott Trot to advance quickly on me that he doubled his pioneers across the north of the board. However, in a classic example of French artillery and infantry cooperation, he decided on this turn to use his mortars to shell me instead of dropping smoke. I shrugged off the attack and pinning. My machine gun teams fired like heavy machine guns and after some pitiful rolling on Alex's part, his sapper platoon with 2ic was down to 4 stands. They weren't out of the game, and he was able to assault with them to bring my first platoon to its knees before they died.

Alex's indestructible R-35's assault my infantry. Alex came in boldly with his infantry tanks and killed several bases from my front platoon. With the attacks from the pioneers in the north, this platoon fell.


His R-35s then proceeded to shrug off my entire armies firepower for seven more turns. A barrage of 2cm autocannon shots bounced off of his front and side armor 3, and even my panzerjagers had several shots bounce off of his armor. For all of our jokes about R-35s being useless, they really were Alex's MVP unit.


Later Turn Highlights

My light panzer platoon tries to play fire brigade and gets shot up for their efforts. I continue to fail to inflict any damage on his R-35s and Alex's infantry start to breathe down my neck. At the same time, I start to lose the occasional team to a lucky 6 firepower roll here and there. Things look bad for the Germans.

The R-35s finally go down. After seven turns of futility, the panzerspah kill two R-35s while the panzerjagers eliminate the last tank in a barrage of shells.

Alex's infantry roll out of their holes, survive a nasty turn of shooting from my infantry and then assault to kill my 4th platoon and win the game through company morale. Slow and steady wins the race, and he was able to grind down my much smaller force. A tense game where a few rolls the other way could have changed everything.



Takeaways

1. Mortars and artillery is a MUST, especially against infantry hordes.

2. Armor 3 is extremely tough in early war. Those R-35s ended up being absolute beasts on the battlefield.

3. I need to remember my light mortars and to upgrade my platoons with AT rifles. The ability to assault and kill those tanks would have been too great a threat for Alex to dictate the center as much as he did.

4. The best time for a big smoke screen is when your infantry doubles in front of MG teams. Those poor pioneers.

5. Can't keep forgetting about Kampfgruppe.

6. Placing the first objective front and center makes sense. You stop the enemy from spreading you out.

7. Early war desert is amazing.

Rules to Remember

These are rules that in the days after the game we've realized we got all wrong:

1. French HQs cannot spot for French Arty.

2. Medium guns move 4 inches.

3. Teams must take a skill test to enter an unchecked building.

4. Basically everything about how warrior/independent teams operate.

5. You can only withdraw to your own foxholes after an assault, not take the enemy's foxholes.