After the previous bash at FFT Daren was keen to have another go and I was more than happy to oblige even more so when he said about using his 15mm WW2 kit. So we sorted out a couple of rough orbats and met up at the club where we decided that we would try dropping the scale to a 1:1 vehicle and each infantry base was a section. We doubled all ranges, artillery templates and movement and everything seemed to work just fine although we did agree at the end that we maybe needed to tweak a couple of things.
I had a roughly battalion sized Kampfgruppe with the following units:
- 2 Infantry Coys each @
- 2 pltns @ 2 sections
- 1 HMG
- 1 PAK40
- 1 Pz platoon @ 2 Panthers
- 2 Pz platoons, 1 @ 2 & 1 @ 3 PzIVH
I was facing quite a strong attacking force of:
- 2 Para Infantry Coys each @
- 3 pltns @ 3 infantry and 1 bazooka sections
- 1 Weapons platoon (MG & lt mortar)
- 2 Infantry Coys each @ (1 carried in M3’s 1 in Trucks)
- 3 pltns @ 3 sections
- 1 Tank pltn @ 3 Shermans
- 1 TD pltn @ 3 M10’s
- 1 Recon Pltn @
- 4 jeeps with MG/HMG
- 1 M8 Greyhound
- 1 infantry section & M3
I decided to defend in a line corresponding to the lateral road, spreading the infantry out and hoping to roll up enough initiative to get the panzers on the table when I needed them, risky but it kept them away from danger and might be a nice surprise. I placed one platoon of infantry along the road to the left of the farm which was held by another platoon with a HMG and a PAK40 – which was positioned to cover the road from the farmyard. The centre of the line from the junction to the ruined house was held by another infantry platoon with the other HMG in the house. The right flank had the other PAK40 positioned where the ‘bendy’ road met the lateral road with the last infantry platoon covering the far right flank along the road.
The ball started with Daren pushing a recon platoon of jeeps down the road past the church looking to draw my fire and reveal my positions. On the right the Greyhound was sent down the road looking for trouble followed by the Shermans and the armoured infantry in M3’s the Paras advanced on the left supported by the Wolverines, however this attack would take time to develop due to the Paras being on foot.
When the Jeeps got too close for comfort I had to open up on them with the infantry posted by the junction, as they would have been spotted anyway, which resulted in one jeep getting brewed up and the complete destruction of the infantry platoon when the return fire took out the section that fired and caused the other section to fail its quality check and promptly leg it! I now had a quite large whole in the centre of my line so elected to take out the remaining jeeps with my PAK40 in the farmyard – extreme yes but they would have been right up close in the next move anyway. Daren duly started concentrating artillery on the farm to neutralise the gun, keeping it supressed for most of the game.
Over on the right the PAK40 managed to take out the Greyhound but also gave away its position and I managed to get my PzIV platoon on the table and they stared duelling with the Sherman’s, who had deployed off the road followed by the infantry as soon as the M8 got hit, coming off worse by losing one KO’d and one who realised that they needed to find a repair shop very quickly! Luckily the remaining crew were proper hard cases and stuck to it for the rest of the game pinging away at the yanks without much success bar the odd suppression on the tanks. The PAK40 here also got in on the act, taking out a halftrack before getting zapped by the M4’s. The armoured infantry did manage to reach the road where they entered into a viscous fight with the defending landsers there who managed to see them off whilst brewing up a halftrack to boot.
Over on the left Daren had finally got the Paras up to the road despite the best efforts of the German artillery and put in a assault on the infantry holding that flank which in typical FFT style was very bloody, he managed to wipe out the German platoon but his attackers were fought to a standstill with only 1 section left in the attacking platoon who would have legged it if they weren’t Paras and thus veterans. His tank destroyers then took out the PAK40 in the farmyard and looked ready to roll up the line when my second PzIV platoon showed up behind the farm and a duel started between them which although inconclusive probably saved the day by stalling the M10’s.
In the centre the truck borne infantry had skirted the wood in front of the ruined house and I opened up on them with my, surprisingly left alone, MG42 which made them head for the cover of the woods where they stayed for the rest of the battle. I then brought on the 2 Panthers I had left and they got stuck into the Shermans on the right straight away reducing them to burning messes in short order.
Time was against us however and we had to stop, we reckoned I would have withdrawn under cover of the panzers but I had given the Americans a bit of a bloody nose. I think we will definitely have another go at FFT at 1:1, especially for WW2, the scale of the game and the figure scale just went together really well – slight tinker with the artillery maybe but apart from that it was all good.
Thanks again to Daren for the game, a true gent as usual and a pleasure to play against. Here’s some pictures of his lovely kit that we used for this game (he also did all the buildings) – all 15mm Battlefront/Flames of War I believe.
Tracks and Threads 