Previously I wrote about my Early War French progress in my local clubs Escalation league. If you wish to catch up on that read here.
The OCTOBER WARGAMES ASSOCIATION (OWA) meets every Tuesday at its new location the Mosely All Services Club. This year I have been participating in its Bolt Action escalation league, the basic concept of this is that we each choose a platoon and equipment which is valued between 1939-1943 (just to enable the US to be included), then play 3 games with a 500 pts list, 3 games with a 750 pts list and 3 games with a 1000 pts list.
It will not surprise readers of this Blog that I have chosen to go with a 1940’s Battle of France re enforced platoon.
A summary of the story so far
- Round 1 – 500 pts – Infantry and infantry teams only,
- 1940 French vs British RP – Meeting Engagement – Draw
- 1940 French vs Afrika Korps – Demolition – loss
- 1940 French vs Germany: Operation Blue – Demolition – Draw
- Round 2 – 750 pts – including soft vehicles, artillery and Light tanks/Armoured cars
- 1940 French vs Soviet: Trans-Bakal Military District – Surrounded – Win
- 1940 French vs Hungarians – No Man’s Land – win
- 1940 French vs Desert Africa Korps – Meeting engagement – loss
Now on to Round 3
For the last round at a 1000 pts, I upgraded the FT17 to a Somua S35, gave my lieutenant a promotion to 1st Lieutenant and gave him a friend, provided extra men to my 3 units bringing them up to full strength, added a veteran infantry unit with tank killer capabilities and a VB launcher, Dropped the medium howitzer, added a boys A/t rifle, bought an inexperienced mortar team in, dropped one of the Motorcycles with LMG and added one VB launcher to one of the infantry sections.
First game played in round 3 was against Adam and his Desert Afrika Korps – this time the scenario was Top Secret. This was a close fought match, the DAK won on the last round. The French Inexperienced Mortar team got a lucky shot in on the 88mm and took it out. Both of the French motorbikes fell in the first 2 turns, the German Pioneers unit held up a French infantry squad and MMG for all the game, the somau was a very effective pillbox especially when I realised it could drive over/through linear obstacles.
I had 2 games left, one against a British reinforced platoon and the other vs a soviet reinforced platoon.
The game verse the British Reinforced platoon – turned out to be an absolute slaughter. My opponent brought a BEF themed list with 1 M3 Stuart, a 25 pdr, 3 full rifle platoons, a universal carrier with Pioneer platoon, a medium mortar, a medium machine gun, 3 recce kmg motorbikes, an AT rifle team and the free Artillery observer. We randomly generated the scenario and ended up with sectors.
The preparatory barage went my way inflicting at least 2 pins on each unit, killing 1/2 of the AT rifle team and causing it to flee the field due to a failed moral test. I got pins and my officer lost his mate but shrugged it off. During the first turn my opponent rallied all his teams, whilst I tried to strike out and occupy a church that was near the midpoint. Alas the unit I wished to go in the church failed its activation test and went down.
The rest of my forces moved slowly forwards.
Turn 2 saw the beginning of the 2nd wave arriving, with my opponents bikes catching my medium machine gun in the open and removing it. The M3 Stuart then brought fire on my AT gun along with his 25 pdr and caused it to rout. My medium mortar successfully landed a shot on his gun killing 1 of the crew. I managed to bring on my 2 motorbikes, and the AT rifle armed one even got a shot off at the M3 hitting but failing to cause damage. My Somau S35 failed to come on. I eventually managed to get my squad into the church. My opponent also called in his Artillery barrage.
On turn 3, the artillery barrage landed, added pins to my LMG armed motorbike and blew an entire rifle squad away, it also put pins on my Assualt team. The M3 moved to the middle of the table to escape my AT rifle, it also took the opportunity to bring its Machine guns on my transport catching it on fire and this killing it. My opponents 25 pdr managed to blow my medium mortar team off the table, my team in the church refused to activate. The rifle squad trying to advance in the middle also refused to activate, my AT rifle team took pot shots at my opponents 25 pdr, and my Tank managed to come on get within 6″ of the M3 fire, hit, cause a fire which it them ignored. My assault team had made it almost to the 1/2 way point of the table and took cover in a building with a view to assaulting the M3 with their at grenades the next turn.
Turn 4 saw the M3 fail its activation and reverse backwards down the road, my somau then took a shot and blew it up. The unit hiding in the church came under a flame attack from the pioneers and routed, luckily the flamer then ran out of juice. My Lmg bike rained more fire onto a rifle unit and the AT bike tried to blow up the british artillery tractor. Meanwhile my opponent moved is truck with rifle squad and officer forward into my starting sector. The assualt team rallied to prepare to assault a rifle section, and my rifles team in the field tried to rally.
Turn 5 began with the rifle squad that I hoped to assault moving forward and out of line of sight from my unit, they also fired at my LMG bike and took it out, he reversed his Tractor unit backwards away from my forces and tried to kill my AT rifle motorbike with his artillery observer team. Fire was continued to be pumped into my unit in the field, and they collapsed and fled. The AT bike survived and followed the Tractor getting a shot off, which missed but did mean that at the end of turn my unit was closest to it so it was removed from the table. At this point I had my AT rifle. my at rifle bike and 1 Assault squad, whilst my opponent had only lost 3 of his initial 17 dice. So I conceded and congratulated him on a good game.
After this game I had 1 game left , which was against Mark with his early war Russians.
The mission generated was Sectors, and my luck was strong with the Russians suffering from a preparatory bombardment and my french managing to get away scot free.
These photos are from turn 1/2
The Russians suffered for the early turns due to the pins and several units refused to activate, also during this phase my medium A/T managed to take out the KV1 whilst my forces moved into the sector ahead and to the side.
Beginning of turn 2 saw a french rifle squad assault a russian smg squad and remove then, the squad then managed to reposition in to the ruined building, which they occupied till the end of the game and assaulting and removing another russian squad.
The russians green troops lost a single figure to the French AT rifle and leveled to regular immediately making their Commissar redundant. On the far left another french rifle squad occupied a second ruined house but then came under fire from the Russian Mortar squad and failed to activate for the rest of the game.
The russian AT rifle got revenge for the loss of the KV1 by taking out the Somau S35 with a side shot, and coincidently blocking an exit from the french starting sector to the rest of the table, isolating the Medium AT gun in its field for the rest of the game. On the french right the other russian AT rifle took out the french soft vehicle and then entered an exchange of fire with the french AT rifle.
The game ended with a robust russian victory of 17 points to 14, with 5 russian units removed from table to 6 french units removed and the russians achieving superior tactical placement.
SO the escalation league is now completed for me, I ended up with 2 wins, 2 draws and 5 loses, the final table has not been released but I believe I will be mid table.
Overall a good bit of fun which I have taken some learnings from.
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