Chain of Command - British Paras V German Heer - Flanked

 Last week at SWWG  was Nye's last week before he goes away for a while so we decided to give the British Paras he's been finishing off a run out on the field. To go with an Arnhem-ese feel we choose to play the Flank Attack Scenario with the Paras defending the edge of town from the Heer forces encroaching in on the front and left flanks.

The game started with the Germans taking the initiative and deploying a squad with Jr leader  into the Church graveyard 

As the initiative passed to the British a section of Paras's deployed into a building facing the church from where they unleashed a hail of Bren gun fire killing the German Junior Section leader and another man.

 

Forced to deploy the German Senior leaders in the next phase the Germans under fire from the Paras head for the cover of the church urged on by the Platoon Sergeant. 

On the other flank the Platoon Officer deploys in the garage with an infantry squad and gets the MG team into action to put some fire into the building where the Paras fire came from. The British light mortar replies with smoke right in front of the Garage to block off the Germans Line of Sight!

 Under cover of the Smoke the Paras also set up a Vickers MMG  behind the Tank traps ready to take on the Germans advancing from the centre.

As the Paras dig in the German Troops bring up a Stug III to start pounding them with HE. A Forward Observer for the German Company Mortars also deploys and starts the process of calling in a barrage. 

Again the Paras light mortar comes into play forcing both the Stug and the FO to keep adjusting position in order to see targets. Eventually this forces the FO into a position where the Paras sniper atop the Hotel is able to pin the observer Preventing a barrage coming until one of the officers could get back and slap some shock off them..

With the Paras now maintaining Overwatch on the church the German MG that makes it up the tower is quickly Pinned!

Smoke continues to dog the Stug

The German rifle section sent out to hunt the british mortar down run into the Paras fire support section guarding them.

At this point still on the first turn, so none of the smoke had dissipated, we had to call it a night. 

Neither side had made any real inroad towards fulfilling their mission. We hadn't played CoC for a long while which slowed us down a lot.

 
Lessons learned? The Para veterans in hardcover are hard to get hits on even using HE! The Germans struggled with control with their force split especially after losing a Junior leader in the first clash whereas the extra command die for the elite Paras really helped keep them fluid and able to quickly respond to any German action. 

All in a great scenario that we will revisit, possibly on an All Dayer event, so we can take it to a final conclusion.