WWII Batrep - The Putot Counter Attack 1944 - The Canadians in Normandy

 

Five Rejects got together at Reject Dan's house over the weekend, (we can't meet up in Posties Shed at the moment, coz its full of all my wargaming crap!) Reject Richard posted his version of events here, yesterday around 2 hours after the game, think he's trying to outblog Lee, even though Lee wasn't even there!!!

Dan had been giving Rapid Fire Reloaded a try, as he used to play these back in the day with his late Dad, Malcolm.

He was using a scenario from this fab book above.

And here's the map and scenario......

myself and Postie played the part of the Canadians, while Richard and Steve were the Germans. We had to set up in the red area, the Germans in the blue, all we had to do was take the town!!

From the OOB, it looks like it should be easy, doesn't it?

Well for a start we didn't know what the Germans had or where they set up, so we had to go searching for them.

The battlefield

And with our deployment.......this was my first ever game of Rapid Fire and Posties second, now I must admit I've not played much WWII, so am a tad out of touch with all the terms, weapons and style of play. But that's not gonna stop us!

As we didn't know where they were, my 3 Sherman's began to trundle forward to the centre of the table. Followed by A & B companies infantry.

Our HQ, sitting looking very pretty.

Postie set up on the road on our right.

We planned to move our front Carrier as far and as quickly forward as we could, to see if we could uncover the enemy.

In the first turn we threw down some smoke, to obscure our movement, on the road above the first tank is a blank base. The German's had placed I think 8 of theses bases down, if we got within 12 inches they would be uncovered as either troops or a blank???

Forward!!!

Posties C Company Carrier surged forward and dismounted the vehicle, they're in 12 inches of the base on the road beyond???

Posties other troops moved forward, while the mortar team got ready to shoot, if we could find anything to shoot at, that is?

My infantry crossing the field.

The card wasn't a blank? It turned out to be 2 PAK 40's and a 150mm Infantry Gun!

Oh dear, Ricard's newly uncovered artillery tales a shine to one of my Sherman's!

On our left I'm moving our artillery observer into the house, to see if we an bomb something and our HQ head the same way, we need to get their mortar firing.

We're still none the wiser as to where the German's are hiding, but surly they must be in the town?

We both advance....

We don't seem to be having a lot of luck shooting?

Aha! He's a bit obscured, but Postie moves up our carrier, centre right behind the tree, to try and spot the enemy.

And gets blown up for his trouble, but at least we now know where they are. Like we thought, there's a horde hiding in the building in front of the burning carrier.

A view from the German right. Steve's Infantry and ATT gun are waiting in the orchard.

In for what for us, was a lucky shot Postie destroyed one of the German guns, so the other 2 limbered up and looked for a btter place to fire from.

I waited a turn for my infantry to catch up.

I need to keep 6 inches away from the building on the tanks right, to keep out of Panzerschreck range. 

A view of the whole table

Where do I head for?

Fire!!!!

Ricard moves his artillery into the orchard.

While his other gun is still on fire.

Hmm? I'm not liking the position of that gun. But try as we could neither me or Postie could do any damage to it.

Time to take a chance and move forward.

Postie moves his infantry up to try and shoot at the gun, but misses.

I fired as well, I couldn't hit a barn door if it was a inch from my face!!

But the German's can do no wrong.....my second Sherman goes up in flames.

oh crap, the third Sherman is destroyed the same turn. 

What we gonna do now?

The attack stalls....

I said to Dan, if my tanks was blown up and on fire in the cornfield, would the cornfield go up in flames as well.

Yes, was the answer.

It was quite clear that we were not gonna make our objective, so we beat a retreat, to live and fight again another day.

Conclusion

What an absolute disaster!!!

The Canadians lost - 8 infantry, 1 Piat team, 1 Carrier but the bitter pill, 3 Shermans!

The Germans lost - 1 PAK 40, so it was a bit of a drubbing.......

I didn't hit a thing for the whole game, my dice throwing was the worst its ever been, Posties wasn't that much better, but at least he destroyed a PAK 40 . We had plenty of opportunities to shoot but failed nearly every time, it was very frustrating I can tell you!!!. 

But what can I say about the game and the rules......well I must admit I really enjoyed both, the rules, were fairly easy to pick up, I will need a few games under my belt to understand them better and to work out how tactics work in the rules. The scenario was pretty cool too, but unachievable, because of our crap dice. If we'd have thrown average dice, it would have been a completely different game. Its crazy that the Rejects have never really got into WWII, we dabbled in micro scale 30 years ago, Lee has his 6mm Desert War and What a Tanker, but I'm looking forward to giving Rapid Fire another go soon. 

So well done Dan on a great days gaming, Please burn those god awful yellow dice though!