Chancellorsville 1-3 May 1863

 Another trip to the American Civil War and the last in the current series of 250th Independence Anniversary US battles. This one is Chancellorsville, another huge multi day battle, which tbh I'm a bit anxious about running with players because there is a fair bit going on. However I have a scenario so we may as well give it a go, as usual with my heavily modified version of Neil Thomas's ACW rules.

Chancellorsville was fought over three days in May 1863 after 'Fighting Joe' Hooker took over the Union Army of the Potomac to try and wrest control of Fredericksberg on the Rappahanoc from Robert E Lees Army of Northern Virginia.  Repeated union assaults had previously failed, but Hooker settled on a wide flanking manouvre to unhinge the defence.

Battlefield from the south, the Potomac winds north-south and Fredericksberg is in the foreground, now largely destroyed after months of siege. Further up the road leading north from Fredericksberg is the Tabernacle Church and finally at the top of the map is Chancellorsville in 'The Wilderness'. The area marked with pine tress is dense forest, left untended after earlier forestry work and now heavily overgrown and very bad going. The woods indicated with deciduous trees further south are more open in the better tended farmland and just block LOS.

This is based on the old Volley and Bayonet scenario and victory is determined by the control of critical communication points in the north, not Fredericksberg itself. The objectives are the two roads leading off the west edge of the map, Chancellorsville, Tabernacle Church, and the ford in the northeast corner. The game last for three days with two overnight turns.

Here it is with the troops deployed. Most of the CSA army is around Fredricksberg, but Hooker has sent half his Army north to try and catch Lee in an encirclement. The Rappahanoc provides protection for that road on the right right which allows for rapid north-south Union movement.

For this game the CSA were played by John B (Lee and JEB Stuart), Tim (Jackson) and Simon (Longstreet). The Union were John A (Hooker and Slocum), Mark (Reynolds and Couch), Jim (Sedgewick), Russell (Meade) and Jerry (Sickles and Howard). The CSA units were generally divisions, while the Union units were generally Corps although the bigger Corps had two divisions. I will italicise the Confederate division titles to try and reduce some of the confusion as to which  units are on which sides. 

Hooker had immense problems commanding his dispersed army, so all units more than three hexes from him are treated as having 'poor staff', so harder to activate. The Union outnumber the CSA about 2:1, hence my trepidation about playing this with the very attrition focussed Neil Thomas rules.

Around Fredricksberg the Union have three Corps, Reynolds I, Sedgewick VI and Couch II, largely dug into siege works.One of Sedgewicks divisions (Brooks) has a bridgehead over the Potomac. Most of these units are Seasoned, but Howes division (2/VI Corps) is green.

Both of Lee's Corps are here, McClaws from Longstreets I Corps is on the hill, while Jackons II Corps is concentrated west of the Union bridgehead. Lee himself is up on the hill (Marys Hill I believe) with McClaws division and Jackson is with AP Hills large five base division. All the CSA units are veterans to even the odds a bit. 

Further north, Hooker has concentrated Meades V Corps and Slocums XXI Corps around Chancellorsville. Sykes division (2/V Corps) is veteran but the other two are green.

The other division of Longstreets Corps, Anderson, is dug in at the Tabernacle Church, and JEB Stuarts cavalry division is over in the top left. Stuart had shadowed Hookers flanking move, so it wasn't the surprise Hooker was hoping.  These units are both veteran.

Finally straggling up from the siege of Fredricksberg are Sickles III Corps and Howards XI Corps, just crossing the river. Both these units are green but if they arrive in a timely fashion at Chancellorsville, they will give Hooker a crushing local numerical advantage. What can Lee do about that? Well, we shall see.

OK, enough background, off to battle.

May 1st opened much as you would expect when the artillery around Fredricksberg sprang into life. Both both sides were largely in serious entrenchments so the smoke was impressive but casualties were light.

In the north however Brooks and Couch advanced on Anderson at the Tabernacle Church, while Sykes moved southeast and engaged Stuarts cavalry in the woods. Typically both Sickles and Howard failed their command rolls and were stuck around US Ford in the northeast. Having sent his forward divisions into battle, Hooker rode off the see what the holdup was at US Ford.

Jackson led Hill and Rhodes north and the shook out into line southwest of Anderson. So far all so historical.

There was heavy fighting in the north, Sykes managed to push back Stuarts cavalry with loss, who retired to the Spotsylvania Road exit to reorganise. Anderson and Hill inflicted enough losses on Slocum to force his Corps back into the Wilderness once more, while Rhodes advanced to the road between Stuart and Anderson. 

Back at Fredricksberg the guns continued to roar, enough to inflict some actual losses by now, but units in siegeworks can rally adjacent to the enemy, so damaged units paused to reorder their stragglers. The two CSA divisions here were comfortably holding off the Union troops.

Hooker had however lost confidence in the original plan and instead led Sickles and Howard back down the Potomac, where they are dimly visible in the northeast corner.

Suddenly there were an awful lot of Union troops around Fredricksberg as night fell on 1st May. Reynolds I Corps had left its siegeworks and moved opposite the crossing to Fredricksberg. Overnight units rallied and there was some shuffling around. The units in the open dug hasty fieldworks.

In the north, JEB Stuart reoccupied the ground he'd held earlier and Griffin moved back to the front as well having rallied. The other units dig rifle pits along the line. The CSA had numerical and qualitative superiority here, so what would the next day bring?

Dawn on the 2nd May saw the Union attempt to overrun Tabernacle Church! The charge failed in a hail of musketry and Griffin fell back once more, leaving dead and wounded behind him.

The guns roared out at Fredricksberg with losses on both sides, but McClaws (on the hill with Lee) lost a base but didn't feel able to make a rally attempt as Sickles crossed the Potomac via Banks Ford right next to him.

Lee indicated to Jackson that help was needed further south so Hill broke off and headed back down the road. There was now a parity of forces in the north. Hmm, well that is an interesting development. The CSA have pretty much got the objectives locked down here, but have just given up any real hope of taking Chancellorsville. Perhaps more worrying, is that overall losses (in bases) are now equal, whereas earlier in the battle, the CSA had a clear lead.

We broke for the evening at that point as the game moved into the afternoon of 2nd May.

The ring around Fredricksberg tightened, Sickles declined to charge(!) Mary Hill but Reynolds moved across the river into Fredericksberg while everyone else covered them with fire.

In the north Sykes drove Stuarts cavalry back again, but Griffin fell back with heavy losses into the wiilderness to join Slocum. Both these units were finding it hard to rally.

As night fell on the 2nd, Sickles charged up Mary Hill covered by the rest of the Union army, but was bloodily repulsed, many routers drowning in the river as they fled. AP Hills division had meanwhile moved into position northeast of Mary Hill to shore up McClaws position on the hilltop.

Stuarts cavalry infiltrated back into the woods as Sykes didn't show any great inclination to follow them, but Griffin and Slocum dithered in the forest although Griffin finally rallied a base back. The Confederates were probably a bit over committed here, but with three objectives in close proximity there was little choice.

As night fell the Confederates dug in (both Anderson and Rhodes had now improved their positions to fieldworks). Sykes also extended his entrenchments, but under cover of darkness Griffin moved back up the threaten the Tabernacle Chapel while Slocum marched west to join Sykes, hoping to overwhelm Stuarts cavalry the next day.

Around Fredericksberg there was mainly the sound of pickaxes and shovels overnight as most people dug in where appropriate. Howards Corps moved down to the Fredericksberg crossing ready to follow up after Reynolds however. Couch and Sickles exchanged places at the ford east of Fredericksberg as Couch's Corps was still fresh. The Confederates sneakily moved the Corps artillery from the Tabernacle Chapel and placed it on top of Mary Hill instead.

Dawn of the 3rd opened with Couch charging McClaws on top of Mary Hill. They were cut down in droves as Lee himself encouraged the defenders, and like Sickles, they found their retreat route blocked by the river so losses were catastrophic.

Reynolds Corps slipped northwest of of Fredericksberg, impeded by ZOC while Howards marched into the town. Suddenly that big gap between the two CSA trench systems was looking to be a problem (of course the Union could have done this manouvre days ago with the units already over the river, but it didn't seem to occur to them).

The CSA responded with fire. Hill routed and destroyed Couch, blocked in by the river. Combined fire from McClaws and Early inflicted 50% losses on Reynolds, and in the north Griffin was flung back once again with losses while JEB Stuart hung on grimly against two Union divisions. Slocum attempted a frontal charge but failed his morale test. If units want to charge in the ACW, they need to find an open flank, and Stuarts flank has been wide open all game. Union losses have skyrocketed in the last couple of turns while the rate of CSA loss has remained steady, mainly among the poor unfortunates on top of Marys Hill under attack by six Corps(!).

Reynolds sets off west towards the objective on row F, but Rhodes simply abandons his fieldworks and moves south the block the move. Having destroyed the threat at the ford, AP Hill starts to move back around Mary Hill. Reynolds needs to try and break through the CSA fire to move further west but has already taken heavy losses. The rest of the Union troops batter McClaws who is reduced to 50% strength, despite his siege trenches.

The tide turns on the afternoon of the 3rd. Reynolds takes enough losses to be forced to retreat, reduced to one active base., and hard up against Hills division, it is hard to see him surviving another turn. McClaws inflicts enough losses on Howard to force him back out of Fredericksberg and the Union position around the town is starting to look a bit dicey.

Catastrophe in the north, Stuart weathers heavy fire from Sykes and in turn puts enough hits on Slocum to force a retreat, but with their back the table edge there is nowhere to retreat to, so losing another base is enough to destroy them completely. With the losses this turn the Union army is well past its exhaustion point and is now coming close to its rout point.

With the army exhausted it is unable to take offensive action any more and Hookers attack grinds to a halt late on 3rd May. Lee still holds all his starting objectives and has managed to shatter the Union army as well, so a great Confederate victory! The CSA are well off their break point, despite heavy losses on Mary Hill and being outnumbered almost 2:1.

Gosh, that was a slogging match and quite hard to run, with more moving parts than I was happy with for two short evening sessions. We did reach a conclusion however with ten minutes to spare no less. A very interesting result as Hooker basically gave up on the Chancellorsville encirclement on turn 2 and decided to refight the battle of Ferdericksberg instead, but with the units in the north pinning the CSA (which they did very successfully until 3rd May). 

Sadly Fredericksberg is a horrible position to attack and not worth any VPs at all. Lee could use his interior lines to reinforce threatened positions and the Union suffered disastrous losses trying to attack the fortified heights across the river, just as they had in 1862. It was a brave effort and pressed home with vigour however, and the Confederates had some agonising command decisions to make about how many troops to commit to each sector.

Many thanks to the players for taking part in such good spirit. Following the requests to run Gettysberg, I am working on a scenario which may appear in due course....

Blogger, Edge of Empire and Button Up!

Many thanks to Palouse Wargaming Journal for coming up with a potential workaround for the blogger dead feed issues (for those of you who use the built in blogger reading list gadget). The details are here: https://palousewargamingjournal.blogspot.com/2026/09/bring-in-cache-buster.html  

Essentially it involves setting up a proxy server on googles Feedburner service: https://feedburner.google.com/  for your blog, then refreshing the Feedburner feed manually which seems to kick the duff google reading list gadget into life too. I've already got a few other peoples blogs appearing in my feed now, which of course it what makes it all worhtwhile.

For good measure I also updated every blog I'm following to use https (a rather tedious manual editing job), as a lot of them were originally just http and in some cases the workaround doesn't seem to like that. Anyway, here is a bit of a test post to try some of this stuff out.

I recently read 'At the Edge of Empire' by Edward Wong, a fascinating account of his families relationship with China in the twentieth century, but also a very interesting account of the development of modern China and its history.

Edwards father was an enthusiastic communist and served as an officer in the PLA, but fell foul of one of Mao's ideological purges and was exiled to Xinjiang, politically suspect due to his family roots in Hong Kong. After being rejected from the Airforce he was assigned to a Chinese cavalry division, who knew such things existed.

I was struck by the parallels with Ai Weiwei's family while reading the timeline at his recent 'Button Up!' exhibition in Manchester.

His father was also an enthusiastic communist and even sat on the committee which designed the new PLA flag in the 1940s, but he too was exiled to Xinjiang. I've been to quite a few Ai Weiwei exhibitions, but this was the most overtly political, covering Chinas relationship with imperialism, censorship, repression and the refugee crisis as well as some observations on the loss of craftsmanship.

It was fairly monumental!

These are representations of the flags of the eight Imperial powers which intervened in China in the nineteenth century. The Opium Wars etc. 

An interesting exhibit was this 'bomb wall', with representations of various types of munitions arranged in chronological order. iirc the blurb said they are all 1:1 size and they are all made out of Lego type plastic blocks. The big one on the left is a 10 ton Grand Slam. 

The Wave done in lego blocks but with refugee rafts substituted for the original fishing boats.

I loved this sculpture made out of rather grisly skeletons, particularly with the light behind it.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, but riding a zebra. Also made out of lego, the original image is also inverted, so I flipped it over.

I'm not quite sure what this structure was, temple or tea house? It was impressive nonetheless. The dragon flag is the original Chinese flag.

Closer view of the flags. The patterns are made of buttons, purchased from a very old British button making firm which went bust a few years ago, and of course sewn onto cotton - one of Manchesters primary industries back in the day.

The designs are very intricate, and took 33 craftsmen 281 days to sew together (so around 30 person years of effort).

Tea houses made out of actual tea leaves and resting on a bed of tea.

A huge vase in traditional style, but if you look carefully it is illustrated with soldiers, insurgents, fleeing refugees and there is even a T72 (or similar) on the very top one. 

I'm the Year of the Ox, so this is my birth animal. The originals were actually made in France and located in the old Imperial Palace in Beijing.

More of the bomb wall. The big one is a Tsar Bomba, the highest yield nuclear weapon ever manufactured. Fat Man and Little Boy are above it an to left.

Apologies as this isn't my usual fare of painting or pushing toy soldiers around, but given the rise of China as a superpower and the decline of the USA I've been keen to find out more about modern China and how it got to be how it is. Partly why I sat through all 30 episodes of the Chinese adaptation of The Three Body Problem, which had some very entertaining depictions of the west among other things.

Amerika Bomber - He 277

 More missions in alt-history 1947 with 'Amerika Bomber'. Unaccountably I seem to have failed to report our previous adventures in the Fw 300 on the blog. Regular readers may recall our first foray ended in our plane being shot down in flames over the US and our entire crew captured. We put together another crew and flew five missions in the Fw 300, then for this run, the survivors were assigned the He 277 and all awarded the EK2 for surviving five missions. By now I was an Ace gunner and John A was an Ace pilot

Now, who doesn't remember the venerable Airfix kit of the He 177, a four engined bomber with only two propellors. What a typically strange Germanic design. I had one of these and made a diorama of it crashed in the UK with converted Airfix WW1 infantry standing in as MPs rounding up the crew which my Dad claimed were a pretty good match.

Well, the He 277 is an upgraded version of the 177. Still four engines but now it has the correct number of propellers. A large bombload but sadly only four turrets, unlike the six of the Fw 300. As usual, this is a typical bomber management game, fly missions and deal with various events on the  way in and way out, tracking systems damage on the various boxes.

Encounters with fighters are resolved on the attack chart, with various directions and altitudes (the two yellow ones are vertical - climb and dive respectively).

During May - June 1947 we flew four sorties from the Azores against mainland USA in the He 277.

Target 1: Union Carbide, South Charleston

Intercepted by a total of 8 x Fighters (4 shot down) and encountered heavy Flak over the target. Missed the target completely and the plane was shot to bits with only a couple of airframe hits left, but we made it back safely. The plane landed OK but was written off for parts.

Target 2: Westinghouse Electric, Pennsylvania

Astonishingly we evaded all enemy fighters on the way in and out again, with only light Flak over the target.  20% of bombs on target and back home safely and undamaged. A good mission.

Target 3: Heinz Foods (!), Pennsylvania

Intercepted by a total of 12 x fighters of which we shot down 4. Moderate Flak over the target but only10% on target. The plane was pretty shot up by fighters and Flak, Heinz in the ventral turret was killed.

The damaged plane made a rough landing and all the surviving crew were wounded. So we got wound badges to go with our EKs and the plane was patched up. Could have gone better!

Target 4: Merck, New Jersey

At least we didn't have to fly quite as far this time, but the plane suffered a complete electronics failure on approach to the target. Apparently losing electronics was helpful as a mighty 50% of bombs were on target but we were shot to pieces by Flak as we'd lost our AA jammer. We were bounced by two fighters when almost back at base and barely made it back with just one airframe hit left.

The plane crash landed and was written off, the entire crew suffered wounds of varying severity but no-one was killed.

We left it there as there wasn't quite time to do another mission. The next will be the crews tenth and if we survive that we will all get the EK1. At some point some more modern aircraft will become available. We are a long way off getting a Horten yet though. I did eventually find the aircraft file for the Fw 300 from the previous game:

What a magnificent beast it is. Essentially an upgraded Fw 200 Condor and boasting no less than six turrets, although it only has about half the bombload of the He 277.

I don't seem to have made any mission notes during the game, although I did find a tally of enemy fighters I  shot down, no less than seven, hence my 'Ace Gunner' status which gives a bonus in air gunnery.

Blogger feed problems

 Just a a note to all the blogs I follow that Blogger has stopped updating my blog feed entirely and I haven't had an new post for almost three days now. I can still navigate to blogs individually and see updates, but it is of course a bit tedious to go through every single blog in my follow list.

So many apologies, I probably wont be viewing and commenting on other peoples blogs quite so frequently until this is fixed. I do rather wonder if Google is planning to kill Blogger by neglect. That would be a shame as I started doing this in2008, and it would be nice to get to the 20th anniversary.

Tigers at Minsk - The Road to Beaumont, 15 May 1940

 Time for some more TaM, and yet another Fireball Forward scenario converted to TaM. Once again the map looks identical in style to a Skirmish Campaigns one, and I imagine the original scenario was based on that and scaled up. I dimly recall a Squad Leader/Crescendo of Doom scenario covering the same engagement, but possibly I'm misrembering and I cant be bothered to look in the SL box to find out.

Anyway, this engagement features a clash between 1st DCR and 7th Panzer Division in the vicinity of Beaumont. 1st DCR had lost almost all its heavy tanks (Char B) in the previous days fighting but the 2nd Demo-Brigade with H39s had far more operational vehicles. Rommels advance had cut the French off so on the 15th, 1st DCR attempted to break out of encirclement to the west, handicapped by fuel shortages.

Battlefield from the north (confusingly) - if I'd realised it would end up this way around I'd have reversed the setup, but never mind... there is a very obvious road running down the centre, a couple of hills and various open woods. There are also two boggy fields which don't block LOS but do force a mobilty test on vehicles trying to enter them.

Two of the fields have tree lines at one side which block LOS, there is also a hedge running north-south behind the top hill, and a pair of buildings (a farm and a barn complex).

The French enter from the left (east) and to win must gain 3 VP. They get 1 VP per AFV or squad exited off the right (west) side and 1 VP per building controlled. The original scenario lasts six turns, so in TaM terms that is 12 turns or 85 minutes. Given the distances involved, getting even one unit off the far side is going to be a struggle, assuming the Germans manage to maintain LOS and restrict the French to one hex move per turn.

Here is the French horde, two platoons of motorised infantry with six sections and a pair of lorries. The lorries are just for colour as no-one in their right mind is going to drive these onto the table. They also have a motorcycle section and no less than six(!) H39s. Now, I dont actually own six H39s, so they are actually two H39s, two R35s, a gun armed FT 17 and a 25mm armed armoured car. I'm using the Spearhead stats for armour and gun performance, and wierdly these are all identical, 3/2 armour and AT 3 guns. If any vehicles get knocked out I'll swap the models around to remove the anachronisms.

A pair of the H39s enter on turn two which becomes after 15 minutes in TaM terms. I'm going to give the French poor command (so only the leader hex plus one other), average morale and round down their breakpoint. So with 13 elements that is a BP of six.

The Germans have one Schutzen Platoon with three high firepower sections plus a lorry and a Horch to ride in. The KG HQ has an anti-tank rifle section riding in a kubelwagen and a tank 'platoon' with a pair of Pz 38. Very similar rating to the H39s in Spearhead terms. but I'm going to make the German veteran with good command.

Arriving reinforcements are a pair of Panzer IIs (only AT 2 with their 20mm cannon) arriving after 20 minutes, and a towed 75mm infantry gun (AT 3) arriving after ten minutes. All of these arrive from the northern edge.

These guys have a break point of five.

I set this up in the afternoon so I'd have time to think about it as it is a quite tactically complex scenario due to the force density and terrain configuration. Those tree lines and hills are a complete pain! In this iteration I'm trying to keep the forward area under observation to restrict the French movement, but it necessitates a very forward defence due to the terrain. A more cautious approach would be a defence in depth  but obviously that gives the French freedom of movement in the early game. Choices, choices...

So in this sector I've occupied both the buildings with infantry and put the ATR team in the forward building. The tanks are split onto different ridges to try and produce interlocked fields of fire across the whole front while protecting their flanks from AT fire. Complicating factors are the tree lines and a dispersed defence like this is going to be hard to control.

On the rest of the front I've parked up the transport in cover and Pz IIs and towed 75 mark the boundaries of the reinforcement entry area, which will nicely shore up the left flank. I considered keeping one section in reserve, but in the end I put it in the field at the top left to lock down that flank more - I'm terrified the French will just use to tree lines to dash forwards under cover otherwise. The field provides cover from direct fire to infantry so it isn't as daft as it looks, and they can always pull back if needs be, using the tree line to cover their escape.

I just lined up the French horde on the table edge. There seem to be an awful lot of them!

Final bit of admin, break point counters and the turn counter set to 0 minutes. I'll leave that overnight and re-visit it from time to time to consider different deployments and a viable attack plan for the French.

I re-visited the German setup overnight but didnt make any changes apart from to downgrade the Germans down to average morale. I think the French task is quite hard enough as it is (in the original scenario both sides have the same morale). I kept the more restricted French command though.

For the French faced with attacking over mostly open ground I opted to overload the defence by simply swamping the front. I spread the infantry out to minimise losses from bunching, and deployed the tanks along the front, focussing on the right flank more. There were two squads stacked up in the woods, but I think the time and distance constraints are such that the French don't have any time for fancy tactics. Essentially this challenged the Germans to stand and fight or run away, but like the Germans, the dispersed deployment ran the risk of C2 problems.

Naturally one of the Pz 38s went out of command, but the German CO focussed on the forward infantry positions and the German infantry managed to pin the three left hand French squads. The other Pz 38 managed to hit an H39 but it bounced off.

The French suffered C2 problems of their own and two hexes went out of command, including the tank/infantry team in the wood. The other two squads in the wood advanced as did the motorcycle section, while the two H39s blazed away to cover the infantry rallying.

The German response was fairly ferocious, and they gunned down one of the French rifle squads and the intrepid motocyclists. Ouch! German anti-tank fire remained ineffective. Looks like the German had committed themselves to fighting, whereas I'd originally planned to pull the left hand squad back after delaying the Germans.

And of course the following turn every single French tank was in command and a wall of steel fire spitting monsters managed to destroy the Germans in the field and pin the ATR team in the building. The only bright spot for the Germans was that two of the French infantry failed their command rolls and a third failed to rally.

The German 75mm gun now came on, but I wanted to unlimber it in the wooded hill hex, so it just parked up out of sight at the base of the ridge so it could dash forwards and unlimber next turn.

Now it was the turn of the French reinforcements arrival, and both tanks just moved onto the vacant road hex. The French infantry in the wood managed to fail their command roll again (I guess those woods are really thick!), but one squad made it into the field behind the treeline.

All four H39s were in command so opened up on the building inflicting two hits. The Germans removed the already pinned ATR and the rifle squad was pinned. With French infantry closing in, I figured infantry would be more useful.

The Germans pulled the battered squad back into the field to rally next turn and the Panzer IIs rolled up, parking in the field just in front of the tree line to set up flank shots across the table. The 75mm gun managed to fail its command roll but the Panzers finally stunned one H39 and destroyed another, which burst into flames.

With the German withdrawal, the French were able to push up the newly arrived armour, and the French infantry in the woods finally got to move forwards as well. One of the surviving H39s went out of command and the other fired ineffectively on one of the Pz 38s. 

In all the excitement I'd managed to push the H39 in the woods too far forwards, and the Panzer IIs duly blew it up with flank shots. The 75mm gun also made it up onto the ridge and unlimbered. The French now only had two more losses to go before their break point. The Panzer 38s hit the two H39s on the road but only managed to stun one of them. The German squad in the field rallied.

At turn end I rolled a double, so random events. The Germans got 'tank fright' (very appropriate!) while the French got 'men of action' which allowed one unit to move and fire.

In a huge turn for the French, concentrated fire from the French infantry destroyed the Germans in the field behind the building. The H39s on the road then knocked out a Pz 38, while a third H39 used the 'men of action' to advance to join them and knocked out the second Pz 38! That took the Germans to their break point.

This triggered a series of morale tests which led to all the surviving German unit falling back a hex, the only unit to stand was the 75mm. The last German infantry abandoned their building while  both Panzer IIs retreated behind the tree line.

The French infantry in the wood now advanced to the eastern edge, poised to move across the ridge in future turns, while the last H39 advanced into the fields behind the first tree line.

The Germans dare not move the Pz II back into the field as they would be in the arc of fire of four French tanks, so instead they moved back towards the ridge while the 75mm shelled the French infantry in the wood. The last German infantry squad reoccupied the building. 

Next turn the French essentially pushed forwards under cover as far as possible, French infantry took the building in the centre and two H39s drove up the road to join them. On the German left, the lone H39 and French infantry just advanced one hex to keep behind the tree line and out of LOS.

The Germans engaged the H39s by the building, stunning one and destroying the other. The French were one loss away from their breakpoint.

But it was the Germans who broke first. The stunned H39 rallied and combined with the other H39 in the wood, knocked out one of the Pz IIs. The German morale failed and they all fell back again. The 75mm ended up on the reverse slope, the German infantry abandoned the building again and the last Pz II headed up the hill.

Taking advantage of the confusion the French pushed forwards, with two squads cresting the ridge near the last building, and another squad and H39 pushing up to the last tree line.

In their turn, the Germans reoccupied the building while the Pz II fired ineffectively at the nearest H39. The 75mm limbered up prior to relocating.

Too late, the H39 in the tree line despatched the last Panzer II and another wave of German morale failures saw the 75 retreat off table and last German squad abandon the building once more. On the French left four squads and two tanks pushed forwards as far as possible, occupying the hedgerows next to the building.

All the Germans could do was double time back into the building. On the French right the tank and infantry made their way over the open ground towards the ridge, and on the left, the French tanks shot in....

A mass close assault! Three French squads vs one German. The German troops were better and occupying a building, but they were outnumbered 3:1.

In the ensuing melee, the Germans took three hits and were wiped out, the CO ran away over the fields as the jubilant French occupied the buildings and searched the dejected prisoners.

After all that, there was 82 minutes on the clock, only three to go!

Most of the French units could only advance two hexes cross country on the last turn, but one H39 was on the road, and simply drove off the table giving the French their third VP. A hard won French victory!

That was really good fun, very enjoyable and well done to the French for pulling it off even though I doubted their chances. In the end they managed to concentrate their fire against single German units to destroy them, and although they lost half their armour and a third of their infantry, they just managed to pull it off. It was a high risk strategy as it relied on blasting a hole through the Germans so they could charge off in the last few turns, but tbh the alternative of a more step by step approach risked just handing the Germans advancing units piecemeal.

I didn't make any changes to the rules, just plugging in the relevant Spearhead armour/AT factors, so they seem to have settled down. That was also quite a complex scenario to solo play with a lot going on and a lot of decisions to make, so I didn't feel any great inclination to replay it either. Combat debut for my new 3D printed Panzer IIs though, which of course led to their inevitable destruction.