Haut le Wastia

 I hadn't run a game for the gang for a while, so off to France 1940 once more. This time we are at Haut le Wastia in May 1940, 5th Panzer Divisions rather tenuous bridgehead over the Meuse. This engagement is covered in the 1940 expansion for Panzer Leader, as well as the Squad Leader module 'Crescendo of Doom', but this scenario is from the Command Decision 'Birth of the Blitzkrieg' book.

Battlefield from the south, the Meuse valley is up to the north. The critical feature is the ridge with scattered buildings on it. I decided to run this with my WW2 One Hour Wargame and not NBC as it is a bit small for NBC.

I had quite a big turnout for this one, seven players and only 12 units between them!

The initial German troops are a couple of companies from 14th Schutzen Regiment who made their way across the Meuse on foot via weir. The bridges are being hastily rebuilt by the divisional engineers.

John B commanded these. One of the companies has some AT guns, the other some infantry guns.

The first French units to arrive will be 14th Dragon Portes - motorised infantry. Russell commands the infantry element, and Micheal the motorcycle/light tank group. The tanks should be AMRs, the French answer to the Panzer I, but I substituted an R35 as they look similar. I also mounted the Dragon Portes in my new QRF Chenilletes, as I'd just painted them.

Following up behind the Dragoons are leg infantry of the 129th Infantry Regiment commanded by Mark. Tim has the divisional recce company with Panhards and is overall CO. These would arrive on turn 4.

More stuff from 5th Panzer waiting to cross the river. Elements of 14th Schutzen and 31st Panzer Regt. John was overall CO and had the motorcycle company and artillery, while Simon brought up the rear with a light Panzer company and a motorised Schutzen company. The latter would appear on turn six from the northwest once the main bridge was fixed. The motorcyclists would appear on turn 3, having pushed their bikes over the weir, the guns became available at the same time, having finally got through the traffic jams on the north bank.

The French come on via the road, and opted to push their motorised units north at top speed, threatening the flank of the ridge. A Bloch 131 put in an appearance, on its way to bomb the Germans on the other side of the river. This aircraft was donated by Tim, the first time I've used it.

The French motorcyclists and tanks continued north, but the Dragoons peeled off to attack the ridge. The German infantry had anticipated this and already re-deployed to meet them, although the French were able to enter one of the hamlets. 

The German response was fairly devastating. One of the Dragoon companies was destroyed by massed close range fire, and the other pinned by artillery. 

Meanwhile the French had blocked the road form the north, forcing the German motorcyclists to divert westwards. 

The Germans finished off the other Dragoon company as Marks leg infantry came on and shook out into line.

The German motorcyclists had linked up with their pals on the ridge now (the German HQ is the bus parked behind the ridge).

The French motorcyclists had meanwhile been busy digging in. The Panhards drove up the road to link up with them.

The Panhards engaged the German motorcyclists while the French infantry entered the woods. Once more the German infantry shifted to meet them. 

The French hung on to their village in the north.

While the infantry exchanged fire in the woods.

At this point the Panzers and their infantry support turned up, and rolled onto the ridge.

Over in the east the long range exchange of fire continued and the Germans dropped their artillery on the Panhards. Artillery isn't very effective against armoured targets, but nonetheless it slowed their movement.

Marks infantry conducted an assault, which failed, and they were ejected from the woods again.

The French motorcyclists finally moved out from their village and between their fires and the Panhards, the German motorcyclists were suddenly looking a bit shaky.

Back on the ridge however, the Panzers had linked up with the German infantry.

The French succeeded in destroying the German motorcycles, but Marks infantry fell back in the face of the Panzer threat and came under artillery fire.

The French recce made good use of their mobility and swept around the back of the ridge and took the hamlet again. There were an awful lot of Germans up there now though.

One of Marks infantry succumbed while the other reorganised to recover some of its losses. I was using the various trucks to indicate which units were reorganising, which looked nnice, and also used some of my vast collection of trucks for something useful.

The French troops on the ridge were destroyed by massed fires, and the Germans were now in a strong position.

In fact the Germans felt so secure that the divisional commander flew in for a chat. 

Reduced to two effective units, the French conceded. In the post game wash-up, we noted that this game system rewards concentration of effort, and that the French had repeatedly handed themselves to the Germans one unit at a time, and got chewed up as a result. 

Anyway, it was all over quite quickly, so we lined everything up and did it again the next day! 

We kept the same sides except Simon dropped out, so Mark switched to the Germans, leaving Tim, Micheal and Russell as the French. 

This time the action opened with Fairey Battles off to bomb the Meuse. 

The French piled up the road as before. 

And just kept going! The French had obviously noticed their first wave was motorised, so was extremely mobile up the road.

The AMRs and motorcycles broke off cross country to move across the front of the Ridge. 

And the whole force enveloped the ridge from both sides. There wasn't much the Germans could do about this as the motorised French moved a lot faster than the German infantry. 

The French tanks and motorcycles ended up close to the far end.

The Germans motorcyclists rolled up at this point, and dropped artillery, indicated by the Henschel spotter plane (a lovely Zvezda model).

This didn't phase the French, who just moved onto the ridge from the north and south. All very professional and they'd clearly learned from the last game.

The French leg infantry now came on, in much the same fashion as before.

Now a big firefight erupted on the ridge. The French tanks came off worse under concentrated fire.

The French infantry closed in on the Germans as the surviving Battles headed for home.

The motor troops provided enough distraction for the French infantry to get close.

The Panhards took over from the battered AMRs while the Panzers rolled up from the northwest.

The AMRs pulled back out of range to regroup properly and concentrated French fire disorganised one of the Schutzen companies.

The Germans poured in retaliatory fire, but there were so many French units in contact...

Proceedings were interrupted by the arrival of an Avro Anson, its first ever game outing. A resin and metal model of unknown provenance.

The French poured in fire at the disorganised Germans who were attempting to reorganise.

They followed up with an infantry bayonet charge and overran them. Thats the way to do it!

The German motorcyclists overran one of the French dragoon units from the rear, shot in by an artillery barrage.

But the victorious French infantry lined up for another charge against the German AT guns.

And overran the guns as well! The east end of the ridge was now firmly in French hands.

The German motorcyclists now counterattacked up the hill and routed the other Dragoon unit.

The AMRs were back in action now however and the French grip on the other end of the ridge seemed pretty firm. The Germans only had three units left now and one of them was pretty shot up so the prospects of a successful counterattack seemed slim.

We called it at that point and awarded the victory to the French, for an honourable 1:1 draw.

That was a much more fluid game than the previous day and both sides had obviously learned a lot. We play a lot of single scenario games and agreed that there was actually a lot of value in replaying them from time to time. I wouldn't want to do the same thing time and time again, but we've certainly got lots of games in stock.

I'm still wanting to tinker with these rules a bit, but tbh they do actually seem to work well as a game. I need to try them with some more asymmetrical scenarios and see how they pan out.