Chain of Command: Palm-off at Perbais

Phil and Jenny came up to Bristol Independent Gaming last night to get a game of Chain of Command in. Umpire Phil picked one of the scenarios from the Pint Sized Campaign, Taking the Gembloux Gap, swapping out the French and replacing them with BEF. The scenario objective was the same for both sides, destroy the enemy morale and force them from the (rather beautiful) table (courtesy of Jenny).

Leading the forces of the Fatherland, I first deployed one section of infantry on the left flank behind the cornfield, and a second on the right flank beyond the railway line...

An ominous clanking was heard as a British light tank clattered up the road. Would I regret not taking that anti-tank rifle as a support option?

The first section moved forward through the cornfield as I deployed a 50mm mortar on their right...

Followed by a 7.5 cm le.IG 18 more centrally which began firing HE into the central building where movement had been spotted at the windows.

Joined by a third section of infantry who also began to direct fire at the building, slowly whittling down the defenders.

Finally my fourth section deployed in the cornfield supporting the first.

British troops appeared further back in the village...

Whilst a Vickers MMG opened fire...

 Killing two of my first section and inflicting some Shock.

Fortunately the British then dropped some smoke from their 2 inch mortar shielding them from the Vickers.

That didn't stop Jenny then springing an ambush on them, fortunately the BEF proved terrible shots and only inflicted a couple of points of Shock.

Suddenly another section of BEF then popped up in front of them...

Peppering the first section with Bren and Lee Enfield fire - killing one German...

German return fire was devastating seeing the British section decimated and falling back behind the building...

Whilst my sniper picked off one of the mortar crew and wounded a British senior leader.

On the right flank the second German section had finally succumbed to several turns of Vickers, tank and infantry fire, but this allowed the third section to push forward towards the British in the centre...

As the fourth section, throwing hand grenades as they went, charged the surviving Tommies of the pinned section in the central building...

Wiping them out and taking possession of the building.

The first section then charged the British, hand grenades and rifle fire catching them in the rear...

Seeing the handful of survivors break and with the British force morale almost exhausted, Jenny conceded the battlefield to the Germans.

A good game, the Gods of War(gaming) favoured me on a couple of occasions with some poor dice rolls by Jenny (that will teach her to use Phil's dice!), notably the ambush - the first section has now been renamed the 'Lucky First'. Next up some more 'O' Group.

Charlie Don't Surf: Chariots of Fire...

"The Lord opened the young man’s eyes, 

and when he looked up, 

he saw that the hillside around Elisha 

was filled with horses and chariots of fire."

Kings 6:17

A couple of weeks back Phil and I got together to push some 6mm tanks around the table using Charlie Don't Surf. He expressed a desire to play with some Israeli "Super Shermans" so I painted up some Jordanians and devised a basic scenario loosely based around the Battle of Dothan Valley on the West Bank at the start of the June/Six Day War of 1967...

Historically the Israelis launched a pre-emptive strike on Egypt and then, following some artillery exchanges, Jordan. The IDF's 45th Armoured Brigade formed the vanguard of the Israeli attack pushing into northern Samaria. tasked with eliminating the Jordanian 155mm ‘Long Tom’ howitzers threatening Ramat David airbase across the border in Israel. On the night of the 5/6th June the 45th took the town of Jenin after fierce fighting against the Jordanian 47th Tank Battalion, however the next day saw the Jordanians commit their armour reserves of the 40th Armoured Brigade to the battle, with its 2nd Battalion threatening to envelope the reconnaissance company of the IDF 45th Armoured Brigade. The scenario was inspired by the Jordanian 40th's counter-attack and the IDF trying to stop them cutting off the recce unit.

The IDF AMX-13 recon platoon was positioned on the ridgeline overlooking the Dothan Valley...

Across the valley dust clouds were spotted moving forward (a mix of Jordanian and Dummy blinds).

These swiftly moved across the valley floor towards the Israeli position. Where they enemy tanks or just dust whipped up by the wind?

Sergeant Yossi Benayoun's AMX-13 attempted a spotting roll to try and identify the cloud nearest to him...

Phil rolled successfully revealing one of the clouds to be a platoon of Jordanian M-47's commanded by Sergeant Anas Bani Yaseen.

Benayoun opened fire on the advancing enemy...

Inflicting two points of Shock on one of the M-47's and damaging its engine.

One the opposite flank another AMX-13 uncovered another enemy tank platoon but its shot missed.

Fortunately for the AMX's reinforcements arrived in the form of an M-51 platoon commanded by Lieutenant Avi Cohen.

Lieutenant Cohen ordered his Shermans to engage the enemy...

The Israeli Shermans taking out one M-47...

And then a second!

On the opposite flank, the Israeli right, two blinds moved down the road towards the Israelis...

Whilst the M-47 platoon led by Lieutenant Hamza Al-Dardour  took out the AMX-13 that had spotted them.

Lieutenant Al-Dardour ordered his platoon forward cresting the hill to reveal a second IDF M-51 platoon led by Sergeant Ronny Rosenthal.

Al-Dardour order his tanks to open fire on the Israelis but their shots were generally ineffective and only inflicted some Shock on the M-51's, damaging the engine of one of the IDF tanks.

The Shermans returned fire inflicting two Shock on Al-Dardour's tank and ensuring it would not move when next activated.

The AMX-13's did some more spotting...

Revealing one of the dust clouds in the centre to be a third M-47 platoon.

With his initial command wiped out, Sergeant Bani Yaseen rashly decided to move across to the third platoon to lead them to victory...

Lieutenant Cohen could not believe his luck and ordered his platoon to engage the M-47 - flank on...

Rather predictably Sergeant Bani Yaseen's battle ended in a big explosion!

On the Israeli right flank a third platoon of M-51's was revealed and moved to support Sergeant Rosenthal's platoon.

Their fire saw another point of Shock inflicted on Lieutenant Al-Dardour's tank and the crew bailed out. This meant the Jordanians had lost both their Big Men in one turn!

More Sherman fire saw the tank crew of a second M-47 bail out...

And a third explode as several 105mm shells slammed into it!

However things were not exclusively going the way of the IDF as a fourth platoon of M-47's was revealed...

Their 90mm cannon taking out three Israeli M-51's in one withering volley of fire!

And then a fourth from Rosenthal's platoon!

The battle then swung back in favour of the Israelis as the AMX-13 recon tanks opened fire at the Jordanians...

Their 75mm cannon taking out two of the fourth platoon's M-47's...

Sergeant Rosenthal lining up a shot against the survivor...

And brewing it up with a well aimed 105mm round!

At this point, down to just four M-47's, I realised it was not going to be the Jordanians day and conceded the plains of the Dothan Valley to the Israelis.

Well that was a (very) bloody battle - and reflecting the historical result (at a couple of points the Jordanians ran low on ammo and fuel as happened in 1967). As the Jordanian commander I was probably a little too rash in closing with the Israelis and maybe a more conservative approach engaging the poorly armoured IDF tanks at long range would have served me better.

At some stage I need to get some infantry and support weapons on the table for my Arab-Israeli Charlie Don't Surf games, but as a set of rules for pure tank battles (not uncommon in 1967 and '73) it provides a fun and engaging game with lots of tanks going boom!