Operation Overlord Campaign Battle Report

Things aren't going so well for the Allies over at Vanguard Wargaming. Currently, of the four games played in the opening phase all of them are losses. I believe three of them are mine. (Although there are rumours of a rampaging French Sherman company whose victories haven't been counted yet). My para's comprehensively failed to establish a bridgehead, although I did enjoy playing the Airborne Assault mission, it really mixes up the usual formula.

One of Vanguards Flames membership, Alex, has put together an Overlord campaign in the style of Infantry Aces - only without the Aces, abilities or XP. What it borrows is the victory location structure which we have to fight over, with the victors earning victory points for their side.

The campaign has now passed into phase two, and I have managed to wrack up a couple of victories, both against Alex, and both by cheating shamelessly!

I'm not a huge fan of Fighting Withdrawl, at least while attacking; I never seem to have enough momentum to carry my assault through, especially as an all infantry force. On the defensive at least, I stand more of a chance. I'd probably have sympathised more with Alex after both his Panzer Grenadier platoons spent most of the game pinned down in the open, and in once case - not dug in, if he hadn't had some SS Tigers and a trio of Jagdpanzers (right?) backing them up.

The game opened with my Assault Platoon valiantly pointlessly sacrificing themselves to achieve a few casualties nothing of value.

The greenery clashing somewhat incongruously with Vanguard's grey cityfight table in in fact bocage, which somewhat limited our troops visibility and manoeuvrability. To counter the advancing halftrack mounted grenadiers on my right flank, my Cromwell's advanced and after providing covering fire of limited effectiveness, my infantry managed to drive them off in assault.

Putting the Jagdpanzers in the perfect position to wreck my shit - but not as badly as Alex had hoped

The left flank was where the controversy happened. My ambushing 6 pounders managed to drive off the advancing halftracks and the surviving grenadiers hit the dirt hard, staying there for the rest of the game. The Tigers and the Pumas held their ground and did not advance. I still thought I was in a fairly poor position as I'd purposely left it undermanned as I was going to remove it on turn 5. Of course you don't remove your first objective on turn 5, you remove it on turn 6.

We only realised this after Alex had  andstarted his 5th turn and although we took everything back, you could easily argue that the tactical thinking required for a turn 5 withdrawal de-legitimised the result.

Quantum Tigers, by Lynx

After driving off the platoon guarding the objective, only the 6 pounders were left contesting it with the Tigers, but it was enough and the left flank became a moot point.

On the right flank the Grenadiers murdered the spotter who'd been causing them so much trouble and made an attempt at the platoon guarding the far right objective, but were driven off by defensive fire.

The final action before  Alex conceded, involved the central para platoon taking the unsupported Jagdpanzers apart with Gammon bombs and PIATS.

Bocage by Jono

Overall not too proud of this one.