7th Armoured and a Normandy Breakout scenario

Well June has been an oppressive work month with the action well away from the wargames table or hobby stores. Needing a mental break and refreshment of the dice rolling kind I head to a friendly club to soak in the atmosphere and voyeur on other people's games.

I found myself staring at a post-Normandy breakout game of randomly rolled forces. A British Armoured Brigade (7th), three tank regiments and motorised infantry battalion taking on a German Kampfgruppe of a motorised infantry battalion, various assets (engineer coy and anti-tank coys) plus a Mk IVH Panzer Battalion.

See above the British left flank is secured by a Cromwell armoured regiment.

The scenario was a fluid encounter battle where the British had to cross a river, the Germans had to defend it. The Brits were armour heavy (in numbers) and infantry light, but the Germans had to split their meagre  forces and defend two crossing points and did not know where the Brits were going to strike. Above sees the British infantry getting stuck into a town fight (top right) with a weakly defended crossing point, but still hard going in such "defender friendly" terrain.The central (reserve) Cromwell armoured regiment takes the "high ground" on the watch for German reinforcements which turn up in the form of that MkIVH Panzer Battalion (see below).

A stand-off ensues in the alternate "crossing point" town as armour without infantry support cannot pass through even this relatively weakly held town.

The British armoured regiment has to be satisfied with suppressing some of the German infantry with called in 25pdr artillery.

The game turned on the British infantry getting stuck into the river crossing point. The Germans bleed slowly enough for the game to go to a tactical British rather than strategic, as the MkIV battalion quickly evaporated under a combined hammering from two Cromwell armoured regiments. A nice looking game played under BGC (Battle Group Commander) rules which give a great WWII brigade+ level simulation.