Breakout from the Bridgehead

Last night I managed to get my first proper game in a while against my regular opponent.

We played Fall of the Reich (One of the Battlegroup supplements). We decided that we would use British Airborne against a scratch German force made up of mostly support Halftracks and Volks Grenadier.
Next was the scenario and we decided to try Bridgehead Breakout and work out forces to roughly 450 points a side.

For the Airborne I took pretty much most of what was painted (they are newly painted by James so good to get them on the table).

Two Platoons of infantry each with a Vickers.
Then from the Overlord book we used the points and battle rating for the Airborne HQ and Recon squad.
These were backed up by some off table 3" mortars.

 As you can see it was a fairly small force and lacked a bit of punch.

The German force was likewise based around two platoons of infantry.
HQ in a Halftrack
A Flame Halftrack
A support haltrack (cannot remember the name)
A Pz II (the fact that this was a mortar spotter caused me some issues in the first two turns).
An Infantry gun was also taken.
Some additional morale (rolled a 1 for this)
Finally support arrived in the form of 120mm mortars (off table).

The infantry

The support

The battle rating for  the Paras was 39
The Germans was a lower 28

For objective we had the bridge (as per the scenario), The farmhouse in the center of the table and the industrial building along the main road running from the bridge. We felt that these should create some interesting situations and challenges (rather than just placing markers somewhere on the table).

The table

When I use the term "bridge" I mean Ford

The Germans only started with the Pz II on the table where as the Paras managed to start with five units on the table. The recon squad was backed up with a Piat team behind the hill while another squad along with a Piat team and a platoon command deployed into the woods ready to advance to the farm house and secure the objective there.

 The first turn saw the Para infantry squad try and advance only to get pinned by mortar fire called in from the PII (a Recon command vehicle so had Mortar spotter).

 The Paras and a Piat team make it to the farm house. Securing the objective. However support would not be coming anytime soon.

The Germans come on boldly across the fields having seized the industrial building and make a push for the farm house.

 The Flame Halftrack burns out both the Piat team and the squad. Leaving the farm house open for the taking.

 The paras manage to get across the ford, only to be stopped in the woods and corn stubble. The orders being poor (on average 6-7 a turn) meant the Paras could not get the impetus needed to make a push on the farm house.

 Salvation in the form of air support. Karma played a role as we only had a Hurricane to use as a Typhoon. This proceeded to miss with all rockets and cannon fire over the next few turns.

With the Germans in control of two out of three objectives and the Paras pinned around the ford, it was time to concede the field and fall back. The paras strength has really been sapped in the battle for the farm house. Some unlucky order rolls and an aweful lot of failed morale checks leading to pinned or retreating units meant the Paras just could not muster the strength to recapture the farm house.
The Germans on the other had got quite lucky with a few vital order rolls and Beyond the Call of Duty morale rolls. The German losses were actually quite light and they had mustered in strength around the fields and farm house.

The game was a lot of fun in the early turns when, both sides made use of the Reserve move order, leading to plenty of Reserve fire orders. It was really difficult to get the Paras moving once the attack had stalled and lacking any long range threat to the half tracks (other than pinning them) forced the paras on to the defence.