KG von Luck Campaign: Battle 6, Along the Corridor of Death (Again)

[Whirlwind]

Please see here for the next battle report in this campaign, as Kampfgruppe von Luck try once again to seize Le Bas de Ranville from 12 Para on D-Day.

[Guy Farrish]

I missed Battle 5, just caught up with it now before reading 6.

Quite an outcome.

I like a set up that can accommodate that sort of uncertainty, where if only the Germans had known…

Did the PIAT team get replaced automatically by the campaign system/scenario for Battle 6, or was that your choice to take that support again? (I was going to say ‘wise choice’ but things didn’t in the end turn on the availability or otherwise of a/t capability did it?).

Lovely dense table.

Very interesting little campaign.

As for the moving through a mortar barrage to escape, I think I am convinced by Martin Rapier’s thoughts. It’s not much of a stonk. But then – did they know that? I suppose by the time they’d decided to leg it, the thing was probably ending. Whatever the explanation – they did risk it in your history!

[Darkest Star Games]

I really thought the Germans would take this one, especially when the SPs discovered targets.  Just that little bit of luck really swung things, or rather kept things from swinging.  I wish I had the time to give these rules a good try right now!
I’m looking forwards to seeing how the armor works out.

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Whirlwind]

Thanks very much both.

@Guy,

I like that kind of set up too, with that kind of uncertainty.  I would like to do it in a more detached manner and play both sides, but I haven’t found a way of doing it convincingly solitaire yet, in a period where locating the enemy is a critical task.

I picked a PIAT team from the Para’s supporting options, it wasn’t replaced automatically (I think I picked an extra LMG or something in the first game, and picked the PIAT instead for this second one).  I decided at the beginning to say that every vehicle and element that was knocked out or eliminated was ‘dead’ for the campaign, since the ‘campaign’ actually only covered a single day of fighting.  If each action had been a separate day or something, I would have allowed a certain proportion of elements to return, or dice for them, or whatever.  Anyway, as you say, the choice ‘might’ have been crucial but wasn’t.  Actually in the second game the FOO and the mortar section didn’t do anything useful either, because the German attack vectors could have been chosen (or ‘were chosen by fate’ if you like) to avoid them.  For some reason the German FOO and mortars hardly ever turned up to these battles, and were killed instantly in one of the times they did! C’est la guerre…and to top it all, not a single Gammon bomb was used in either game either!!! So, the Paras would have been much better off picking an anti-tank gun instead, but as it happened, it didn’t matter.

Thanks very much for the kind words about the table and the campaign.

Guy Farrish wrote:

As for the moving through a mortar barrage to escape, I think I am convinced by Martin Rapier’s thoughts. It’s not much of a stonk. But then – did they know that? I suppose by the time they’d decided to leg it, the thing was probably ending. Whatever the explanation – they did risk it in your history!

Well, I actually left it kind of blank and listed them as missing, so I could give myself leeway either way when I decided what to do after the battle…

@DSG,

Thanks very much – for a couple of moments I thought the Germans were going to break through on this one too; sometimes the dice just fall the right way to get you out of a jam!!!

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