James and I have had another visit to the Normandy campaign. This time it was to play out the start of the attack on Carentan from the North with the American paratroopers from St Mere L’Eglise area having to clear and capture the causeways and on towards the edge of Carentan. This time however the opposition would be made of tougher troops than they had encountered so far - German Fallschirmjager. James would have the Americans .
There are 3 bridges involved to start with then once crossed there buildings to seize . In addition the first bridge is blown and no crossable by vehicles yet , so it would be an infantry fight.
The attack would begin at night with lead patrols trying to find a way through the flooded areas without attracting the defenders attention .we did this with skill checks for progress and being spotted .
Bridge number 3 turned out to be completely blocked by a heavy Belgian gate , and without any TNT it was slow to get teams past it. Not wanting to attract enemy attention they held off trying to use bazookas on it . A telegraph pole was hauled to the canal side and also used to get a team across each turn.
Most of the night turn had been used up just getting through the terrain elements and only a few lead teams had made it to the end of the causeway as dawn broke. The FJ had heard them and started to defend themselves.
The German defenders finally woke up and started to put some fire down
There would be short sharp fight for the building as the US paras took it with a brave assault. However the Germans used a panzerscreck to blast the building in response .
A flight of Thunderbolts turned up
They found an 88 on the main road into town and attempted to bomb it with no success.
The 88 would fire at the advancing American , but ultimately did very little - other than actually shoot down a P47 in a second attempted strike later in the game . (Damn I need to make some wrecked ones now too!)
More teams had made it across the wetlands , though defensive fire was taking its toll
More support had turned up for the FJ and mortar fire began to catch the second platoon of the Americans in the open ground around the bridges
American artillery began to make its presence felt -starting to pin down the FJ in places
The forward FJ defenders were finally overwhelmed - but it had been costly . A small detachment of 1st platoon had worked its way along the flank towards the rear of the German defences to find an HMG position and AT gun. An assault on the MG very nearly worked , but they were driven away .
More FJ had arrived to counterattack. They pushed into the centre .
The US Forward Observer was able to get into an advantageous position ,just as some extra fire missions became available and caught the advancing FJ in the orchard blunting their attack
This provided enough cover for the 2nd platoon the deploy on a hedge line and pour fire into the German position which again pinned them enough to make an assault less risky - this finally did enough damage for the FJ command to decide it was better to give up the fight and live to fight another day .
Another good game . We played out 16 turns altogether .
Full view of the table
