Flames of War (Battle Axe Campaign)

It was a club day today. We are currently playing a flames of war Firestorm campaign that was developed by Bernhard. Operation Battleaxe was a British Army operation during the Second World War in June 1941, to clear eastern Cyrenaica of German and Italian forces and raise the Siege of Tobruk. This is day 3 of the campaign.

I got to play two games against Martin.

I did not take too many pictures but will try to give a battle report.

Both sides start with 1500 points and add firestorm troops.

The first battle was an attack on Fort Capuzzo. The British had a Tank Company of Matilda II with 2 units of infantry and 2 units of Artillery and 1 Portee Anti-tnak platoon.

The Germans had 1 Italian elite infantry, 2 batteries of Arty, 1 platoon of panzer 3s, one platoon of panzer 1s and one halftrack mounted infantry.

Martin rolled for the scenario and got a counter attack. This mission is tough for the defender if they are all mounted as he could only bring 1 platoon with vehicles. Martin decided to only put his Italian Infantry and Artillery on the table with everything else in reserve.























This did not turn out to be a fair fight, as all my platoons were on the table and Martin only had 2. On Turn 1 my Infantry assaulted the Italian position and killed all but three and managed to push them back. On Martins turn his Artillery had 4 shots and killed 4 Infantry. Martin also had air support and killed 2 portees. So a very good turn for Martin considering that he only had 2 platoons. His reserved failed to come in.

On the second turn I continued the assault and destroyed the remainder of the Infantry and assaulted the Arty. The game lasted 3 turns and Martins reserved arrived too late to save the day.



















The battle ended 5-2 as Martin killed one of my platoons.

Since we had a little time on our hands we decided to play another battle.

This time I rolled a fighting  withdrawal. This was pretty cool. So Martin started with all of his forces on the table. This time he had no firestorm troops. I had 2 carrier platoons and one Marmon platoon. Basically 2 rate of fire with 4 or 6 anti tank, so not bad to kill other armour vehicles.

Right flank at start of battle (below)























Left Flank at start of battle (below)

























The objectives were spread out with one on the left flank, one in the center, and one on the right flank. So Martin had to spread out his forces. He had one platoon in ambush. (his Panzer 3s)

I decided to attack the right flank as this was the weakest. I had my Portee platoon guard the left flank and every thing else advanced and shot. My first round did not go very well and I only knocked out one Jagpanzer and pinned the Arty. Martins first round he took out one carrier and one Marmon.

The second round I decided to stay in place and fire all my guns. Martin had revealed his ambush, so my Matilda's shot at them and took them out. My carriers and marmons were not very succesful, and my Arty did very little damage.

Martin countered with his armoured cars and Jagpanzer and took out one of my carrier platoons.

Next turn I started advancing my nearly indestructible Matildas. They continued to wreck havac and eventually took the objective by turn 5. One turn before Martin could remove as part of the fighting withdrawal rules.

So this was a 4-3 victory as Martin destroyed the Marmon platoon.