Started on a pint sized campaign for Chain of Command by Too Fat Lardies yesterday. The Rúckzug campaign rules were written by David Hiscocks and published in the 2021 Lard Magazine and are intended to recreate the difficulties for German units in the great retreat from Normandy to the Albert Canal in August and September 1944. It's not so much about holding ground, as about holding it together, because the Germans are always on the run. Even if they win a battle, the retreat continues.
Although written for the Western Front the concepts are easily transferable to the Eastern Front and the events following on the great Soviet summer offensive of 1944 (thanks to Adam David Warne for the idea!). Instead of a British infantry platoon, it's now a Tank Rider platoon giving chase across Belarus.
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| The basic Tank Rider Platoon |
Arvid and I handle the German forces and Jasper the Soviets (hopefully assisted by René in future games).
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| The basic depleted German platoon |
German support is determined by random rolls rather than choosing from the list. This reflects the haphazard composition of battlegroups during the retreat. This being the start of the campaign, three supports were rolled, resultingin an extra infantry squad, a 50mm mortar and 5 riflemen, which we used to bring our depleted squads up to strength.
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| The Soviet jump off points |
The pursuing allies roll 2D6+6. Jasper used his 18 points of support well (see list below). German force morale started out at 10 but Soviet morale only at 8.
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| The German jump off points |
There was the obligatory pre game barrage (with added effect because of Soviet artillery) that continued for the whole game because the first turn never ended. This hampered German deployment and forced us to commit earlier than we otherwise would have liked.
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| Feint |
The Soviets start with a feint towards the most forward German JOP with a scout team and force the Germans to deploy a squad.
Then Jasper deploys the rest of his scout squad from their forward JOP and force the deployment of German squad in the center of the table and on the rear JOP (which is the Soviet objective in this scenario). Because of the scouts' elite status and cover German fire is largely desultory, but fate strikes and the squad leader is killed. [Soviet force morale drops to 7]
More worries for Jasper as his SU 76 is ambushed by the Panzerfaust team. [Soviet force morale drops to 6]
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| Oh no! (picture by Jasper) |
But then the battle swings around: the scout squad moves up further, and Jasper expertly uses his two COC dice to first move up his JOP to just behind the squad, and then launch an ambush from it with a flamethrower team. This grills the German squad defending the objective. Two tank rider squads are deployed as well and rankle the squad to the brink and wounding the Obergefreiter.
Although the Germans desperately and unsuccessfully try to bring support to the table, their only hope is to force down Soviet force morale to half, so they can make a voluntary withdrawal. The squad defending the objective therefor is sacrificed, shortly beefed up by the platoon leader. This slowly whittles away at the Soviet squads. But the German squad breaks the next turn, taking the platoon leader with them. Suddenly German force morale is at 3 (the wounded squad leader gets killed as well).
The situation so dire, luck favours the Germans again as they are able to bring the MMG team to the table that riddles the Soviet scout squad and sends them running. More importantly, this brings their force morale to 4, which will allow the Germans to withdraw voluntarily next turn if they survive.
The MMG team receives retribution from the Soviets, including the redeployed flame thrower and breaks, dropping German force morale to 1, but that is *just enough*.
Hugely relieved, the Germans scamper off to their trucks and cars, which miraculously all drive off without trouble. However, there isn't enough room for the 50mm mortar team and the much reduced squad. Somehow, they must have been able to requisition bikes, because when the platoon leader does a head count next day, most have turned up to fight in the next battle.
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| The post combat table |
This means the Germans have scored 1 VP and will be able to fight in reasonable shape for the next game.
As far as I can tell Russian support on the table was:
- pre-game barrage
- DSHK
- SU 76
- Scout squad
- Flame thrower team
For a western front Rückzug campaign running at this time, see the Tactical Painter blog.
