Towards the end of September 1939, the remnants of the Polish army fighting in the North fought the Germans for control of the city of Tomaszow Lubelski, but their attacks arrived piecemeal rather than as a co-ordinated effort.
This scenario is a brawl in one of the outskirts of the city, where both sides fight for control of the centre of the table, represented by four objectives, three of which have to be taken to get a win. Two are at either end of the main road bisecting the table, and two are in each of the more built up areas.
Things began well for the Poles, and my Blind were soon dominating the table (the left hand photo, below).
Unfortunately, I had expected more German Blinds to arrive before I could deploy, so had used a Dummy Blind on the left to scout forward. Had that been an actual unit, then I would have won the game almost immediately, as that and the advance of more of my Blinds into the main town would have given me control of the three objective markers I needed.
As it was, when the Germans de-cloaked their single Blind in the centre of the table to reveal their Panzer platoon, I was a bit stuffed: I didn’t have anything on the table apart from infantry and cavalry, neither of which (at this stage of the war) were particularly good at taking on tanks, especially not tanks armed with 20mm auto-cannon!
Almost as bad, the Germans had also advanced an infantry platoon right up to the edge of the main town, forcing my cavalry to deploy on the narrow main street and then shooting this inviting target to significant effect, forcing the survivors to make a rapid retreat into the graveyard!
By this stage I had amanged to get one of my infantry guns into action and had destroyed a Panzer II, but the cornfields were preventing me getting a clear shot off at the others.
Meanwhile, the Germans had taken the smaller village and were moving in on the main town. Cleverly, they were using internal lines to concentrate their forces, whereas I had split mine into two parts…and was now paying the price.
With half my infantry tied up on the other side of the battlefield, I just couldn’t stop the Germans moving in on the main town. Yes, I damaged then as they advanced, but not enough to stop them: there were just too many of them: effectively two platoons and a platoon of medium MGs versus my single platoon, remnants of the cavalry, and a single taczanka!
Meanwhile, I had received a platoon of armoured cars as reinforcements, and was well on the way to finally eliminating the Panzers that had so successfuly held up my southern advance.
This was, however, far too late to make a difference to the battle and, as my men were forced to pull back from the larger town, the Germans captured the third objective they needed and the game!
Well that had been a neat lesson in the tactics of using internal lines and concentrating your forces from the Germans!
I really lost the game the moment I deployed one of my platoons of infantry to the south of the battlefield and was forced onto the defensive there by Rob’s five Panzers. Without those tanks, I would have had three objectives early on in the encounter, but as rushing infantry acorss open ground in the face of mass autocannon fire is not a wise thing to do, they effectively held me up for long enough for the rest of the Germans to arrive and win the battle.
A great game of I Ain’t BeenShot Mum.
Robert Avery