Dieppe at 80 - Green Beach - Petit Appeville Bridges

 As Conscript Dallas hinted at the end of his Dieppe- White Beach post, the Petit Appeville scenario was connected to the results of that game. If the Calgary Tanks had been able to penetrate into Dieppe, there was a chance for them to meet up with the Cameron Highlanders. The details of the game were taken from a book titled 'This Is War - Raid On Dieppe!' by Tim Waybright that was published in 2010. The composition of some of the elements listed in the book, as well as their morale ratings, were tweaked to fit the Bolt Action rules.

Members of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada advanced inland towards their objective, having pushed through Pourville after landing 30 minutes late. They were harassed by enemy fire from the heights to the east of the River Scie, and so moved to their right to proceed under cover of trees to a position looking down on the bridge of Petit Appeville. Unaware that the tanks which were landing on Red and White Beaches were unable to get through Dieppe, their orders were to take and hold the vital road junctions until the armour could advance. Unfortunately for them, the German commander had already dispatched troops to do the same thing.

 

Petit Appeville bridges, looking East

Petit Appeville bridges, looking South

 

According to the scenario outline, the Germans could deploy anywhere up to 26" from the southern board edge. They would also have 5 hastily dug slit trenches that could accommodate two men each and provide light cover. All the woods were considered light woods that did not impede movement on foot, but troops in the woods could not be given a RUN order. The hedges were low and provided no cover. The buildings and woods both provided light cover, while the  wheat field and stone piles blocked line of sight to any prone figures. The River Scie, running down the center of the board had steep banks that gave heavy cover to models adjacent to the river's edge, while the ditches were an obstacle to wheeled vehicles only. The Canadian entry points were anywhere along the northern and western edge of the table outside the German deployment zone. The game would run a minimum of six turns, with a 50% chance of a seventh.

The Canadians are elements of 'B' and 'C' Companies of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada under the command of Major A.T. Law. They consisted of a headquarters section of Major Law (+4 morale bonus, 4 extra order dice, 12" command radius) plus three soldiers, three infantry sections of ten men (1 SMG, 1 Bren gun and loader, 7 rifles), a 2" mortar light team, and a 3" medium mortar team. All the Canadians were rated as Regulars, and given the 'Up an' at 'em' national characteristic option, which meant any assault orders were considered to be automatically passed.

 

Cameron Highlanders under Major Andy Law

 

The Germans are elements of the 1st Battalion, 571st Infantry Regiment, 302nd Division under the command of Oberleutnant K. Fischer. They consisted of a headquarters of Oberleutnant Fischer (+2 morale bonus, 3 extra command dice, 6" command radius) plus two soldiers, two infantry sections of ten men (2 SMGs, 1 LMG and loader, 6 rifles), a 50mm light mortar, and a 75mm light howitzer towed by a truck. They also had a Kübelwagen with a Leutnant (+1 morale bonus, 2 extra command dice, 6" command radius) and three riflemen that could enter along one of the roads from the East starting on Turn 3 on a D6 score of the Turn Number or less. The Germans also had the army characteristics of 'Blitzkrieg' (officers draw an extra order dice) 'Hitler's Buzzsaw' (MGs get an extra fire dice), and 'Initiative Training' (on the loss of a section leader, roll a D6, on a score of 2-6, the second in command takes over with no morale loss).

 

German forces under Leutnant Karl Fischer

 

Unlike many of our earlier Bolt Action games that featured anti-tank gun and medium machine gun teams as the support weapons, this time we had a lot of indirect fire from the mortars and the light howitzer with the use of smoke rounds to mask troops from enemy fire.

Initial German deployment

 

The Germans set up with one section in slit trenches along the southern ditch, one section in the wooden building just west of the River Scie, the mortar team behind a stone pile near the southern crossroad, and the light howitizer in the wheat field. On Turn 1, the Canadians began entering from the northern and western board edges, using the woods for cover. 

 

German slit trenches

 

German light howitzer and tow

Major Law with two infantry sections

The Canadians advance in force

3" mortar team moves into position

A Canadian section moves up in the western wood

2" mortar ready to provide HE or smoke

At first, there was little the Germans could do as the Canadians were either out of range or obscured by intervening terrain. Meanwhile the Canadians used Major Law's command ability to activate a significant number of their elements with the 'You men, snap to action!' rule. As the Canadians worked their way forward from the north, the third section moved in from the west to engage the German mortar with small arms fire and followed up with an assault. The German mortar team reacted quickly enough to shoot two of the Canadians before being overwhelmed.

Canadians moving to the west of the village

 

German mortar team assaulted by Canadians

The Germans reacted by pulling one of their sections out of the building they occupied and bringing concentrated fire onto the Canadian attackers. Undeterred by casualties, the Canadians pressed their attack and came to close quarters with the German infantry. More men fell to German defensive fire before those remaining were put out of action in the ensuing melee.

Canadian section regrouping

 

Germans respond to the flank attack

A gallant but futile assault by the Canadians

The German section wins the fight

Meanwhile the Canadians advancing from the north came within range of the German section manning the slit trenches. The mortars were able to provide some cover by dropping smoke rounds to obscure the German fire as one Canadian section moved out of the woods to advance along the river bank. With the threat from the West eliminated, the Germans abandoned their trenches to drive the Canadians away from the northern bridge. The Canadians responded by pushing further south to get into a blocking position. It was very 'touch and go' at this point with success going to which ever side drew the first order die. 

Luck went to the Germans who were able to assault the lead Canadian section from close range.  The Canadians went down to defeat, either killed or captured. The supporting Canadian section counterattacked with supporting fire from Major Law's HQ section, but they were in turn counterattacked by the German platoon command that has arrived in the Kübelwagen. The Germans then ordered a general advance with all their personnel. The infantry section that had previously been successful in fending off the Canadian bayonet charge now fell prey to some accurate 3" mortar fire, an accurate HE impact taking out the section commander, the LMG, and a rifleman. Despite the losses, the survivors successfully passed their morale check. The action went down to the wire in the seventh turn, but in the end the bridge was still contested, which was a victory for the Germans. The tanks never arrived.

Canadians close on the northern bridge

Germans move to counterattack

Canadian section advances along riverbank

Canadians advancing through a smoke screen

Germans outflank the lead Canadian section

Canadians pinned against the riverbank

Canadians are defeated in the melee

Oberleutnant Fischer orders a general advance

Germans west of the river are hit by 3" mortar HE fire

Germans regroup to await a counterattack

Canadian counterattack is hit by fresh troops

German commander surveys the battlefield

This was an interesting game, one which I have wanted to run ever since I read the scenario in the campaign book. As mentioned earlier, the support weapons were primarily indirect fire. It's very hard to get a first round on target. In fact, only one round of HE fire hit its mark, but with devastating effect, killing 3 of 4 that were caught in the blast. The smoke was also an aspect of the game that we have never played before. Even misses still land on the table, placed by the opposing side with 12" of the aiming point. Plus smoke has the possibility to dissipate, drift, or persist, depending of a dice roll at the beginning of any turn where there is smoke on the board.

The victory conditions were difficult for the Canadians to achieve. All the Germans had to do was get an element within 6" of a bridge to contest control to prevent the Canadians from winning. Still, it was a near run thing. Had the first die out of the cup at the beginning of Turn 6 been a Canadian one, it might have gone the other way.

On a historical note, during the fighting at Petit Appeville, the Camerons received a radio order from brigade headquarters to withdraw back to Green Beach to re-embark. Major Law was one of those who made it back to England. In January 1943 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and commanded the Camerons until February of the following year. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, and was also 'mentioned in dispatches'. The regiment eventually returned to France in July 1944.

 Thanks for reading. Be sure to comment.

Dieppe at 80 - White Beach

A few weeks ago marked the 80th anniversary of "Operation Jubilee" - the "reconnaissance in force" conducted by the Canadian Second Division (and some Canadian tankers, British commandos, Royal Canadian Engineers, sailors, etc.) against the German-held Channel port of Dieppe. Most who are familiar with the history of the Second World War will be somewhat familiar with the operation - lots has been written about it but the short version is that the Soviets were agitating strongly for the opening of a second front; the western Allies were nowhere close to planning an invasion of France; and Dieppe was proposed as a compromise to take some Soviet pressure off, experiment with an armored landing, and achieve some other limited objectives. TL;DR - it was a disaster.

You'll see the landing craft in some other pics, but the way I ran the game, the landing point was designated, a scatter dice rolled, and the contents of the boat deployed. We used Bolt Action for the rules of course. The game was the assault on White Beach directly in front of the town of Dieppe. The Canadians had a platoon of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, a Vickers MMG, a Royal Canadian Engineers demolition team in a Universal Carrier, four Churchill MKIII tanks and a Daimler scout car from 14 CATR, and some Royal Marine Commandos in deep reserve. The Germans had a 37mm AT gun, a 75mm AT gun (more on that later), three MG34 MMGs, and a pillbox with MMG, plus two sections of infantry in reserve, coming through the town.

As referee I permitted the Canadian players to land three craft per turn, in whatever order they wanted... unlike the actual battle where the infantry landed first and the tanks were late (NOT GOOD). In the game, the tanks landed first.

The German MGs didn't have a lot to do at first but get shot at by Churchills...

...which mostly got bogged down on the beach. I was a little harsh with the bogging rolls, to reflect the track-breaking nature of the Dieppe chert - every turn of moving on the beach required a "bog roll" (!) of 2+ on a d6, but this escalated... with a 3+ required on turn 2, PLUS an addition one-pip chance of a bog for every turn made by the tank. This turned out to maybe be a bit too much, as three out of four Churchills got stuck on the beach. There are some notes at the end of this post with more thoughts.

I also put out a really nice cast plaster gun bunker on the promenade - however I was informed that I'd deployed it at the wrong end of the table. The thick side should be facing the enemy. We'll fix that in post-production!

Rileys tumble off the landing craft!

I made the Canadians roll a scatter die to determine exactly where their landing craft ended up. Another tweak to be made on that, next time. You can see one Churchill climbing onto the promenade.

A Universal Carrier full of engineers also landed. They had five demo charges that they could use to demolish wire, anti-tank obstacles, pillboxes, or the concrete barriers blocking the street entrances into the town.

They opted to blow up a pillbox with an MG and crew in it. Pretty satisfying for the Canadian player.

The German reinforcements arrived from within the town and manned the barricades.

Overview of the action.

Rileys start to flood onto the promenade.

Although lots of infantry got onto the promenade, the game ended before they could get into the town proper.

It was a fun game, but after some discussion afterwards we (I) decided on some special rules changes for next time we play it:

1) Bog check - tracked vehicles are immobilized on a roll of 1 on a D6 at the end of movement if going straight, 1-3 on a D6 at the point of the turn if turning. Wheeled vehicles are bogged on a 1. No bog check required for Daimlers under tow by a Churchill. Maybe add one to the die roll required if the tank is dropped off short of the waterline.

2) German A/T guns - make both medium (+5 pen); Churchill armour is 10+, so shots against the front require a roll of 5 for superficial damage, and a roll of 6 for full damage. (I think that the Canadians will only get three Churchills, and I'll make sure to deploy the artillery casemate correctly next time)

3) Randomizing landing location: Use D6 and scatter die to determine amount of deviation from selected landing point.

4) Randomizing which landing craft arrive in each wave: Assign each 'load' a number and have playing cards of the those values as a shuffled deck. As Canadian order dice are drawn from the cup on the first turn, flip the top card to reveal which landing craft arrives on the beach. In subsequent turns, as the Canadian player uses a die to activate a unit arriving in a craft, the top card determines which craft shows up. This introduces some randomness into unit arrival, as happened in the actual battle. 

 

Stay tuned for a report on Part 2 of the Dieppe battle - the bridges at Petit Appeville!

1/50 Churchill MkIII Tanks for the Dieppe Raid

 

These models were posted to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge blog back in March, but I wanted to post them on our blog here as well. Anyway it's four 1/50 Corgi Churchill MkIII medium tanks, as seen (kind of) on the infamous Dieppe raid of 19 August 1942.

The four vehicles I've done are all Churchills of The Calgary Regiment (Calgary Tanks), aka 14 Canadian Armoured Tank Regiment (14 CATR). I had three of these painted already in a standard British armour green, but for Christmas was given another stock Corgi model by Challenger DaveV, which prompted me to revisit the three I'd already painted...

 

So I got the project underway in earnest, first re-priming all four models with flat black spray, researching the correct colour for the Canadian armour at Dieppe (turns out it was described as "dog sh!t brown" and I used GW Steel Legion Drab to replicate that), and sourcing decals for the tanks. I got these from Peddinghaus, a cottage supplier in Germany that makes a ton of very cool and obscure decals in 1/72 and 1/48 scale.

 

I also figured I may as well do some conversions on the tanks to better replicate their Dieppe configuration (because why not, right?) This involved scratch-building the exhaust pipe extensions that allowed the Churchills to deep-wade without allowing water into the engines. This was characteristic of the Dieppe Churchills and is seen on every photographed example. 

I made the extensions out of thick flexible wire (I think it's maybe soldering wire) bent to shape and superglued to the exhaust pipes of the tank. I then ran thread between the upper ends of the extensions as shown in photographs of the vehicles on the beach. The extensions were then heavily weathered with rust effect wash.

  

Unfortunately none of the Churchills at Dieppe were equipped with track guards for the upper runs, as seen on these Corgi models... sadly I don't think anyone makes appropriate models in 1/48 or 1/50 and taking a grinder to these models to remove the guards wasn't really in the project remit.

I decided to portray the three vehicles of 9 Troop, B Squadron - Bluebell, Blossom, and Buttercup, as well as the troop leader of 6 Troop, Bob (all four were Churchill MkIIIs). The decals from the Peddinghaus set are excellent and have great detail. However they did take a good deal of work to fit, as they are not "pre-cut" and need to be trimmed to size. There's also 15 decals for each vehicle!

I didn't do a ton of weathering on the vehicles as this would be the first time they were in action - just some light water streaking down the vertical panels, and dust along the lower part of the vehicles and suspension.

 

Here's a close-up of the exhaust extensions. Honestly they were a bit of a futz to build but I like the way they turned out - they really give the tanks the "Dieppe look":

I'm actually quite happy with the way these turned out. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Dieppe raid and I am looking forward to setting up a game this summer to mark it. We've played Dieppe games a few times before (but not for years) but I think the new Churchills are really going to add to the vibe.

Stay tuned for some more Dieppe armour...