Road To Dunkirk, scenario #43: Shot Noise

A fun asymmetrical, puzzle scenario to play and figure out. I played solitaire so no hidden units on this game. The British have all armor units and one leader to ride around in the Bren unit to hopefully defend some city hexes on map 120. The Germans have both Infantry and armor units. The Germans have five victory objectives, while trying not to lose too many steps. The major fighting will be on the 20-meter hill mass and the major town on map 120.

The British setup most of their A9 & A13 Armor on the hill to strike at the eastern road approaches of the main German Army and put the rest of their A10, Matilda I & Mk VIb units defending in the town hexes and blocking the hex 0717, a German exit and victory condition. The German get a pretty large Infantry reinforcement group on turn 4 of this 13 turn scenario.

With only 13 turns the Germans have a lot to do but don’t want their weaker units to get slaughtered by the British blocking armor, so they lead with their Pz IIIE, Pz IVD & Pz II armor. They lose a Pz II step early but a shooting match begins holding up the Infantry until they unload and flank units either into town or help assault British armor on the hill, with the help of their Pz Is.

After the Germans overcame the hill fighting the larger town on map 120 became the major focus of this battle. The Matilda I is a tough unit to knockout but only has machineguns and no main gun, so assaulting it with Infantry, Engineers and armor, plus a leader was the best solution.

By the end of turn 13, the German control all the hill hexes and more town hexes than the British, as they still has some demoralized and disrupted units in town but had a full strength A10 armor unit blocking the Germans exit hex, hex 0717. The Germans get 4 out of 5 victory conditions for a Minor Victory. With that said, I left the British A10 in a blocking position for two long, it should have taken action against some of the weaker German armor in the later turns, as the Germans would not of had time to exit 10 steps anyway, and it could have given the British a Draw or even a Minor Victory, but even that would have been close, depending on the dice. A fun quick scenario to play, with only 13 turn, action happens fast and planning is difficult.