101^st Airborne Attack on La Brioche 6 June 1944

Bill Farquar’s version of WRG Wargames Rules for Armoured Warfare at Company and Battalion Level 1925-1950. (Available on LULU)

I’ve been distracted from wargaming recently. Nothing seriously wrong, just other things engaging my attention. I’ve been tinkering with Borsetshire in the English Civil War which has produced more back story and character development than I had ever intended – who knew Sir Oliver Bone had sunk so much money into John Pym’s Providence Island Company? That has produced more narrative than gaming and has so far been more of an RPG than a wargames driver.

There has been one thing niggling at me however and that is the Bill Farquar version of the WRG Wargames Rules for Armoured Warfare at Company and Battalion Level 1925-1950. Niggling I hasten to add in a good way. I bought them well over a year ago and put them to one side to play through ‘sometime soon’, as you do. It wasn’t as if I needed to learn them really, I’ve been using the original Phil Barker set since 1973. There were tweaks and improvements of course, that was the point, and I wanted to try them on an idea I had for playing US Airborne on D Day.

I had to buy some figures of course, I’ve always had Brits and Sovs v Germans, never had any US since Airfix US Marines in the 60s (not much use for European Theatre). So, Pendraken, a bit of painting and basing and there you go, except those distractions crept in. I eventually produced a couple of platoons of Americans and enough late war Germans to hold them up for a bit and scrabbled for suitable terrain.

Eventually I set up some figures to just run through a turn or two. There was more to this than met the eye however. It’s not that the Farquar version is seriously different, certainly not in a bad way, but I started with infantry v infantry as opposed to the massed cavalry charges of T34s v Panthers of my 1970s introduction to WWII gaming. That was okay too, I’d graduated somewhere along the fifty years to using more balanced forces. What was more of a problem was actually going through all the things we’d normally shrugged off as a die roll and a guess because we knew the factors (morale and to hit) and things we’d ignored or fudged – suppress and kill for various tubes and weapons. I felt I ought to actually follow the process and so I began reading and actually adhering to the rules. Things like orders which tended to get a wavy hand ‘attack the village’ approach , now modified with the presence of the Optional Actions table which allows units to do particular, sometimes multiple, tasks each bound, which is a nice import from the 1950-1985 set from 1979 (but not using the modes lists from the infantry set which I know I should like but hated for some reason.). So, orders are okay and my tendency to wander nicely controlled by the actions table. I also realised I have in the past allowed sub units way too much leeway operating at distance from command. I played through bits of the rules and realised I was prevaricating.

I plonked what terrain I had down in a rough sort of ‘seize the bridge until relieved’ type of action for my 101^st and diced for what German defence they were likely to encounter. Way too much as it turned out. Two sections of a rifle squad and mg42 each with a command squad and lt mortar in support.

The US Airborne had scraped together three sections of two rifle groups and an mg 30 each with a lt mortar but no-one with a working radio connection to any support artillery. There was allegedly an ATW unit with a bazooka somewhere, but I don’t remember seeing them after the start.

This photo shows the basic layout and the US direction of thrust (green arrow). This is at the end with German’s pulling back and the US more or less stalled. The Germans were initially holding the front of the village with the mortar team lurking in the churchyard until I remembered they are line of sight and needed to be forward rather than directed by the command group. The US approaching onto the table along the road took so long however that relocation proved easy enough for the Germans. The advance along the road stopped immediately when an mg 30 was stopped and killed.

This shot shows the first casualty mg 30 on the road. The photo was taken near the end and you can see other casualties marked with yellow tags as they advanced, and the mortar team, unharmed at the edge of the field. The Screming Eagles are across the river and into the village (just, but aren't going anwhere else fast). The rifle groups hugged the ground and hedgerows while everyone else (except the mortar) went right flanking. Things slowed down as the Americans worked out how to cross all that open ground and a river with an mg42 and a mortar firing at them. Fortunately the US mortar had dropped into action and finished off the mg42 covering that sector. The road and left flank forces entered a desultory firefight, while the US decided to be bold on the right with the mg42 gone and promptly lost the command element who for some reason had led the charge over the river.

After that the best the US could manage on morale was a ‘don’t advance more than half a move’. Eventually, after 23 turns, the German morale didn’t collapse but they had to pull back sufficient to allow the Americans into the village although they themselves were in no shape to press on. The Americans lost two mg 30, the platoon command and a rifle group. The Germans lost an mg42 and a mortar. Both sides had suffered repeated suppressions, and I felt neither side was up for continuing the battle here. The Germans pulled back unmolested and the Americans settled to regroup beyond the German positions in case of artillery and counterattack.

I enjoyed that and want to thank ‘Bill’ for his tweaks. I know he is busy with real life, but he is producing sometime (soon?) his own set of rules and I am keen to give them a go (very different from the WRG upgrade by all accounts). In the meantime my wargaming ennui feels as if it may be disappearing and more explorations of this set await – including Stug III, various rebadged French tanks and some bog standard American Shermans and relieving US infantry from Utah. (Courtesy of my daughter’s Father’s Day present!).