Attack on Fort Vaux
This week is the centenary of the famous siege of Fort Vaux at Verdun - June 2nd-7th 1916. With this in mind, I had to do a refight to commemorate the anniversary. Nick and Matt kindly agreed to attend, and I knocked out a short scenario using Chain of Command.
After a loosely-themed meal of steak, frites and red wine (which I know the poilus at Fort Vaux would have killed for), we got down to business. Nick would take the role of Captain Gillhausen, commanding the German attackers, and Matt would play Major Raynal’s heroic French defenders.
Our poilu logo, drawn by Martin Hogg (c)
The Chain of Command/ Through The Mud & Blood mash-up that was published by Too Fat Lardies in their 2014 Winter Special has been our rules of choice for WW1, but this was the first time we had used it for tunnel combat. I had written a rough scenario with some tweaks, but none of us was quite sure how it would pan out.
Rather than use multiple platoons with the ‘Big CoC’ rules, I decided (based on figures available and the fact we only had two players) to have a single composite platoon per side; I was generous with the German command dice (6 rather than 5) to give them a better chance of getting multiple phases of play (possibly too generous, as it turned out!)
Forces were as follows:
FRENCH
Regular, 5 command dice
HQ
Major Raynal (Ranking Senior Leader) armed with pistol and Qui Qui
(An image of my Raynal with his dog, and underneath a photo of the real thing...)
Lt Girard (Senior Leader) armed with pistol
Lt Bazy (Senior Leader) armed with pistol
SQUADS 1-4
NCO
6 riflemen
2 bombers
Extra: one squad may swap its bombers for Trench Brooms
SUPPORT
4 x Hotchkiss MMG, 3 crew (no NCO)
Adjudant (Lt Alirol)
GERMANS
Regular, 6 command dice
HQ
Captain Gillhausen (Ranking Senior Leader) armed with pistol
Lt Rackow (senior leader) armed with pistol
SQUADS 1-4 (a fifth and sixth squad is available when one of the earlier squads has been eliminated/ withdrawn)
NCO
7 riflemen
2 bombers
Bombers attack the exterior of the Bourges casemates
Extra: any figures may be swapped for up to 6 Trench Brooms
SUPPORT
2 x Flamethrowers (2 man teams)
Adjudant
Boche on the roof of Fort Vaux, trying to find a way in
We threw in some special rules to try to get the flavor of the fighting in Fort Vaux:
• Germans start with CoC dice on 3 already.
• When spending a CoC die, the Germans can place up to a third and fourth jump off point (one per die). These are placed outside of close combat range and cannot be captured by the French.
• Germans only have models for 4 units, but can bring up to two more infantry sections into play if previous units have been destroyed or withdrawn.
• Tunnel combat: the first death MUST be the front model in the unit (unless the NCO gets it). Up to two models can shoot down each tunnel.
• Tunnels count as soft cover due to the darkness, rubble and litter inside them. Sandbag barricades are hard cover.
• Troops cannot RUN anywhere in the fort.
• French take the first phase.
There was no patrol phase – jump-off points were pre-set to represent the German attacks inside the tunnels on June 3rd, 1916, so the Germans were positioned at the end of the two corridors heading into the fort coming from the ditch bunkers (top right and top left of the map below); the French had jump-off points in both of these tunnels and around the main barracks corridor (bottom centre of the map).
As an additional rule to simulate the Germans’ attempts to break through in different parts of the fort, the German player had the option of spending a Chain of Command die on placing a third jump-off point later in the game at one of the other entrances to the complex. To help him along, I also allowed Nick to start with 3 CoC dice points. Finally, both forces started on Morale 10.
The French went first and deployed a couple of rifle squads behind sandbag barricades ready to hold off the Germans on the two corridors; Nick sent in a pair of flamethrowers backed up by infantry sections.
French troops on overwatch achieved precious little as they fired at the Germans turning the corner, and then Nick rolled the first of many double phases with his six command dice. This allowed the Germans to get stuck in with several consecutive phases of flamethrower fire – the unfortunate French section in the west tunnel was wiped out, and that in the east fared little better; after taking out the flammenwerfer team, they were charged and destroyed by the German infantry (the handgranaten special rule that allows grenades to be thrown prior to charging is pretty devastating in a tunnel.)
Matt had deployed a MMG team as back up in both tunnels. Both experienced some shockingly bad dice rolls (3 hits from ten dice at virtually point blank range), and the eastern gun was again charged and wiped out by hand grenades. This was also the end of Lt Girard, who had commanded the MG team, and the end of turn meant that both French jump-off points in the tunnels were captured; Nick then had some fortuitous rolls on the ‘bad things happen’ table which meant that the French morale had dropped from 10 to 0 in a matter of minutes!
With less than an hour played, we elected to ignore the result so far and play on. Nick set a third German jump-off point and attacked through the tunnel coming into the western Bourges Casemate (the Germans tried this during the real siege, but a number of flamethrower teams were wiped out in the event.)
French MG teams in the western Bourges Casemate, about to get a rude awakening as the Germans break in...
Faced with this, Matt pulled his defenders back to hold the main corridor outside the barracks in the west, but attempted to hold onto the maze of rooms around the latrines and powder magazines in the east tunnel (revolting as they were, French morale in the actual siege suffered when the Germans took the latrines.) This proved to be an inspired decision, as the Germans had to cross the fields of fire of a Hotchkiss MG in both corridors before being able to attack the nearest French.
Now the tables were turned, and the Germans faced heavy casualties as they attacked. Nick had stacked one section with all 6 trench brooms, but they were completely wiped out as they crossed the main corridor in attack. Likewise, the east corridor/ latrine section was held with huge German casualties. The CoC combat system was possibly a bit fierce in this situation; with the sheer number of dice being rolled, units were completely destroyed in one round. If we were to play again, I might be tempted to just dice for the first four or five figures in a section… Anyway, after totting up, the German morale fell to 0, so we called it a night. The French would hold on – for another day perhaps.
A final German rifle section requires a heroic mention…creeping down the west tunnel towards the main action, this squad took four consecutive moves on 2 dice, scoring a 2, 3, 4 and 4. Needless to say, these chaps didn’t get near the action! This echoes Captain Gillhausen’s actual account of having to use all his powers of persuasion to get some of his men into the fort, which must have been very unpleasant after several days of fighting.
Tom Webster Deakin has already done a brilliant job recording the model with photos on his blog
http://tomstoysoldiers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/fort-vaux-at-partizan.html, so I’ve tried to avoid any duplicate pictures and instead have used a mixture of unseen photos from Partizan and some new shots from our refight the other night.
This cross-section shot shows how far underground the French were!
December 01, 2013, 03:47:22 AM