Sloedam Causeway as a platoon action

[Westbury]

The battle for the Sloedam Causeway in October 1944 was part of the larger Battle of the Scheldt and featured Canadian troops from the Black Watch, the Glasgow Highlanders and the Cameronians in a bloody engagement.
We don't do WWII big style but thought what about an actions featuring one platoon (out of the many) trying to make it across the causeway in the face of German resistance?
So we set up our big river section and put in a ruined bridge piece and a railway line piece with the Germans in the town and the Canadians ready to cross. We played on a 6' x 4' with the Germans consisting of one squad plus a HQ squad with the option to radio for reinforcements once the shooting started while the Canadians featured a full platoon plus some mortar and machine gun support. As we were doing the 'dirty end' of an infantry firefight there was no off table artillery or Typhoons roaring in.

[Westbury]

The initial moves saw the 1st Canadian squad advance along the damaged bridge taking fire from the house that overlooked the bridge and a dug in lmg (this was the German HQ squad), a couple of guys went down suppressed but nothing too serious.
The 2nd Canadian squad in the bren carriers drove along the railway line under the cover of smoke which masked them from the German HQ squad but not the German 1st squad in the other half of the town who got a lucky kill on the driver of the lead bren carrier causing it to crash and force the half squad to bail out.
The return fire from the platoon Vickers deployed on the Canadian side of the river did however manage to silence the German lmg.

[Westbury]

Despite the smoke it was slow going for the Canadians and there was a steady trickle of men going down - most were wounds and temporary suppression but a couple were outright kills.
As the Germans were spread out they couldn't really bring a weight of fire down on any particular target but as they were in buildings they were more difficult to hit when the Canadians opened up. Particularly sneaky was the deployment of the 1st squad lmg towards the back of one of the buildings so it was difficult to spot but it had a lovely view of the centre of the causeway and caused some problems including taking out the driver of the second bren carrier.

[Westbury]

Persevering, the Canadians got into the edge of the town supported by fire from 3rd squad entrenched on the allied side of the river, and German fire died down somewhat as their medic tried to tend to tend to to the lmg team and other soldiers bandaged their comrades.
What the Canadians didn't know was that the German lieutenant had got through to company HQ and 2nd squad was making it's way from the main town along the railway tracks.

[Westbury]

Having got over the bridge the Canadian 1st squad got a bit cocky and stormed round the corner intent on capturing the wounded lmg team and the medic administering to their wounds - partly due to having lost their own platoon medic back on the bridge to a stray shot - vain claims of a war crime were dismissed as the fog of war.
So intent were they however that they forgot the Germans in the house above them and didn't see the veteran German lieutenant who had moved up to the corner of the building. Result? A grenade dropped neatly out of the window and a burst from an MP40 cut most of them down and it was a case of "for you ze war is over" as the HQ squad sergeant rounded them up and shepherded them into the building to watch over them while the medic saw to their wounds.

[Westbury]

The Canadian 2nd squad did somewhat better, making good use of the smoke which hid them from the rapidly approaching German 2nd squad, they stormed the ruined building on the other side of the road in the face of a panzerfaust which narrowly missed them and shot down and captured the Germans inside.
Time to regroup and move on although they had no knowledge of the fate of 1st squad and didn't know anything about the German reinforcements - dammed smoke!

[Westbury]

Taking advantage of the Canadian smoke the German 2nd squad closed on the building where the 2nd Canadian were; half going towards a low wall just outside the building and the other half down the road in an attempt to flank the Canadians.
This was where it all got a bit bloody. The Germans at the low wall successfully threw in a couple of grenades which effectively took out the Canadians inside (and probably their own wounded but hey, iron crosses all round ) but the other half (basically the corporal and the lmg team) were revealed in all their glory as the smoke dissipated and went down in a hail of bullets from the one Canadian who wasn't in the building and a couple of remnants who had recovered from their wounds back on the bridge.
The up side for the Germans was that they still had their medic available and he started making his rounds, the Canadians weren't so lucky.

[Westbury]

The next couple of turns about wrapped the game up.
The half of the German 2nd squad that wasn't lying out on the road stormed into the building and captured the wounded Canadians. The lone Canadian outside was now the target of Germans from the HQ squad in the building opposite so discretion saw him making his way back up the railway tracks.
The Canadian 3rd squad rather belatedly started making their way toward the bridge, their covering fire role being now largely redundant, but of course once they were in the right spot the hidden German lmg opened up again. They would undoubtedly make it across but with night falling (also know as the game clock has wound down) we reckoned that was it for the Canadians, two squads effectively lost and the Germans still in charge of the town.

[Westbury]

Discussing afterwards we thought it went well, we got a real sense of a platoon action in a constrained landscape and the difficulties of winkling out defenders - all troops were standard line, there were no elites etc. The rules stood up well and the on the hoof decisions we made about smoke and how long it lasted/drifted played out well.
Above all we had fun 

[has.been]

Lovely looking stuff Ian. Who was the Germans?
You or David?  Lots of scenery that I remember.

[Digits]

Sounds like a great game with a good after action report  there Ian! 

Superb table too, I love your big river sections!  Home made?

[CapnJim]

Great AAR.  Sounds like it was quite the scrap!  Nice looking minis on a GREAT looking table!

Unless I missed it somewhere, you didn't mention what rules you used.  May I ask what they were?

[fred]

Great looking game, and a great AAR.

The Canadians had it tough with an assault over the causeway. I’ve just finished reading Guns of War by George Blackburn - and feel that your Canadians where lacking a FOO and a lot of shells falling on the Germans!

[Westbury]

For those that asked.
I was the Germans
Pete, aka has.been made the river
The rules are our own although they were published in WI years ago

[vodkafan]

Well Mr Westbury WWII? That was a nice surprise. What a great table! Until now I thought Peter had the biggest river....