Battle for Sixmile Cottages : Operation Sealion

We’ve not seen an Operation Sealion battle for a while so with a new visitor to the Dungeon I thought this would be a good option if nothing else it normally looks nice. George has already written up the battle here http://musingswargameslife.blogspot.com/ . By way of background we are in the morning of Day 2, the British overnight have reformed a defensive line along West Wood but they have been pushed back again and it is clear the road junction at Sixmile Cottages is key to opening up Stone Street and the way north to Canterbury. The map below shows the position at the road junction the German main force will arrive from the south their Recon force randomly along one of the roads marked with red arrows. The British have positioned a  Homeguard unit at the junction with an antitank gun. British armour will hopefully arrive from Elmsted.

The defense at Sixmile Cottages, Rhodes Minnis saw fighting earlier in the day

The junction at Sixmile Cottages the Homeguard have thrown up a barricade, at least the cows seem unconcerned

The British reinforcements arrive from the north, they have an anti tank rifle Oerlikon , Panzers beware !

The German force approaches from the south. Some fallschirmjager have been pulled into the force including a 75mm towed by a kettenkrad (first time it has been on the table)

The Homeguard brace themselves as they see German kradschutzen race down the road from Lymbridge

The Germans have pushed upto the road, but have little luck early on (bad dice rolling by George)

The infantry is now readying to push forward in force 

But the British are digging in and will be hard to budge

Germans break across the road, I seemed to forget to take any photos of the the tank battle which was taking place to the west.

The Germans had early success immobilising the Cruiser MkIII but they have a MKII as well which spends much of the battle trading shots with the German 38(t)

Gulp ! Fallschirmjager pushing forward on the right

Eventually the Germans have to break cover and rush forward on mass, they pay a heavy price but the British defenders are being thinned out. The British 2lb gun seems to have missed placed it ammunition ! Stuck twice by random events, on that note the British saw some friendly fire the British regulars mistaking the Homeguard for German 5th Columnists

The British regulars are no match for the German paratroopers in hand to hand combat

But all is not lost yet they still have some defence around the key objective of the cross roads

The German 75mm is finally brought up and scores a direct hit on some of the defenders

Finally the tank battle is over with the 38(t) in flames next to the SdKfz 222 which was set on fire earlier

But it is too late the Panzer II has made it to the cross roads

…and the defenders are just too few the Germans are now occupying both of the red cottages and the British have nothing in reserve. We gave the victory at this point to the Germans but they had paid a heavy price with the majority of their infantry at or below 50% and they lost nearly the whole of their recon force.

A fine battle, always nice to revisit the campaign and nice to introduce another player to the dungeon. We are not quite locals but in the scheme of things less than an hour apart with both of us close to retirement opens up some interesting prospects.

We have had another bank holiday weekend with pretty good weather and with a few other adventures planned in the future I needed to test some kit out in the hills. So I packed my rucksack and headed away from the crowds.

My campsite for the night, well off the beaten track

This enabled me to start walking early and be on the tops before any holiday crowds, I had the summit of Fairfield to myself, well only some Herdwick sheep for company, the cloud and weather conditions were really magical and I stood and watched it develop for ages on my own

Another shot slightly later from a different summit.

That’s it for now probably no gaming next weekend as it is our wedding anniversary and we are away in Scotland on the Isle of Arran.

Thanks for passing by 😀