Sicily 1943 : 1st Fallschirmjager Division jump into battle

Having painted up the extra Fallschirmjager recently they ‘jumped’ straight into the battle for Sicily 1943.

The scenario for today sees both sides attempting to rescue/capture a high ranking German officer. Unfortunately neither side knows his exact location. There are three possible locations as marked on the photo above and marked by the Storch and two command vehicles. This created some interesting tactical decisions for both sides, whether to cover all three objectives or quickly eliminate one then focus on the others ? It will take a unit one turn to search an objective.

Roughly equal forces both have a mixture of infantry, support weapons and a single tank. The Americans have the move and fire rule whilst the Fallschirmjager are of course veterans. The Americans move onto the table using the available cover supported by a Sherman, they cover the road with their 57mm antitank gun.

A second unit running into the church yard and the vines beyond

The German smaller squads fan out holding their support weapons in the centre.

After a couple of turns of manoeuvring the German make a bid for the centre objective but the Americans immediate rush forward the jeep pinning them down with machine gun fire.

Keen to capture the officer the American GI’s push across the open fields but get cut down by mortar fire

Having ‘hidden’ in the farm building the Germans attempt to outflank the Americans but they too come under heavy fire and eventually have to pull back

The Fallschirmjager are taking heavy fire but they make the central objective only to find the officer isn’t at that location, suddenly the nature of the battle turns as both sides need to regroup to the flanks

In cinematic style the Americans charge forward again in the jeep spraying machine gun fire, but they get caught by the German command group who get a lucky roll of the dice and hit low it up 👍

Still both sides don’t know where the officer is hiding and it is proving dangerous to break cover to attempt to search

On the right one German squad has been lost searching so the second sits firm in the broken building

Finally turn 5 and the Germans are able to search near the Storch and the officer is found, now they just need to hang on

As expected they come under heavy fire but by the end of turn six and with no extra turn the Germans are clinging on. They have taken a beating with only one of their five infantry squads still in fighting shape. The Americans have the numbers but have run out of time.

Enjoyable game and the scenario worked really well giving lots of tactical decisions, we will play this one again in some form and probably have a follow up at some time. On the Sicily front I am prepping three or so squads of American Paratroopers to join the Sicily campaign so hopefully we will see them sometime.

Planning for another game tomorrow but as yet undecided what to play ?

Thanks for checking in 

Matt 😀