Norway 1940 : Defence of Tretten

Looking for a quick setup battle this weekend I dug back into my Norway Skirmish scenarios book. This battle is loosely based on the Defense of Trenton. The Germans are forcing the allies back, after the collapse at Lillehammer. We played the scenario with the basic ‘breakthrough’ scenario from the Bolt Action rule book (yes I’m still playing version 1).

Elements of the 163rd Infantry Division are supported by Gebirgsjager and some suitable armoured support. Their objective is to break through the defence line held by the 15th Infantry Brigade and the Norwegian Torkildsen Battalion. The river is only crossable on foot and the woods will slow movement. I didn’t take too many photos as we were having too much fun.

The start of the battle, the Norwegians and British dug in on the right, the German preliminary bombardment pinned nearly every unit and killed one of the 2LB gunners by the small White House. The green markers indicate the location of a hidden Norwegian sniper team. Which would only be revealed when it was overrun.

German infantry Gebirgsjager  come on through the woods using the high ground as cover.

A second 7nit heads for the bridge again using cover, German tanks can be seen advancing slowly through the woods in the distance.

First ‘blood’ to the Norwegian though when their medium mortar hits a German MG first shot behind the logs completely knocking it out. The infantry push on up the hill

Elite Norwegian ski troops come on in reserve and look to cover the bridge. In the distance a lone antitank rifle team and machine gun team are left to cover the woods but are dismayed to see the advancing German armour !

British infantry also moves up to cover the bridge, the second ski unit can be seen heading off into the woods where they got into heavy hand to hand combat driving the Germans in that area back.

 The Gebirgsjager make a bid to cross the bridge and take heavy fire they hit the deck, but they may have only been a diversion for the main assault.

Which is coming over the high ground.

The Norwegians batter away at the attackers but they are out numbered with too many of their troops cover their right flank. The German armour chooses to sweep through in the distance and with the infantry on this flank reaching the stream the battle is over. A good win for the Germans who cleverly kept their armour away form the British artillery.

A fun battle played in fine spirits. Hopefully we can return to Norway again soon, it reminds me I have a couple of french units I need to get painted and some Germans I was going to do in greatcoats.

Keith I think mentioned on one of my previous posts how many trains I have for the model railway, so I thought I would come clean, here is the current train storage case. I doubt very much this will be the end of collecting so I’m going to need to build some more shelves soon….and yes I have quite a lot of stock for them to pull :)

More games planned next week and likely some painting, well why not !

Thanks for popping in

Matt♥️