Norway WW2 : the Battles of Dombaas 16th/17th April 1940

After the hot dusty weather in the Peninsular I cleared the table off for some snow. Norway 1940…..

We have played a number of scenarios from this excellent book. A couple of the scenarios based around the activity of the 324th Fallschirmjager Regiment are quite small, with a small number of German Paratroopers attempting to capture and hold the strategically important Dombaas Crossroads. There are two scenarios as the battle lasted over two days. We thought it would be fun to played the two scenarios as a linked pair in the same session.

We modified the forces to work with Bolt Action and set to…..

The central key objective is a Barn located close to the road junction. Some light woods but also a lot of open ground. A small ruined building can be seen to the left of the barn which will provide cover if needed. 

The small Fallschirmjager  force deploys from the light woods beyond the ruined building. The Norwegian troops arrive from three other directions , this includes at least one unit of Norwegian ski troops seen here coming over the low hill.

As expected the Germans dash for the bar and the strong defensive position it will 

provide.

With the Germans in the barn, Norwegian infantry approach from several direction opening fire, but ultimately they only have six turns to get into the barn which will require them to assault.

Norwegians closing in on the backyard of the barn, but with limited cover they get pinned down.

The Norwegian HQ crosses the road to lead the attack

The first infantry unit, carries out the first assault on the building, they wipe out the first unit in the building but as we agreed the building could hold two units they can push in yet.

After several tough rounds of hand to hand combat and right in the last turn the Norwegians are able to secure the Barn and a win in the first battle.

Now they must hold the area against a German counterattack

Both sides have some additional reserves for this scenario. The Norwegians setup in and around the barn.

The Fallschirmjager attack from two sides using the light woods and the hills as cover for their advance

The defenders dug is as best as they can, they keep their ski troops in reserve in case the Germans break cover

Germans can be seen assaulting the barn through the ruined building but they have also broken cover from the woods the elite ski troops swoop in to finish them off.

They only need some 5’s …arghhhhhh !

The paratroopers win and cross into the yard. From the left you can see some ‘French’  reserves arriving (don’t look too closely as they are actually Polish infantry 🙂)

The Germans force there way into the barn from the back

So it is upto the French to clear them out, after several further tough rounds of combat

The last of the Germans are driven out but it has literally taken all of the Norwegian force to complete the objective.

Two excellent and fun battles/skirmishes very close and brutal with nowhere to hide for either side. I’m sure we will be returning to Norway some time later in the year. But I do need to paint some French for the Battles around Narvik.

Thanks as always for taking the time to checkout the blog. More to come soon…..

Matt ❤️