The Battle for Bridge : Operation Sealion

This week we had planned to play out in the shed but the weather in a crazy twist became too hot ! So we stayed in the dungeon for a return to our Sealion campaign. The Germans are pushing inland on S-Day plus 1, having secured much of the south coast of Kent on S-Day they are driving North towards Canterbury. The direct route along the A2 has a potential pinch point at the Village of Bridge where the  Nail Bourne (river) cuts the road.

The Germans recognising the challenge have sent a small recon force who have successfully captured the bridge. The British have missed the importance of the objective, luckily the retired colonel of the Barham Yeomanry has taking things into his own hands and called all the home guard forces for the area to attempt to take back the bridge. The local population can only hope the regular British army will reach the village to support the battle before the Germans are able to get their support to the village.

Looking North up the A2 towards the Village of Bridge, a German Stuka has been called in to support the small German force.

The German recon force holding both bridges (which are the objective for the day) including motorcycle MG teams rushing up the road.

The first wave of British are the Home guard and local residents, including the mounted Barham Yeomanry. The British also have Bofor Anti-aircraft gun

A view from behind the windmill to the village of Bridge and the objective bridges on the Nail Bourne

The A2 is a very straight Roman road linking the coast to Canterbury. The advanced German infantry cross the bridge and dig in to the small white cottage by the bridge

German armoured cars push forward to hold the advancing Home guard back

The RAF enter the battle

As the battle progresses both sides begin to bring reserves on, the German rush forward in trucks

The RAD 8 takes a hit and bursts into flames blocking the road unless a heavy tank can be brought forward to push it out the way. Home guard can be seen edging along the rear of the houses but they come under fire from German machine guns dug in on the other side of the river.

British regular infantry finally starts to reach the battlefield

The spitfire swoops on the German infantry knocking out one of the trucks luckily the majority of the infantry are able to dismount unharmed

The British bring on a Matilda II whoch drives the German AC back towards the bridge

The Yeomanry gallop forward on their horses catching a German unit in the open behind the white cottage they are nearly wiped out

More German reserves are pushed forward, this Pioneer Hanomag armed with a powerful antitank weapon

The Matilda strikes and another armoured car is burning, but behind that you can see a large crater where sadly the Yeomanry were targeted by the Stuka a direct hit saw them literally wiped out !

British regulars advancing down the A2

Matilda pushes the AC off the road and prepares to rush the smaller of the two bridges, you can really see from the photos the intensity of the battle which focussed around the white cottage the British bringing more and more troops to assault it but them being driven back by the defenders.

The Matilda attempts to smash the German vehicle but fails to destroy it and they become locked on the bridge

The Germans attempt to advance on the right, but a Vickers tank has managed to take the bridge, and only the arrival of German armour will be able to drive this away

The Matilda is hit but rather than destroyed it is driven back off the bridge. The infantry behind assault the German Armoured vehicle but they too are driven back, lucky for them only move back onto the bridge.

In the meantime the spitfire has been chasing the German bomber but has been unable to knock it out. And that without anymore photos was about the end of the battle, both sides had taken massive casualties, the British did manage eventually to retake the white cottage, but with German tanks moving up the road they have limited resources to hold the village. Always fun to renew the Sealion campaign, a tough battle for both sides with a lot of infantry casualties.

Earlier in the week I also played  another  CoC game down with George

The Germans find themselves defending another wood

The British launch a cleverly planned mortar barrage which hits hard

Almost finished, the Germans fight back making it a tense and close battle but eventually the German morale breaks giving the British a fine win 👍

My Partizan loot, not too much just some bits and bobs. What I did buy secondhand was a couple of boxes containing lots of bits for a Star Fort. It was very cheap so I wasn’t too worried whether it was complete or not (I didn’t unpack it at the show) so when I got it all out back at home here is what I found.

A basic triangular shape, 10mm SYW figures shown above

This extended version with my ECW figures

A bigger version with extra bits added including the broken wall sections.

I played around a bit and it does seem to be missing some sections, and the shape seems slightly odd ? It would be easy to make a couple of extra sections, above is how it might look in the corner of the table which I guess is most likely as I wasn’t planning to play any siege battles in the near future. Food for thought anyway depending on when and how I might use it ?

That’s it for now likely more to come soon although very little progress on painting.

Thanks as always for visiting

Matt ❤️