The Second Battle of Elham : Operation Sealion

Having fought the Germans to a standstill in our last battle in the village of Elham the British now outnumbered have been forced to start pulling back. 

The Battle takes place just to the north of the previous battle so those with a keen eye can compare the edge of the village which I have recreated from the previous battle.

To make this a different and interesting scenario the following. The two forces were made up only of units or vehicles which survived the previous battle, but I balanced them to 12  each side. The British who are pulling back have a random setup as shown above, each unit placed on the battlefield at the start, we rolled a D6 for which quadrant they were in but then could be placed as required. The red dots indicate the dispersed location of the British forces as a result of this setup. The Germans would come on in 2 waves with the first only being the faster moving vehicles. All German forces would again have a random entry point on a D6. This creating the fog of war and the rapid redeployment of both forces after the first battle.

The Beaverette and Bren carrier have ended up deployed far over to the west.

The British are still holding the small petrol station, the Matilda tank pushes forward along the small river Nail Borne

The first German tank arrives down the main road Pz III which immediately starts to engage the British tanks to the right

The PzII arrives on the west, not ideal ! But it can chase the two British light vehicles away

The Pzjager risks driving down the main road to take up a central position

The German second wave arrives and the German infantry immediately assault the petrol station forcing the British defenders out.

More German infantry run down the road

The British defenders choose to attack rather than defend and a squad assaults the PzJ , unfortunately for them they fail and are pushed back

The Pak 34 arrives but again on the far left 

Armoured vehicles exchange shots on the right but with little effect

The British unit are now assaulted and caught in the rear by a German unit, it doesn’t end well for the British

Meanwhile the PzIII has taken a direct hit and is in flames

Whilst the armour continues to blast away at each other the German infantry have now pushed all the British infantry back and are breaking across the open ground towards the road junction

The Bren Carrier has been knocked out by the Pak 34

The centre of the village has now been cleared of British and the Germans are regrouping to drive towards their objectives

Their final objective is the lone house, the British are dug in here and come under extremely heavy fire, they survive the initial assault

German infantry in the distance have knocked out the British antitank gun which had been dug in by the damaged bus

As a final (literally) roll of the dice the Only German unit within range of the final British defenders is the German officer, he gallantly (foolishly) assaults the building but they fail to push the British out.

An excellent and fun battle with hot fighting right from the start. In the end we called this a draw, almost all the British had been wiped out apart from those holding the building and the Matilda , but the British were holding this last house.

More to come soon 👍