Lillehammer II : Norway 1940 and the other Roman Wall

We played a Lillehammer scenario a few months ago from the book below and although we are not playing them strictly as a campaign I thought it would be nice to play the follow up battle where the allies having been pushed out of the town counterattack.

A useful source of information

The allies are attacking from this table edge the north of the town, their objective to capture the road junction and get the Germans if possible out of the buildings. Working in 28mm I have had to adapt the map slightly and for a one off battle I simply balanced the troops as I felt suitable. Although you can’t really see them across the stream there are two small (wooded) hills.

The small German force consists of three smallish infantry squads, a supporting mortar, MG34 and a single Panzer I. They have already set up on the table and the allies were asked to develop an attack plan without knowing the German deployment. The Germans have troops on both hills and the third unit held in reserve.

The allies have 5 infantry squads, with machine gun and Bren gun support a light mortar and an ATR. The Norwegians come in from the woods

The British infantry to their left across the road.

The defenders open fire form the wooded hillock

Infantry Held in reserve by the objective and the PzI heads off to block the road once it knows where the ATR is

The leading Norwegian infantry comes to the die of the woods

But in one of those unlikely events are hit hard almost immediately by mortar fire. A turn later they fail to activated and are hit again effectively knocking out the whole unit.

After a couple of turns of long range firing and with one eye on the turn limit the allies bring on some faster moving ski troops to try and out flank the defenders over the stone bridge

The Norwegians have had the worst of the fire and their advance has stalled.

The British make better progress through the trees and towards the stream

They make it to the stream laying down fire on the defenders in the nearby field.

The ski troops are now nearly at the bridge but they have delayed their arrival and May struggle to reach the objective in time ?

That said the Germans have taken a number of casualties and are very thin on the ground apart from the reserves

The British are pressing on the left the crossing here only defended by the remains of a single squad in the field.

The residue of the Norwegian infantry makes a brave dash for the ford across the stream

But they are in the open and take heavy fire from two directions

The battle is now in the balance and the skiers are moving quickly across the bridge, we give them advantages over moving and shooting

With time running out they make a bid for the objective and almost kill the German HQ

After several failed attempts the ATR finally hits the Panzer in the flank and it bursts into flames 🙁

On the British left they are hit again by mortar fire and although they start to push across the stream and the defenders are now almost wiped out it is too late.

This is the high point for the allies as the German reserves are able to relocate down the road and with some devastating fire the Norwegians caught in the open are wiped out. An enjoyable battle, the Norwegians were perhaps a little slow off the mark spending a turn hiding in the woods, similarly the ski troops made it tough for themselves coming on in turn three. It may have been very different if the ATR had hit earlier or the German mortars had been less effective ?

End of last week I was up in Edinburgh again and On the way back stopped to visit some sections of the Roman Antonine Wall. Those not acquainted with the wall it is located further north than it’s more famous cousin built by Hadrian cutting across central Scotland at it narrowest part. It was less robust than Hadrian’s wall but imposing all the same. It isn’t visible for its full length.

As to be expected it has a number of Forts along its length one of these are perhaps the best preserved section near Falkirk. Just across the ditch is Rough Fort as it is known

It was a beautiful day the ditch, the wall is on the left running away into the distance

Excavations have revealed a number of defensive stake holes in the area which can still be seen

I was also biking a bit along canals around Falkirk and visited a separate section which again shows the impressive scale of the ditch

Equally impressive but more modern the canal network here goes through Falkirk tunnel it was fun if slightly perilous to cycle through

That’s all for now another CoC game planned tomorrow and some painting this evening 👍