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 ❤️

Battle of Lydden : Operation Sealion and other New Year activity

Plenty of hobby activity here in the Dungeon. First up, and always a good start to the year we resumed the Sealion campaign. Day 2 and the Germans are pushing North out of Dover along the A2, with the white cliffs and stiff resistance the Germans haven’t been able to open the port yet so to open the A2 towards Canterbury a strong force of Fallschirmjager have been collected to push up the road on foot. The Village of Lydden sits where the road cuts through the hills and the British have blocked the road.

Germans approaching from the south looking to open the A2 and link up with forces to the west, we nominally set three objectives, the railway station, and two houses overlooking the road through the village, one central and one to the West.

Both sides had a double move for troops coming in on the first turn, the Germans making the better of this deployment rushing units of paratroopers close to all three objectives. They have some support weapons teams but only very limited armour.

The British aren’t giving up yet and push infantry along the railway line and an AT gun upto the roadblock

At the other end of the village, Fallschirmjager move into the garage, the house over the road from the telephone box is the objective

The centre of the village the objective being the big house.

The battle for the railway station begins early and proves a key focus for both sides. The Germans have some heavy artillery support, to reduce the impact of this we agreed it would only hit on a six. Haha first turn it demolished the British AT gun, lucky for the British the Germans don’t really have any armour !

The British push forward an AT rifle team only to find the paratroopers have 2 flame thrower teams to help clear the village ! toasted Tommies 🔥

The fight for the railway station hots up but some lightheaded Germans choose to charge across the railway line only to be caught in cross fire and wiped out by the British defenders !

Germans reserves move up, whilst the British seek to outflank them with one of their two Vickers Tanks

The Germans have secured the western objective and just need to hold it now 

British infantry advancing through the village

Dash it the British manage to snatch the station when the two leading Fallschirmjager units both fail an activation test in the same turn , the Vickers tank can now be seen burning and the British are almost broken. They have even resorted to deploying the Beaverette ! In the end the station is contested.

At the west of the village the Germans have secured the house by the Junction despite a late attempt by the British navy unit, the other Vickers tank is also now burning.

The ‘big’ house has changes hands a couple of times, especially when the pinned Fallschirmjager unit in the building rolled a FUBAR and fled the village !!!! But in the end the objective is contested with British in the back garden. This gives the Germans a minor victory, with the only clear objective held and more troops left on the table.

Star of the show definitely goes to the German artillery, their 105mm Howitzer which we only allowed to hit on 6’s hit at least 4 if not 5 times during the battle. This caused a huge amount of laughter and fun even form the British commander 😂

I also played a game of CoC down with George, what a beautiful setup but the result was rather lacklustre from the Germans. George has covered the details on his blog so I won’t repeat here, but the scenario from the campaign is a really tough one for the Germans with very little scope for the Germans. We are moving the campaign on rather than slog this one out again and again.

And some painting since Christmas…

My first completed Perry Spanish unit marches into formation, extra Grenadiers as this will represent the 1st Battalion. More to come…..

I also have a desire to ‘complete’ my SYW collection so I worked on the second unit of Austrian Draggons these representing the 1st Regiment.

They only just fit in the Austrian cavalry box though 

Following Jon’s lead the pile of shame, thankfully much smaller…..

Here are the currently unmade 1/48 aircraft I have collected in the Dungeon six in total, I need to make some progress on these I think.

Well that’s it for the update in 2026, I have some thoughts about projects and battles/ campaigns for this year and I’m already on with prepping the Greeks I got at Christmas. More games planned in the next few weeks.

Thanks as always for taking the time to check out the blog 

Matt ❤️