20mm LRDG raid on Barce

Last Thursday at the club, we played a game using Will McNally's most excellent 20mm WW2 collection.  Will based the scenario on the Barce raid from the first Rapid Fire book.  Ian and I were the plucky Empire troops, Ian took the Guards patrol plus one of the command team jeeps, while I took the |New Zealand troop plus the other command jeep.

My patrol stealthily moved across the table from the road entry point towards the airfield perimeter crash gate and was somewhat bemused to find Ian charging ahead with the Guards at top speed down the main road.  The following turn, an alert Italian sentry dropped his Salami and hit the alarm klaxon, rousing the garrison.  I diverted the command jeep to take up an overwatch position on some hills overlooking the village and Italian HQ, while Ian shot up the village.  The Kiwi troop headed for the crash gates at full speed.  The Italians poured out of the barracks and headed for Ian's patrol, mostly ignoring the airfield.  This triggered a long slugging match between Ian and Phil's Italians, resulting in a lot of Italian infantry casualties but also the loss of most of the Guards transports.

The Kiwis headed for the gates, shooting at Italian sections in defences by the gate and in the control tower, as well as a dug in MMG and an MMG firing from the village (which the command jeep on the hill dealt with.  Mike's Italians were eventually overwhelmed, but at a cost of 1 jeep and the two Chevrolets.  My demolition team made it to the first aircraft and set their charge, lit the blue touch paper and retired.  Kaboom and the first Italian aircraft disintegrated in a ball of fire!  The nearest Italian infantry section was trudging towards the explosion, covered by the guns of my remaining jeep.  We agreed at this point that the LRDG patrols had achieved their objectives, virtually wiping out the Italian garrison (all bar some tankettes which were proving very troubling).  My surviving troopers would all fit in the command jeep and last patrol jeep, while the Guards patrol would have to retire on foot to the rendezvous.

We played the game using Battlegroup rules and agreed that the softskins were a little too vulnerable, being easy to spot, hit and with no save, knock out.  Next time, we'll experiment with making moving vehicles even harder to hit in this type of scenario, representing fast moving, unlit vehicles at night proving hard to hit.

Some random pictures of the game below, taken at the end.

Thanks for looking.