Recently my buddy put together a large multi-player Flames of War game refighting the Battle of Le Mesnil-Patry between a Canadian armoured battle group and the SS defending the town. My son had off from school as it was winter break so we headed over for a game! As you can see below my friend made brought his typically detailed map and then built up a beautiful board. The Canadians entered the board on turn one from the road marked by the red arrow in the upper left hand of the map, with troops defending the village of Norrey-En-Bessin in the top center. The SS deployment was marked by the dots on the map. Two of the companies were allowed to deploy on the roadway running southwest from grid mark 5/8 while the other two defending companies were allowed to defend up to the dotted portion running from grid mark 0/6 down to 2/0. The Germans also had a Panzer company roll on the board from the bottom of the map with modified reserve rules, meaning they only got to roll on specific turns. The Germans were also told they knew there were Canadians off the left side of the map so they needed to be cautious, but that ended up being Game Master subterfuge. With TJ running the game you always have to be wary that such trickery isn’t just trickery! This scenario was originally designed by crew over at Fire and Fury for Battlefront WWII. If you want more information on the original scenario and the battle itself follow the link! We did use a few of the rules modifications such as not allowing road movement through the town of Norrey-En-Bessin, delayed reserves for the Germans and so on. Some of the rules which didn’t have a similar rule in Flames of War were not used.
Ideally the game was set to last 16 turns, although as always we had a time cap as well based on the stores table needs. As always there were multiple levels of victory for each side, some of which overlapped, some of which didn’t. The Germans would win a major victory if they could defend Le Mesnil-Patry without any Canadians entering the village and take the village of Norrey-En-Bessin, a solid victory if they could defend Norrey-En-Bessin without any Canadians entering the village, and a minor victory if the Canadians entered the village but the Germans were able to re-take it. The Canadians would have a major victory if the could get off the board at one or both of the red arrows, a major victory if the could take the whole of Le Mesnil-Patry or a minor victory if they took part of the village.
The board with the deployed Germans defending Le Mesnil-Patry with the Canadian infantry holding Norrey-En-Bessin. The Canadian armor has just rolled on breaking the calm!
The Canadians took the roads through the town with one wing driving directly through the center to hit the crease between the two commands while the other wing drove towards the far right flank of the German lines.
It is worth noting numerous Shermans had tank riders, although they weren’t marked. This particular platoon of Germans had some bad luck. After getting hosed down with machine gun fire their panzerschreck failed it’s save and of course that was the time the Canadians rolled a 6 to kill the dug in stand! This feat would be repeated when the infantry assaulted taking out the heavy machine gun stand in the same fashion in a later turn!
Even without their panzerschreck the Germans were able to knock out three Shermans in two separate assaults with their two panzerfausts in defensive fire and close combat! The Canadian player was going to throw in one more assault but that darned GM talked him out of it!
The PzIV’s rolled on to the board and were faced with quite a few choices of which direction to move towards as the line was being threatened at multiple points! On the road parallel to the panzers the halftracks were loaded down with panzerfaust teams idling while facing the same decision as the panzers!
The surviving Shermans wiped out platoon of Germans who held up their initial assault with the help of the Canadian infantry, while the next wave of Shermans slowly moved up to finish off the first line of German defenders.
As the Shermans on the right were moving faster the PzIV’s took up a position of cover to make their advance more difficult. The half-tracks loaded with panzerschreck teams rolled towards the mansion to the north of town to take cover in the building and bunker up to cause the Canadian spearhead on the left flank a headache.
Meanwhile the next waves of PzIV’s advanced to take cover in the town to help hold the town for when (not if) the Canadians destroyed the troops holding the mansion.
The Shermans sat back and fired rounds into the mansion while artillery rained down on the defenders for a few turns, slowly whittling them down. But as each turn passed the objective got harder and harder to take.
As the Canadian attack on the German left flank stalled the last of the PzIV’s moved up to secure La Mesnil-Patry.
The PzIV’s moved up and opened fire on an advancing platoon of Shermans causing significant damage, knocking out two of the tanks.
Despite taking a few artillery rounds early in the game the troops in Norrey-En-Bessin were fairly comfortable and were in no position to be counter attacked.
Having finished off majority of the Germans defending the road, with only a few stands breaking contact and making their way back to friendly lines, the Shermans continued to try and crack the strong point of the mansion.
With two turns to go this is the view the Canadians had of Le Mesnil-Patry, that’s a lot of guns!
With time to end rapidly approaching and only two turns left with the Canadians three turns from even approaching the village (the mansion was not part of the village for the purposes of the objective) we called the game a major German victory.
Canadian author Terry Copp stated the plan for this battle was “Conceived in sin and born in inequity” and while the Canadian players might have felt the same way about the scenario at the end it was a fun hard fought game, and most importantly I got to hang out with my friends and one of my sons! The Canadians did an excellent job at the beginning of the game aggressively driving the German right flank. They ended up bogging down as they tried to shoot the remnants of the surviving members of the platoon that was guarding the road and were rightfully nervous about the mansion that had a panzerfaust sticking out of every window! For a time it appeared as if the artillery was going to quickly eliminate the troops in the mansion, but even though it was going well it didn’t go fast enough. This allowed the Germans to consolidate their hold on the village and prevent the Canadians from wresting control!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 