Flavion: Breakout from the Meuse - France ´40

From SC France ´40 The Ghost Division

It´s been awhile now, but Magnus and I have finally played the third scenario in the France´40 campaign. The reason for the hiatus is that the scenario involved quite a lot of tanks, that neither of us had since before. Magnus even painted up a great looking unit of motorcycle mounted troops.

Background

Seeing the danger in the German bridgehead the French ordered General Bruneau´s 1st armored division to counter the threat from the bridgehead. During the movements the fuel trucks was separated from the armor. The french tanks waited at Flavion to get re-fueled, and as that was in progress the German 7th panzer division descended upon them.

Objective

The objective was for the Germans to destroy/force back the french tanks.

Units

I had:

• One Char-B1 bis
• Two full infantry squads with trucks
• One Char-B1 bis that was out of fuel
• One Hotchkiss 25 mm AT gun

Magnus had:

• Two Panzer IIc
• Two Panzer 38(t)
• One Motorcycle infantry squad
• One PaK 36 AT gun
• One MMG team

Summary

I placed my Char B that was out of fuel on the left flank with a infantry squad beside it in the house. The other infantry squad dug in in the middle house, beside them was the Hotchkiss. The working Char-B was parked left oft rightmost house.

Magnus forces started to arrive he was very careful to not expose his tanks from to much fire, so he concentrated on the stranded Char-B first, it was quickly really pinned down, but he couldn´t get  enough to crew to give up. The Hotchkiss and the other Char- B helped by taking shoots at the German tanks as opportunities presented itself. The Char-B had a particular effective turn as it killed an entire MMG team with his light howitzer at the same time it scored a hit on one oft the German tanks.

The scenario ended with no French tanks destroyed, so finally a win for the French! I think that Magnus was too cautious, had he committed more of his forces at the same time I think that I at least had lost the first Char-B to pinning. I think we both enjoyed the scenario, I would really like to play again.