10mm New Model General

An old friend of mine, who I haven't seen in a while, was able to come over to try his luck with Crossfire. We decided to play the 'Bocage' scenario from the 'Hit the Dirt' booklet for Crossfire. It's a great scenario as it covers hidden deployment, the use of snipers, off board mortars, tanks and anti-tank guns. Brian chose to play the British (I have no American miniatures) so I was the defending Germans. My view looking North towards the British edge of the map. My objective was to hold a line of sight on the road intersection by the time the clock ran out. Start time was 0600hrs game would end at 1100hrs, advancing 30 minutes on every role of 5+ on a D6. I had three advantages, hidden deployment, 2 minefields and 2 stretches of barbed wire.  The British advanced quickly on the West side of the road. Finding an open field (red chip) the Brit commander figured an ambush was imminent. He called up his Forward Observation Officers (FO) to give them a...

After the landings near Pachino on July 10th, 1943 the Second Canadian Brigade pushed North.  Canadians entering Modica  By noon on July 16th they were three miles south of Pianzza Armerina when a large explosion on the road halted their advance. At this point the Loyal Edmonton Regiment was in the lead. "C" Company had been riding on the sherman tanks of the Three Rivers Regiment in the vanguard. "C" Company dove for cover as they came under machine gun fire from the nearby slopes.  German MG position Brigadier J.C. Jefferson ordered "C" Company to take the slopes on the right side of the road and "A" Company was ordered to clear the left.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Poor Bloody Infantry (PBI) game takes place with "A" Company attempting to clear the left side of the roadway.  Here are our initial deployments ...

Pianzza Armerina, July 16th, 1943  (a Poor Bloody Infantry tabletop wargame) “It was some kind of country… everything went uphill! We had to march on primitive cobble roads; when these ended it was only a simple track. We couldn’t have done it without mules; no room for transport inland; this bears what I have said before – anything we did in England did not, in the end, prepare us for this terrain or fighting, other than (of course) stamina.” Interview, Private Stanley Chettleborough, Nov, 1983 Brown, Shaun R.G., “The Loyal Edmonton Regiment at war, 1943-45” (1984), Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive), 11, http://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/11 With the success of the Husky landings on July 10th, the Canadian Second Brigade pushed North from the landing beaches near Pachino. By July 16th they were within three miles of Pianzza Armerina when machine gun fire and a large explosion on the road halted their advance. "C" Company of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment who were i...