Dynamic DAK

Martin back with a mix of After Action Report and Dynamic Points update. If you have been following us for a while you may recall I first started writing for the BtA blog back in December 2019 following taking my Bisons to a BtA event at Crawley Wargames Club where I won, with my, at the time very unfancied 90th Light Division ever since then I have been regularly replaying games with this Force and see it as a good way to judge how the Dynamic Points have affected the German’s in the Desert.

Overall my list hasn’t changed a lot and yet it plays very differently today than it did back in 2019 and certainly it now has more options, the Bison is even offically a unit not just a proxy model. With the 2023 dynamic ponts my list didn’t alter overly much infact all I added was 2 extra infantry teams but with the 2024 amendments suddenly I had a whole bunch of extra points thanks to the significantly reduced cost of my 7.62cm AT guns and the much desired revision of the base cost of a Panzer III. The overall change is that I now have 3 full platoon of infantry with HMG and 81mm Mortars teams (compared to short platoons with some HMGs) significantly increasing their durability if not fighting effectiveness. This resulted in me dropping my 2 gun Bison SPA unit as I now have 3 templates elsewhere. The two Bisons like the 81mm mortar are rerolling hits but with multiple templates I can counter act this effect somewhat by grouping my ranged in markers.

This unit change and the additional points saved on the Panzer III’s enabled me to add in an extra platoon of 5cm Pak 38 AT guns and a lone Flak36 8.8cm AA gun, now a real bargin at 5pts. So overall my unit count has gone up 1 and I have a lot more anti-tank capability which in MW is a crucial capability where infantry generally lack much in the way of integrated AT weaponry. The one downside of all this is that my Mixed Panzer III unit that was nearly 40 points and just needed my 10/4 AA half track to make up Reservest unit is now a 30 point unit forcing me to put either an Infantry Platoon or the Dianna unit in Reserve as well. Luckily the addition of the Pak38’s rather offsets this on the table top and I still start with a more than solid AT capability from my 2 ATG platoons and the 88 as well as the three 2.8cm anti-tank rifle teams and have some options in how to bring on my Reserve capability, assult orientated with the Panzer III’s or anti-armour with the Dianna’s extra AT punch.

So onto a bit of on table action. I played against my regular gaming partner Bryan for this and his British Rifles supported by American Shermans . His list has also altered with the changes from Dynamic Points with him gaining a couple of vickers HMG’s and a few extra Rifle teams overall. Like my list his Medium Tank support has got cheaper and Reserves are now a Rifle Platoon and the American Tankers, reducing his on table infantry component . So what did we play, I decided to go Manouver vs Defend and we ended up with the Germans attacking a British Bridgehead with the Americans riding to the resuce from Deep Scattered Reserve (giving a real hollywood vibe).

The table was set up as below with me concentrating all my ranged in markers around Objective 2 the area where I felt a likely 6pdr Ambush would come from. I split my force choosing to have options to assault from all 3 directions with Objective 1 being my primary target even if it was covered by the deadly 25pdr guns on the hill but they were a rather long way away. The minefield on the British Right flank rather dissauded me from trying Rommels favourite left hook manouver but could also hinder the Americans if the arrived on the extreme right. I had placed my 88 to cover this area just in case.

Deployment

Turn 1

The first turn saw the DAK advance across all front with the palm grove screening the Panzer III and Rifles on my left from the 25pdrs, in the centre I just generally advanced through the rocky terrain and on my right I rather riskily dashed forward to get into a better alignment for my 7.62cm AT to fire into the centre of the table. I had little in the way of effective shooting but a fortunate hit killed one of the vickers HMG teams leaving them on a last stand test in their turn 1, which they promptly failed despite an HQ reroll. With that the mortars put down a smoke barrage to screen the Biritish positions from the flanking units on the British left. Other shooting pinned down the centre infantry but no casulaties were taken.

Turn 2

As the British hadn’t ambushed I decided to chance my arm with an assault against the British Rifles in front of Objective 1 whilst manouvering further on my right flank behind the British smokescreen. The Rifles had deployed unsupported being over 8″ from the 25pdr battery behind them and the Panzers rolled in killing a few teams, the British elected to fall back leaving me with the dilema of sitting in front of the 25pdrs at short range and the near certain ambush on my right flank so I used my consolidae move to pull them back as much as possible afterall the British infantry were now out in the open and would quickly fall prey to my HMG and MG infantry teams if they didn’t get their heads down. This meant I was fairly certain they wouldn’t be moving back into their previous position on their turn.

Turn 2 for the British started badly with the Rifles failing to unpin then things took a turn for the better with the Americans arriving but on the extreme right on the wrong side of the minefield but behind my Panzers! The 6pdr ambush duly appeared but thanks to my 10/4 half tracks was further back and lacked room to deply properly with 1 gun unabe to get closer than 16″ to my troops pulling all the rest further back from Objective 1 than they wanted to be. This in my view was a critical mistake, this unit should have been deployed in Turn 1 to prevent my push against the infantry when it had a better deployment position. The British and American shooting proved ineffective despite a lot of fire only a Pz III short was destroyed and a Pz III Long bailed out, my 10/4 half tracks even survived.

Turn 3

I manouvered my remaining Pz III’s and the infantry to assault the rifles again to try an eliminate them completely. The Diannas advanced to counter the Shermans and my pinned troops rallied. Shooting saw me knock out a couple of Shermans and pin down the British guns. My infantry assaulted killing 4 teams but this time the British counter assaulted and I lost 2 teams and failed to counter assault breaking off and being pushed into the mined palm grove loosing another team rendering my platoon assault ineffective as I now had only a platoon leader and 3 heavy weapons teams left. On the right my infantry had worked their way round behind the dunes and began to fire into the British rear areas.

The British turn saw the 25pdr platoon fail to rally, the remaining rifles arrived from Reserve again on the British Right but there was a gap they could pass through to move back towards Objective 1 which was held by a lone 3″ mortar team. Bryan concentrated on trying to finally eliminate my Panzer III platoon that had wreaked havoc in the centre of the table but despite a wealth of AT9 and AT10 shooting only 1 tank was destroyed leaving me 2 active and 1 bailed tank.

Turn 4

It started well with my Panzer III 7.5cm remounting and my infantry firstly rallying and then passing their Last Man Standing test. I manouvered the Panzer III’s reeady to assault the British infanty again Shooting failed to slow the Sherman platoon. The 25pdrs lost a gun and the 6pdr platoons got pinned reducung the risk to my assaulting tanks which charged home but failed to initially hit anything the British counter assaulted to protect the 25pdr platoon but failed to damage the tanks after a further round of combat killing a couple of infantry teams the tanks broke off. The British needed something to go well as they were poorly positioned to hold onto Objective 1. A spate of failed Rally tests stopped any redployment or counter attcking and shooting again failed to do any significant damage killing just 1 more PzIII with the mortars failing to hit anything for a third turn in a row. The Shermans elected to assault loosing 1 tank on the way into contact and killing the 2 rifle heavy weapons teams a series of failed cross checks saw them ultimately defeated as they failed to counter assault and got stuck in the palm grove breaking off where they were captured by the remaining rifle team.

Turn 5

I electd to try and see off the rifle platoons and remaining 25pdr guns this turn with the Panzers rather than push too hard with my infantry. My HQ were within 4″ of Objective 1 so I could win in turn 6 if I could eliminate the Rifles and a single mortar team. Shooting was pretty uneventful with losts of pinned platoons but no significant casualties. The Panzers rolled forward again defensive fire bailed one but this time the British infantry crumbled, with the remnants of the larger platoon being driven even further away from Objective 1 and the lone functioning tank capturing the 25pdr guns.

The British turn started better as they rallied but the infantry were too far from Objective 1 to help and defeat looked inevitable unless the German Formation could be broken. This meant getting rid of the remaining Infantry platoons hiding in the palm grove and behind the rise. So they concentrated on that but again the mortars failed to do any damage depite being ranged in on the target they failed to hit anything the remainning British rifles opened fire as well and succeeded in pinning them down but this wasn’t really enough. The British Rifles and HQ assaulted on the British left, defensive fire failed to slow them passing all saves and they quickly reduced my platoon to just the leader, now all alone he fell back toward the HMG position. Badly mauled I woukld still have two Formation units in good spirits (HQ and 10/4 SPAA) avoiding the company break.

Turn 6

The pinned German units all rallied and last stand tests were passed. Amazingly I hadn’t lost any platoons yet. I advanced the HQ and manouvered the remaining Panzer III ready to assault the mortar unit. I advanced the remaining rifle platoon to increase my volume of fire on the 6pdr guns and to ensure I had 2 ways to assault. I concentrated all my fire on the 6pdr battery and despite a combination of being in the rocky ground, having a 3+ save and bullet proof cover the losses were decisive with 2 teams being destroyed leaving just 1 pinned gun. My mortar fire killed a British mortar but not the one holding Objective 1. I now had two possible assaults open to me. I chose to assault with my last tank first, deciding this would still enable my more likely to succeed infantry assault against the 6pdr unit after if it failed to clear out the mortar. Moving into contact and surviving the limited defensive fire I failed to hit, the key mortar team were still alive. The British motivated moving their 1iC team into contact but failed to knock out the panzer and they now needed me to fail to counter attack. The dice were rolled and the tracks crushed the mortar team and now it was the British needing to motivate. The 1iC rolled and failed to get a 3+ with a reroll and fell back, the combat over and with the Germans now holding Objective 1 the game was over.

Conclusions

The Dynamic Points for 2024 really help the DAK. We have played a version of this encounter many times over the past years and this is the first time the DAK infantry have really been able to carry enough of a threat from the off to overcome the numerically superiour British Infantry. Even when my Panzers got flanked by the Shermans I still felt confident I could overcome them thanks to the that extra AT platoon I now have. The 3 mortar teams whilst an expensive option on paper, did a great job of pinning the British platoons down and the cumulative effect of the 3 templates made my life a lot easier than rellying on the one 2 gun battery of Bisons. Overall I think the changes will be great and will certainly make Mid War desert gaming look and feel much more balanced than previously.