Early War AAR – French Escadron de reconnaissance vs Hungarian KÖNNYÜHARCKOCSIZÓ SZÁZAD – Cauldron

Hi all another ahistorical AAR this time it’s EW and my French have some Hungarians to deal with!
Dave P was bringing his Hungarian tanks to the table for the second time, he rolled up cauldron.

The lists

The deployment
 So I chose to deploy in the town, with Somuas guarding one objective hotchkiss able to redeploy and arty at the back, the big old laffly were in immediate ambush.

Dave started with his arty rolling a 2, so deployed them in the corner, both his pioneers and told is got free choice, and he overloaded my left flank.

Worried about reserves from my right I left the laffly in the centre

french deployment

hungarian deployment

Turn 1

With little to shoot at I started to manoeuvre – the the Somuas moving towards the hill and the hotchkiss towards the infantry. The arty hit but only pinned a artillery piece, the two Somuas both hit, and Dave rolled snake eyes for his saves, and I obliged by rolling snake eyes for my firepower.

Dave managed to get reserves straight away and brought the panzer 3’s to further overload my left flank.

The artillery unpinned and ranged in on the hotchkiss bailing one. The panzer 3’s bailed a somua, whilst the toldi bail another hotchkiss. With that the infantry moved to assault the hotchkiss but the defensive fire killed two stands and pinned them.

french advance

artillery sighted

reinforcements

infantry charge!

infantry fall back

Turn 2

The bailed somua remounted as did one of the hotchkiss. The laffly began to move back to my left flank and its target rich environment – whilst one hit a toldi it only managed a bail. The somua bailed a panzer and killed a toldi whilst the arty failed to range in. The hotchkiss opened up their MG’s on the pioneers, and attempted an assault, despite the pioneers eventually breaking off a hotchkiss was lost.

More reinforcements arrived with toldi turning up on my right flank. The panzer three remounted and bailed another somua, the toldi advanced firing potshots and taking out a laffly, whilst another (the 2IC) bailed my IC – the new platoon of toldi targeted the mortar observer as the only one in range – the infantry unpinned and again went for the bailed tanks but from 6 defensive fire dice 5 hit….

Somua advance

infantry in the open

toldi’s to the right

Dave was unlucky not to kill these guys

poor observer – at least he survived

Turn 3

Like Dave my reinforcements arrived first dice, and a platoon of Panhards headed to my poorly defended right flank – sadly despite all four shots hitting they only bailed one toldi.

The Somuas continued their firefight with the panzers bailing one, before the arty ranged in, and hit all 3 panzers and a toldi (all rolling 6’s to hit) but only killed one panzer. The hotchkiss remount and shoot the infantry forcing a motivation test which they pass, whilst the lafflys take out another toldi. Breaking the platoon.

More reinforcements, with pioneers and appearing to my right, and AT guns to my left. The panzers again unbail but for the third – and kill a somua after so many bails. Dave’s arty rolls snake eyes to hit my guns. On my right the toldi open up on my observer with MG’s but only score a single hit, before assaulting – where the observer heroically bailed one in defensive fire before dying! On my right Dave’s pioneers assault the Panhards but are pinned in the process.

Tank fight continues

panhards to the rescue

Toldi in sight!

the 4 6’s of the apocolypse

nothing funnier than a rifle bailing a tank!

Turn 4
No reserves this turn, the Panhards on my right opened up on Dave’s pioneers inflicting heavy casualties.

Again the Somuas fire on the panzers, killing and bailing one before they ran off. The lafflys moved right to engage the toldi but all missed. My IC removed his 2 IC. My arty aimed for Dave’s AT guns but only got the pin, whilst the hotchkiss assaulted the remaining pioneers breaking them finally. Dave was now down three platoons.

Dave was running out of men so went for the right objective, killing one laffly and bailing the other but they passed the morale test. He moved his infantry to stop the Panhards screaming past, whilst his AT guns and arty failed to hurt my hotchkiss. In the assault phase Dave attacked the command of my arty claiming the objective, with only a bailed laffly nearby.

laffly race to get the Toldis

Dave sacrifices his infantry to stop the panhards racing past next turn

Toldi kill and bail the laffly – but the hold!

Dave is in control of the objective

Turn 5
Despite the casualties inflicted Dave could win this as I couldn’t get anything to the objective to contest – apart from the laffly assuming it unveiled – which it did! The Panhards on my right opened up on the infantry destroying them completely, whilst from reserve my second Panhard platoon killed Dave’s IC – with over half the platoons gone and his IC dead we called the game.

Panhards destroy the IC end of game

Conclusion
I was bricking myself that Dave would steamroller me early doors – in retrospect more smoke when he assaulted was needed. By pulling my forces to the left he almost grabbed the right objective and in some ways maybe doubling behind the building to assault the turn after they arrived would have been better. The 6-1 flattered me as I should have lost two platoons, but once again the resilience of French tanks was awesome