The Second Action at Twin Farms

Introduction

As in the original Action at Twin Farms (Battle Part XVI, Meccano Magazine August 1969 by Charles Grant), the attacking force had failed to capture their objective (see previous post).
Having reinforced, the Commander of the Northern force (I've decided to call them the Uqbal Liberation Army), returned a few days later for another attempt.

In this second game I equipped the ULA with a tank but took away their machine gun (hey, they've got a tank!). The ULA (Army Tan) therefore have 5 Infantry units, a Commander and a Tank.
Assuming the tank was going to be a hard nut to crack I replaced one of the PDF's Infantry units with another Recoilless Rifle, so the PDF (Army Green) have 4 Infantry Units, a Commander and 2 Recoilless Rifle units.
The situation remains the same apart from the PDF have utilized the wrecked vehicle as additional cover.

 

Game

Opening gambit

The ULA Commander, full of confidence due to the presence of his armoured support, threw most of his infantry in a mad rush at South Farm while his tank would remove the opposition from North Farm.

Defenders of North Farm

South Farm defence

Here we go!

Unfortunately, despite having Turn 1 initiative, the tank missed its first shot...
Things then got much worse as both Recoilless Rifles hit their target

A Double Whammy (according to the tabloid press)

Why did I give them 2 of those things? Oh, yes the ULA have a tank...

South Farm turn 3

On the left flank things seemed to be going better and hand-to-hand combat was initiated as the ULA attempted to storm the farmyard.
The right flank however can only be described as pear-shaped.

ULA tank - about as effective as cotton wool smoke

Turn 6 South Farm

Heavy fighting on the left saw one of the PDF Infantry units wiped out but a reserve unit moved up from behind the farm and engaged the ULA before they could take advantage of their success.

Turn 6 North Farm

Over on the right, the PDF broke from cover and moved to attack the ULA

Turn 8

Somehow by the end of Turn 8 the attackers had become the defenders!
It could have still worked out, the Strength Points were still in the balance, a few lucky dice rolls... then this happened

The ULA Commander falls!

Oh the humanity! With the loss of the Commander's 6 SPs the ULA went straight into Strength Point Debt (EP Exhaustion Point is set at 33% hits remember) and could only defend their current position, once again failing to take Twin Farms.
To be fair they defended gallantly reducing the PDF to EP by Turn 11 and thus ending the game.

End of Turn 11

I rather enjoyed that! It seems like a few more "Modern" games might be required. Thanks for dropping by.