Operation Jupiter 24 - Edge of Maltot. 20mm WW2 Skirmish battle report.

 Introduction

This is game 24 in replaying the scenarios from the Briton Publishers Operation Jupiter skirmish scenario book.   Links to previous games are on this blog page.

Rules used

I am using my variation of Nordic Weasel’s Five Men in Normandy/FiveCore Skirmish (the main changes are using 1d6 rather than Kill and Shock dice, reaction fire is like FiveCore pulp (1d6 or 2d6 for auto weapons), can shock fire if hidden, and roll activation dice and assign to figures similar to Five Men at Kursk.

Scenario

The British squad must dispatch the first enemy scout and then clear the objective building. There is no turn limit and play will continue until the British achieve victory, or concede that it is not possible.

Troops

British

3 soldiers

British are regular

Germans

1 scout

1 garrison soldier with SMG

Germans SMG is elite.

Both Germans have grenades.

Deployment

Starting positions

The British start in the pit.  The German SMG soldier is in the rear of the building that the British need to clear. The garrison soldier is on sentry duty and a random direction was chosen for him to enter.  

Game

The Germans take the first turn and must move towards the gun pit.  He spots the British.

Sentry moving

However, as he moved into LOS of the British, they get to fire first.  They have about a 50% of making him out of action.  They succeed.

German sentry out of action

The British turn sees two soldiers move into the woods and the third (gets to move due to a random event) in the building opposite the objective.  I could have moved the British directly into the objective but they have no idea what is in there so would go carefully.

The British carefully approach

The German gets an event that they may ignore Snap fire and +1 on Brawls.  So let him charge the single figure in the adjacent building.  The British is out of action (considering the German is elite and has +1 on the Brawl and also charged it was a good move). 

German charges one of the British.

Only one Brit may move and he moves into the objective building.

British soldier takes the objective building!

The German fires suppressive fire at the British and misses with all three shots!

The British retaliate and fire at the German who is suppressed.

The German soldier is suppressed.

The German soldier recovers.

But the German soldier quickly recovers

The British turn sees one rifleman fire and suppress the German again.

Suppressed again!

This leaves an opening and the second rifleman charges into the building into hand to hand combat.  The German is overcome and is down and out.  The British win.

The other British soldier charges the suppressed German and wins the hand to hand combat

Verdict

Not sure the German should have abandoned the objective for the opportunity to take out one of the soldiers.  I did dice to see if he would and he did.  Otherwise this is the first test for these rules and they worked fine. There were seven Operation Jupiter scenarios that used this board.  This was the last one.  So it will be the last Operation Jupiter games for a little while as I move onto other things.  Possibly a WW2 skirmish campaign but maybe back to ancient historical battles, or maybe some Pulp skirmish action.  I haven’t really decided!