Kampfgruppe Von Luck Campaign #1 - Introduction

Some of my boardgame opponents are having problems to attend the Sunday morning club sessions for a few weeks. I'm turning my attention again to miniature wargaming and will spend the rest of April and most of May umpiring one of my favourite Chain of Command campaigns: Kampfgruppe Von Luck.

The start of the campaign is set for Sunday April 23rd and there will be one British and two German players involved. It will also be an opportunity to put on the table for the first time, my British Red Devils platoon painted in 2019! 

My plan is to do a series of after action reports for each of the games of the campaign over the following months. This first post will introduce the main elements of the campaign.

First the historical context. Kampfgruppe Von Luck (KVL from now on) is focused on Operation Tonga, the operations undertaken by the British 6th Airborne Division on the east flank of the Normandy landings and the reaction of the German 21st Panzer Division defending that area during the first hours after the airborne landings

6th Airborne Plan of Operation

The campaign is organised around five maps or "rungs" with the Germans on the offensive. The objective is to capture Le Bas de Ranville, the gate to the German armoured forces to attack the rivers over the Orne. This should be achieved in a maximum of 8 turns or games.

The Germans play with a battalion of the 125th Panzer Grenadier, mainly infantry with some limited armour support, including some of the panzer "rarities" built ad-hoc based on chassis from old 1940 French armour. 

On the other side, the British forces belong to the 12th Para. Although having superiority in men, the British starts the game widely scattered, receiving increasing reinforcements as the campaign advances, but are also light on AT weapons to defend against the armoured German elements.

For more information on the Chain of Command campaigns system, I advise you to take a look to the supplement publication "At the Sharp End"  

From the publisher website:

At the Sharp End allows you to follow the exploits of your force throughout a series of linked games. To succeed you’ll need to keep your men safe, your CO happy whilst ensuring the effectiveness of your key leaders. Included is a complete campaign system covering everything you need to run a campaign with an absolute minimum of effort and paperwork (almost none in fact).

 Three types of campaign options are presented so the gamer can select one to suit the amount of time he has available and the degree of detail he is looking for. The most simple option allows the gamer to start campaigning straight away, whilst the others allow the building of historical campaigns. It’s all there, even down to gallantry awards so you can see your characters develop in action.. The whole At the Sharp End PDF Handbook will serve as a key to be used with Chain of Command campaigns produced by us in our Specials, in magazine articles and as stand-alone supplements, as well as allowing the gamer to build his own campaigns with a minimum of effort.

 

-UPDATE-

Last Sunday was Madrid's Marathon. The access to our club premises was an inferno and some players could not even reach the area. We have postponed the campaign start to Sunday April 30rd