NEWS FROM THE FRONT: Rawnsville Bridge

It is with regret that I must report that my men after their recent success in breaking the British battle line rather let the regiment and themselves down by getting intoxicated on looted spirits. To give them a chance to redeem some honour I have volunteered the platoon to assault the British defending the important bridge at Rawnsville. It will not be an easy task, due to delays in our advance the Tommies are sure to be ready for us.

Now here is a thing, our patrols report no British in the houses our side of the bridge! I cannot believe our luck, the British commander is either incompetent or the whole army is total disarray at our sweeping advance. I immediately send forward as many sections that are ready, I must admit this good fortune has taken us by surprise a little. I waste no time with a grand flanking manoeuvre, instead we head straight for the bridge so that Tommy has no time to react.

I do however send a section to our left to ascertain if the pillbox across the river is occupied, they do not draw any fire, it is strange the Tommies deployed a Vickers machine gun during our last encounter which seemed to fire rarely, I am not sure if it is badly trained men or poor equipment.

I send a section over the bridge with covering fire from our Maxim now in the building and able to fire, further support is given by the section on the left, whilst our flammenwerfer team get ready to cross the bridge and deal with the pillbox should it be necessary.

Their ranks depleted by an earlier mortar barrage the remaining Tommies prepare to give our brave troopers a warm welcome.

Our brave men are repelled by the weight of fire, the Tommies have woke up! now we have a fight. I have to bolster a sections morale the section fleeing through them has rattled them, a few words soon have them steady, meanwhile their anger fired by seeing their comrades cut down the flammenwerfer team storm the bridge, the Tommies take fright at our weapon, but another section appears and takes down our heroic men, fire now also comes from the pillbox, whilst I commend the brave action of the flammenwerfer team I feel they will be sorely missed if we cannot dislodge the Tommies.

Little do we know that our continuing fire from the support weapons and sections is taking its toll on the Tommies and in particular their NCOs, their fire slackens and we soon see them retreating! The bridge in our hands!

Leutnant Johan Weiss, OC, Sturm Abteilung Koch

Another sharp action using the Chain of Command Great War variant, this concludes our series of linked games, time permitting we will start a mini campaign in due course.

Now I have noticed that the blog has been inundated with khaki and grey of late so here is a bit of colour, some Seven Years War in America figures done to put some bread on the table.