AAR - 'On the Day, Went the Eagle's Landing Well?' - Part 2

PART 2 – THE LUFTWAFFE GET A SURPRISE

The players had spotted a mysterious part of the scenery at the start of the game. The rules stated that they could not lift the roofs of buildings without a figure going inside and scenery could not be examined without a figure in base to base contact. At this point the Pickett-Hamilton forts were in the lowered position but I can only find a photo of mine in the raised position.

The Pickett-Hamilton was designed to be lowered into the ground when not in use. Norman Pickett (one of the designers) was a friend of Donald Campbell and gained permission to build the prototype at Campbell’s workshops.

For this game I had placed two Pickett-Hamiltons and invented an underground stay-behind Auxiliary Unit base of which the Pickett-Hamilton was only a part.

There would be an Auxiliary Unit sniper in each pillbox, activated as follows; the AU sniper has a +1 Shooting and a -1 for cover at all times, even when not in cover. If the sniper is in cover the minus for this accumulates. Moves as normal. The sniper will activate after a uniformed German passes within 5” of the Pickett-Hamilton pill box. If not activated after 6 turns, the sniper will activate anyway.

The Auxiliary Units or GHQ Auxiliary Units were specially trained, highly secret units created by the United Kingdom government during the Second World War, with the aim of using irregular warfare to help combat any invasion of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany, which the Germans codenamed Operation Sealion. With the advantage of having witnessed the rapid fall of several continental nations, the United Kingdom was the only country during the war that was able to create a multi-layered guerrilla and resistance movement in anticipation of an invasion. The Auxiliary Units would fight as uniformed guerrillas during the military campaign. Service in the Auxiliary Units was expected to be highly dangerous, with a projected life expectancy of just 12 days for its members; along with orders to either shoot each other or use explosives to kill themselves if capture by an enemy force seemed likely. The two best known officers from this period were Captain Peter Fleming of the Grenadier Guards and Captain Mike Calvert of the Royal Engineers.

The first sniper to be activated was Private Seth Starkadder from Cold Comfort Farm as the Luftwaffe contingent moved within 5” of the pillbox. Seth stealthily crept from cover and opened fire. By some very lucky dice-throws, Seth managed to kill Flugkapitän Hanna Reitsch and Oberfähnrich Franz Lizst outright.

The Pickett-Hamilton fort can be seen under the tree, top right of the photo. Starkadder is in the ghillie suit, bottom right.

The first two shots of the game and two Luftwaffe down, unfortunately this display of marksmanship was not how the Auxiliary Units continued the fight but more of that later. The Luftwaffe player seemed to take this to heart and there was some gratuitous violence to follow.

To be continued…