Battle of Biville-la-Baignarde - Scenario Design

In the previous post, I covered the historical background to the Battle of Biville-la-Baignarde and now on to designing a Chain of Command² scenario for our Lardy Day. The aim is for the scenario to be played twice, with each game taking a maximum of three hours.

Table Topography

Starting point is what was the topography of the battlefield in 1940? Using the excellent mapping portal of the national mapping agency of France, IGN, who have made available free access to period aerial photocopy 

This gives me a superb view of the topography as you can see below:

 With a view of the battlefield determined, I need to think where the fighting took place and what area of the village I want to use. Again as previously mentioned I relied heavily on the video "The Battle of Biville-la-Baignarde: A Day in Hell".

After much consideration I have decided on a "Attack on an Objective" scenario, with 5th Panzer attacking from the south with the aim of capturing the village square/ road junction by the church. This yields a starting map design of:

Initial table design, north at the top

The main body of the village of Biville-la-Baignarde dominates the table, with orchards and open fields to the south which would be the German entry table edge. The village is made up of residential houses (in yellow) and workshops/outhouses (in greenish). Like other Normandy villages, there are many tall stone walls which may well canalise the avenues of approach - the lane south of the church is very narrow and flanked with stone walls.

This is where playing in 20mm really pays off as you can get a small village on the table - something that at 28mm would be very problematic.

So next steps is to have a dry run of the table to see what terrain I am lacking or needs to be built or borrowed.

There are several elements I want on the table:

• A burnt out convoy on the main north-south road that will act as an effective road block
• Iron railings around some properties which will be a major obstacle but offer limited cover
• To build a replica of the church in Biville, the barn to its north and the shops to its south
• A war memorial from WWI for the church square
• Enough scatter terrain to fill in the gaps
• Craters and damage to simulate the heavy artillery bombardments that have already impacted the area

The Forces 

French

My starting point is the Chasseur Platoon from the Blitzkrieg 1940 Rulebook however I think that the evidence points towards the fact that this force was excellently led and performed superbly. To that effect I will make the Sergeant-Chef a full Senior Leader and not an Inferior Senior Leader. 

French forces discovered a Canon de 75mm M1897 in the village so I will have that a free support option for the French player. To the south of the village there were also three entrenched R35 tanks, so I think a support choice of one of these would also be interesting to add in. 

There was limited artillery support available so limiting bombardments to SOS fire might be a good idea.

Armour choices would be limited to a Panhard from nearby supporting forces. If I get time to paint them, I might add in some British support options such as a MMG, section and Boyes AT rifle.

German

Precise evidence for 5th Panzer forces involved are very sparse, so again I will start with the Schützen Platoon for the 5th Panzer Division, these are beefy boys with 2 teams in each section with MG34s. Researching losses incurred during the preceding Fall Gelb, I think I will limit armour choices to Pzr I, II and III to replicate these losses.

The German's will need to shepherd their forces carefully, urban fighting with these small sections will be very difficult without any defenders being softened up first. There was significant artillery used against the French so a bombardment should be available. 

Other

All accounts of this battle highlight the plight of refugees and them clogging the roads. I want to add in several "flavour" events and random event cards.

• Shabby Nazi Trick-esque Civilians on the table, maybe a new base of them appearing each Turn
• Some random event cards that can be drawn by both players which will give a minor buff to be played (e.g. finding a stash of wine in a house boosting morale, a stirring speech from an officer reducing D6 shock, permitting a French flavoured "handgranaten" to simulate the French valour and determination).