FOW Firestorm Caen 31/10/15

The race for Caen has begun! Having established a beachhead, the 4th Canadian Armored Division leads a dash through the enemy lines, encountering a Luftwaffe Feldkompanie.
Mission: No Retreat!
Attacker: Canadian Armoured Squardon (Turning Tide) CT
HQ  2 Shermans + ARV
Armoured platoon (3 Sherman + Firefly)
Armoured platoon (3 Sherman + Firefly)
Armoured platoon (2 Sherman + Firefly) (Firestorm troop)
SPAT platoon (4 M10C)
Lorried Rifle platoon Full
Rifle platoon Full (Firestorm troop)
Artillery Battery (2 Sextons)
Priority Air (Typhoon)

Defender: Luftwaffe Feldkompanie (Earth & Steel) RT
HQ + panzerknacker+panzerschreck+sniper
3x LW Jäger platoons (full)
LW Mortar platoon
LW HMG platoon
LW AT platoon (3 pak40)
LW Pioneer platoon (full+ wagon)
Heer Panzer Platoon (3 PzIV)
Heer  Artillery Platoon (4x 12.2cm)
LW Heavy AA platoon (2x88s)
Heer Rocket Launcher platoon (3 NW)
Heer Stug platoon (Firestorm troop)

The Canadian armor deploys avoiding the bocage terrain, except a rifle platoon which will try to outflank the enemy from the right.

Footsloggers will advance behind tanks, the bulk of which will advance straight to the objective.

All quiet on the right flank. Arty positions here, a rifle platoon is to their right, the opposite village is defended by a LW Jäger platoon

The Germans cover the frontal objective with the LW pioneers (who lay a minefield before them), the other infantry platoon covers the village with the aid of 3 Heer Panzers. Pak40s are in ambush, 88s deploy on the rear hill covering the rear objective, along with the artillery battery.

The objective of the main Allied thrust, it is defended py pioneers who have just laid a minefield.

Turn 1, Canadian armor bursts forward into the wheatfield, followed by double-timing infantry. Fire on the move gets 2 pioneer stands. The Typhoons, in lack of a better target, strafe the 88s. A single 88, being out of range of the approaching armor, fires against the planes but misses. As do the Typhoons, who were absolutely miserable for the whole game.
On the german turn, no reserves, Pak ambush is revealed in the woods behind the pioneers. Combined AT fire destroys 3 shermans, while the Panzers' "shoot-and-scoot" claims another sherman and a M10C.

Turn 2, all available gun barrels (damn that "no HE" issue), air and artillery strike at the Pak40s, killing just one. Infantry masses in the wheatfields to prepare for an assault next turn. The leftwards Rifle platoon clears off the bocage and closes with the opposite enemy platoon.
The Germans bring on the 2-Stug platoon, which misses the Sherman concentration in the field. Tanks being crammed inside the field presents a lucrative target for the german artillery, and combined with the AT assets, they destroy 4 tanks (maybe more).
Turn 3, sherman break the Pak40 platoon, Fireflies pin the pioneers and infantry hits home. They kill 3 stands and the LW breaks off. Having failed their stormtrooper move, panzers pay the price as semi-indirect fire destroys the platoon in 2 turns.
Germans keep shooting at tanks, pioneers fail to unpin despite the CO joining them, Nebelwerfers enter the game and prepare to fire. Jäger platoon opens up at the lone rifle platoon and, despite having a HMG, they only kill a stand, and prepare themselves for the inevitable enemy assault.

The Canadian infantry have just broken through, Allied tanks have already paid a bloody price.

Devastation at the wheatfield. No allied tank will escape the place, except the puny Sherman ARV!

Turn 4, The flanking rifle platoon, combined with an armoured platoon, assaults the LW Jägers and destroys them, then wheels to flank the pioneer platoon. The other rifle platoon succeeds again in assaulting the pioneers guarding the objective but whiffs, only killing 2 stands, and are destroyed in the counterattack. The Luftwaffe pioneer platoon starting at 12 stands (full platoon+HMG+schreck) held firm, and blocked the way to the objective, Typhoons attack the Stug platoon, destroying one (that's the only kill for the airforce)

Allied infantry has just been destroyed in front of the objective, still too many pioneer guarding it.

The German gunline... A Stug has just been destroyed by a Typhoon.

German turn, while the tension slightly eases for the LW pioneers, the danger of another flanking attack is imminent and there aren't any other forward elements to support them. Nebelwerfers pin the rifle platoon, 12,2cm artillery pound the remaining armour in the field (CO and 2 M10C). They are all destroyed, the Canadian CO barely manages to survive and joins a sherman ARV (!!!)
Turn 5, Canadians are below half strength, CO fails the test and quits the field. Göring's troops carried the day!

Kill tally for the german gunners. Still, the Canadians might have claimed the objective with an infantry flank attack, had their CO not called off the attack.

In that damned wheatfield, 8 Shermans, 2 Fireflies and 4 M10Cs lay destroyed.
The Germans lost 3 platoons, so that is a 4-3 victory to the Axis.