Fray Bentos: a Great War Chain of Command game

Running into Andy S at the Hammerhead show in March, the discussion ran to this week’s gaming. Having just played Dave Stone’s Zero Hour on the Gripping Beast stand, how about some WW1? I said.

After enjoying our last game of Great War Chain of Command, I’d ordered a box of Amera plastic scenery sections so that I could field a whole trench line rather than odd dugouts. Unfortunately I hadn’t had time to paint them yet, so I needed a scenario without trenches. Then I remembered the story of Fray Bentos.

In August 1917, a British male Mk IV tank of ‘F’ Battalion got bogged down. F.41 -named ‘Fray Bentos’ after the famous pies – ran into trouble while attacking German strongpoints near Ypres. The crew, led by their Battalion Section Commander Captain Richardson, kept the tank firing and fought off several German attacks before abandoning the vehicle two days later.

You can read a fuller account of the Fray Bentos story on the Tank Museum’s page, and it also merits as a full chapter in Cameos of the Western Front: Salient Points Two by Tony Spagnoly and Ted Smith (1998, Pen & Sword Books). There is also a small private museum at Pond Farm which I was able to visit in 2018.

I knocked up a quick scenario for Chain of Command with pre-set jump off points to save time (just as well as many of us arrived late at the pub where we game and then had a long wait for food). Both Germans and British had a standard 1917 platoon each (with stats taken from the ‘CoCing up the Mud and Blood’ article from the Lard Winter Special 2014).

Fray Bentos was deployed stuck in a crater in the centre of the table, permanently immobilised for purposes of the game, but able to carry on shooting. I also gave the tank a Senior Leader to represent Capt Richardson and – somewhat impetuously- a red dice to reflect his leadership during the crisis of August 22-24 1917. (A red dice counts as an extra Command Dice in Chain of Command, but only for activation purposes. Scores of 5 and 6 are ignored).

The Germans had some anti-tank capability with an additional bomber section. Both bomber sections had bundles of stick grenades – but would have to get close to use them. I toyed with the idea of giving the Germans a tripod-mounted MMG as well, but decided against it, as I wanted the tank to come under attack at close quarters, as originally happened.

Commanding the Germans, Andy S went for the aggressive approach and sent both bomber teams creeping across the broken ground towards the tank. Unfortunately, the Fray Bentos crew was on high alert and opened fire with 6-pounders and Lewis guns.

This was then added to by the British rifle grenade section which popped up in a wood off to the British right. While under cover, they were able to bombard the German bombers out front.

Damage was light at first, but with the 6-pounders and rifle grenades reducing cover by one level, the German bombers started getting the worst of it. Increasing shock meant that the sections were struggling to crawl closer to the tank.

Andy decided to deal with this by deploying a rifle team opposite the British rifle grenadiers, which then approached as a distraction tactic. Unfortunately they fell foul of some very accurate British fire and were quickly dispatched.

Both Brits and Germans now engaged in a firefight with their LMG sections over on the British left flank. However, the real action was still happening in the middle. The Germans finally deployed their Leutnant who attempted to remove enough shock to crawl towards the tank.

Unfortunately, the continued British fire caused further casualties and wounded a junior leader, causing a further drop in Force Morale.

With the end fast approaching, a handful of German bombers rushed the tank and let loose a couple of volleys of stick grenades.

With some deft rolling, Fray Bentos sustained no damage and finished off the attackers with a burst of Lewis fire. German morale was reduced to 0 and the game was over!

In hindsight, my scenario made it far too easy for the tank to keep on blasting away at the Germans, which made it an uphill struggle for Andy as a player. While I think he could have got more out of his CoC dice, if I’m running this one again, I will certainly try to balance things up a bit.

I’d remove the red dice from the Brits and push their jump-off points much further back to make it slightly harder for them to support the tank. The Germans could possibly benefit from another bomber section too.

Definitely demands a repeat play!