Tiger Hunt

Our final game of the weekend was some more World War 2 action.  This time we were in France searching through the bocage for a Tiger!  Each of us had a Sherman and a few infantry and our job was to find, corner and destroy one of the most dangerous predators of the period, a Panzerkampfwagen VI.  Fortunately we had a couple of spare tanks (we were going to need them) and a Sherman Firefly.

As you might expect the terrain was pretty congested, with plenty of fields and hedges, all surrounding a town probably held by the enemy.  Things started reasonably well with us breaking through the first couple of hedges and no encountering anything more dangerous than some chickens and a local farmer.  Then the Firefly, which we had positioned to cover the road, spotted the Tiger - it was lucky it was the Firefly as we knew none of our Shermans would penetrate its armour from the front.  First shot was a direct hit and the "Tiger" brewed up - of course it was at this point we spotted it wasn't the Tiger but actually a Panzer IV with zimmerit and skirts.

Disappointed we carried on - then the tank in front of me pushed through the hedgeline into the next field right in front of an anti-tank team - it exploded and I ordered the driver to get the hell out of there.  In a panic he reversed to the left and we burst out of the field straight into the road.  To make matters worse the Tiger had already been there, burst a culvert and flooded the road.  Fortunately we didn't bog down but were forced to back across into the field on the other side!

I decided to turn my tank around and breakthrough into an orchard; however, this one didn't just contain some trees!  Not only was it mined but a group of German infantry complete with a panzerfaust was in there too!  I tried backing out but was hit and had to bail out.  One of my colleagues seeing my predicament decided to turn left into a field with a German armoured car in it.  Of course that wasn't much of a problem.

I switched over to another Sherman and started all over again.  Meanwhile the other two were slowly clearing the countryside field by field.  Unfortunately the blooming Tiger wasn't staying still for us to find it!  After coming under an artillery barrage and losing all my infantry I gave up the search but on my way back I turned into the road and found the Tiger hiding behind the wrecked Panzer IV - I had had exposed my flank armour to him!

He wasn't going to miss an opportunity like that I lost tank number two.

In the end the Tiger got away and now we know why it seemed to take 5 Shermans to get a single one.