I set up a slightly modified version of the first scenario from the book. A platoon of British troops have been tasked with knocking out a German machine-gun position that has been set up in a shell-hole. Two German rifle-squads provide support to the MG. In the book scenario the attackers are meant to be supported, but I opted to stick to the base platoon. To compensate I didn't reinforce the German shell-hole positions; in the book they are counted as trenches.
I set up the MG as shown on the map in the book, and randomly positioned the holes occupied by the supporting squads.
In Trench Hammer squads have different characteristics depending on what support weapon they are based around. One German squad was a basic rifle-squad, whilst the other had a MG08/15 which boosts its firepower a little.
The British entered. A die roll is made to see how many units a side can activate in their turn. Since the unit density is low, you can generally activate most, if not all, of your force each turn, but not always. The British got to activate all four of their squads.
The first one to appear had rifle-grenades. These can ignore the cover offered by shell-holes and trenches, but only at firefight ranges. They took cover in some shell-holes, and opened fire on the HMG, hitting it and inflicting a decent number of hits on it.
To their right a rifle-squad moved up, and took cover in some more shell-holes. They had used a deploy action to move more quickly, so couldn't fire. On the left a squad with a Lewis gun moved onto the hill to provide fire support for a squad armed with grenades on the left, who were aiming to work round the flank and either hit the German rifle-squad there, or take out the HMG itself.
The HMG had been hit badly, but in Trench Hammer actions can be used to rally hits off. Hits are not necessarily dead or wounded men; they can represent men going to ground or being lightly wounded or simply confusion. A squad is destroyed once it has taken seven hits, though, representing it being in a position where it can take no further part in the action.
The HMG rallied off some of its hits with a regroup action, whilst the German officer used his action to rally off another hit. However rallying means that the unit can't fire. This nicely reflects the use of suppressive fire; the rifle-grenades could keep attacking the HMG and force it to rally off hits instead of shooing back.
The German rifle-squads could shoot though, and did so at the two British squads foolishly moving in the open to the right of the HMG position. Both squads took casualties.
In the British turn the Lewis gun squad retired behind the hill to regroup and recover, whilst the grenade squad took cover in some shell-holes. On the British right the rifle-grenades hit the HMG again, whilst the rifles exchanged shot ineffectively with the German MG08/15 squad.
Again the HMG was stuck rallying, and the supporting rifle-squad failed to hit the bombers hiding in their shell-holes.
Close-range attacks in Trench Hammer are assaults in which both sides fire simultaneously, there's a heft bonus to hit and one side ends up retreating. I decided that whilst the HMG was the primary target, the British grenade squad couldn't justifiably assault it moving past the front of the supporting rifle squad, and that I'd have to deal with that first. In assault grenades ignore most cover. The British left their shell-holes and attacked the Germans opposite them. Luckier than they deserved, the Germans missed (there always a one in six chance of missing and always a one in six chance of hitting, regardless of terrain and circumstances).
The German squad too casualties, though, and fled, allowing the British to occupy their position.
Unfortunately in the German turn the other rifle squad opened up on them because of the danger they now posed to the outflanked HMG, and destroyed them.
That was the only German success though. The rifle-grenades scored another hit on the HMG and knocked it out, and the only really active German squad was left alone and outflanked. So I called the game as a British win.
With hindsight I did a few things wrong, but the game was quite interesting to play despite the low unit density. There aren't to many decisions to make, but just enough to make it worthwhile. It played out in just over 30 minutes, which included me looking stuff up and double-checking factors.
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