Club Night 01/04/19: France ’44, 15mm IABSM/COC

After the last game of IABSM I was moaning about the card activation and how I thought it slowed things down and increased the chance of you sitting there doing nothing for large parts of the game if you were unlucky in the card activations (or if, as happened to me once, someone forgot to add a card into the deck after coming off the blind). Des had a think about it and came up with a very simple but ingenious way of combining the dice activation from CoC with the core rules.

Activation was much the same as in CoC, 5 dice being rolled, but scaled up: 1 activated a team/section, 2 a platoon, 3 a Big Man 1 or 2 (i.e. a JL), 4 a Big Man 3 (a SL), 5 added a pip to a ‘Bonus’ die, and 6’s went to a ‘Tea Break’ dice. Multiple 6’s were treated the same as in CoC so 2 gave you another go (we used our system of decreasing the activation dice by 1 die every time). The ‘Bonus Dice’ was added to until you hit 6 pips (basically a CoC dice) whereupon you could pick a card from the bonus card deck. As soon as the ‘Tea Break’ die hit 6 – which was added to by both sides’ rolls – a Tea Break was called.

As well as the activation system from CoC we were using a similar support points system and so both sides had a core infantry company and a set amount of points that we could spend to beef things up. We would also be using the Force Morale system too with points lost for ‘Bad Things Happening’.

The scenario we would test these out with was nice and straightforward. Andy and I had to take a small village somewhere in the Bocage country. Facing us was the all singing and dancing  ‘Kamp Gruppe Bartram’ led by Daren. We managed to set up a rather spiffing table with the club’s terrain and Des’ lovely ‘Empires at War’ Normandy buildings (the 15mm versions of the ones seen on this blog before). The main picture below shows our view of the battlefield, and we hit upon a nice simple plan. I would take 2 of our platoons of infantry and push through the orchard to the right of the road whilst sending our recce jeep along the right flank whilst Andy would take our Sherman platoon along the left supported by the remaining infantry platoon. The enemy would be pinned in place once discovered then destroyed.

The battlefield from American lines..

…and again

Le verger de la mort

Things started very well with all of us getting into the swing of the new activation system easily enough. We decided to push my attack through first and soon I had 2 platoons in the Orchard and the jeep barrelling around bocage as it headed for the lateral road on the right. Then the shit hit the fan. My lads in the orchard must have been fresh from England as they failed to spot the PanzerGrenadiers that lined the hedge at the far end of the orchard until they opened up a murderous fire on my Napoleonic looking column. Pretty soon I was in all sorts of trouble as the German machine guns chewed through section after section and soon one of my platoons was pretty much out of action. My return fire was not the best but I did manage to cause some casualties assisted by the company mortars but I was forced to pull back out of sight to regroup and re-asses whilst the Germans slipped away to take up new positions in the village.

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Just when I thought things were pretty bad they got worse. My recce jeep bumped into something along the road and I actually felt my jaw drop when Daren gleefully put out 2 Tigers – indeed both Daren and Des laughed at my re-action. I did have a go at one of the behemoths with my .30-cal before scooting back desperately trying to get into cover but both efforts were futile and one of the giant beasts pumped a HE shell into the plucky Jeep.

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As the right flank was now well and truly shut down we decided that Andy best get forward on the left so he pushed his Shermans forward followed by the infantry. However pretty soon the sharp crack of an 88 signalled the appearance of 2 more Tigers! The American tankers tried valiantly to take on the big cats but pretty soon their Platoon commander and one other tank were burning. There was one small glimmer of hope though as the remaining infantry platoon managed to creep forwards whilst the tank duel was going on and soon a couple of bazooka teams were in position to get a flank shot at one of the Tigers. If they could get a successful shot away we might just be able to overpower the remaining one with the concentrated fire of the surviving tanks. But it wasn’t to be, the GI’s manning the rocket launchers were just too jittery and their missiles either sailed harmlessly past the massive tank or glanced off the thick steel (how they missed is still puzzling me, just how do you miss a Tiger side on?!!). Daren then turned the Tigers turret on the hapless bazooka men who would have been blasted to atoms if they weren’t close assaulted by a fresh platoon of PanzerGrenadiers.

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With this further defeat Andy and I decided that enough was enough, most of our infantry was knackered and our tanks had been well and truly assaulted by the Tigers so we decided to concede defeat. Strangely though the surviving tanks disappeared during the retreat, and even stranger when we tried to get them on the radio to ask where they were we received this message back: ‘Woof, woof’. Odd.

Despite the defeat it was a cracking game and we all agreed that the new activation system vastly improved things and even I said I’d love to have another game so hats off to Mr. Darkin for coming up with the rules, we did come up with a few tweaks here and there but nowt too much which shows how well they worked.  Apart from the rules more thanks to Des for putting the game on and for bringing his lovely village set, the figures and models were Daren’s but now in the collection of Andy which is great as we  will still get to play with them as they are crackingly well done.

If you are interested in the new activation rules at all you can find them here – Des has called them: ‘Oh what a total bummer’: https://www.facebook.com/groups/216703912095462/files/

(I think: ‘I aint been CoC’d Mum’ was better but apparently that’s a bit rude?!)

As it was so nice and we didn’t get anywhere near it in the fight here’s some gratuitous shots of the lovely village! (available from here: https://www.empiresatwar.co.uk/15mm-NORMANDY-KITS.html)

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Club Night 18/03/19: 20mm IABSM, France 1940 – Motorbiking!

I really should have posted a report on this game a lot earlier but was suffering from a bit of a fug at the time and hence now the details are a bit hazy which is a shame as it was good fun and it led to something which is potentially brilliant. Oh and it had tons of Motorcycles and sidecars.

The Germans (my side) were tasked with clearing a village of French types and had the following to do so: a platoon of Kradschutzen, a Platoon of Sdkfz 221/222’s, a PanzerGrenadier platoon, a platoon of 8-rads and a support platoon of Infantry gun, MG and Mortar sections. Things were going quite well for ages with our infantry and Hells Angels bumping into defending Poilus and blatting them with fire from supporting Armoured Cars until they buggered off – it’s the second time that I’ve used these cars and both times the 20mmm Auotcannons and MG’s they are armed with have made mincemeat of the opposition. We did suffer a bit from some defensive infantry and AT gun fire and artillery stonkage but we thought we were gaining the upper hand and then the Somua’s turned up and ruined everything, trundling about nonchalantly with a Gaulois hanging out of their gobs shrugging off our feeble attempts to damage them whilst brassing up everything they could. We prudently decided to withdraw and let the Stukas take over.

Good fun was had though and we got to use Ian’s lovely early war kit but Des and I got talking about the rules afterwards and I mentioned (again) how much I really don’t like the card activation aspect – slows the game down every time you have to add cards to the deck, if the GM forgets to add any it is a disaster and you are forever trying to remember who is who. A few days later Des emailed us all to say that he thought he’d come up with a cunning plan to weld the dice activation from CoC onto IABSM and should we try it, we all agreed so stay tuned for that, coming up next.

Before that though here’s the pics of the game. Remember you can make images larger by clicking on them.

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Club Night, 28/01/2019: 1940 France,10mm Battlefront WW2.

Right then, back to getting posts done after a couple of doses of the horrible cold lurgy before Christmas then just after New Year, coupled with my blood condition being a bastard again too it really did me in and so I wasn’t fit for anything. I have a couple of CoC campaign games to write up too but have had a bit of writers block and all efforts have been shite quite frankly and I’m hoping a nice straightforward write up might clear the cobwebs so to speak and get the old juices flowing again!

Philip put a shout out for anyone interested in having a bash with his 10mm 1940’s kit and I jumped at the chance, Des wasn’t going to be at the club so we couldn’t have carried on with our Martlet campaign anyway, and I really do dig those French tanks! The scenario was loosely based on the action at Stonne when the French counter attacked a knackered out (or massively coming down from all that Pervitin they’d been necking?) Gross Deutschland Regiment and their Char B’s went on a bit of a romp.

I was given the following to undertake my mission, which was a nice and simple ‘secure the village’ order.

• 2 x Companies of Char B’s (one was veteran)
• 1 x Company of H-35’s
• 1 x Battalion of Dragons Portees (Mech infantry in those crazy Lorraine carriers)
• 1 x Panhard 178 armoured car platoon
• 1 x off table 105mm battery
• 1 x Potez as air support

The terrain was empty of troops but there were a series of blinds on table which would obviously be hiding some nastiness so my plan (yes I had one!) was to try and avoid the ones that would probably have some nasty 88mm Flak shaped nastiness in them and try the indirect approach. To this end I sent the infantry accompanied by the H-39’s on a flanking march around the wood with the aim of securing the ridge and establishing a base of fire there to hopefully assist in the assault on that end of the town whilst the tanks could also keep an eye out for any nasty Panzer types entering the table along the road.

 

At the other end of town I was going to charge the armoured car forward into town to see if it could draw the fire of any of the filthy Bosche lurking there and then once they were located one of the Char B companies would start to work on them and keep them occupied whilst hopefully breaking their will to resist. The veteran Char B company would go for a long sweep around the far side of the town to take out any supports for the garrison then linking up with the infantry to help shoot them into the village.

So, a nice simple plan that, for once, went well all things considered. My ‘recon by death’ saw the armoured car platoon embrace the spirit of Lannes and went the way of all good Hussars, their sacrifice did however identify targets for the following Char B’s to start firing on. Meanwhile over on my far right the lighter tanks and mechanised infantry started on their march for the ridge and as the passed the middle of the wood they were engaged by a 105mm Howitzer battery from their objective. Shrugging off the fire from the German gunners (only suffering some suppression) the tanks surged forwards and took the battery in the flank, shooting up the gunners and crushing the guns. Whilst this action was happening an 88 Battery that was hiding in the woods broke cover and headed for the outskirts of town. This caused me to change my plan somewhat and I de-bussed the Dragoons and ordered the through the wood to take on the mighty gun which had already started firing on the H-35’s on the ridge albeit not very well.

Meanwhile at the other end of town the Char B’s taking on the house clearing duties were making a right dogs dinner of evicting the filthy Bosche squatters, failing time after time to secure enough hits to either eliminate them or cause them to bugger off. They were also engaged by a 37mm AT gun firing from the wood which tried desperately hard to get a lucky shot through the side grill’s to no avail and soon one of the Char-B’s had dealt with this futile attempt at stopping them. The other Char B squadron was having a whale of a time round the other side of town, seeing off an enemy 20mm flak gun and swanning all the way round to the far wood without any mishap. Which was a good thing for my forces as by now some horrible panzers had turned up along the road and had started to engage the H-35’s on the ridge.

This tank duel was an indecisive affair for a while, with each of the two forces losing a platoon but once the German’s heavier tanks got involved they soon saw off the lighter French tanks (to be fair my rolling here was utter garbage, I just couldn’t get enough telling hits on the enemy!). However the Char B’s were now within range and shrugging off attacks by Stukas they started to engage the PzIII’s and IV’s still strung out near the road. This did allow the H-35’s to return to the fray from the ridge again once they had rallied and the German’s were stuck between two fires at one point but it wasn’t for too long as the  brave light tank men lost another platoon and retired from the battle (again appalling dice rolling here prevented me from taking full advantage).

Elsewhere the 88 had succumbed to the joint attentions of the French artillery and the Dragoon’s MG platoon and mightily pleased I was too! I also managed to get the Potez involved but its attacks on the newly arrived Panzer Grenadiers who had scurried into the houses along the road came to naught. At the other end of town the relentless pounding that the other Char B squadron was doing to the infantry company was finally starting to have an effect and some of the platoons were very close to breaking point. All I had to do was to win the tank battle and then the remaining Char B’s would have been able to help my artillery shoot my infantry into town and snatch victory.

Unfortunately this wasn’t to be as we ran out of time but I was happy to claim a winning draw! As usual it was a cracking game against Phil and it is always a pleasure using his lovely 1940 kit. My rotten luck with the dice did stymie my progress on the right but my plan seemed to be working ok, mind you I did manage to swerve the lethal 88 by guessing correctly where it might be and then I managed to knock it out in short order once I found it so that was a big bonus. Hopefully we can have another crack at this.

I lost my phone which had the pics of this battle on it, I’m going to see if Phillip has any I can pinch to jazz this up a bit but wanted to still post it.

 

Operation Martlet: Fight 4 – The Hauptkampflinie

Beckenbauer was angry with himself at letting the British bundle him out of the last position without a fight and was determined that this time it would be different. He had already been informed by the old man that his Zug was going to be replaced if and when they withdrew from the Hauptkampflinie that they now occupied as Leutnant Hitzelberger and his 2.Zug was now ready in position around the St. Nicholas farm.

The patrol activity had been better contained than before the last fight, whilst the enemy had managed to get to the far end of the garden they had been kept mostly far away from the main position. The Zug’s own forming up points were spread more or less along the lateral road and with the good defensive positions available amongst the houses and outbuildings of this position he was confident that he’d be able to make the Britishers pay a heavy price for taking the position and repulse them once more. He was pleased to see that he had the services of one of the tripod mounted MG’s from Company HQ and a couple of extra Panzerfausts and was also glad that he still had three full strength sections, even with Ballack’s continued attempts at getting himself killed, and the pioneers had done their business on fortifying the house to the left of the crossroads. All in all ‘der Kaiser’ was pleased with his chances and a quick tour of his positions to give some last minute instructions made him feel even better, the lads were itching for the fight.

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Soon the peace and quiet was destroyed by the rip of sound from the HMG in the upstairs of the fortified house as it opened up on an enemy section that had started to make its way across the garden. The stone wall that they were hiding behind only helped them a bit though and first blood was drawn and the enemy quickly responded with a superbly targeted smoke round from one of their verdamt small mortars that completely blocked the view of the gun. The Britishers were learning very fast and under cover of the smoke the shot up section ran forwards to the cover of the barns in front of the fortified house. Pretty soon smoke rounds were falling all over the place with the road leading to the enemy completely blocked by it and the chief of the gun shouted out a warning that the Tommies were using its cover to run another section over the road that started moving towards the Hayloft in the main farm complex.

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Beckenbauer looked over to his right and made a hand signal to Klinsmann. The blonde Wurttemberger gave a grin back and turned to his Gruppe. “C’mon lads, into the farm”, and with that they leapt over the wall into the courtyard, Jurgen directing one of his teams into the barn on the left to cover the road while he led the other section forward hoping to reach the Hayloft before the Tommies. However the unmistakable sound of tank tracks caused him to divert his lads to the low wall in the corner of the yard to investigate and hopefully get a shot off with the Panzerfaust. Unfortunately the Sherman that hoved into view was just out of range of their rocket grenade and before they could duck out of the way the tank fired a shell at them. “Scheisser!” yelled Klingsmann “Down, down, behind the wall!!” but luckily the Tommies must have been surprised to see them appear as their aim was out and the 75mm round hit the building behind them with no ill effect on his team apart from the slight shock of the near miss. ” Right, move, move” and he dragged and kicked his 3 men back out of sight alongside the Hayloft.

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It was a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire for the lads of Zweitte Gruppe however as whilst they had been playing peek-a-boo with the Sherman the Britishers had managed to run a section into the top of the Hayloft up the outside stairs and both sets of soldiers stood looking at each other through the open doors. Clearing his head Klinsmann decided what to do, “Grenades, quick chuck them up into the loft” but before his team could respond a full section of Tommies appeared through the door in front of them and all hell broke loose. When the dust had settled Klinsmann and his small band were kaput but the shock of the encounter, as well as the losses they incurred, caused the British to duck back into the safety of the downstairs room of the big barn.

While this short but bitter fight was happening the smoke that had been obscuring the view of the defenders cleared and the sight that greeted the gun team in the fortified house chilled them to the core. A huge Churchill tank was positioned in a great firing position and it had a very strange looking gun pointed at them. There was a detonation and what looked like a dustbin wobbled through the air at them and glanced off the roof. The detonation when this happened though was quite something and the gun team was dazed for a good while, their NCO still had enough wits about him though and he bundled his team out the back of the house before the beast of a tank could fire at them again. Luckily for them they just managed to miss the mortar barrage that had fallen on the crossroads which had just lessened enough in intensity to allow them to escape.

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“Get that gun set up on the wall down the road, I want you to cover the farmyard. Quick, before the mortars start up again” Beckenbauer yelled at their Gefreiter and quickly looked over to the left where he had sent Breitner’s men. They were there as he had thought that the Tommies skulking round the buildings to the left of the road were going to make a dash through the cover of the orchard and try and outflank them. His fear of an outflanking move grew more and more as the enemy kept trying to drop smoke rounds in front of the hirsute Bavarian’s Gruppe. He was just thinking about ordering them forward to winkle out the hiding Tommies to their front right when the mortar barrage suddenly shifted across and increased in ferocity again. The screams that were just about audible above the sounds of the falling mortar rounds told him that Breitner’s lads were suffering. Franz punched the ground and cried out “Dumpkopf” in frustration, he just hadn’t ordered them forward in time as he was distracted elsewhere and now his lads were paying the price.

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Luckily the barrage quickly stopped and Erste Gruppe had ‘only’ suffered 3 casualties and a new threat appeared. Over on the right the Sherman that had tried to take out Klinsmann and his team earlier had swung round the right of the farmyard and was looking to get into the lateral road which would have been curtains for them. Luckily the old bullet magnet Ballack was on hand and he calmly ordered his men along the hedge and said quietly “Prepare for tanks, get the ‘faust ready”. His rocket grenadier peeped through the hedge once to get an idea of where the large green vehicle was and then popped up and let loose. The rocket sped on it’s way and hit the British tank, the Sherman carried on for a meter or two then shuddered to a halt and smoke spewed out from it before it blew up in a fantastic pyrotechnic display. “Excellent Hans”, Ballack shouted above the din , “Beers and Slivovitz for you later”.

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Beckenbauer’s elation at this good news quickly turned sour however as the British section that had been hiding in front of the fortified house suddenly appeared on the lateral road, they had taken advantage of the attention being shown to the tank threat and were now in a position to start rolling up the flank. Breitner and his remaining men tried to get off a volley at them but they were still feeling the effects of their stonking and so it was ineffectual. The grizzled veteran quickly assessed the situation: The MMG was now set up and was keeping the two British sections in the Hayloft pinned for now but they could easily slip out of the stairs at the back and re-deploy to the flanks. The surviving team from Klinsmann’s gruppe was still in the barn by the road but could easily make it back to the safety of the road, but that was only safe for now. Breitner’s lads were a wreck and now also effectively cut off. Yes Ballack’s men were at full strength but for how long? Especially if the enemy could get that huge Churchill into action again or start up with the mortars. No, morale was not great and he had lost 6 men as well as one NCO so it was time to pull out. With that he loaded his flare pistol and fired the signal for withdrawal. Hopefully 2.Gruppe would be able to catch up them later.

Butcher’s Bill

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This was just about the tensest game of CoC either Des or I had played to date. Des had really upped his game making great use of smoke from his bloody 2″ mortars (are there any German players who don’t hate these things?), although the one targeting the section on the left consistently mis-aiming in the same place repeatedly was admittedly very funny. The fight in the Hayloft was sort of weird, we had a sort of Mexican standoff at one point and then Des asked if we could chuck grenades at each other, I said yes but couldn’t get the right dice (curse of the double 4’s and no 3’s) to do so and when it was his turn with a double 6 he brilliantly pushed forward a JOP so that he could deploy a section to close assault my dithering team. Unfortunately I wasn’t carrying much shock or pinned so he was facing an MG42 from the front. He lost more men than me so even though he wiped me out he had to withdraw – which I could see was plausible given the situation. I also got lucky with the ‘dustbin of death’ from the AVRE missing. I did make some stupid mistakes (I blame me still suffering from the lurgy) namely splitting Klinsmann’s team and pushing them forward like that and deploying Breitner’s team when I didn’t have to. I had appalling luck on the Bad Things Happen table too and my starting morale of 9 quickly dropped and I ended up on 4 when I decided to bail. But I did manage to cause some more casualties and maybe scare his tankers from getting too close to my infantry from now on. Let’s see how the new Zug gets on….

 

 

Club Night 24/09/18: 20mm IABSM, Belgium 1940

It’s has been far too long since I’ve done one of these but an going to try and get back in the habit of doing them again. Anyway, Monday saw Ian put on a nice 20mm WW2 game of IABSM. Daren and I were taking the part of the filthy Bosche whilst Des got to take the plucky Tommies. We were tasked with securing a small hamlet and had quite a nice force to do so with having the following:

• 1 Heavy weapons platoon of:
  • 1 75mm Infantry gun
  • 1 37mm AT gun
  • 3 Sustained fire MG34 (we attached 2 to the Infantry platoons)
• 2 Infantry Platoons
  • 3 8-man sections with attached MG34
• 1 recce Platoon
  • 2 Sdkfz 222
  • 2 Sdkfz 221
• 1 Pz-38t Platoon
  • 4 tanks

After looking at the terrain we hatched a devilishly simple plan. Daren would take the tanks and one platoon and head straight up the road whilst I would take the armoured cars and the other platoon and try and flank the buildings along the right hand road. Daren would take the Heavy weapons too to help neutralise any opposition.

Table looking from where ze Germans entered.

So with our plans ready we got to it. Daren advanced through the trees to near the Y-Junction with his tanks and drew the fire of a 2pdr located between the houses on the road and a Boyes AT rifle team hiding in the hedges at the junction. In the meantime my Armoured Cars were making their way forwards along the right hand road heading to the T-junction. Daren’s luck was in as the fire from the Brits failed to knock him out but did cause his lead panzer a mobility loss and so he had blocked the road. As his weapons were ok though he returned fire on the Boyes team and the following tanks deployed amongst the trees. Our infantry platoons were still advancing behind on blinds.

‘Keep a look out mit ze Minzi Pies Hanz!’

‘It is all a bit quite, Dieter!’

Things settled down to a duel between the Boyes and 2pdr and the Pz-38 platoon for a while, Daren made short work of the Boyes team and started firing on the 2-pdr which managed to brew up a tank. The return fire from the remaining tanks managed to kill all of the AT gun crew bar one brave soul who stuck to his task and kept up the return fire as best he could (obviously with an eye on getting himself on the cover of Victor Book for Boys one day!). Indeed this stout son of Albion eventually knocked out another Pz-38 before he was finally made to retreat, in the process earning himself the admiration of us all and no doubt a citation for a fanny magnet from his CO too.

‘Lumme Corp, don’t bleeding well miss.’

‘Bugger!, you knocked my arm you clumsy sod, now we’re for it!’

Whilst all this was going on we had spotted a rifle section lurking along the hedges where the Boyes was and I duly made short work of them with the combined fire of my cars. I also moved my infantry platoon up into the hedged enclosure between the junctions to prepare for an assault on ‘my’ side of the hamlet. This drew some ineffective mortar fire which was lucky as the infantry were pretty bunched up and fire from a Vickers in the wrecked roof of one of the houses, I managed to get away with only 3 casualties and a few bits of shock and spread the Landsers out and headed for cover.

‘Himmel, Tommies in ze hedges, make mit ze shootings schnell!’

The battle then developed into a firefight as another British rifle section popped up along the stone wall on the right of the buildings and we got the second infantry platoon and the heavy weapons into action too. Unfortunately for Des our lads were better shots and assisted by the automatic weapons of the recce boys and the HE fire from the tanks and guns pretty soon gave the Germans the upper hand shredding the second British rifle section and knocking out the Vickers.

‘Tally-ho lads, lets get up and help out, oh…..’

The Brits did have one hope though as a reinforcing platoon of Infantry accompanied by an A9 appeared on the road on the right, unfortunately my armoured cars hit the infantry pretty hard causing them to scatter and go to ground whilst taking shack and casualties. With time running out and the German weight of fire being so strong we called it a night. All in all a nice straightforward scenario which would have turned out very different if we had stumbled on Des’ other 2pdr and it had taken out the rest of the tanks or some of my armoured cars. Thanks to Ian for putting the game on, he has a fine collection of toys which are always a joy to behold, and thanks to the chaps for making it fun. Hats off to my Armoured Car boys whose devilish shooting helped us secure a win although man of the match was definitely secured by the plucky Tommy on the 2pdr.

EDIT: Some more pics that I forgot to load up in my hast to get the post up!

My infantry platoon of Matchbox and Airfix figures come under fire.

First British section get mullered by Armoured Car and Tank fire

The hardest bloke in the village manning his 2pdr against all odds

Vickers team let rip and take hits too

Brit re-inforcing Platoon just before attracting attention of the death ray Sdkfz’s

 

 

Preparations for Colours 2018

Once again Daren, Dan and myself will be flying the flag for the South London Warlords at Colours this year. As is our wont we will be putting on a 6mm game, this time set in WW2 and in particular the action around the Son bridge during Operation Market garden. As this one is going to be a large one we will be assisted by a few other clubmates we already have Bart on board but have realised that the 15′ length of the table means that we are going to have to rope in a few more!

Also as usual Daren has pulled out all the stops to model the terrain and we will be using his lovely collection of GHQ kit to try and make sure that XXX Corp can push through the ad hoc German defenders and link up with the American Para’s holding onto the bridge. Although everything isn’t quite ready yet we have done a couple of quick playthroughs of the rules (Micro Armour from GHQ) to acquaint ourselves with them again and to hash out any scenario specific bits that we want to bolt on to add a bit of flavour to proceedings.

So to whet anyone’s appetite that might be interested here’s a few pics of the practice games (as usual click on them to see larger). I’ll be adding another post once we have the full dress rehearsal in September with more details and pics.

 

Well, it is Holland…

Tiffies on the prowl

Is that Eddie Fox?

Nice.

Low level strafing.

This was bound to happen

Cracking 88.

German AA takes hits

Nice eh?

Suitably flat terrain

Nice mixture of fields

Daren’s patented river system in action again!

Lovely bijou country retreats

German StuG on the charge

Where’s the tiny Elliot Gould?

Club Night 25/09/17: FFT3, Austrians vs Soviets.

I really need to get back into the swing of posting, been thinking of a bit of a change to a couple of things and will get started once I’m caught up with these Club Night posts. Anyway as I had just finished off painting my new T-64 Regiment and it had been a while since the Austrians had a run out I decided to get them both on the table. Comrade Noakesavitch would be leading the mighty Red Army as usual and I would be taking over Kampfgruppe Grüber to try and stop their advance. Dan’s orders were to take the road junction at the end of the table to enable the advance on Vienna to continue.

Before we started Dan and I had a quick conversation about recce and how we both don’t like the usual ‘recce by death’ that usually happens so we cobbled together something on the fly. As my forces recce element was a couple platoons of Jeeps with MG’s I said that they would have fallen back before the heavier Soviet recce element and hence Dan could place his platoons anywhere up to the line of terrain features (hills/fields) in front of the stream (the dark green line) that bisected the table. This was near enough to my forward positions without initiating close combat but close enough to maybe ‘spot’ something or get a sound contact. Dan then rolled against his QC rating to see if he spotted anything, he didn’t definitely spot anything but he was aware of a couple of my positions – we will be working on this for future games.

Dan’s Tank Regt comprised the following, rated as Conscript (-1 to hit and Quality of 4):

• Regimental Base
  • 1 HQ stand
  • 1 ACRV FOO
  • 1 ZSU-23-4
  • 1 SA-13 Gopher
  • 2 recon BRDM-2
• 3 Tank Btlns
  • 6 T-62
• BMP Btln
  • 1 Cmnd BMP-2
  • 2 SP Vasliek 82mm Mortars
  • 1 AGS-17 30mm AGL (BMP-1)
  • 1 AT-7 Saxhorn atgm team (BMP-1)
  • 9 Inf (BMP-2)
• (Off table) Regt Art Btln – 3 x sp 122mm
• (Off table) 2 Div Art Btlns – 3 x sp 152mm
• (Off table) 3 MRLS units
• Mi-24 Helicopters
• SU-25

The valiant Austrian ‘Kampfgruppe Grüber’ consisted of the following, rated as ‘Regular’  (Quality 4):

• Kmpfgp base
  • 1 HQ Stand
  • 2 recon Jeeps/MG
  • 1 M42 Duster
  • 1 Gr81 sp81mm Mortar
• Jagdpanzer Coy
  • 3 Sk-105 Kurassier
• 2 x Panzer Coys
  • 3 M60a3
• 2 x Panzer-Grenadier Coys
  • 3 PzGren (4k4f mg)
  • 1 PzGren/Bill atgm (4k4f 20mm)
• (Off table) Bgde Art Btln – 3 x sp155mm
• (Off table) Corp Art Btln – 3 x towed 105mm
• (Off table) 1 MRLS unit
• Draken

I could also call on another Kampfgruppe of the same composition (minus the Jagdpanzer company and off table supports) as a reserve.

My plan was to try and slow the advance down by placing a PzGren company in the central village near the stream and to keep the rest of my force back so as to hopefully prevent it all being destroyed too quickly then to counter-attack once my reserve showed up. Dan did a classic Soviet attack, the Motor Rifle battalion was dispatched straight up the road headed for the central village with a Tank battalion advancing on each flank with the third in reserve. He also started laying down a sustained barrage on the village which immediately caused suppressions on the defending PanzerGrenadiers. Due to his earlier recce he also brought fire down on the hedgeline to the left of the village and suppressed some of the APC’s there (these were from the lads holding the village).

The Austrian view and deployment: Lt Green are PzGrenadier positions, Black are Panzer, Pink is PzJager and Yellow Recon. Red ‘flag’ is HQ.

These bombardments continued for a while as the Soviets moved up to the stream, all the time keeping the garrison of the village suppressed whilst Dan prepared for the assault. I, on the other hand, was having trouble calling my artillery in at all – damn that Soviet jamming of my radio nets! To make things worse Dan was consistently winning the initiative and was slowly accruing a hefty amount of command pips even though he was spending some on keeping his artillery going. Then things got even tougher for the PanzerGrenadiers when a massive MRLS barrage landed on the village taking out one platoon and supressing the rest which allowed the assault that followed to succeed at the first rush, albeit at the cost of one Motor Rifle platoon.

Whilst this was going on in the centre the Soviet tanks on the flanks had reached the stream and those on my left got busy trying to brew up the APC’s stuck by the hedge due to being constantly suppressed by artillery, with two platoons soon ko’d and one having legged it due to failing its Quality check the last survivor also made for the rear. This whole side of the battlefield was now only defended by the Panzer company situated at the hill to the rear. Over on my right flank Dan had pushed one of his recce platoons forward along the stream to recce my positions and I was forced to try and take it out with a SK105 platoon as I wanted to keep the tanks here hidden as long as possible. Unfortunately I missed with the first attempt due to the plucky BRDM-2 crews taking advantage of the cover afforded by the streams trees and bushes (bloody saving throws!). The Soviet recce types then duly located my Panzers on the ridge and got off a report to HQ.

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I was now expecting to be on the receiving end of some artillery attention whilst waiting for the mass of T-64’s advancing on the stream to surge forward to take on the M60’s but Dan had other ideas and used some of his Command Pips to call in an airstrike. He then rolled very well for the load carried by the SU-25 (mind you nearly every load carried by one of these will spoil your day!) and pretty soon I was on the receiving end of masses of cluster bombs and other general nastiness that destroyed one of the 2 targeted Patton’s whilst causing the other to fail a quality test. This convinced the remaining platoon to also re-locate in a rearward direction, bugger.

 

Achtung, Jabo!

 

Things were now officially ‘somewhat sticky’ for the Austrians, I still could not wrest initiative from Dan and had only managed to accrue 1 measly Command Pip which was not enough to get my reserves into action and my force was down nearly 50% of its initial strength. So, what to do: I decided to re-deploy the PanzerJager company towards the centre to replace the missing Panzer company and hoped to win the initiative and then release my reserves otherwise I was onto a hiding. Whilst I started moving the Kurassiers the Soviet Tank battalion that was advancing on my right had made it to the stream and the recce platoon here moved across the stream where it was taken out by a Bill ATGM from the PanzerGrenadiers in the wood there. I also managed to supress some tank platoons when I actually managed to call in all of my M109 batteries at last.

Over on the other flank Dan had crossed the stream to the left of the village and here too I managed to score a partial success with my artillery calling in a strike from the Army MRLS battery which succeeded in suppressing the whole battalion and causing so much confusion that it caused them to halt for a turn to sort themselves out, this was however, very much a last hurrah (indeed a first hurrah really!). My hopes in calling forth my reserve was dashed again as Dan retained the initiative and as the ominous form of a Hind helicopter had also entered the field by this time I decided enough was enough and gave the order to withdraw to preserve what was left of my force for the future.

As usual it was a cracking game with Dan, who is always a pleasure to play against, he used his artillery to maximum effect supressing my lads in the village constantly then unleashing a massive final blow with his rockets before the assault went in – textbook stuff really. He also used his command pips well, allowing his artillery to keep firing and keeping enough in reserve to unleash his air support when needed. I did suffer from not gaining initiative apart from once but that was sort of satisfying as it means that the new initiative rules work, sometimes it just aint your day. I do actually sometimes like it when that happens as it adds to the challenge, although having said that I will be getting the Austrian MANPAD bases done soon to help out against Soviet airpower in future ‘cos those Frogfoot’s are beasts!

 

 

 

Club Night 11/09/17: More Big CoC, Normandy ’44.

It’s been a while since we played this game, so the write up will be brief especially as I didn’t seem top take many pics for some reason which usually helps jog my memory.

Anyway it was supposed to be a sort of reverse game of the one fought out a few weeks before between Daren, Mike and myself but this time with me controlling the defending Germans against Mike and Daren attacking with the Brits. On the night though we were joined by Bart as he didn’t have a game and wanted to try out Chain of Command. The Brits had 2 infantry platoons and a tank platoon of 3 Sherman’s one of which was a Firefly. For support they brought a Carrier Section and a Churchill which just wasn’t cricket! To face this horde we had a standard Heer platoon (Commanded by me) with a HMG and Mortar FOO in support along with a mixed armour platoon of 2 PzIV’s and a Somua half track mounted PAK-40 that Bart was in charge of.

The field of battle looking from the German lines

The patrol phase was an even affair but the Brits rolled really well for morale with 10’s and 11’s whereas we were at 8’s and 9’s, but we were sort of confident. Our plan was to engage the armour from as far back as possible and once we knew where the bulk of the infantry were get some mortar stonkiness on them to get them pinned or to at least deny as much of the ground as possible to the attackers so that we could try and take the larger number of enemy infantry on with less chance of being outflanked or over-run.

The Brits had decided on a very bold plan though getting all of their infantry sections on the table as soon as possible with the armour also getting involved quickly too. This did force us to deploy our tanks as quickly as possible and I also had to get some infantry on to prevent a JOP from being taken. We also managed to get the FOO going from our first phase and soon the mortar’s were in action catching 2 sections of advancing Tommies and a Senior Leader in the fire zone. However after one phase a triple 6 was rolled which put the kibosh on the barrage as we didn’t have a CoC dice yet. To add to our woes we failed to get in contact with the battery in the next activation and then when we tried again we rolled up the dreaded ‘not available again’ result. Things were now officially a bit sticky.

Our short lived mortar barrage – damn those ammo shortages!

While this was happening Bart’s panzers had been engaging the British armour from long range and whilst one of the PzIV’s kept getting hits on the Churchill it just refused to be damaged due to its great armour. The other PzIV did cause some major damage to one of Daren’s sections when it caught them crossing open ground but it didn’t have any luck against the Sherman’s it was duelling with and succumbed to a long range shot from the Firefly. Pretty soon the surviving PzIV was also burning as it was ganged up on by the numerically superior Allied tanks, which had managed to survive the duel without much damage.

Brits advance….

With the failure of the mortar barrage to help slow down the advancing infantry I was forced to get the remainder of the German infantry on table to try and deal with the British advance. This went as well as the rest of our attempts had done through the rest of the battle with me losing a section trying to win back a lost JOP. I holed one section up in a house after that but our morale was plummeting badly and the impetus was well and truly with the British. Both tanks were out of action and when the SP PAK was also knocked out it was obvious that we had no chance of winning as the Brits could just sit back and shell the crap out of us with their tanks whilst their superior number of infantry moved forward to secure JOP’s and the objective at the T-junction. We might have been able to shred a section or two but we decided discretion was the better part and withdrew.

.. relentlessly on

So a sound drubbing for the Bosche but as usual a good fun game which lessened the blow somewhat. If we could have kept the mortars going for a bit longer it would have evened things up somewhat and also losing the armour fight so comprehensibly (no fault of Barts by the way he was very unlucky a couple of times not to brew up a Sherman) meant that we were on a hiding to nothing but c’est la guerre and all that!

 

Club Night 04/09/17: Israeli vs Russian, 6mm Micro Armour Modern

For the first game back after our annual August break Daren had come up with a slightly left-field scenario so that we could pitch ultra-modern Israeli forces against Russians. The back story was this: After emerging victorious from the long civil war, the Assad regime was looking to gain some much needed prestige with the population. With American focus concentrated on events in Korea and their military stretched dealing with that, Iraq and Afghanistan Syria contemplates trying a grab for the Golan heights. When their new Russian chums do not warn them not to try they launch an attack. As usual, however, it fails and the Israelis advance down from the heights to set up a buffer zone against any further attacks.

With the situation tense and the UN frantically attempting to prevent any more bloodshed a Russian task force advances to ‘rescue a downed helicopter crew’. That the task force entrusted to do this consists of tank and motor rifle companies backed up by Havocs and MiGs does seem a tad robust. That it is headed straight for an Israeli Tank company combat team ordered to secure a village at the edge of the buffer zone seems like a recipe for disaster…

I was taking the Israeli’s (as I used to live near the Golan, it’d be rude not to really!) and Daren the Russian ‘rescue and retrieval team’. The terrain was a series of low ridges that gave way to a plain where the village was located, the Israeli’s held the higher ground whilst the Russians advanced across the flat. Littered in front of the Israeli positions was the wreckage of the last Syrian attack.

View from the Israeli lines with still burning Syrian vehicles.

The action started with an advance on a broad front by the Russians whilst the Israeli’s moved forwards to take control of the village. I had planned to race a mechanised infantry platoon forward to secure the village whilst the Merkava’s and the rest of my infantry and anti-tank assets took up covering positions amongst the ridges. Unfortunately for me I was having trouble moving my command due to some effective EW interference ballsing up my communications (I was rolling terribly for orders). This allowed the Russians to race forwards and take control of the settlement. At about the same time a MiG came screaming over my forces and my anti-aircraft defences immediately let fly causing the plane to drop its ordinance and bugger off sharpish. The fight was now well and truly on.

Daren had a platoon of T-90’s in the village with another leading a platoon of BMP-3’s round the left (from my view) of the village and another similarly sized force advancing round the right. I had managed to advance one of my Merkava IV platoons onto a long ridge and soon started firing at the Russki’s on the left. Pretty soon T-90’s were brewing up as the Israeli tankers got the range. Unfortunately for the Russians the combination of being hull down and the Merkava’s impressive armour was preventing any return fire being effective and pretty soon all the Russian tanks on this side of the battlefield were burning – the gun on the Merkava is a beast, any hit resulting in a KO. Daren countered with an artillery strike which supressed a couple of the Israeli tanks and took out the TOW vehicle with them.

I had called in my own artillery strike on the centre of the village which forced the T-90’s there out towards the left hand side of the settlement and into range of the Merkava’s on the hill which soon took care of the new targets and started on the BMP’s. Whilst all this was happening I had pushed another platoon of tanks forwards to take on the right hand Russian force and they too started brewing up enemy armour, however they did not have things all their own way over on this side as a combination of T-90, BMP-3 and Helicopter launched ATGM managed to take out a couple of the seemingly invincible Israeli armour. Daren also launched another air attack which again was seen off with the MiG trailing smoke but after it had dealt a blow to some Israeli personnel carriers.

Unfortunately for the Russians they were now down to only a couple of tanks still in working order and the BMP’s being slowly taken out by a combination of tank fire and fire from a flight of Cobra helicopters from the Rosh Pinna ‘chopper base. There was one more interesting part of the fight at this time as a convoy of white Nissan pick-ups entered the area along the road from the left. At first I didn’t want to engage them as they could have been either UN, Oxfam or a news network convoy but when they swerved off the road and headed straight for the forces arrayed on the long ridge it was obvious that they were local fighters hell bent on martyrdom which the crews of a couple of Israeli tanks duly obliged in assisting them with. After the first few pick-ups were taken out the remainder turned round and ran for it. This was the last hurrah and as I was about to enter the village with some mech infantry and the Russian ‘rescue attempt’ had well and truly failed we called the game.

Charge of the pick-ups

It was a fun scenario and was good to try out a couple of forces that you wouldn’t usually see against each other on the table (and it gave me an excuse to let forth a few curses in Hebrew that I haven’t said in a long while!). The Merkava proved itself to be an absolute beast, virtually impossible to take out when hull down unless attacked by multiple systems to pile on successive suppressions until knocked out and with a gun that takes out everything that it hits. The BMP-3’s were also a bit of a handful, their gun is quite impressive for an AIFV and its ability to fire a hard hitting ATGM makes it quite dangerous. Lastly the game was played with Daren’s lovely GHQ kit which he has done his usual great job on, playing with great looking kit always makes a good game even better.

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Club Night 28/07/17: Flaming Big CoC….

I have been quite lax in posting this and as I have some more to get done here’s a quick AAR of a fun game of Big Chain of Command that was played just before we broke up for our annual August break.

Daren is still ambivalent when it comes to a bit of CoC and so to try and change his mind we decided that what might make him enjoy it more was to make the CoC bigger, after all, size matters right? So a nice straightforward scenario was devised whereby a German Kampfgruppe would be attacking a British position with the aim of securing a T-Junction. Daren and I would be in charge of the Germans and Mike would be looking after the plucky Brits. The forces were the following:

Germans:

• PanzerGrenadier Zug
• Infanterie Zug
• PzIII Flammpanzer
• StuG IIIF

British

• Infantry Platoon
• Churchill Mk.VII Platoon of 2 tanks
• Vickers HMG
• Scout Carrier Section

After a not very successful patrol phase by myself we hit upon a simple plan. Daren would take the PzGrens and the Flammpanzer and advance up the right flank making use of the cover there and would assault the objective whilst I with the Infantry and the StuG would attempt the trickier left flank. Not only was the left flank more open but it was also where the British armour platoon was due to enter the table, with this in mind I decided that I’d lead with the StuG and see if I could somehow take on the behemoths headed my way. We were expecting Mike to keep the Churchills back supporting his infantry so I was hoping for a couple of lucky shots to at least keep them occupied and to draw the attention onto the StuG and away from the PzIII. Luckily for us this is exactly what happened, and then some!

Looking from the German lines: German JoP’s in Red, British in Blue.

Daren was developing his attack along the right very nicely, moving a couple of sections forward and slowly advancing the PzIII whilst trading some fire from a section of Tommies and slowly getting the upper hand and pushing them back. Whilst this was going on I was engaged in an armour duel with the 2 Churchills. However, to our great surprise, instead of hanging back and encouraging us to come on Mike was very aggressive with his tanks pushing one well forward. I kept on having a go at the lead tank but neither of us could get a killing shot away – Mike’s armour was too much for me and his gun was just too weak to do me in – but eventually my brave StuG succumbed to the fire of both of the Churchill’s as I had been immobilised and one of the Churchills had worked its way round for a flank shot.

Whilst Mike was pushing ever closer to the StuG to get that better shot I had advanced a JoP and duly deployed a section close to the lead Churchill and had a go at short range in the flank with a Panzerfaust bagging the tank and causing it to brew up. This meant that we were without our long range anti-tank weapon and Mike still had a Churchill left which we presumed he would use to go after the Flammpanzer. Mike had different ideas though and moved the massive tank forwards parallel to the road to start to take on Daren’s PanzerGrenadiers  in the  Orchard which were giving Mike’s infantry section in the field across the road a right mullering with their 2 MG42’s. However, Daren played a blinder, he too had moved one of his JoP’s forwards and used a CoC dice to deploy his Panzerschreck which couldn’t miss and duly brewed up the second Churchill.

With his armour gone and one section close to breaking we now had a surge in confidence and started to advance again. My lads that had taken out the Churchill left the cover of the field they were in and were surprised by a Vickers which caused them to fall back behind the hedges again to lick their wounds and recover. I reinforced them with another section and with the help of some of Daren’s chaps quickly got revenge, virtually wiping out the crew and causing them to be pinned after a few rounds of firing. Whilst this was going on Daren advance one of his sections and caused Mike to deploy a section to counter this and protect the objective. This is exactly what Daren wanted as the Flammpanzer let fly and quickly destroyed the British lining the road with 2 bursts of it’s terrible weapon.

Daren’s ‘bait’ section advances

The final Flammpanzer burst seals a Tommy section’s fate: 4 casualties and 18 shock!

All in all things weren’t quite going Mike’s way: both tanks were burning, his Vickers was out of action, one squad was had taken a mullering, one was virtually destroyed and broken, senior and junior leaders were wounded and his force morale was shot to bits but he hadn’t totally given up. Much to our surprise he launched his Carrier Section down the road in a crazy attempt to capture a JoP but it was doomed from the start and both carriers succumbed to a good ‘fausting and ‘shrecking from mine and Daren’s lads by the road. With this it was game over and he finally admitted defeat.

Mike’s last, valiant, crazy carrier charge …

… ends in disaster

It was a cracking game as usual with Chain of Command and Daren and I were actually quite surprised that we managed to pull off a victory, given what support armour we decided on as we had thought about taking a Tiger or Panther so that we could tackle the Churchills but both fancied trying out the flame tank. This was a gamble as if Mike had decided to take it out with one of his tanks or had managed to get a PIAT shot at it we might have been screwed. Similarly we were relieved that Mike decided to be so aggressive with his tanks which played into our hands somewhat as our short range anti-tank capability was so strong, if he had kept them back and used them as mobile pill boxes we didn’t think we would have been able to have done so well. Daren really enjoyed the game though which was good to see, so maybe we could entice him with some more CoC action in the future?