Liar, liar pants on fire.

 Before I go on I will get to the title. I have started a new project, there I said it. I have had quite a runaround from our 'World Beating' NHS over the past month or so and this married to the fact I am missing painting and collecting wee sojers decided me to throw caution to the wind and order up new toys. I broke the news to the Memsahib and she just shrugged and said go ahead.

I still did not want to do an army of several hundred figures and have them languishing in boxes waiting for someone to take pity on me and play a game, so I decided to build an American platoon with supports for NW Europe, about 60 figures including support teams and for now, two tanks and an armoured car. I tend to find, or think, that the Yanks are overplayed in wargames rules, I just don't get the shooting from the hip advance for instance, what's that going to hit? Anyway, the new paints have arrived as have the bases, three Rubicon kits and enough troops to keep me busy for some time.

OK, I got a call from 'Lucky' Jimi last week offering to journey to the Bunker for a game, I decided to set up a Bolt Action scenario from the Budapest campaign book, with a couple of added tweaks. The German defenders were short of ammunition and what remained of the Luftwaffe (it is January 1945) had managed to drop containers into one of the city parks, both the Germans and the approaching Soviets wanted to capture them. I set up the forces, the Jerries had two regular and one veteran squad along with a green Volksturm type volunteer squad, an MMG, a StuG III, Hetzer and a Panzerjager Wanze, the latter being an ex remote-controlled demolition carrier with six panzerschrek's stuck on it, these were actually used in Berlin but I had the model. The Soviets (me) had one regular squad, one assault engineer squad, one veteran Scout squad and a squad from a Penal battalion backed up with an MMG, a T-34/85, Su-76 and a T-70 light tank. I also added a golden die to the dice bag and if whoever picked it out threw a 5 or 6 then an aircraft would turn up and add to the mayhem.

Olympia Park Budapest 1945

Jimi moved very quickly and secured three of the five canisters on his side of the table, these all contained ammunition and this meant he could re-roll any 1's during firing as long as he stayed close to them. I also put all my forces on in the first turn and captured two canisters, again they had ammunition in them, they could have had food, medals, panzerfausts or medical supplies. I decided to go for the German cannisters on their flanks and and put the T-34 and T-70 on my left along along with the Penal squad and the regulars while on the other side the SU-76, Assault engineers and Scouts would be my main effort. The armour duels went my way and I quickly knocked out the Hetzer and the Panzerjager, the StuG tried to break through a barricade and got stuck for the rest of the game. Jimi countered this with a low level strafe by a FW-190 which caused quite a bit of suppression on all my troops along the flight path, which was most of them and also gave my T-34 crew a nasty surprise.

Panzerjager.

My left flank.

My right flank.

The Jerries push forward.

The next surprise arrived in the shape of a downed plane, luckily this had no effect on any of my lads but I think it did deal out pins to the Germans in the centre, it is supposed to be a glider but I don't have one. I had to hold back my attack on the left but sent all my armour towards the German centre cannister, the Su-76 having to stay out of the firing arc of the stuck StuG, I took the right hand cannister so this left Jimi needing to capture the downed aircraft to even the score. Sadly for him I managed to assault his command group with the engineers and take the prize.

The crashed 'glider'.

Volksturm and Hetzer.

Jabo.

It's almost over.

Soviet armour moves on the centre.

The Russians take the plane.

A stuck StuG.

This turned out to be a really close game with the potential for lots of twists and turns, I will play this again at some point. No Russian aircraft were harmed during this scenario!

The very next day Matt and I resumed our Chain of Command Abbeville campaign, Matt had arrived back in the North and I was more than happy to get another game in while the missus was in a good mood. This game was similar to the last one in that the German position would be a small wood on one side of the table while the British were basically called on to cross more open ground, this constant use of open ground in Chain of Command I think has a detrimental effect on the game. Matt had a new platoon supported by an Infantry Gun and a Medic, I had the same but my supports were two Vickers MkVI tankettes with HMG's, I also took a mortar barrage and a replenishment point, the second time I have ever used this in a game as the old one simply ruined the game.

I fully intended to advance under cover of my heavy machine guns and smoke while my barrage kept the Jerries heads down, and hopefully caused them some pain. I quickly got all my troops on as did Matt, although he kept most of his men hidden in the wood, he also brought his 7.5 cm gun on and it began to target my squad on the right, it was time to drop smoke on it. I really wanted to hit the enemy in the wood but Matt had quickly picked up a CoC dice and could easily end the turn and stop the barrage, so I had to suffer for now. I decided to pick on his artillery and after a couple of phases I managed to rout the crew. I forgot to mention Matt had brought along the Fifth Column sniper again, he got in a couple of  good shots but I decided to ignore him

In the end he did use his dice and I immediately brought in the barrage, this hit almost all the German squads and over the three turns the Jerries took quite a bit of shock and several casualties, not as many as I would have liked but enough for us both to think the British were on top. But this was not the case, my squads were taking a lot of shock and I had to use most of my command points trying to rally them, the only troops I could get to advance were my little tanks, but it was slow going, especially as one of them had obviously forgotten to bring ammo for its HMG! I took my last squad out of a nearby barn in order to put more shots into the wood but before long it too began to take hits, so much so that now all three of my squads were in dire straits.

What can you command with that!

7.5 cm Infantry Gun.

Ready guys.

Although my morale fell I slowly managed to reduce the defenders in the wood while Matt time and again just failed to finish off my depleted squads, I was holding on by the skin of my teeth, the tension mounted as whoever got in a decent volley could break the enemy morale. I think I managed a double turn and as the second German squad broke their morale hit zero. This was a frustrating game for both sides and a couple of times it looked like anyone could win, the last few phases were certainly nail biting as we both just held on. The next game is the last of the British attacks, after that we have four or five German attacks. Just for a change though this week I will set up an Italian Wars game, I need a rest.

Barrage.

British armour advances.

British just clinging on.

The Jerries are done.

I treated my self to another book, a companion to Bloody Streets: The Soviet Assault on Berlin, this one concentrates on armour, artillery and assault groups in the battle, it is full of information on the organisation and tactics used in the attack along the city streets, it is also full of excellent photographs. If you are interested in the battle for Berlin I cannot recommend these books highly enough. Oh, and I drew the maps for the second volume as well but don't let that stop you.

I got the new troops above to fight off insanity and boredom, now however the Atlas maps are picking up and I have some other projects to work on, so busy bee once again.