Normandy

 Somewhere in Normandy, a scenario from Nick Skinner in Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy, looking at command and how you enterpretate it on the table top, I have just looked enterpretate up to ensure I spelt it correctly and it is 'archaic', much like me actually and the great majority of wargamers, I digress. A first look at the scenario and you get the impression the Jerries are up against it, they are defending with a weak platoon, two squads and very little support although they do have a Pz IV but it does not appear until turn three or you can use a COC die to bring it on faster. The British have a full platoon, a mortar barrage and a Sherman with no delay. 

The battlefield from the German edge.

I have now fought this twice, the latest game last night, this time I swapped the Germans for command of the British, I also used my Airborne figures as they hardly ever see the light of day. I decided to probe both flanks of the enemy position, I also quickly got my senior leaders involved, one on each flank in order to keep things under control, the Sherman also made an appearance but well back out of panzerfaust range. The Germans had a squad on their right near the two bombed out houses and another along with a MMG in an orchard in the centre. 

My left advance.

The Jerries are waiting.

The firefight began and Billy (my opponent) began to win, helped by several double phases, I eventually managed to get the Sherman up and fling some HE into the orchard, but it was slow going. I did not want to have my squads shot to bits and rendered useless so I withdrew the one on my left, it was too late for the other as it became pinned on the edge of a small copse. I have never been a fan of the mortar barrage but now felt compelled to bring it down, it would be a test of the system under V2. To Billy's horror I got devastating fire, my first roll killed off the sniper team, after that it dealt out a couple of headaches and a finger cut to the infantry and the MMG. The second round did nothing at all and then Billy played a CoC dice and ended the stonk, well that was a big change from V1, I basically got nothing out of it and lost my final shot, yes I was lucky and unlucky but them's the breaks.

The Sherman arrives.

The barrage hits.

German armour arrives.

 I now brought on my third squad and also brought the Sherman a bit closer, I had also managed to unpin my right hand squad and concentrated all my fire on the MMG, this was wiped out and forced Billy to withdraw the remnants of his men in the orchard, he pulled them back towards the crossroads which was the ultimate British objective. I now advanced and reorganised my attack by capturing a Jump Off Point and moving the Sherman up cautiously to take a house under HE fire, my infantry also manouvered to eventually bring the last German position under concentrated fire. To help I managed to get my PIAT team on table and they were sneaking forward to get into a position to fire at the now arrived Panzer.

Billy was now down to four command dice and rolled four sixes, his luck with double turns had vanished and reverted to me but this time he rolled for reinforcements and all of a sudden his two squads were back to full strengh, he got a six. This was going to make my assault on his position costly so I threw caution to the wind and moved the Sherman up, the Panzer interrupted but merely scratched some paint on the Sherman, the return fire caused the Panzer to blow up and kill its Leader. German morale fell to zero and it was game over.

The Orchard falls.

Everyone to the left flank.

The end.

A very good little fight with some nice twists, my devastating bombardment and consequent failure, we also had a medic revive a wounded leader, a first for me, sadly he was German, I also feel that the Jerries need that tank and should keep a COC die for it. The lines of sight are poor due to bocage type medium obstacles, clumps of trees and the orchard, so caution is required. I realise now my biggest mistake was not taking advantage of suppressing fire.

Oh, and I played the Germans in the first game and although putting up a desperate defence I was beaten in the end. One to remember and play again.

I am playing away next week so not Chain of Command but a visit to Matt in Penrith for what I am sure will be a good day. 

Ouch!

 I've managed to shift myself and get back on the keyboard, the Atlas author is working on another book so nothing new there and I started the last Roman unit I had left over from my new army, they are cavalry but I am not in a hurry so I manage a bit at a time, albeit I did finish and base the horses last week. Bill the Atlas author did get in touch to aske me if I would do a couple of maps for a mate who is writing a novel set during the German attack on Poland. I had the time and said yes, he put me in touch with Craig Luther who would act as a middle man, I mentioned that I had just watched an episode of WW2TV on Guderian's Panzers which I enjoyed. It turned out that Craig was the author of that book and the narrator on the programme along with being a bit of an expert on the Eastern Front, what a coincidence. He pointed me towards his webpage on Operation Barbarossa, a very interesting site to get lost in.

I have an appointment with a surgeon next week so things are moving ahead at last, it has only taken just over six months, although I suppose that is pretty quick work for the NHS in the end. It will probably mean I will be laid up for Christmas and simply be waited on hand and foot, every cloud etc.

I feel the need to spend some cash and am looking at roads suitable to lay on my winter map, the dirt roads are just too stark, I think I have found a solution and just need to decide which size to get, 3" would be track while 6" seems rather wide but maybe more appropriate for 28mm.

The club has at last sorted things out with the school and we are back in tonight albeit I will not be going as I had a game last night and another couple on Thursday so need some rest before going back into the line. 

I at last caught up with Matt over a week ago when we played the third game in our Gembloux Gap campaign, this time the French had to blow two culverts in order to slow the arrival of the German panzers, as it turned out this was a huge ask for the French but I had a cunning plan. The first culvert was near the centre of the table and I took a demolition squad in support along with a MMG, with the addition of a free demolition squad I figured that I could take losses but still blow the objective up and then head for the second at the rear end of the table while my infantry held the Jerries back. I had to add a die roll each time the demo squads were activated to get a 6, then use a Chain of Command dice to trigger the explosives, then roll again and hope the charges went off or start over, you see where I am going with this, a lot of if's and but's, all while the bad guys were shooting me up. 

One culvert right hand side of cobbled road.

Matt getting his 'sixes' out.

Bloody Luftwaffe!

Boom, it's all over.

Matt once again brought in the Luftwaffe and this time they left me in tatters, one building collapsed while the cover nearest the culvert had an unexploded bomb in it, which might go off, destroy the building and kill everyone inside. I had to put a squad in there along with the MMG on the culvert in order to try and keep the Germans from targetting my engineers, this plan did not work, it seemed to at first as Matt deployed the ever useful 75mm infantry gun and I killed a couple of the crew, then my luck ran out and return fire from the gun and an off table MMG began to bite, I lost my machine gun and the guys in the house also began to suffer, not only that I did not find an opportunity to bring any of the engineers on. In the end I had to husband my platoon so began to withdraw, this left one team in the building when it went boom, it was over, did I mention that because of the Luftwaffe some of my squads were late and those that did turn up took horrendous shock and became basically useless. I wonder if any French player can win this scenario, anyway next up is Blitz on Villeroux where I expect to meet some German armour.

Paul gave me a shout and we met on the Wednesday to play the second game in the linked scenarios, I took Volksgrenadiers to defend the outskirts of a village while the American armoured platoon attacked. At first it looked like a good number for me or at least a decent defensive position but the fates had a different take on things. Paul went for an attack on both flanks, on my left I made a stupid game ending decision to put a squad out in the churchyard to catch the Yanks as they approached the walls instead of putting them in the damn church. On my right a deft move by Paul allowed a squad to deploy on my flank, I had positioned two LMG's to catch these guys but an American double turn ruined that idea and the squad was shot to bits. I could now do nothing but retreat having basically lost two of my four squads, I was also galled in that I had taken a second Senior leader but neither of them ever made it on to the table, the end came as I lost dice and only got two 1's to use. I surrendered. The next fight will be in the town itself, that will be a struggle, I was tempted to bring Volksturm but the way my luck is going that might be a very bad decision.

The battlefield.

My useless grenadiers.

Yanks move on my left.

Bad move, in the open, not so smart.

My right about to be surprised. I was in the house, orange door.

The Jerries in disarray.

Friend Robert gave me a call the day after I played Paul saying he would be here the next Monday and did I want a game, hot on his heels mate Billy, also from Scotland, phoned to organise something on the Thursday as he headed to the Wargames Holiday Centre to refight Dresden 1813. So next up it was Robert and another scenario taken from my WSS subscription, a weakend German platoon was fighting off a British platoon seeking to move inland from Sword or Gold. The supports were already chosen for both and were interesting to say the least.

This was a very different game, Robert threw sixes like there was no tomorrow so in the end he basically got two turns to my one and at one point he got three, Robert is a very good player and doesn't need that kind of help to win, I do. I again made a daft decision and got my MMG routed, not a game changer like the churchyard above but a needless waste of an asset nontheless. I still held out with my two infantry squads and my Panzer IV had turned up, this defended the road to the objective and forced Robert to withdraw a couple of his squads from its machineguns. He now sent a third squad against my left while I pulled back my one and a half squads to counter this, I tried to get a panzerfaust into a position to hit the supporting Sherman in the flank but my boys failed to get enough movement, the opportunity was lost. Time was running out and morale was still even and I felt I could possibly still make things difficult for the Yanks if they moved into the orchard but Robert now hit me with a mortar bombardment, he caught all my troops under it and although I did not lose a lot I took oodles of shock and was pinned for at least two more turns, game over, my third in a row. 

My ill-fated MMG.

 

British Airborne move up.

Firing line.

 

My armour.

Their armour.

 

The end.

Billy and I will replay this on Thursday and might get a second game on the table with different forces and objectives.

Robert always brings something to the house for Evelyn or both of us, she got white chocolate last night while I was presented with a book, not to keep, but to read. The book was a great surprise and I look forward to reading it. When I was a kid and we played Cowboys and Indians behind the wooden garages and burn near my home everything would stop and the street empty if there was a John Wayne movie on, we didn't care if he hadn't served in WWII or he had a girls name, we sat glued to the black and white set waiting for the cavalry to turn up and rooting for the good guys, the Indians, sorry First Nations or whatever, were not simple tree huggers back then at one with nature, they were the bad guys and you kept the last bullet for yourself. I still enjoy the Duke in a movie.

I feel the need to get some other battles back on the blog, I have great trouble getting opponents with this as you know but I hope to get some Italian Wars and War and Conquest soon. 

'Lucky' George

 Another game out of the blue, Paul gave me a shout and I spent some brownie points and sorted a late war do for the Sunday morning. I found three sort of linked scenarios in the WSS archive and we decided to do the first, it was an American Armoured Infantry Platoon vs Panzergrenadiers, in the book it was a Probe scenario but for V1 of the rules, for simplicity we played it as per V2, this proved very different.

Both sides were limited in the support options they could take, so when Paul pointed this out, out went my infantry gun and mines in the verges, instead in came a sniper and a 5cm mortar, Paul added a second 60mm mortar, an M8 (my Humber pretending to be the M8) armoured car and an M3 halftrack, more on the latter later. We both took a Red die.

Somewhere in rural Germany '45.

Paul put a couple of scouts on my right and two LMG's on my left along with the mortars, and then an infantry squad, the M8 came in on the road. I had put one Grenadier squad down and shot the two scouts, very quickly I had all my forces on the table, two on the edge of a large wood and a third hiding for now behind a small wood in the centre of the battlefield. The M8 slowly inched forward and swerved towards my left flank, a panzerfaust shot put paid to this and further blocked the line of sight towards my lines. An Ami infantry squad tried a run to get closer to the little wood but I caught them in the open and quickly pinned them, things looked grim for the Americans, I did not envy their attempt to run a section off my table edge. 

I hold the small wood.

American recce, yes I know it's a Humber.

Things began to pick up for the Yanks as they concentrated fire on my far right flank section, it slowly took casualties and I dropped a smoke grenade to help, while these guys held Paul could not attempt a rush forward on that flank. I felt fairly confident, I had forced the enemy machine gun section back into the trees and my right flank refused to run. Then, out of nowhere the M3 complete with a squad turns up, and at last my right flank was left with only a sniper to protect it, and a mortar with no ammo. Paul used a CoC die to move a Jump Off Point and all of a sudden he was within decent running distance of my right and his halftrack was approaching my left, I only had one squad left with panzerfausts and they would be firing at long range, I would also have to move them out of the protection of the wood to manage it.

An unfortunate squad.

Panzerfaust victim.

Having moved his JOP Paul set a squad running forward to kill the sniper and head for the nearby table edge, he tried a smoke grenade and suppressing fire to help the move but I caught his men in the open, pinned then wiped them out. This left him with an opening to run the halftrack towards victory, but he would need some old fashioned luck. All during the game we had both been praying for a double turn without managing it, Paul especially to build up a decent assault, but the gods favoured me on this occasion, as they had already done with my morale throws. I managed to move the 'faust armed squad forward and let fly at the halftrack, the first shot missed but the second hit the M3 in the flank, Yankee morale broke, I sat back relieved.

A dash for victory, oops.

The second push about to be hit.

A great game despite a shaky start for the Americans. At one point I needed two fives for a CoC die to end the turn and claim victory, I sweated whether to continue firing at the enemy in the open on my right by using three of the four pips I had been keeping or hope for two fives with my next throw, I chickened out and used the three pips, what came up in the next throw, two fives! It was a tough game for the Americans to win but at the same time I only had three squads to hold the line, if my guys on the right had not held out for so long it would have been difficult to hold the Yanks off. The next scenario has the Americans fighting for the outskirts of a village, the third game will be inside the village. I can take the Grenadiers again or Volksgrenadiers or Volksturm, interesting.

I see my wargaming has now come full circle, apart from mucking about with Airfix 1/72 in domino castles and battles under the sideboard my first real wargaming was WWII. Charles Grant's 'Battle' kicked things off along with, yes, Airfix kits and soldiers, back in those days you simply could not get say, a Panzer IV or a 'Hanomag' so you did what the movies did, improvised. I moved on of course and with more time and money I went full medieval for years, no idea what happened to the WWII stuff. After medieval I jumped into the American Civil War, then it was Ancients and Italian Wars, with a couple of speed bumps along the way, Wings of War, X-Wing and Dux Britanniarum. Now, as you can see from the posts over the last wee while I am firmly back with WWII. I still have my Ancients and ACW but it is increasingly hard to get games with them, sadly especially with the former, all my own fault as I will not play Hail Caesar. No matter, I can get WWII games and as you can see I am enjoying CoC2.

 Anyway, I am having a bit of a break this week, Matt has a cold so I won't be making my way North to Penrith and the club is still in limbo, I did offer a game but there were no takers. So I will finish my Fallschirmjager, got the last MG yesterday, get on with some Roman cavalry and some mapping.

 

It's Cold Outside

 We had no club this week, as expert as we are at fighting with wee sojers we cannot fight red tape. I therefore offered Jimi a game here in the bunker, we decided on an Eastern Front tussle around winter 1943, Jimi brought his newly painted winter vehicles and his Gebirgsjager while I led the brave forces of the Motherland. I set up a Soviet attack on a ruined village and for some fun I allowed the Jerries to place half their order dice in the village and they would only be uncovered if they shot or Russians got within 12" of them, the rest of their forces would arrive on turn 2. I also had a Eureka moment and decided I have planes, so why not use them, for this I put a blue die in the bag and when it was pulled out a second die roll would be made, 1 your plane arrived but the enemy chose the target, your own troops obviously, 6 and your plane arrived and you had complete control, anything else and nothing was heard. Each side would have one flying sortie.

Jimi had his StuG III, a truck and a 251/17 along with a mortar, MMG and a sniper, I went a bit heavy and support was a KV1, SU76, 3 trucks and a squad of tank riders, in hindsight I should have given the Russians some extra support points as they were attacking a dug in position. No matter I quickly threw one squad forward and the Germans opened up on the gift but I spotted most of their line for the follow on troops. I pushed for a wood on my left flank intending to outflank the village but Jimi countered this with his second wave, his squad of skiers whom I cannot seem to kill off in games with Jimi backed up by the 251/17, we settled into a firefight. On my right I put my armour and stupidly lost my tank riders for almost no gain, however my SU76 was a star and cut up the German centre while the KV1 dualed with the StuG and eventually blew it up.

SU-76.

KV-1 with tank riders.

Ooops too soon.

Then literally out of the blue, the blue die that is, a FW-190 was seen circling the battlefeld but the pilot was having difficulty and stayed on the periphery, a bit later a YAK-3 also turned up however he decided to shoot up his own troops, happily for me however he also seemed to be having a hard time finding an actual target. Things were looking fairly good for the Soviets, the firefight on my left flank was still anybody's, the Germans had no armour and had lost a couple of units more than me, then of course fate stepped in. The FW-190 roared across the battlefield and dropped a bomb square on the SU76, it hit the open top and up went the assault gun. We had by now got to turn 6 and time was up, although I was one unit up on Jimi it was still anyone's game, despite me having a KV1 on the prowl. 

StuG III.

 

The skiers.

The new vehicles in the snow.

Boom.

Why didn't the planes attack right away, there is a table you roll on when an airplane turns up, and on a 2 or 3 the plane is lost for that turn, and both Jimi and I rolled a few 2's and 3's. We have not seriously played Bolt Action for some time and we forgot several rules which may or may not have had some effect on the game, but we were both victims of this so no harm done. It was a good game nevertheless and those damn skiers are still at the top of my hate list.

Look close, the SU-76 blows up.

 

Still looking.

 Another day and another wargame, this time it was an away game at Erik's, the Battle of Nantwich 1644, Erik is a published author and has completed several tomes for Helion & Co. so we had a brief history of the battle, a map and several pages of rules. I was quite surprised to see another snow covered layout but it looked very good with both forces arrayed ready to go. I took the Royalists as I had done so previously, they were a bit outnumbered in units but they were better quality, I was quite taken aback by the numbers and decided to launch an attack on my left while my right stood guard, all of this was predicated on my cavalry beating the Parliamentary horse and then helping to roll up the enemy line. There was no Plan B.

Nantwich.

Royalist artillery.

Parliament.

Royalists on the right.

I was not sure what Erik's plan was as he started quite hesitantly and then even slower as he concentrated on keeping his right flank in the fight. Plan A had succeeded spectacularly and the enemy horse were completely chased from the battlefield, on the other hand I had managed to stop mine from pursuing, they now supported my infantry as they came to blows with the Parliamentary foot. Although the Royalists were outnumbered in cavalry they had one more infantry unit and the numbers told as the enemy line folded as one unit after another were brought under superior numbers. Cavalry also ran riot in the Parliamentarian rear, dragoons fled and the enemy baggage and artillery train were captured. 

Plan A goes into operation.

 

The enemy cavalry are broken.

 

 

My infantry advance along the line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pressure begins to mount against my right.

More enemy flee.

 The photographs are all there, but not necessarily, in the right order.  (c) Morecambe and Wise.

Over on my left I had withdrawn my outnumbered cavalry as far as I could and had managed to send some infantry to support them, but the weight of horse against my two troops looked like I would be in trouble, I so wanted at least one of my troops to win a melee and gain some time. It was not to be as the enemy smashed into my cavalry who quickly broke and fled. All was not lost however as my infantry had thrown back a rash charge by more enemy cavalry, also with the rest of the enemy chased from the field my whole army were now heading for my right flank.

At this point we called a halt, the historical result had been overturned and the surviving Parliamentarians withdrew into Nantwich leaving their artillery to add weight to the Royalist besiegers. An excellent game and although I had the upper hand in most of the combats I was very lucky that my left flank cavalry had performed with elan. 

The club is still in Limbo and will not be available once again on Tuesday night, and again my own wargaming cup runneth over, with this game in the bag, I have another on Sunday with Paul and a trip to the Penrith Dungeon on Wednesday to play Matt.

I have more on my Fallschirmjager trials, having heard nothing from Black Tree, quelle surprise, I ordered up a pack of MG42's from Artizan. The pack duly arrived and once I had cleaned and primed them it dawned on me that only one figure carried a machine gun. Yes it was a perfect fit for a Chain of Command team but in my experience all MG packs have a gun and a loader, not three loaders. So once again I have had to order up another FSJ machine gun pack (their lying down packs have two guns). These things are approaching the same price as a real one. 

Despite all the madness inflicted on us these days I found out this week about PDA that's Pathalogical Demand Avoidance to be exact, which boils down to if you tell your kid to brush his (or her Reg) teeth, or to tidy their room, or simply sit at the table and he/her doesn't do it, it is not their, or your fault. Yes the little darlings have PDA. I know for sure that if I did none of those things when my mother told me my feet would literally leave the ground. I do however have some sympathy as I believe I may suffer as well, in adults it is Chronic Avoidance of Everyday Tasks, like 'put the bins out, it's the grey one!' or 'did you take that chicken out of the freezer' or, like today, 'get your drill and old clothes on and meet me in the garden'.

I have now had what should be the last of my scans, I glow in the dark, so if these are fine I should be heading for an op at some point hopefully in the near future, but when, how long is a piece of string.