Bakers Creek May 1863, with players

 Having fiddled around with the ACW rules a bit more, time to try them out with players. I thought I'd run Bakers Creek/Champion Hill again, but this time a proper historical scenario. This is based on the scenario in the Fire and Fury ACW book. Briefly, in 1863 the US were trying to open up the Mississippi to allow them to strike into the heart of the Confederacy but were stopped by the fortress at Vicksburg. Eventually Grant bypassed Vicksburg and mounted a raiding campaign east of the river. Johnson tried to concentrate his forces to defeat Grant, but the Union managed to bring Pembertons Corps to battle before it linked up with the rest of the Confederate Army. 

Battlefield from the south. Champions Hill is on the left, Vicksburg is some miles to the west while Jackson is to the east. the short section of rail line visible is the Jackson-Vicksburg railroad, which crosses Bakers Creek.

Pembertons Army, mainly facing east. He was aware of Grants approach and took up a strong position on the ridge, the crossroads on the rise (the actual 'Champions Hill') was fortified.

Loring and Bowens Divisions. The units are generally brigades for the CSA, each stand is around 1000 men. Bowens division was small, so only has single stand. Jim commands Loring while John A has Bowen and is also CinC.

Stephensons Division (Tim) has three brigades up on Champions Hill. Pemberton can be seen directing operations and there are various baggage trains etc in the rear. The CSA win by avoiding the destruction of their army, and it may be advantageous to retreat off the table at some point. Historically Grant attempted to encircle and utterly destroy them. They are all experienced troops, and their breakpoint is 16.

Grants pinning force is McClernands XIII Corps with a division attached from Shermans XXI Corps. 9th and 10th Divs are commanded by Mark and Ian, with Simon taking over on Wednesday. Jerry has Blairs 2nd Div from Shermans Corps (with a white dot) in reserve, and 14th Div also enters later in the day.

Historically McClernands Corps was very reluctant to engage and allowed Pemberton to escape, some people speculate it may have been deliberate as McClernand had a strong rivalry with Grant. I'm treating XIII Corps has having 'poor staff; until 2pm when a staff stand enters, which will hamper their activation.

Grants brilliant manouvre had been to find an open flank around the hill - it looks pretty obvious on the table but irl it was harder to find. Champion House was a small farm near the river crossing. The two lead divisions of McPhersons XVII Corps are here (Terry), as is the veteran 12th Div (Jerry) from XIII Corps. US Grants (John B) is personally supervising operations.

Oddly the V&B scenario starts with the CSA having responded to the flanking manouvre. I've reset it so the CSA are facing east, the US have one good chance to hammer Pemberton in the flank and they'd better make the most of it as while Grants army overall is larger, they are outnumbered locally. 

The rest of XVII Corps comes straggling on later in the day, John B has these as his strategic reserve. The Union Army is quite big with a starting breakpoint of 16, rising to 22 as reinforcements arrive.

The Union has quite complex victory conditions, they need to drive all non-spent CSA troops off the table in 10 turns (hours), but if they exhaust the CSA Army and and expend or destroy four CSA units they get a decisive victory. Under some circumstances it would be worth the CSA voluntarily leaving he table.

Right, to battle!

Grant directed an aggressive advance so XVII Corps simply charged at the ridge, covered by their artillery. Despite McClernands reluctance to engage, all the divisions of XIII Corps managed to activate and rolled forward into long range, again covered by their artillery. Blairs 2nd division also came marching on up to the Union gun line.  

The CSA seemed somewhat thrown into disarray by this manouvre, and while two brigades of Stevensons division fired, the third (Taylors) marched northwest to protect the flank of Barton. All well and good but now Bowen crowded onto Pembertons command post on Champions Hill, blocking the retreat of every single one of Stevensons brigades. 

Loring also seemed keen to take part in the action, despite one brigade dithering and his whole division swung northwest, apparently oblivious to the three Union divisions to the east.  

Hard pounding time! As in any ACW battle, a lot of firing now broke out. In the north Hoveys veterans took heavy losses from the entrenched CSA and fell back to the woods. In the east 9th and 2nd Union divisions pushed forwards, covered by 10th Div.

Up on the ridge Taylor also took heavy losses under close range fire, but was unable to retire being blocked by Bowen, so lost an extra base. Realising their peril, Bowen slipped west along the road. Loring now noticed Blair and his brigades swung east again. Sadly one had failed its activation check so could only pivot in place.

Grant kept attacking. Hovey rallied easily back in the woods and Logans Brigade marched up onto the the ridge in the far west. Heavy Union fire caused Cummings to fall back to Pembertons command post up on the ridge and 10th Div followed up, also gaining a Union foothold on the ridge.

The CSA were now once again in a very unmilitary 'pudding' formation with everyones retreat routes blocked apart from Bowen,

Further south, Blairs 2nd Div was dithering east of the stream and began exchanging fire with Lorings Division, now laboriously marching back to its previous positions! 

Sadly for the Confederates, the 'pudding' formation didn't prove very resiliant. Taylors brigade lost another base and was unable to retire due to being hemmed in on all sides and disintegrated. Barton up in the trenches had exactly the same problem under fire from three sides and blocked in by Cummings. They were reduced to a single base and became spent. 

Bowens firefight with Logans 3 Div was also going the wrong way as they were blocked in by Lorings Division and reduced to two bases.

Faced with the impending encirclement and destruction of his army (Grant need to expend or destroy four CSA units for a decisive victory), Pemberton decided to cut and run. Bowen and one of Lorings brigades broke contact and retired over Bakers Creek to the west. Tilghman fell back towards the camp, aided by the whole of McClernands XIII Corps failing their activation tests.

Bartons Brigade were left in the fortifications as a rearguard against XVII Corps. They were doomed anyway.

Barton duly succumbed to massed Union fire, and Hoveys veterans overran the position at bayonet point, exploiting along the ridge to clear Champion Hill. Logans 1st Brigade and Blair also advanced and managed to partially surround Tilghman, whose position was now looking dire.

Pinned by ZOC they retired to the Confederate camp, accompanied by General Pemberton. 

The Union units shot them up, destroying another base and they promptly failed their morale test (Pemberton declined to rally them under fire) and retired westwards too. Blair followed up and occupied the Confederate camp.

With three CSA units destroyed or spent and the others driven from the playing area, Grant has won and the whole thing was wrapped up by 4pm. Grant was however denied his decisive victory, as Pemberton slipped away to the west, just as in real life.

Well, that cracked along, and as I said in the commentary, I think the Rebs suffered an actual morale collapse in the face of the aggressive Union attack and fell into a degree of confusion. The situation might have been retrievable if they had fallen back behind the reverse slope (as Pemberton did irl), but given the ferocity of Grants attack, they may have been inviting total destruction.

Hats off to Grant (John B) for managing such a decisive result, and another hat off to Pemberton (John A) for taking the brave decision to withdraw. Posthumous medals to Barton for fighting to the last man on Champions Hill.

Many thanks to all the players for their enthusiasm and spectacular hat wearing. We shall return to the ACW in future.

 

Panzer Replacements - 2nd Company

The last of the replacement early war panzers, another light panzer company. More 3D resin print models from Battlefield 3D.

A couple of Panzer IIIs and a Panzer II.

We've seen a Panzer II F before. To mix things up a bit I did this one in grey and brown camo and just put an engimatic 'A' on the turret along with some tiny balkan crosses on the hull. 

A plain grey Panzer III H, numbered '6'. We've seen one of these before as well. 2nd Company have black turret numbers outlined in white. 

Just for a change I repeated the number on the turret bin too, and added a moderate amount of stowage - two jerrycans, a box and a tarp. They were were all washed after painting along with the vehicle tools and front mounted spare tracks.

The exciting vehicle in this lot is a Panzer III F. Essentially an upgunned E with a 50mm gun, but this one also has wider tracks, some spare track slung off the hull front, very jazzy criss-crossed pattern mudguards and supposedly a bit more armour on the hull front. The vision port arrangement on the turret looks slightly different too. It is very much a transitional vehicle between the E and the H and feels very business like.

This was a three part print, the tracks and hull/turret. In one of those 3D printing miracles, the turret is printed onto the hull, but still rotates! There is a sort of inverted plug holding it in place, so the turret can't be removed. Tbh it is a bit annoying, as I like to take turrets off for painting, and I'm sure I could have carved the plug back a bit, but it was buried in the depths of the hollow hull and hard to get at so I left it. I wonder if it is a design error in the STL as Ive never had a model like this before? 

I did the commander in an early war panzer beret (he is actually a Peter Pig british tank commander painted in a black uniform) but I did the vehicle in plain grey as when the older 37mm armed ones were upgunned prior to the Balkan or Greek campaigns they were often repainted.

 

I added a fair bit of stowage, including a fuel drum. This vehicle is likely to be driving a long way, down to Greece then off to Moscow.

2nd company has black numbers outlined in white, so this is 24. These all got the same basic scheme as the others, base coat of Sea Grey or Uniform Grey, washed with Vallejo Panzer Grey, followed by various layers of drybrushing. 

A fine looking vehicle which I can pretend is an E at times as well, as the two guns are almost indistinguishable. The lack of a turret bin is the main thing which stands out. 

I really enjoyed painting all of those, and the old metal vehicles they are replacing are safely stored in a different box now. 

Invasion of Greece - Dominion style

 After playing some more games of Unconditional Surrender, I felt an urge to return to the Balkans with Dominion of the Blitzkrieg. It includes a couple of scenarios from the invasion of Greece in April/May 1941. The WW2 Battle of Thermopylae and the Invasion of Crete. First up, Thermopylae which took place as 2nd New Zealand and 6th Australian Divisions covered the retreat of Allied forces further south. Both divisions committed a brigade each to the rearguard action (6th NZ Brigade and 19th Australian Brigade. They were attacked by troops from 5th Panzer Division and 6th Gebirgsjager Division under the command of Ferdinand Schorner. Schorner rose to be an Army Group commander with a rather unenviable reputation for shooting his own men. Wikipedi account here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae_(1941)

Battlefield from the south. The pass is rather wider than in Spartan times as sedimentary deposits have extended the shore. I visited there in 1981, and was a bit surprised to find it nothing like the Hollywood version! There are mountains on one side though.

6th GJ and 5th Panzer are to the north with three tank units in the front line, and two infantry units and a bomber unit in reserve. They are all average and I've given them all two stands each, the tank units have a rather higher proportion of heavier tanks than in the 1940 games I ran.

The New Zealanders and Australians have four infantry units, regular artillery (with two fire missions) and and anti tank guns. Historically artillery and 2pd fire destroyed a number of German tanks. These are all average with no particular defensive benefits, presumably as a result of retreating for days under continuous air attack.

The attack opens on the right as the Luftwaffe clears the way for the panzers. The Allied attempt to fill the gap fails due to the panzer+air combination. On the left the artillery shells the panzers ineffectively and the ground engagement is also indecisive.

The outflanking panzers destroy the Anzac centre with an outflanking attack, and once again the attempt to move reinforcements up fails. On the left however the Anzacs supported by artillery prevail and the ground is littered with burning panzers. GJ double up to fill the gap.

Heavy fighting breaks out o the left (the vagaries of the activation dice, both sides have to fight here). It results in mutual annihilation of both sides infantry, but in this case the Anzacs can move up their last infantry unit as there aren't any panzers in this sector.

Unfortunately both infantry units on the left destroy each other again! That forces the Germans to commit their aircraft to 'holding' the gap, equally the Anzacs have to put their anti tank guns here where ideally they'd be facing the panzers.

The panzers duly outflank the AT guns but without effect, while the 2pdrs try to break through the air interdiction.

Their luck cant hold out forever though, and another panzer flank attack encourages them to join the retreat to Corinth. At that point, the Allies just have their guns left while the Germans still have three units, so despite heavy losses, the Germans win.

That was a decent game, although I did have to flick through the the rules quite a bit to remind myself of the correct sequence of events and the way the special blitzkrieg era reinforcement rules work. Quite a lot happens in each turn in these rules. I wanted to give it another go though, and see if the Anzacs stood a chance.

The second attempt went a bit better with honours even for the first few turns, but after some pounding, the panzer + air combo once more opened up a gap in the Anzac line. At least the 2pdrs and carriers ended up fighting some tanks this time. There was quite a slugging match along the front line in this one.

Sadly the panzer breakthrough on the left doomed them eventually and once again it was up to the artillery to cover everyone else withdrawing. Another Axis win.

The third attempt was another Allied wipeout, they only managed to knock out one group of German tanks before being completely overwhelmed. A third Axis win. Perhaps the allies can't win this one? I'm not sure, although unit for unit both sides are matched on a points basis, I suspect the German combined arms force multiplier is just too great for the Allies in this one. Historically the Anzacs beat off all the German attacks and withdrew on their own timetable.

As we were in the Med and had the novelty of having 8th Army figures facing off against Field Grey Germans, I also set up the Battle of Crete scenario. Crete was the largest German airborne operation of the war, and pitted 7th FJ Division and 5th Mountain Division against 'Creforce' under General Freyburg. The defending force was large. but only really had four combat formations, two brigade groups of 2nd New Zealand Division, and a brigade each of Australians and British plus a small number of tanks and a large number of Greek volunteers. Much of the garrison had been evacuated from Greece and morale was low while chaos and confusion was high. Wikipedia entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crete

Battlefield from the south. The Germans (fairly obviously) are coming on over the Aegean while the Commonwealth are defending the three critical airfields at Maleme, Retimo and Heraklion. I've made the sea a bit bigger for this one, and the land a bit narrower. The pass on the left is the route to one of the evacuation ports on the south coast. I've visited Heraklion but not the other two towns. I played Chris Kemps large NQM game covering this battle last year, and the setup is partly inspired by Chris's game.

The defenders have three brigade groups dug in, one at each airfield. So these are infantry with a (D) advantage. In reserve are another brigade group and a unit of unreliable tanks. I've put the tanks in reserve over near Heraklion. Freyburgs HQ was actually in the pass on the left. 

The Germans have an interesting force. A unit of elite bombers (ouch!), three unreliable paratroopers (the regiments of 7th FJ Division) and three unreliable elite infantry (the regiments of 5th GJ Division). The infantry are all unreliable to model the vagaries of air transport, or in the case of the GJ, the rather unfortunate attempts to ferry some of them across the sea in the face of the Royal Navy! Most of the GJ were flown in once an airfield was captured.

I set up some Ju 52s as well because they look nice flying over the sea. With all these unreliable units, this is going to be a wild ride.

The Luftwaffe demolishes the defenders at Maleme and the FJ land - they are still unreliable though (shown by them being in a column). The Allied infantry reserve moves up to deal with them.

Catastrophe at Heraklion and as the FJ attempt to land and are destroyed by the defenders (they failed their reliability roll - assume they are scattered in the hills and mopped up). One of the GJ units is allocated this sector instead.

The Luftwaffe supports Maleme, but the bombs miss the Allied infantry (anything but a 1 or 2!). Sadly for the Germans, the dice decree a battle in the centre, and the FJ at Retimo are scattered by the defenders. 7th FJ Division has been gutted. More GJ are allocated to the sector.

Once again the Luftwaffe plaster Maleme but the Anzacs survive. Much excitement at Retimo as the first GJ units enter combat, they actually pass their reliability roll! The infantry fighting is indecisive though - both sides need 5+ to hit. I imagine the GJ were flown into Maleme and marched along the coast.

The FJ at Maleme finally get into action in indecisive fighting. At least they didn't fail their reliability roll! The fighting continues at Retimo, with neither side getting the upper hand.

The focus of fighting shifts to Retimo with both sides attacking here and being repulsed. Has the battle entered a stalemate?

No. A column of GJ makes its way past Retimo and attacks Heraklion (ie they passed their reliability roll). The attack is indecisive but all three sectors are engaged now. At Maleme the Allies attack the FJ but are repulsed. 

The defenders of Maleme finally succumb and the high mileage Matildas and Vickers Lights clank over to the far end of the island.

The GJ overcome the defenders of Heraklion, leaving Retimo outflanked. The tide is turning I think. Freyburg personally supervises the defence.

To no avail as the GJ overcome the Retimo defenders. The British tanks deploy to attack Maleme (they passed their reliability roll!) but are then destroyed in battle. The Battle of Crete is over and an Axis win. That was fabulous, I really enjoyed that, it was nail biting from start to end and turned out with a very historical narrative and outcome with the island captured but 7th FJ Div largely destroyed.

I just had to run that again.

And predictably it was a complete catastrophe for the Axis. Their entire land and paratroop force was destroyed, and even the Luftwaffe ended up in the sea in flames! I can see why Hitler gave up on airborne operations.

I really enjoyed both of those scenarios, but particularly the Crete one. It is endlessly re-playable and very tense from start to end. Great stuff.

The Killing Fields

 Another week, another cheery episode in late twentieth post colonial history, this time Pol Pots reign of terror in Cambodia. This was one of John Bs periodic polmil committee games, and we'd actually covered the period from the winding down of the Vietnam War to Pol Pots rise (1970 to 75) in a previous game. This stuff is all pretty grim, but we are all (mostly) old enough to remember it well. It all shaped the world we live in now, so worth revisiting.

Always nice to have some period maps, these are the Cambodian Miltary Districts in 1970. We used this map a lot in the previous game as it was very much focussed on the war inside Cambodia. This time Pol Pot in his bizarre alliance with Prince Sihanouk had just taken Phnom Penh in 1975 as Saigon fell around the same time.

Six players represented the main factions - Sihanouk, Pol Pot, Thailand, Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union, while two others took on rolling parts as eg The Gang of Four, Chairman Mao, Kurt Waldheim etc. Unlike last time, the US was completely out of the picture as this was very much the first major foreign policy challenge for the new Vietnamese government. 

I was cast as Yuri Andropov, short lived Soviet premier, but at the time head of the KGB, so my role was very similar to my role as regional CIA chief last time - run interference, promote Soviet interests etc. with special forces and covert support. Specifically I had to topple Pol Pot, support Vietnam and damage Chinese interests in the region while promoting those of the USSR.

Given a lot of the action more concerned the surrounding countries, this map was rather more useful, particular for tracking the regions free of Pots malign influence, location of refugees/insurgents etc.

The action opened with both Russia and China shipping in supplies to their clients, Vietnam in my case and Cambodia for the Chinese. Pol Pot set about his agrarian revolution with steely eyed determination and made no particular bones about its brutality.

A decent turnout with eight players and an umpire. The chat feature in Zoom was very helpful for negotiations between rounds, each of which represented a year. We broke for the evening just as Sihanouk had been rescued by Vietnamese commandos (!), and Chinas 'exercise' along the Vietnam border had fallen into chaos while the world looked on appalled at Pol Pots Maoist fundamentalism.

In 1979 the Vietnamese launched their liberation effort and managed to install Prince Sihanouk in Phnom Penh, but failed to decisively defeat the Khmer Rouge in the region northwest of the capital. China ineffectively tried to ship in ground forces through the ports on the south, and the Vietnamese rather ineffectively tried to stop them with their newly captured navy (over 1,300 ships were captured from the RVN). 1980 ended in something of a stalemate with Pol Pot still active in the countryside but increasingly hemmed in on all sides, the Russians increasingly distracted by Afghanistan and the bellicose attitude of President-elect Reagan while the Vietnamese were stuck with their very own 'Vietnam' in Cambodia. Thailand had never been seriously threatened by communist subversion and was doing rather nicely.

And this ended with a rather worse result than historically as irl the Khmer Rouge were comprehensively smashed by the Vietnamese, and reduced to a long drawn out guerilla war which dragged on until the 90s. China had at least been revealed to be a paper tiger and a considerable portion of the Cambodian population saved from Maoist genocide. I know this stuff isn't for everyone, but it is very unusual to play a game where the KGB are the good guys! Many thanks to John for organiseing such an interesting and informative game.