PP Italian Infantry

 Just a quick look at my Italian desert infantry, which I previewed as part of the Italian Pocket Army post.

In the main they are advancing riflemen with some LMG stands, plus some Bersaglieri. I think in total I've only actually got eighteen pure infantry stands, but coupled with all the HQs, engineers, support weapons etc it gives me more than enough for now. 

As usual organised as a Command Decision style 'company', which can double up as a rifle section if needed. One LMG stand, one rifle stand and one rifle/command stand. Five of the figures are advancing riflemen, the NCO is one of the NCO pack figures although I used a few infantry officers too. The NCOs have a mixture of rifles and SMGs.

They are all nicely sculpted figures in the usal PP style, with little flash. They also look like later castings as they are bigger than the old Afrika Korps figures.

The LMG packs include  two marching and two prone LMG teams. I'm not a big fan of prone LMGs as they are much harder to pick up than standing ones, but I based them up anyway. The different poses help differentiate the various units. If I was doing a tactical game I'd have to reallocate the LMGs into those WW1 style LMG squads and Rifle squads the Italians liked to use.

I got one pack of Bersaglieri, sadly cast in helmets with feathers instead of Pith helmets, which makes them astonishingly hard to identify on the tabletop for my tired old eyes as the feathers are almost invisible. I'd originally planned to add them to my motorcycle stands, but in the end I just based them in pairs for four extra rifle stands. I figured they are Bersaglieri, so know how to spread out, and the two figure stands are easy to identify.

While there was a lot of variation in Italian desert uniforms, I was sick of variety after DAK, so I just did all of them in the same scheme. Dark sand overall, grey green puttees, brown webbing, brown boots and dark sand helmets. I did pick out a few trousers in a lighter colour, and I did a few lighter coloured Sahariana jackets, but tbh in the end they all blended into a big sandy blob.

I originally did the helmets and and equipment in desert ochre, but in fact they looked much better in Dark sand, so I repainted them all. Otherwise they got an inkwash on the flesh and equipment and an overall drybrush of Pale Sand to pick out the highlights. Based on light coloured builders sand with clumps of scrubby vegetation which is perhaps a bit light green compared to all the actual desert scrub I've seen, but it matches the flock on my Hexon desert boards. 

Time for a re-spray

 Rather than buying extra Pz III Ls or Sdkfz 221s for my DAK forces, I'd planned on using some of my existing late war vehicles.

Now, most of the my late war stuff is done in three tone camo as above. This looks quite 'sandy' anyway, but I thought I'd repaint a few of them in plain sand. They will still be good for 1943+ but would look less out of place in the desert.

I have three Zvezda long barrelled Pz III (filed down Flammpanzers), so I re-did two of them in plain sand. I didn't do anything fancy, just carefully went over the larger areas in VJ Dark Sand. 

I'm really pleased with how they came out - bits of the original darker paint scheme show through around the lowlights and give them quite a beaten up look. I finished them off with a light drybrush of Pale Sand to pick out the highlights. They are now good to go for anything from Gazala to Pz Ko Mielke at Arnhem in 1944, which was also in plain sand. 

Similarly I re-did a couple of my Forged in Battle Sdkfz 221s. They were originally done in the same very heavy three colour scheme as the Sdkfz 251/9 (based on 5th SS Vikings recce Bn). As with the Pz IIIs, I just went over the larger areas with Dark Sand, leaving gaps where appropriate.

Again, like the Mark IIIs, they ended up looking pretty beaten up and dusty. I'd forgotten what lovely models these are, much nicer than my QRF ones, the detail stands out better in the plain sand than the camo. The crews helmets sticking up behind the anti-grenade netting is a very nice touch.

Peoples War in Voronoi

 For our mid week remote session it was another very clever game design from Ian Robinson (he of Take That Hill, Sweeping Satellites and Quadwrangles). This one covers rebellion and counter insurgency, and may bear the slightest resemblance to various disputed territories around the world.

It is area movement, with variable sized areas (like Storm Over Arnhem) to reflect the difficulty of the going. The regime forces are blue and start in the cities, the insurgent forces are red and start in the countryside. I drew the regime forces for this, we have to stop the insurgency.

The Regime starts with seven units, all in cities. They can move one area per turn and hit on a 5+ at 1 area range or 4+ in the same area. The insurgents start with very few forces (1 unit!), but can start revolutions in occupied sectors, which if successful get them an extra unit in the sector, and one in any town sector. They aren't as combat capable as teh Regime, need 6+ for ranged combat and 5+ for same area combat, although they have an advantage in the mountains (brown, bottom left).

So it is a game of whack-a-mole for the Regime, while the insurgents try to build up. 

I decided to ignore the revolutions and focus on eliminating rebel counters through local force superiority- the revolution counters can be attacked too, but the rebels can just raise new ones and get more reinforcements. If you leave them alone, there are a finite number of rebels.

The downside of this strategy is that it impacts the ability of the Regime to replace losses. It is going OK so far though.

Hmm, things seem to have got away from me. Every area is revolting and we've killed loads of rebels, but my chaps are being overwhelmed piecemeal. I made a strategic error in chasing tactical success and didn't concentrate my guys soon enough. To maximise the combat advantage of my superior units they need to be stacked up.

I did achieve two comncentrations later in the game but it was too little too late, the group in the top right corner accounted for loads of rebels though. The group holed up the city are doomed though.

Not looking too good now.

The East is Red! Oh dear. In the end we achieved a 2:1 kill ratio, which was OK but not enough and the Reds overran us, we needed 4:1. Entirely my fault, I should have concentrated sooner, and once the rebels started to gang up in big concentrations I was doomed.

That was a very interesting game, thought provoking with lots of meaningful decisions, and a real strategic contest. Tim said he found it equally exhausting the play the Reds as every decision mattered. I love the area movement, it works really well indeed. Well done Ian.

QRF 15mm Cruiser Mk IV (A13 Mk II)

 The final vehicle of my clunky cruiser collection is the QRF Cruiser Mark IV, aka the A13 Mark II. This one is actually starting the look like a sensible tank.

It is actually very similar to the A13 Mk I, Christie suspension, boxy armour etc, but it has jazzy sloped turret armour on the sides (but not the front? why?). It looks a bit more like its successor, the Crusader. Just like the Crusader, it also has a hilarious shot trap built in on the lower turret sides, but I guess that is the limitation of the turret ring. It took a long time for British tank manufacturers to realise they could extend the hull over the top of the tracks, although in fairness, the Tiger was the first German tank to do this.

I suspect the QRF model is just an A13 Mk I with a different turret. it only has four pieces and goes together very easily. It looks pretty good when assembled however. This one had a very bent gun barrel, bent in transit I guess. I straightened it as best as I could, but I guess it will now be permanently weakened. I may have to replace it at some point.

Somehow the angled turret makes it look much more racy and modern than the Mark I.

Those mudguards don't look quite right to me, too long. The Peter Pig one is much better in that regard, but this is fine for wargaming and looks OK on the table. 

I did this one in a later Caunter pattern: Dark Green over Smoke Grey over Light Mud. The Light mud base layer was Dark Sand over a grey undercoat, inkwash and then another coat of Dark Sand. As with the other cruisers, it got a pinwash on the camo and then a overall drybrush of Pale Sand.

That is a nice addition to the British forces. As I said elsewhere, I prefer my PP A13s (which are painted for 1st Armoured Div in 1940), but these are much cheaper and good enough for gaming. It is fairly obvious what the model is supposed to be anyway.

Panzerblitz Lite 4 - Stalino (twice)

So, this one was intended to be the 800th blog post, but I miscounted. Hey ho. 

After the Vyazma game I had a bit of a think and made some more revisions. I wanted to open the game up a bit so it had those bursts of mobility which characterised the original Panzerblitz , so road movement changed radically - horse and tracked units got one free hex on a road and motorised units got two free hexes. This is a subtle difference from my original 3 hex/4 hex on road as it allowed a unit to move cross country THEN use its road bonus, and even move off again. It accounts for the some of the movement rate mapping anomalies eg in PB trucks have 10 MP, roads cost 1/2 and MP, so in theory can can move 20 road hexes (or 5km).

The other big change is to loosen up artillery spotting for the Germans. Infantry and armour can act as spotters for IF units within 2 hexes, but infantry can also act as FOs for Regimental and Div artillery units with no distance limits. I kept the RAW limits for the Russians, as they seem more appropriate.

I went for a more PB like spotting - spotting range is 2 hexes except vehicles in the open can be spotted at 3 hexes, and infantry/guns in cover can only be spotted at 1 hex. If one unit can spot a target though, all units within 3 hexes and LOS can spot it. So you need to put spotters adjacent to units in cover, like the original game.

I'm still wrestling with gullies though. I know how they work in PB, but trying to map them to 1km hexes... for this iteration they count as 'terrain' to enter but units can move along them at the x country rate and leave them at no penalty. If you are in a gully hex you are in the gully, no popping outside, but two units can be in the gully.

Otherwise I had a think about cavalry - move 2 but no road bonus (apart from horse drawn guns which go 1+1). They do not have to stop in 'terrain' though, apart from the dense woods, which gives them a mobility advantage in close country. 

So, onto Stalino, one of may favourite PB scenarios.

Here is the scenario card and my custom geomorphic map. Boards 1,2 and 3 in order. This scenario is set in the aftermath of Kursk in August 1943, a Sov Mechananised Brigade is exploiting west, past a German infantry Regiment. The Russians have to take a piece out of the Germans (kill 3 for marginal victory, 6 for tactical) AND exit all their units westwards by turn 10. Any units left on table count as destroyed. The Germans get VPs for killing stuff too, whether it is actually killed or just left on table, at a similar rate to the Russians.

So the Russians need to both advance rapidly and stop to kill Germans. The Germans just need to slow them up enough without losing too much stuff.

Here is the battlefield. Germans set up in the centre (which now I've standardised on a 9x8 with side hex extensions is the middle 323232323 hexes). Russians come on from the east. The obvious feature is the big hill in the middle  with the major road junction, and all that horrible terrain in the southwest.

The 'mighty' Germans. Five leg rifle companies, two horse drawn mortar companies, one motorised artillery company (the Regimental guns, so 5km range max) and a motorised AT company. In great excitement, they also have two obstacles and one minefield! Both of them are serious barriers to movement (a full move to cross) plus the minefields attack any units on them before any artillery fire etc.

The mighty Russians, and entire Guards Mechanised Brigade! Three motorised rifle battalions with two rifle companies each, a motorised engineer company, armoured recce company, tank regiment with 2 x T34/76, Heavy Assault Gun Regiment with 1 x SU152, Light Assault Gun Regiment with 1 x SU76, 2 x towed 120mm Mortar Companies, 1 x towed 76mm Artillery company (as usual PB classes these as anti-tank guns, because that is the label on the 76.2mm gun in the Aberdeen Proving Ground), 1 x  towed AT company. 

What an armada! I decided to treat the SU76 as (light) assault guns as that is what they were for, even if PB thinks they were some sort of Soviet Marder.

The optimum PB defence for the German is to cluster their forces on the big hill covered by all the mines and obstacles, move their artillery to the rear on Turn 1 and set it up to block the road and cover the valley with direct fire (no spotting distance limits in PB), and put a few spotters in the various woods and things to call in IF as the Russians go past.

I could almost do this defence in  PB Lite, but I had to put one rifle company out on the hill to the north to spot. I also put a block on the hex between the two villages in the north as I know what the optimum Russian strategy is too... that creates a triple or quadruple deep layer of movement obstructions to any sneaky outflanking moves via the north. Otherwise the roadblocks and mines go on the roads leading up to the big hill where the other German infantry are concentrated. The AT gun company will run mobile interference on the road network, and the mortars are positioned on the reverse slope to be spotted by infantry within 2 hexes.

From repeated playings, and notes in the "Wargamers Guide to Panzerblitz", the optimum strategy for the Russians, is go right flanking ie a dash across the north. But they also need to kill enough stuff for a marginal victory en route (3 German units more than they lose). I know how to do that in PB, lets see how it works in this game.

Turn 1 they pile on in the northeast, taking advantage of the more liberal road movement allowances. You can do all sorts of clever stuff when the road hexes are a bonus move. 

The Germans respond with some mortar fire which disrupts one Russian unit, but the rest of the mobile Germans scatter to their pre-planned positions in the rear. The AT guns are heading off to the northwest up the highway.

The Russians are slowed up by the gully and woods in front of the 2 hex hill, but they have to advance as  the German company up there is invisible in the woods. The German call down a storm of artillery and mortar fire both from this hill, and from the guys in the dense wood (which can see three hexes now, including over trees and villages).  The AT guns have made it to the ridge in the northwest.

With  the entire Russian army in front, the German infantry fall back after calling in more indirect fire. The German mortars in the centre gully also leg it back to the big hill. Mmm. I've misjudged the north a bit, the German infantry don't have a secure escape route from their gully. but their ZOC is keeping the Russians pinned.

Oops! The tidal wave breaks. The Russians annihilate the German infantry to their front, and a flanking force heads off towards the big hill to get some kills, led by the SU152. Most of the Russians pour westwards, hampered by the block in the north and the gullies. The Germans make a stand on the reverse slope, and close range infantry fire and direct fire from the artillery (I treat DF artillery as AT guns), knocks out some T34s.

Up in the northwest the towed AT is valiantly holding the road exit against a tidal wave of Russian motorised infantry. Hmm, guns seem really hard to hit with anything in the RAW don't they? The Russians are still hung up in the bad terrain, in the original PB, trucks were just a disaster in any sort of broken country. The Russian engineers made a feeble effort to clear the obstacles but gave up after a couple of turns.

The Germans are quite happy to fall back to the reverse slope of the big hill, while the Russians figure out what to do. The German artillery has a ZOC over the critical road junction in the centre left, and the Russian SP guns  in the forest are also trapped on the road by ZOC.

The Russian infantry fail to even disrupt the AT guns on the road junction, while a big traffic jam is building up behind.

They finally manage to clear the pesky AT gunners out of the way, and the first units get off the table. Now the issue is road capacity!

The remaining Russian armour on the hill makes a run for it. The Assault Guns don't have any choice but to advance and get stuck in ZOC on the hill, while the Russians further west end up facing off against the German artillery next to the road junction. 

In the north nearly all the Russians have got off now - all the surviving infantry (the Germans must have killed one at some point), the 120mm mortars, AT guns and recce.

The Russians have now eliminated three German units (AT guns, artillery and a mortar) for a marginal victory, BUT, they have lost two units destroyed and have four remaining on the table, which is a tactical German victory. Net result, German marginal victory. I forgot to count the KO'd T34s when I was working out the Russian exit strategy. What a dope! 

Anyway, that went pretty well, but it was a real struggle for the Russians to move across the table and fight as well. The ZOCs and some of the blocking terrain still make movement glacial at times, although the new road moves helped a lot to make the game more mobile. The obstacle rules worked OK (ie they were mainly avoided) and there wasn't much opportunity for gully movement. The new spotting rules didn't seem to break anything either.

Well, the game is all set up, lets go again. This time, I'm going to bin the ZOC rules AND stop treating villages as obstacles to movement. They aren't in PB, so I imagine this is also a holdover from the OHW conversion. That should free things up even more. There is already plenty of blocking terrain to, make movement difficult.

Right, second session.

Slightly different defence this time. The obstacles and mines are in the same place, as are the rifle companies, but this time I've put the AT guns forward onto the hill in the north with the rifle company. The mortar companies are massed together so they are both within two hexes of infantry on the big hill and can be spotted for by either concentration of infantry, allowing for massed fires. The artillery are set to dash for the rear and set up near the road junction again.

This time the Russians go for a centre/south approach, advancing on a broader front to maximise the use of the roads. They also make use of the lateral gully to advance as far as possible. They've made pretty good progress in one turn, and the more liberal road and village treatment helps a lot. 

Of course what they have actually done is advance right into the German kill sack. Ooops. Faced with such a target rich environment, every German unit in range opens fire, even the artillery stays to fire instead of relocating. The northern Russian column is torn apart, with one company completely destroyed, another disrupted. The AT guns in the woods on the hill are completely invisible as they blaze away - "Panzerbush"!. In fact it could have been even worse, but the Germans rolled some appalling dice for their artillery.

The Russians in the north stop to return fire and move more elements forward. Each column has an Assault Gun attached, and one German company is disrupted. Rather than hang around to be destroyed, the Germans fall back to the reverse slope. The Russian armour is stuck on the obstacles and can't enter the forest anyway. 

In the south however, the Russians are forging ahead. They bypass the minefields and start to work their way around the south of the big hill over the gully and through the woods. The German defensive fire is ineffective.

The Germans in the north fail to rally, and Russian Mortar and artillery fire disrupts the Germans in the village. The Russian indirect fire is so enthusiastic that the guns and one of the mortars run out of ammo.

The Russian northern column is still hung up on the obstacles, and starts to bypass them via the woods and gully. They should never have tried to force the barrier. The units in the gully can now spot the Germans on the northern hill. The Russian recce sits in the centre of the line calling in fire on the located targets.

The defence of the big hill is becoming disorganised. The Germans reoccupy the forest but faced with massed Russian armour and infantry, abandon the village. One German rifle company heads westwards to start setting up road blocks. The German artillery and mortars are still in position blazing away, but if the Russians break through, they will be dangerously exposed.

The Russians take the village and are now seriously outflanking the hill form the south. The rest of the terrain west from here is dreadful however, a maze of woods, gullies and a huge swamp across two hexes. Amazingly the Germans are still holding out on the hill in the north, but the infantry in the forest are disrupted.

The Germans decide to stand for one more turn. The guns and infantry open fire at point blank range and disrupt the Russians in the village.

But things are coming apart as waves of Russian infantry advance across the fields in the south. A couple of Russian units are disrupted, but one German rifle company is destroyed. It seems easier to destroy infantry than knock out the artillery and mortars, which doesn't seem quite right.

The Russians destroy the rifle company in the north and the Germans bug out along the line, heading westwards into cover and to set up blocking positions to delay the Russians. The German artillery stays behind to hold up the Russians. The Germans have lost three units now, and can only afford to lose two more before the Russians gain a tactical victory.

The German mortars and artillery disappear into the maze of gullies. They are all disrupted by Russian fire, but none are destroyed. In the north the German AT guns have withdrawn as far as the northwest village, but are now faced with slogging across the remaining hills and woods.

The terrain in the southwest is really awful for a rapid exit, so the Russians need to figure out a way to get off table in the centre. The only bright spot is that the centre column has finally broken through and is rapidly advancing via the gully. The surviving German infantry are on or next to the two hex hill in the west.

The Russians in the south pick their way through the gullies, the Russians swarm the central hill to lock down the road and knock out the German guns.

The Russians have now opened up the road, but there are still German infantry in the woods and gullies west of it. The southern wing is still hung up in the difficult terrain.

The Russians get lucky and destroy one of the German infantry. That is five German units down. However the Russians won't be able to exit a number of units as it is just too far to go, so for a win, I need to Russians to be able to knock out one more German unit while avoiding losing more than three more Russians (they already have two destroyed). That of course means leaving more Russian units to fight, which count as destroyed as they fail to exit. My head hurts!

The Russians hold the road corridor open while passing as many motorised units down it as possible (with their +2 hex moves). As there are still Germans adjacent, this would have been impossible with the old ZOC rules.

A great mass of Russian units gather ready to exit. The Russians leave two units behind to take out the last German rifle company, but they fail with poor dice rolls. In fairness I needed too make two rolls of 4+, so only a 25% chance. 

Most of the Russians get off the table, demonstrating advanced traffic management skills, but the last two fail to make it. That leaves the Germans with five units KO (a Russian marginal) vs four Russians KO or left on table (for a German marginal). It is a draw!

Blimey, that was exciting! In retrospect a frontal assault on the fortified position into bad terrain was a really stupid thing to do, and the northern route is still superior for the Russians. The new movement, gully, village, spotting, obstacle, artillery call and (lack of) ZOC rules worked really well though, so I'll keep those.

The game was largely decided by a few critical combat rolls though, many at relatively low odds. I can see why Disgruntled Fusilier has gone with a 3D6 system instead of the hyper tense 1D6 system. I've also noted some oddities in the CRT, namely that artillery make great blocking units as they are so hard to kill. This is a holdover from the CRT in OHW, where 'guns' are AT guns. 

My next job is to rework the CRT to get the combat results more in line with those in PB. I'm also  inclined to make the decent attacks more of a sure thing. A 2:1 attack in PB was 'anything but a 1', and I'm inclined to go with 2+ for AT fire vs armoured targets in the open, but 4+ if they are hull down. I'll play around with the hit numbers a bit and see how it goes.