Urban Warfare Day - Market Garden

 I solo played the Memoir 44 'Overlord' scenario of Market Garden last year, time to try it out at our 'Urban Warfare' day at Tapton with actual humans. This is essentially a double sized M44 scenario, with some extra rules to cover the table having six sectors instead of the usual three.

I did this with my Hexon and 15mm stuff, it proved to be quite a big game...

Battlefield from the southwest. It is 26 hexes long and 9 hexes wide, representing the 65 miles or so from Joes Bridge at Neerpelt up to Arnhem. Each unit is a couple of battalions (or equivalent), and I guess each hex is 2-3 miles. We'll, that is how I justified the OB anyway. As I generally use a couple of stands to represent a unit, that means each stand is roughly a battalion. 

To fit the M44 mechanism constraints, the scenario layout is somewhat abstracted in places, but here are XXX Corps lined up for the off. Arnhem is dimly visible in the distance at the end of Hells Highway, the grey central road.

XXX Corps faces off against KG Walther. Walther has 6th FJR and SS Richter (from IInd SS Panzer Corps), both holed up in Valkenswaard. Guards Arnmoured Div has four armoured combat teams, each of one armoured and one mech infantry battalion (Irish, Grenadier, Coldstream and Welsh Guards groups), while 43rd Div has three infantry units representing six battalions of infantry, and 8th Armoured Brigade in support each with an armoured regiment and another infantry battalion in carriers. XXX Corps artillery is represented by a pair of 5.5" guns. This is quite an armada.

In reserve KG Walther has the 10th SS Panzerjaeger battalion and the 10th SS Engineer battalion. I'm sure they will stop XXX Corps all on their own!

East of Arnhem, 9th SS Panzer has two leg infantry units and Stug Brigade 280, representing the two weak SS Panzergrenadier Regiments and all the reinforcing units. 10th SS Has Graebners 9th SS recce Bn (mech infantry) and two tank units with various SS panzergrenadiers in trucks, and inevitably, Tiger IIs on the 506th Tiger Bn and Tiger 1s from KG Knaust and Pz Ko Hummel. Knaust is represented as a special leader figure with the Tiger 1.  

This is obviously an abstraction as the bulk of 10th SS was ferried slowly over the river, but the tank units are blocked in by Graebner to start with.

West of Arnhem is 1st Airborne Div (six infantry units representing all 12 battalions of the division, including the Poles and Glider Pilots), with Col Frost as a leader riding an armed jeep. Well why not.

Kraffts 16th SS Ersatz Bn is dug in on the outskirts of Oosterbeek.

Nijmegen is strongly held with two leg infantry units from Korps Feldt plus massed Flak and Artillery at the south end of the bridge. Obviously irl the guns were north of the bridge, but hey ho.

Karl Euling and his 'ghost battalion' of 10th SS Panzergrenadiers are north of the river, out of shot.

West of Nijmegen are four units of 82nd Airborne. The battlefield has been reversed here for game purposes, as the real para assault came in from the east. They also have three lots of assault boats to row across the Rhine, and Major Cook/Robert Redford to lead them across. The rest of the division is presumably fighting off the numerous German counterattacks elsewhere. 

Further south are 101st Airborne. Easy Company, James Caan etc. Five units to take Eindhoven and the bridge at Veghel. Opposing them are some bits from 15th Army - 59th Infantry Div at 30% strength, the Tilburg Polizei battalion etc.

However Panzer Brigade 107 are in reserve to the east. Two tank units (Panthers, halftracks) and another Mech infantry (halftracks, SP Flak). The 107th was entirely equipped with Panthers, Jagdpanzer IVs and various models of Sdkfz 251. They were even reinforced with some Jagdpanthers for their famous attack on Veghel.

I had seven players for this, so Anthony was German CO and took Korps Feldt in the centre, Lloyd had KG Walther and 107th Panzer while Tim Had 9th and 10th SS Panzer.

Pete commanded the British, and from north to south, John took 1st Airborne, Diego the US Airborne Corps and Simon XXX Corps.

Each sides commander was responsible for managing and allocating the command cards. The horrible wrinkle in this scenario is that the Allies start with 13(!) command cards, and the Germans with a mere three. For every Allied unit destroyed, the German hand size increases by one, and the Allies drop by one. A very clever way of modelling operational surprise, but a brutal first few turns for the Germans.

101st AB made an early advance towards Eindhoven, but the Germans prioritised the south for command cards, so 107th Panzer also got rolling but then ran out of cards!

At Arnhem, the Germans also got moving quickly, but not enough to forestall 1st Airborne who were busily engaging Kraffts battalion in Oosterbeek. Tim did manage to clear the lower river road to get the Tiger IIs rolling for Arnhem though.

RAF Typhoons strafed the 107th Panzer, who busily retreated back their start line. Oh dear!

The Nijmegen sector remained very quiet while all this was going on.

The Eindhoven garrison took heavy casualties, but hung on and drove off the first assault by the 101st. The US Paras also rushed the bridge at Veghel, contesting it with the local garrison.

At Arnhem, Col Frost was killed leading an assault against Krafft. His very first battle. Typical!

British Paras took the the east end of Arnhem with heavy losses, but Krafft still hung on grimly as the Tigers rolled onto the bridge. 'Bring up the PIAT!'. The Germans were still prioritising the north and south sectors, while the Allies were prioritising the north and centre to get the paras in good locations before XXX Corps got rolling.

The priority for the Germans was to destroy Allied units to get their command deck size up, and reduce the Allies, even at the cost of losing units. The Allies needed to stake claims on the ground.

Having said that, Korps Feldt rolled forwards to beef up the Nijmegen defences. 82nd Airborne hadn't really done anything in this sector at all.

XXX Corps also popped into life with a massive attack on 6th FJR and KG Richter. Both German units took some losses but hung on in their fortified villages. The Allies also took a few hits and were stymied for now. Infantry dug into towns are hard to shift with tanks. 10th SS Panzerjaeger moved up in support, but Loyd was very nervous about the odds! As KG Walther is outnumbered over 3:1, he was right to be.

The 101st finally clear Eindhoven, albeit with heavy losses. 107th Panzer is parked to the east of the city. US Paras are also having a go at the bridge at Veghel (off camera to the left).

Fighting still rages at Arnhem. 1st Para have occupied most of the city now, the SS tankers are stuck outside, but Krafft is still hanging on by his fingernails.

XXX Corps has another go at 6th FJR.

And break through! 6th FJR surrender and the left hand village hex falls, while SS Richter is fairly shot up too and the Irish Guards engage 10th SS Panzerjaeger on the road junction beyond.

The 101st are hanging on in Eindhoven, just, as Panzergrenadiers supported by Panthers batter at the outskirts.

In Arnhem 1st AB finally captures the north end of the bridge. There isn't much they can do about the Tigers on the bridge hex, but they do chip a hit off them. The German tankers can't do much to the Paras in the city hexes either, but can at least contest the bridge. 

KG von Furstenbergs SP guns advance southeast of Nijmegen to threaten the 82nd, who mill around in the open.

SS Infantry push into the western edge of Arnhem, while Stug Brigade 280 supported by motorised infantry advances around the north of the city. 1st AB is looking a bit ragged now and quite a number of Allied units have collapsed, giving the Germans more command cards and the allies fewer. I neglected to take photos of the tank battle raging south of Eindhoven, but in fact the Germans up to a hand of ten cards now, while the Allies are down to three(!). 

In fact this is the end - in the final turn, coordinated German assaults all along the line knock out several Allied units. In Arnhem the SS retake the bridge, and the combination of the destroyed Para unit and now controlling the bridge is enough to garner the Germans 13 VP and victory.

In the end neither XXX Corps nor the 82nd really got going, but the Germans managed to knock out a number of Para units and retain control of a number of key objectives, which was enough to give them victory. A very different flow of play to both my solo effort (which went right to the wire, 11:12) and David Crooks play through (which was an easy Allied win). It may be that the way the card decks are stacked at the start make the outcome very variable, but I'd like to play that again, but maybe in 6mm on the M44 boards as it setting up with 15s on the Hexon was a major effort, although it looked grand.

Something to tell your grand children. Any mighty bored they will be!

QRF 15mm Cruiser Mk I (A9)

 I wanted some older cruisers so I could do bits of Operation Compass as well as modelling 7th Armoured Brigade in 1941. Although the old prewar cruisers had largely vanished by 1942, they were still hanging around in late 1941 in ever decreasing numbers as they broke down or were destroyed. As they were always such a mix of types, I just got three different types.

First up is the QRF Cruiser Mk I (A9).

This was the first Cruiser type, and featured two useless MG turrets in the hull. These generally weren't manned and the space used for extra ammo instead. tbh it looks like a kids drawing of what a tank might look like. It was originally designed to meet a War Department specification of ' a cheaper medium tank' than the Medium MK III. 

The suspension and lower hull is very familiar of course though, and lived on later in the much more successful Valentine albeit far more heavily armoured.

This isn't a complicated model: single piece hull, two track sections and separate turrets. Like most QRF models it needs a certain amount of filing and on this one the tracks are extremely thin so prone to damage. 

It went together fine, although I couldn't get the faint mould lines off the turret without damaging the rivets, so I just left them. The real armour on the tank was only 14mm thick, enough to be bullet proof. The same as early models of the Pz III and IV.

Lots of nice deep detail, sharp angles and rivets - perfect for a wash and a drybrush.

It sits fine and has the same outsized turret look of the original.

The sand basecoat was Light Mud with an ink wash and a highlight. I then did this in an early Caunter pattern (dark green over light green over the Light Mud). This of course obscured the lowlights and highlights in the base coat so I did a pinwash around some of the detail on the camouflaged sections, then gave the whole thing a drybrush of light sand to represent dust and weathering of the paintwork.  

I think  it has come out rather well. Hopefully it will make it the the battlefield before breaking down!

More passengers

 Along with the Horch cars, I also wanted to add some passengers for some of my Zvezda Opel Blitz trucks to mark when they are in use as troop transports.

My collection of Zvezda Opels in panzer grey.

Now, when I assembled these, I very stupidly glued the tilts down, even though they are designed to be removable. The first job was therefore to unglue them again, which involved a craft knife, razor saw and a lot of cursing.

I got them off in one piece eventually. I added bits of cut up matchstick to the insides of the tilts so I could just push them back into place if needed. I also painted the interior of the trucks grey, and touched up the damaged paint on the truck bodies.

Having got the tilts off I can now actually put cargo in them, like my resin ammo boxes, fuel drums, or figures.  

My original plan was to make rows of seated figures on removeable bases which would live under the tilts when stored. It turned out I'd run out of seated figures, so as a stopgap, I made up some bases of standing figures instead. In theory you can get 30 blokes in the back of a 3 tonner, but it is standing room only.

These are some spare PSC early war German infantry I had left in the spares box. I could have done three figures per lorry, but two was enough for now. These are just done in standard early war grey uniforms with jackboots. I did the base grey to blend in with the truck bed.

That turned out to be easy enough to do. When I get some more seated figures I'll make up some new bases and just repurpose these as a couple of extra rifle stands for my early war German infantry.

I've also got some metal trucks with glued on tilts who ideally need the same treatment. I suspect getting the tilts off those will be a lot harder, so a job for another day.

 

Himeimat, August 1942

 I originally started doing a version of this scenario based on the one in the Rapid Fire 'Montys Eighth Army' book as I was very taken with the idea of using four(!) German/Italian recce battalions together, and I also wanted to trial my minefield rules for OHW WW2. The real battle featured 4th (Light) Armoured Brigade screening the southern half of the Alamein position vs assorted Axis recce units while most of DAK charged to its doom at Alam Halfa.

I realised fairly quickly that the battle described in the scenario book bore a very strong resemblance to OHW scenario 20, 'Fighting Retreat', but instead of a stream it had a minefield with a couple of gaps, the various woods became soft depressions, and I kept the big hill on the baseline as the objective (Mount Himeimat). As the OHW victory conditions were more interesting than the RF ones, I modelled the game on the OHW scenario, but transposed the named terrain features onto my new desertified-version.

Battlefield from the south. The Quattara Depression is just south of here, El Alamein 20 miles or so to the northeast. The N-S track is the so called 'Barrel Track' and the first British minefield is off to the left. The second minefield is offtable to the right, the gaps dominated by Mt Himeimat, the big hill on the mid right.

The mighty Germans!

In the lead we have the 3rd, 33rd and 580th Recce battalions, from 15th Panzer, 21st Panzer and 164th Afrika Divisions. These boys are all Heavy Recce units and all rated as veterans.

And we also have the Italian RECAM with the Novara and Nissorio Lancers riding in AB41s and L6 Light Tanks, plus a wandering Pz III battalion from 8th Panzer Regiment which will rock up later. Some 105s in support, and a single logistic column as the Afrika Korps was desperately short of supplies in August 1942.

Tim and Russell commanded the Germans, with Pete taking over from Russell on Wednesday.

Part of 4th (Light) Armoured Brigade, L-R, a company of 44th Recce Regt in carriers, 4/8th Hussars in Stuarts, 1st KRRC supported by Portee 6pdrs, a battery of 25pdrs (3 RHA?) in support and two logistic columns. In the original RF scenario both the Hussars and KRRC had dropped a company, but I beefed them up to battalion equivalents again as all the German units in the scenario were quite weak.

John and Simon commanded the British.

The Axis and Allied airforces also put in an appearance. This bodged up 'SM79' with two missions and the rather nice RAF B26 Marauder with three missions.

The Allies had to start with two units west of the minefields, but ultimately the game would be decided by who controlled Mt Himeimat.

Simon went for a very upfront defence in the north! The Hussars parked in the minefield gap and 1 KRRC dug in just behind it.

In the south the gap was screened by 44th Recce (light recce) in their carriers.

And the 25pdrs dug in on the edge of the depression SW of Mt Himeimat.

The Axis piled on in strength in the south. The British called in artillery fire and the carriers fell back. All the recce units made use of their ability to shoot/move or move/shoot and various hits were inflicted.

This prompted something of a mad dash south by the Hussars and KRRC.

The carriers took a bit of a pasting, became disorganised, and fell back. The British artillery and air pounded the gap. Even if they didn't hit anything, it would slow movement through the barrage. 

Meanwhile the sneaky Italians were driving for the northern minefield gap, prompting the Hussars to halt.

German artillery and air pounded the Stuarts as the Italians pushed into the gap, covered by 33rd Recce.

The rest of the Germans pushed cautiously through the gap in the south, under fire all the way. 1 KRRC arrived to support the carriers, who reorganised.

Hard pounding in the north! Recce units aren't very good against tanks, even Stuarts.

John noticed that the aircraft were casting photogenic shadows, so I took a photo. 

The Desert Airforce joined in the battle for the northern gap. 

But the Stuarts fell back disorganised and the Axis pushed through the northern gap. As the Italians edged forward, the Stuarts reorganised.

In the south, the 44th carriers fell back as the Panzers arrived, and then finally disintegrated and the survivors retreated offtable back through the second minefield. That left the Royal Artillery to hold the line. 

Then it was the KRRC turn to get hammered. The 6pdrs took a heavy toll of the Panzers.

The Panzer assault was repulsed, but it left the KRRC shaken and disorganised.

The intervention of the Desert Airforce wasn't enough to save them, and concentrated German fire sent them packing back to the Delta.

By now the 25pdrs were firing over open sights and more Panzers were destroyed. 

And three German/Italian battalions rushed the hill. The Hussars became disorganised again, but RECAM took such heavy losses they had to reorg,

The Royal Artillery stuck to their guns!

The Desert Airforce intervened again in an attempt to hold off the Axis. 

But it was all too little, too late and the 580th overran the disorganised Hussars. The remaining Stuarts withdrew to the rear.

The gunners were down to their last hit, so we called it a day at that point.

Well, that was a bit of a wipeout. I can't help thinking the Allies tried to defend everything rather than concentrating on smashing one Axis unit at a time, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Another good scenario which warrants a replay at some point, and once again, it was interesting how well the original RF scenario mapped onto a OHW one. 

The minefields seemed to be suitably scary as everyone avoided them, and I was pleased with the way the Heavy and Light Recce units worked. The supply/logistics system seems to work well too. I've got another scenario with minefields, so we'll try that in a few weeks/months and see how we get on.