More fun stuff for the Allies! was vaguely thinking about D-Day scenarios and Funnies and thought I should beef up my collection of armoured engineering vehicles. I was buying a load of stuff from Battlefield 3D anyway, and they have all sorts of things in their huge US range so.....
Thursday, 2 October 2025
Battlefield 3D Sherman Crab
Monday, 29 September 2025
Massed 'Dominion of' titles!
Well, this lot popped through the door recently, a very nice treat.
Friday, 26 September 2025
I have been to.... Norway
We've been to Norway a couple of times already but just the south (Oslo, Bergen etc) , this time we took the plunge with a Hurtigruten cruise up to Svalbard and back. Hurtigruten mainly run the ferry service up and down the coast, so the cruise facilities are a bit basic but fine. They make lots of port stops to pick up and drop off cargo, so you get to visit loads of places which are otherwise pretty inaccessible.
As ever, I'll focus on stuff primarily of historical interest.
Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Battlefield 3D T12 75mm SP
Along with the M8, another US vehicle I've been vaguely thinking of converting for ages, is the SP 75mm halftracks Tank Destroyer. I've got loads of unbuilt M3 halftracks and I've even got a spare long barrelled gun, but I've just never quite got around to to doing one.
Monday, 22 September 2025
Battle 2025 Pt 3. Reconnaissance in Force - the troops gather
Back when I first read 'Battle', I was entranced by the account of the 'Reconnaisance in Force' game. Unlike the other two battles in the book, it was recounted without photos and instead just maps and accompanying text from the point of view of the Red player.
Although I played the other two scenarios a number of times, I never owned the requisite number of 20mm toys to play this one. And by the time I did (in 6mm) I'd already been lured away from the childish delights of Battle into what felt like the much more serious WRG 1925-50.
One of the two main objectives of this little project is to actually fight the third scenario from the book, the second being assemble some forces in an appropriate scale to mirror the sorts of armies that Charles Grant and his opponents had. Hence my obsession with 15mm stuff and 1/100th scale plastic kits, far closer in size to the models Grant used rather than modern 20mm and 1/72nd scale stuff. The old Airfix 'Combat Group' figures (of which I still have some) are barely 1mm taller than my Peter Pig figures, and the same size as my more bloated PSC figures.
I've already covered most of the rules updates in my previous couple of posts, but a couple of things have been neglected.
Artillery. The original book devoted a fair bit of space to indirect fire, organisation of artillery etc. as it was a key feature of WW2 warfare. Once again it used various 'gadgets', in particular the HE blast template and had a very lengthy process to actually get the guns on target, which would, on average, require nine turns (!). We are used to slightly more responsive artillery these days, so along with simplifying radio comms (anything but a 1) I just have a simple artillery ranging roll using band two of the to-hit chart - so 6+ on 2D6. The HE template also fits neatly in my 150m x 150m hexes, so as with MGs and mortars, I just roll 1D6 per base in the target area with the caveat that if the to-hit roll is a natural 10+, it is a 'direct' hit and you roll and extra 1D6. In the original rules you need a 5+ to actually drop the shell/bomb on the things you were aiming at, everything else scattered but part of the template was usually over the original target.
Direct HE fire. The original rules made no mention of this whatsoever, and at the time I figured out that you could just use the standard HE blast template, with a to-hit roll instead of an artillery ranging roll. So that is what I'll do for this.
Engineering. The original rules did cover engineering in a minimal way - flamethrowers, mine laying and mine clearance. Interestingly although Grant made flamethrowers lethal against soft targets (hit on 2+), they could only destroy an AFV on a 6, unlike many wargames which treat flamethrowers as if they are viable AT weapons. I kept those numbeds but rolled their use into close combat resolution. The mine rules were fine, but the timescales were ridiculous as he tried to stick to his 1 turn = 1 minute scale. No-one was going to bother with mine warfare if it took 20 turns, so I just upped the notional turn length to 15 minutes, which seems to work for battalion level games (like Command Decision) OK.
And I think that is about it for rules. As this game is a large one, I'm going to switch back to basic vehicle moves being 2 hexes cross country and 3 hexes on roads or the time and space don't work correctly.
So, onto the forces. In the original scenario, Grant used a full mechanised infantry battalion with the TOE comprehensively outlined in the text, plus a section of two x T34/85 and a battery of artillery (two x US 105mm!) in support. The Germans are a bit vague, but you do glean snippets from the text. I think there are probably a couple of leg infantry companies, with the sorts of support weapons you would expect - some Panzerschrecks, tripod MGs and an 81mm mortar or two. They also have a towed 50mm AT gun, a pair of Panzer IV and are supported by a battery of offtable artillery.
In reality there was no such thing as a Russian mechanised infantry battalion mounted entirely in armoured halftracks(!), here is my effort to update the forces to something more realistic, yet still retain the balance of the original.