This was the second of our ongoing 1943 Eastern Front campaign games based on the excellent Skirmish Campaigns publication 'Red Guards at Kursk'. This particular scenario covered the Soviet infantry attack on the German main line of resistance north of Orel. For this game I'd bumped the scenario up a few levels into a battalion level engagement and after the somewhat dismal time had by the Germans in the first game, put all the players on the Russian (attacking) side. The Russians had a full strength Guards rifle battalion against a weak (60% strength) German infantry battalion holding a 2.5km front albeit well dug in. I ran it using a slightly modified version of Johns 'Battlegroup' rules, which uses platoon bases and 1" = 50 yards.
I apologise in advance for the awful quality of the pictures, I used the flash and it just washed out all the colour.
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| View from the German side, comrades John and Tim absorb the briefing notes. Barbed wire entanglements are visible on the table, otherwise the Germans are hidden. |
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| Soviets pick their line of advance, coming east of the stream and using the handy ridge to form up behind prior to assault the German line.A full strength Guards rifle battalion has a fair amount of kit. |
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| Tim pauses for a photo opportunity. The Russians are all heading for that big gap in the wire. I wonder if the Germans have forgotten to defend it? |
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| The first Soviet company heads for the gap in the wire, covered by their pals on the ridgeline. Somewhat worryingly German mortar fire starts to land among them. |
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| Oh dear, there seems to be a German company dug in covering this section of front. Most of the first Soviet company go down in a hail of mortar and MG42 fire. |
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| The Soviets respond with a barrage of 82mm mortar, 76mm artillery and Maxim gun fire which (eventually) manages to pin the defenders down. The Soviet second company cautiously approaches the wire covered by its weapons platoon. |
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| The Russians rush the German trenches behind the barrage. |
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| Unfortunately two of the assault platoons fail their morale checks and are pinned down. One platoon of Russians makes it and the German company morale fails (the big yellow marker). |
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| German positions in the central woods come to life (these had been re-deploying from the left flank), but again disappear under a hail of Soviet heavy weapons fire. |
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| The Soviets cleared the trenches, but then had to repel a German counterattack over the ridge. This was duly shot down in a fairly ferocious display of infantry fiirepower. |
So the game ended with a Soviet breakthrough and the German survivors fleeing south, only a tactical victory for the Russians this time as they had spent a bit too long clearing the trenches to get enough units off the southern table edge for a decisive victory.
Interested that you upped the scale of the game, I've played quite a few of the scenarios from the books but with mixed results, do you feel it improved it significantly?
ReplyDeleteI understand that the Commissar of 2/329 Rifle Regiment will be issuing his own report (complete with photographic evidence) soon....
ReplyDeletePete, if truth be told I'm not a huge fan of ww2 skirmish in general and the scenarios as supplied ony really work with 'bang you're dead' type rules. We've tried them with more simulation style rules and the scenarios just don't work very well. Putting one platoon against two dug in (!) sections just results in a stalled attack. Putting a strong battalion against two weak companies is far more interesting game.
ReplyDeleteThe Operation Epsom ones did work OK as skirmish games but they were much more vehicle intensive.
On the Eastern Front I am much more comfortable with grand tactical and operational level. The main thing in converting the scenarios is to take account of the drop in effective weapon ranges relative to movement rates in higher level games.
Tim, I look forward to the Comrade Commanders report with interest.
ReplyDeleteFair enough, I almost exclusively skirmish these days, for various reasons... to tight to change to a smaller scale to play higher level games in the space I've got for one.... Anyway I agree with you that the Skirmish Campaigns books set in NWE gave a better game, with one exception though, however the Eastern Front ones that had more vehicles played better than the purely infantry based ones (they did have the feel of charging across an empty field under cover of daylight about them) though those were played with Arc of Fire and the group I game with has switched to the Two Hour Wargaming stable, we've been meaning to re-visit them but not found the time yet... hopefully soon. Which rules did you try them with- the 'simulation' ones?
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Pete.
"Which rules did you try them with"
ReplyDelete'A Platoon Commanders War' by John Armatys, with belt fed MGs laying down 100m deep beaten zones and suppressing anything in them on a 2+ (on a D6), the typical 3:2 attacker:defence ratios in the Skirmish Games scenarios just aren't enough, particularly with hidden defenders. I do like the linked scenario structure, it is just that the scenarios all need a bit of work to make a decent game of it, (or just give up, like I did in this one and put all the attackers on one side).
Thanks for that Martin, Were they ever released commercially?
ReplyDeleteAs a result of this post + comments the week after next I have penciled in playing a scenario from one of my Skirmish Campaign books with the NUTS! rules set.
I'll get the camera and do a report for the blog.
Cheers,
Pete.
They have been published for free in both the SOCTW Journal and the Wargames Developments Journal, and are essentially a tactical vesion of Johns 'Blitzspiel' (which was actually commercially published many moons ago, I got my copy from Irregular). Think WRG 1925-50 with a more steamlined DBAesque combat resolution system.
ReplyDeleteThanks Martin, I can look them up from that.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Pete.