Tigers at Minsk - training scenario one

 My interest in tactical warfare has been rekindled by playing the WRG 1925-50 (neu) test games. Tactical games aren't really suitable for our remote sessions, well not the way I like to play them, but are fine for solo games and maybe f2f. 

Sitting on my shelf for ages has been Norm Smiths excellent 'Tigers at Minsk'. Unlike WRG they are played on a grid (yay!), don't take up much space (double yay!) and are quick (triple yay!). I've read through the rules a few times and followed Norms various Batreps, and thought it was finally time to give them a go. It will make a change from "Dominion of..." anyway. 

First up is a simple tank battle, set near Tamarovka in 1943. Regular readers will recall we recently fought a number of historical brigade/division sized engagements in the region, which was heavily fought over during Operation Rumyatsev.

The terrain is pretty simple, a low ridge, three woods (with two trees on) and two areas of 'scrub' which I did with single trees. Each hex is supposed to be around 125m, so this is quite a small battlefield. Each turn is 2D6 minutes, so the game has a time limit, but the actual number of turn is variable. 

I'm using my 'desert transition' boards (brown with green grass clumps) for Ukraine in summer as this is pretty much how our lawn looks after months without significant rain. 

The protagonists. The Russians have five T34/76d and the Germans a single Panther from 52nd Panzer Bn (attached to 6th Panzer Div). Although these are supposed to be individual vehicles, I can't help treating them as sections of 2-3, like Charles Grant.

The Russians need to KO the Panther before time runs out. The rub is that the 76mm guns of the T34s can't penetrate the Panther frontally, so they need to get a flank shot. If they can get adjacent, fire at such short range is treated as a flank shot (rather like the original Squad Leader armour rules).

As the battlefield is so small, there aren't any other range restrictions, just that infantry fire over four hexes is penalised. There are however facing penalties for AT fire (if you need to pivot and shoot etc), some of which are quite severe.

Game number 1. The obvious way to protect your flanks is sit in a corner, just like AHGCs 'Tobruk', so the Panther parks up in one corner. The Russians set up behind the scrub or in the woods. Woods are normally difficult terrain for vehicles to move into, but you can set up in the them. Both woods and scrub provide cover (well, concealment), woods block LOS but scrub only blocks LOS randomly as it is variable height.

The Russians need to close the range, but as this is a tactical game, units generally only move one hex in LOS of the enemy. Units can only activate if they are in command, and each side designates one hex plus two adjacent ones as being in command, you dice for the rest. Keeping the Russians bunched up like this keeps them all in command. The scenario stacking limit is 2 units per hex, normally it is three. 

Units can conduct opportunity fire, which precludes regular fire in the  future turns. The Panther pops off at the advancing T34s, at 500m it is almost an automatic damaging hit (anything but a 0 on a D10), and then the Germans get lucky and score a KO and burn. There aren't separate to hit/to kill rolls but a single 'effective AT fire' roll which combines AT vs armour values, cover, firing aspect etc. If you score an 'effective hit' there is a simple damage table with results from KO and burn to stunned. 

The T34s close in. The Panther KOs another one (with turned turret) and stuns a third (blue counter). I must have skipped a couple of turns to get to here.

The Panther opp fires (smoke puff on the barrel) the T34 at the top and it bursts into flames. Burning AFVs produce smoke which blocks LOS, but the smoke can disappear. Just two T34s left now.

Having lost 3 units (half their force) the Russian morale fails, but the two remaining tanks pass their morale tests.

They bravely advance next to the Panther, which only manages to stun one of them. To recover from a stun, units have to conduct a rally action in their own turn. 

The remaining T34 fires at point blank range, scores a damaging hit and the Panther is....stunned! Time runs out and the Germans win. I think that was five turns, maybe six? If you roll doubles on the time clock dice you get  a random event, but no doubles were rolled.

OK, that was a good trial run. The sequence of fire/opp fire/opp fire recovery takes a bit of getting used to but I'm getting my head around it.

Right time to try again. This time the Germans set up on their baseline, I had a vague idea there might be less cover for the Russians on this approach. As before the Russians managed to hide behind some scrub and stay bunched to retain C2.

The T34s roll forward, the Panther pops the end one in the open with opp fire, but just scores a stun. The Russians manage to recover from the stun in their own end turn phase. It is easier to rally in cover, but in the open you need a 1 or 2.

The Russians roll forward another hex and the Panther hits the end T34 again. Another stun!

The Russian horde rolls forwards. The stunned T34 fails to recover this time and the Panther (finally) manages to knock one of the others out, but three of them firing at point blank range demolish the Panther. A Russian win.

Next up Game 3. Norm suggests mixing in a couple of more powerful tanks at this point so you aren't just playing the 'rush the Panther' game.

Two of the T34s are swapped for T34/85s. These do actually have a chance against the Panthers frontally, albeit not a great one. 

The Panther goes back in the corner. The Russians set up behind cover. The plan is to get the T34/85s into a firing position to act as a base of fire while the T34/76s close in. As range is (largely) irrelevant, I just need LOS with the 85s.

The Russians roll forwards in a clump. The T34/85s set up the scrub. The Germans hit one of the T34/76s but just stun it. Although a bit dispersed, all the Russians are still in command.

The 85s take the Panther under fire and manage to stun it while the 76s close in. The already stunned tank fails to recover. Although fire through friendly units isn't allowed for small arms and MG fire, it is for AT fire, so the 85s can fire through the tank in front of them.

Being stunned rather dooms the Panther as it can't do anything as the Russians close in. Being in the corner already means it can't even back up.

The Panther recovers just in time for it to be demolished by a T34 at point blank range. Another Russian win. I think I'm getting the hang of this now, although obviously with such a small engagement the outcome is very dice dependant.

That was a good introduction, although hilariously despite playing three games I didn't get a single random event. I suppose that is the definition of 'random'. 

I like many aspects of these, particularly command and morale as they work well for a solo game. I'm not 100% convinced by the AT system as it rolls both weapon accuracy and penetration  into a single number. That is fine as a technique and many games use it, but it makes some of the more powerful weapons automatic hits on weaker targets whereas irl actually acquiring a target is often the hardest bit, and having the most powerful gun in the world (like a 128mm in a Jagdtiger) doesn't actually make it easier to acquire a target. Equally, if you want to actually model eg a Tiger being immune to a 37mm gun you have to have improbably high defence vs attack values which skew the relationships with other types of target. Or just accept that you have a very impressionist system which is going to produce some odd results from time to time. 

I really don't want to come across as being overly critical, it worked in the context of this game and Ishall reserve judgement for now. If it becomes an issue it would be easy enough to plug in another AT fire system which has separate to hit and to kill rolls should it be required. The lack of range dependency is as a bit odd though. It is noticeable in WRG how critical range bands are, even at such sort ranges as 250 and 500m (or two and four hexes in these rules). 

One change I am minded to do is  swap all the numbers around so that high numbers are always good though. I find it really confusing when some required scores are low and some are high, just how my  brain works.

Righto, next time training scenario 2, infantry combat.

Der Tag 1916

 Jim picked up a copy of "Der Tag 1916", a solo game covering naval operations in the North Sea in WW1. As we often end up being able to play solo games as a team effort, we thought we'd give it a go as a group on one of our evening remote sessions.

The game map, essentially three sea areas and a number of key coastal locations. Rather like a very cut down version of AHGCs 'War at Sea'. In the original game, the player commands the Grand Fleet defending Britain against a programmed opponent. 

The cast of thousands, and an excuse to wear our dodgy collection of sailor hats. I was Vice Admiral Bacon, commander of the Dover Patrol, John was Jellicoe, Micheal was Beattie with the BC Fleet and Tim was Jerram commanding 2nd Battle Squadron with its new Super Dreadnoughts (Warspite etc).

Mark was the German High Seas fleet, which in the standard game generates one 'operation' per game season - there being four seasons in 1916. The aim was to gain more points than the Germans - mainly for sinking enemy ships, but also avoiding the Germans conducting conducting successful operations. 

The game comes with counters for every major ship deployed by both sides, from Armoured Cruisers up. As we were playing remotely, we just kept track of which ships were allocated to each fleet. There are still an awful lot of them!

My chaps were certainly the runt of the bunch - I had three elderly Armoured Cruisers, seven Pre-Dreadnought Battleships and one Dreadnought (HMS Dreadnought herself in fact).

Jellico had to deploy the fleet to the various bases, the Germans mounted an operation, and then the various bases could respond. Ships stationed in the area could intercept immediately, those from adjacent areas took three combat rounds to arrive, just two rounds if they were purely Battlecruisers.

To start with we went with the standard deployment.

Given the potential for enormous numbers of ships fighting, combat was very pared down - each ship rolled a single D6, combat results were generated for each class, generally expressed as hits, critical hits (rare) and saves. Saves cancelled out enemy hits, but not criticals. Hits were apportioned and then resolved on the damage table, but generally any sort of hit was bad, the targets either being sunk or sufficiently damaged to be out of action for future combat rounds. In an interesting twist each side had different combat and damage tables.

Ships sunk scored points, ACs were only worth 1 whereas modern BB+ super dreadnoughts were worth 5, as were Battlecruisers.... 

As we were just recording things on bits of paper, there aren't any 'in game' photos really. We got a complete session in on Tuesday. The weather was generally reasonable so we didn't miss any interceptions. The general run of operations was as follows:

Spring 1916: German raid on Dover, 47 civilians killed. Dover Patrol intercepted and sank a German Battlecruiser for no loss(!).

Summer 1916: BCs transferred to Rosyth. German raid on Norway, covered by High Seas Fleet. Intercepted by Grand Fleet from Scapa Flow and a major action ensued. Appalling dice throwing made this a fairly indecisive action and only a few ships were lost on each side. The British BCs were not ordered to intervene. 

Autumn 1916: The Germans returned to Dover with a 'ruse' - a hospital ship covered by the High Seas Fleet. What a rotten German trick. The Dover Patrol sallied forth and Beattie was despatched south. Unsurprisingly, the Dover Patrol was blown out of the water and lost two Armoured Cruisers and three pre-Dreadnoughts while Beattie lost another BC, however we managed to also sink two more German BCs.

We called it a night at that point. 

Bizarrely when totting up the points at the end, the British had won! Although the German had sunk a lot of our ships (I can't recall the exact totals being mainly focussed on my fleet) a lot of it was low point rubbish, whereas we'd managed to eliminate quite a few high value German ships (mainly the BCs).

On Wednesday we gave it another go in the light of experience. Jellicoe send an additional seven Armoured Cruisers to the Dover Patrol and concentrated the entire BC force at Rosyth ready to intervene in any of the three sectors.

With our forces better distributed we were able to intervene in force anywhere in the North Sea fairly quickly. 

Sadly it turned out that the Germans had also learned from the previous day, and repeatedly broke off the action as soon as there was the slightest chance they might be outnumbered (generally as soon as the Grand Fleet hove into view).  In turn this meant that in the series of raids they mounted, they usually had force superiority in the opening rounds, and coupled with their better ships, the rate of attrition was very much in their favour. 

The Dover Patrol had one moment of glory when it saw off the High Seas Fleet at terrible cost, but managed to sink not just a German Battle cruiser, but a Super Dreadnought as well! 

It was a brief respite from the misery though, and in adding up the points at the end, it was a complete wipe out by the Germans. Hah! Well, they may have "won", but we still had an intact fleet, so we would win the war. Take that Fritz. 

That was lots of fun, and Mark did admit that in the second game he had been incredibly lucky with his force allocation dice for the Germans. The High Seas Fleet sorted every single turn (a 1:32 chance) hence their initial crushing superiority in every engagement. It was a good way to manouvre the vast WW1 battle fleets in a short space of time though, and the game had a very strategic feel to it. Good stuff.

 

 

Another Zvezda 1/200th Ju-52

 Regular readers will recall that I already have a Zvezda Ju 52, but I got another one as I had a vague idea of doing a Condor Legion bomber. The 'plastic kit man' at Partisan was selling these cheap. 

Here it is in in its raw state. It was much easier to assemble than I remembered, I think I was mixing it up with the horrible Zvezda Dakotas, which were real pigs to put together.

I need to do something about that join line on the fuselage but generally it was a nice clean model. Even at 1/200 scale it is quite a large aircraft. 

And the underside with a nice sturdy undercart. It is hard to see in the photos but there are beautiful fine corrugations moulded into metalwork. 

And here is the finished thing in daylight.

And rather gloomy artificial light.

In the end I fairly obviously didn't do it as a Condor Legion plane, but I did find this interesting three tone splinter camo scheme used by some units at Crete. It is enhanced by the flashy yellow bits all over it.

The decals are largely those supplied with the kit, although I didn't put loads of fuselage markings on, just a cross and a single letter. As usual I didn't bother with decals on the underside.

Zvezda don't supply any swastika decals, so the tail swastikas are from one of the Doms Deals packs. German planes look much more in keeping with their crooked crosses on.

I'm rather pleased with how that came out, and if the Condor Legion really need a Ju 52, I can always buy another one! I've even got a couple of scenarios in mind where I might be able to use this and its pal. Watch this space. 

WRG 1925-50 (neu) Part 5. Brecourt Manor, June 7th 1944

 Back in June I thought I'd try the Fireball Forward "Brecourt Manor" scenario with the WRG rules as a D Day anniversary game. I actually ran this scenario back in 2018 using John As 'Platoon Commanders War', a distant relative of the original WRG set. This engagement is the one featured in Band of Brothers episode 'Day of Days' and is the assault on the German gun positions at Brecourt Manor on 7th June 1944 by D and E Company, 506th PIR. 

The battlefield. The German battery is entrenched around the outer hedgerow, the gun emplacements linked by communications trenches. The guns are firing on Utah beach and the Germans get VPs each time they fire. The US have to knock all the guns out before they get to 24 VP.

The four guns are more visible here. They don't  play any part in the tactical game, just get points each turn that they fire (one each). This is a 2 x 3 table at 6"=100 yards (so 400 x 600 yards). I used some of my desert artillery for these, a couple of German 105s and a couple of Italian 100mm howitzers as I don't have four captured Russian 122mm howitzers in German colours.

This is the battery HQ, with a rifle/cmd group, another rifle group and an LMG (MG42) group. They setup in the easternmost trench section. 

In the original scenario these guys are all average (think 4-6-7 Squad Leader Squads), and a very average leader (think 8-0 or 8-1). So I didn't give them a Company Command element, just  a normal command element for each sub unit (the battery and the defence platoon).

And this is the battery defence platoon. Two more MG42 groups, a rifle group and a rifle/cmd group. These guys all set up in the triangular hedge. They aren't dug in but the Normandy hedges provide cover.

And to attack them we have what is left of E Company, 505 PIR! The US units are insanely understrength due to scattered D drops and losses. 

Lt Winters commands one 'platoon' with a single rifle/cmd group, this is also the Company Command element. Lt 'Buck' Compton commands another 'platoon' with one rifle and one rifle/cmd group and finally Lt Spiers  from D Company has another 'platoon' with one rifle and one rifle/cmd group. Fortunately the E company weapons platoon has also rocked up with a couple of belt fed .30 cals.

All the US rifle groups are armed with Garands (self loading rifles in WRG parlance). No BARs for the US paras on D Day. In the original scenario these guys are veteran US paras, abo.ut as good as they get, with excellent leaders. So, Lt Winters is rated as a Company Commander (he was acting CO anyway) and Compton and Spiers each get a command group to command their single rifle groups!

On reaction tests they are going to roll two dice and pick whichever they wish.

On turn 1, Winters and Spiers advance cautiously as they haven't got enough movement to make it the hedgerow AND do advancing fire so they hang back out of LOS. The LMG platoon hops over one hedge and similarly hangs back a bit. I'm ignoring the 100m movement penalty for foot troops crossing hedges, that seems very silly! (and would completely break the scenario).

None of the US units are in sight so the Germans get on with shelling Utah beach. BANG!

Next turn things hot up. The LMGs move up and set up along the hedge line to cover the battery position. Compton storms the top left gun position and destroys it with advancing fire under 50m.

Winters tries the same trick but although they manage to acquire the gun, they miss the to hit roll (needs a 5+ as it is moving fire vs a dug in target).

The Germans are vaguely aware something is happening now, so the defence platoon relocates one of its MGs and the eagle eyed rifle group spot Winters and open fire (needed 5+ to acquire) but they miss.

Next turn Compton hops over the hedge into the abandoned gun position. The German riflemen direct the MG42s at Winters and they all blaze away, pinning him. Despite being a CC, he goes to 'cautious advance' on the morale test. Even though I'm allowing the US to reroll their morale dice, he still fails.

The battery HQ has moved up the trench to defend the third gun.

Compton spots the Germans moving along the trench, as do the .30 cals. The Germans are pinned. Hilariously the .30s cals are unable to see any of the MG42s blazing away 150m away across the field due to the foliage modifiers, and the Germans are equally oblivious to the .30 cals. That is one (perhaps the only one) feature of the dice driven spotting that I like - target fixation.

Winters withdraws out of LOS as he isn't doing any good there.

Now Spiers storms on, but the hail of grenades and Garand fire fails to knock out gun number 4. Unlike the TV show, his platoon didn't dash across open ground in front of two MG42s this time. The German battery has had an adverse reaction test now, but not enough to get them to surrender.

The German MGs are now spraying suppressive fire over Comptons platoon (as they spotted one element). It pins the HQ group but the rest of the platoon edges forwards. I don't want to move at full speed as it makes it far more likely they will be spotted.

Winters group has now recovered and is working its way up the hedgerow, while the .30 cals keep the battery HQ suppressed. The HQ MG42 tries to acquire Spiers platoon but fails the acquisition roll (being suppressed is -2).

The battery HQ is gone 'cautious' now but the gun is still popping away. In the face of all out assault by scary US Paras, the gun crews are proving surprisingly resilient. Compton is slowly leading his men along the trenches from the left trying not to be seen.

Spiers meanwhile knocks our gun No. 4 with one group and the cmd group enters the trench. The Germans are too preoccupied and/or suppressed to notice them.

Eventually they move along the trenches leads to some close range grenading which is equally ineffective on both sides. The guns bangs away again. In my test game number two, I definitely mis-measured when the Germans were overrun in the woods, they should have been able to get a shot off first. I was super careful this time and the attack/defence mechanism worked much better.

By now the Germans have spotted all of Comptons platoon and they are completely pinned down by MG42 fire. Winters is trying to sneak along behind the hedge but needs to be super careful not to get into LOS of the battery HQ MG which is peering over the hedge with a very restricted arc.

Essentially everyone is bogged down in a firefight now and I can't see the last gun being knocked out before the Germans accumulate 24VP, so I call it as a (rather Phyrric) German victory.

That was actually OK, but reinforces my impression that these rules are a bit of a slog for infantry combat, being very, very firepower focussed and with very little emphasis on troop quality and morale which is so vital in small unit tactics. In real life, the Germans just fell apart in the face of the rapid US assault. The German gun crews rolled amazing reaction tests though, normally have lost 75% of their number with enemy infantry advancing within 100m would be curtains, so it may have been a fluke result.

I think for this level of infantry heavy game there are more modern and better rule systems or even the venerable Crossfire, although WRG works fine for armour combat. Once again the dice driven spotting produced some very odd results, and I'm really not a fan of that although it did induce some realistic behaviours as units tried to avoid being acquired. 

That was a fun outing, but  it is probably my last WRG game  for now and I have a better idea of what I'm looking for in a tactical game. I think my focus for tactical stuff going forward will be Norm Smiths 'Tigers at Minsk' and derivatives thereof, and my long considered but not executed updating of Charles Grants "Battle".

Battle of Maldon, no COW and bad backs

In a shock development I'm posting this outside my normal two month backlog. Regular readers will be wondering where my Conference of Wargamers (COW) report is, but sadly I couldn't go this year as I injured my back the week before I was due to attend and I'm unable to travel at the moment.

 In fact I've not been able to do much gaming, painting, running, gardening or anything at all for a few weeks as I have a trapped nerve and struggle to sit down and spent a fair bit of time in a drug induced haze. It is all very tedious, particularly wrangling with the insurance company about a holiday cancellation, which is a real Alice in Wonderland experience. Various sessions of spine crunching are slowly improving things, but it is a way to go yet. 

So, it was a nice to have the opportunity to actually play something. 

One of our standby games is "The Battle of Maldon", and after the post COW chat and quiz session the previous week, we didn't have anything lined up, so Battle of Maldon it was.

I think Battle of Maldon is a postcard game? I'm not sure, but the map, rules and counters fit on two sides (as above). John has converted it into electronic format on PowerPoint so we can play remotely. 

I'm pretty sure I've covered this before, but the game is a representation of the battle which took place in 991 as described in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. English on the left, Danes on the right, with a river and inevitable bridge in between. 

The Danes win if they take Maldon (top left), the English if they capture the Danish king. I'm deliberately calling our guys English as this battle took place after Aethelread had finally unified England after th Battle of Brunaburgh. 

I recently read an interesting analysis of the Anglo Saxons Chronicles account of the battle in terms of themes of loyalty, cowardice, bravery, treachery etc but can't for the life of me remember where. A Folk History of Great Britain perhaps? I'm not sure. A shame as it was a very interesting analysis of the Anglo Saxon world view. 

There were only three of us to play at first, so Tim and  took the Brits and Jim the Danes. Tom arrived later. 

I very cleverly forgot to take a picture of our setup. The forces are somewhat asymmetrical, and represented by lovely Noggin the Nog styl drawings. Both sides have infantry (move 1, combat value 1) three English and four Danes respectively. The Danes also have two Berserker infantry CV2 delightfully shown biting their shields, while the English have to cavalry (move 2, CV 1). Both sides also have a +1 leader who can stack. 

The river is passable but at a significant combat penalty. 

The Danes massed their Berserkers to rush the bridge, flanked by regular infantry. I had a dim memory of great success in a previous game slipping the cavalry around a flank, so we put our I fantry opposite the bridge, and the cavalry on the extreme left flank. 

Sadly we had rather miscalculated and the Danes got to the bridge before we did, while our cavalry was a bit tardy advancing  which gave time for the Danes to defend the river line. 

You can only make two actions a turn and we vacillated and managed to cock it up monumentally. The battle for the bridge did no go well for our outclassed infantry. 

We did manage to get our cavalry over the river, but the slaughter continued in the fields southeast of Maldon as the Berserkers pressed on. 

The cavalry flank attack failed. 

And it was all over soon after that. A thumping Danish victory, and thoroughly deserved. Jim had a sound planand stuck with it, while we were all over the place. Well done Jim. 

Tom had joined us by now, so he joined  Jim and we swapped sides. 

Tim and I just replicated the Danish setup from before. The cunning British however put all their infantry around Maldon and massed their cavalry to rush the bridge!

Tbis worked swimmigly well for them, and by the time our rather arrogant Berserkers straggled up to the river, they were faced with conducting an opposed river assault against poor odds. How did we manage to cock it up again? 

Fortune favours the lucky however, and against the odds we beat one of the British cavalry. 

And then the other one. We were really lucky to get away with that. The English leader rode north to join the infantry who were fanning out from Maldon. Somehow we lost an Infantry unit along the way, I cant recall how. 

The British made a desperate counterattack against the isolated Danish  Spearhead in the hopes of capturing the Danish leader. Now their best chance of winning. 

It was a low odds attack though, and instead it was the English leader who perished. With him perished the English hopes and we called it at that point. 

We were very lucky to win that, but once we were over the river, there wasn't much to stop us. 

I really enjoyed that, it was great to actually play something again after a few weeks of forced inactivity, a real morale booster, even if I did keep having to change position, stand up, kneel on the floor etc. It is also a clever and thought provoking game as the limited number of units and activations means you need to have a very clear idea of what you are planning to achieve. Something Jim did and we didn't. 

Many thanks to my regular gaming pals for being so supportive over the last few weeks of my relatively minor, but quite painful, ailment. It does make a big difference. Thanks. 

Normal posting backlog will be resumed shortly and hopefully I'll be up to running a game myself in a few weeks.