Unconditional Surrender France 1940

 Right, on to the third training scenario for Unconditional Surrender, France 1940 this time. This uses everything in the rules and the opening turn features in a blow-by-blow account in the players handbook which was very helpful. I'm fairly happy with the air and ground combat systems, but all the extra stuff like production and replacement, naval operations and even the operation of multi-country alliances needed a fair bit of reading up. Unusually this game also lasts several turns, so I had to read up on the turn end sequence, which is quite nuanced. 

The basic setup. There is a lot going on in this one, despite using Army sized counters. The standard scenario lasts from May to September 1940 and there are many scenario specific rules (eg the Germans cant mount an amphibious invasion or airdrop on Britain. Thankfully the British and German National (NW) Will and production is ignored, but it isn't for everyone else. The Germans need to conquer the Netherlands, Belgium and France by September 1940 or they lose. Conquering is done by reducing NW to zero by capturing cities and destroying field armies. the French start with 20 NW, so will be very tough to defeat. The Belgians and Dutch start with 2 NW, so won't be quite so hard....

The game control sheet has a ton of stuff on it, tracks for Will and Production and for the various events as well as weather and turns. The Allied events include strategic movement and two generic ground support events, while the French get 'tanks' and the British get both surprise attack and naval evacuation as well as 'tanks' of their own. The tank events temporarily add an armoured bonus to one combat.

The Germans get strategic movement, surprise attack and airdrop. Oddly these aren't available until August 1940, despite some of the most famous airborne operations of the war and the Ardennes surprise attack happening in May 1940. Perhaps it is for play balance? As usual there are various scenario options offered.

In May there is a 50:50 chance of Fair weather, and the Germans duly roll fair weather. That will greatly aid their initial attack.

The setup is much as you'd expect, the German Army massed to strike west with no less than three Air Fleets in support. The Allies have two air units (the RAF and French) but the RAF are restricted to base within three hexes of Britain. An extra French unit arrives at the end of May, but carrying 4 'sorties' aka hits with it. One of the German units starts with 2 sorties, presumably from the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April. The balance of airpower is nothing like that in Third Reich or AHGCs 'France 1940' where the Allies are outnumbered 3:1, although in this game the Germans do have a quality advantage.

The offensive opens in the fair weather in May, with waves of airstrikes on the French air force to write it down. The Germans rapidly exhaust the French in these initial attacks, leaving the air to the Germans apart from the RAF. 9th Army rolls over the Netherlands quite easily - the Dutch army is reduced strength to start with, and with air support the Germans knock it out straight away then roll into Amsterdam. The Dutch and Belgians aren't eligible for French or British air support.

The attack into Belgium is slower, the Belgian Army is stronger and the terrain worse (marshland behind a river). There isn't any Eban Emael fortress, so I assume its reduction by Fallschirmjager assault engineers was factored into the scenario. The Belgians are just pushed back to Brussels.

The Germans just keep coming in the Low Countries, the Belgians are pushed out of Brussels and with the loss of their capital, immediately surrender. Well, that is the diversionary attacks done!

The Germans smash French 2nd Army at Sedan with their Panzer groups and push 9th Army back over the Marne, then exploit west, taking Paris en route and surrounding French 1st Army southwest of Antwerp. Mon Dieu! The BEF and 7th Army are pushed back to Calais.

Finally the remaining German infantry armies stretch their line westwards to keep the Maginot Line in ZOC but also to protect the southern flank of the Panzers. With so many infantry in the north, they re looking rather thin! The German infantry in the north attack 1st Army, but even though it is isolated, it survives and retreats into Antwerp (ZOC don't extend into enemy controlled cities, and although Belgium has surrendered the Germans didn't have enough MP to take Antwerp).

The units in the Maginot fortresses don't have any ZOC, so the Germans can slip along the frontier.

That looks like a pretty successful offensive to me, particularly capturing Paris, although the BEF and 7th Army can draw supply from  Calais. The Germans burned all their air support getting this far.

Of course with all the German air used up, the situation is ripe for a counterattack. One of the armies comes out of the Maginot line and joins 9th Army supported by French tanks in a counterattack using 'assault' mode which allows units to combine. That pushes the Germans back and cuts the rail line west to Paris.

In the north 1st Army evacuates by sea from Antwerp to Le Havre (what a rotten trick!), 7th Army falls back to Calais  but the BEF, supported by the RAF and British tanks counterattacks Paris! The Germans are surrounded, unable to retreat and after two assaults are first reduced and then eliminated. 2nd Panzer Group has been destroyed! The BEF retake Paris and the French get four Will Points (WP) back.

Well, that is what happens when the 'sickle cut' offensive doesn't quite make it to the sea. What a disaster.

Naturally in June the weather turned bad, restricting the effectiveness of all units but particularly air and armour, while restricting all combat to assaults only. The Germans occupied the reduced Maginot Line hex SE of Sedan but Metz and Strasbourg were still solidly defended. They then assaulted Paris and pushed the BEF back out again.

In the north they assaulted Calais, but the French held them off.

In the Allied turn the BEF assaulted Paris, supported by all the adjacent French armies and the RAF (as the Allies had air parity now) and although they didn't destroy 1st Panzer Group, they reduced it a step. With 2nd Panzer Group still rebuilding in Germany, I called it at that point as I'd managed to wreck both the entire Panzer arm as well as the Luftwaffe in a reckless assault. A well deserved Allied victory, but at least I'd got more idea how things hung together in a longer game. I was too used the very short Poland and Norway games.

Armed with better knowledge and aware of the various bits of the rules I'd got wrong, time for a better go.

This time I rolled up bad weather for May, but in some ways it was a blessing as it forced a more measured approach. Once again I wrote down the French airforce, but launched a series of limited attacks to take Belgium and Holland. The French had availed themselves of the strategic move option to rail a unit into Antwerp, which was annoying. 

Restricted to just one attack per unit, it was slow going but the Germans got there in the end, although I was forced to commit one of the Panzer groups to take Brussels. I tried to keep as much air back as possible for future use (you can recover a maximum of two steps per unit in the production/mobilisation phase) but I took the opportunity to capture Sedan with infantry.

The Allies were content to deploy into a strong defensive line. Leg infantry in the front, with the mobile BEF and 1st Army in the second line as well as a garrison in Paris to provide extra ZOC and a counterattack force while the RAF staged to Calais. The French air reinforcements appeared in Paris - Calais and Paris being at  extreme range for German counter air missions.

The Allies went into June quietly confident that the Germans now faced a WW1 style slogging match.

Sadly they had reckoned without the power of the Blitzkrieg in clear weather. June rolled up clear weather, and the panzers and Luftwaffe swung into action. The Luftwaffe smashed the French airforce, then both Panzer groups pushed forward and set up a series of encirclements which allowed the following infantry armies to annihilate most of the French front line.

They didnt attack Paris this time as it was so exposed, and ignored the BEF entirely to avoid a battle with the RAF, instead they tore a huge hole in the French line along the Marne and poured south through the gap, taking Dijon and Vichy, and isolating the Maginot Line!

The western end of the Maginot Line held out however, so the German forces south of the Marne outran their supplies (2nd Panzer Group is under that low supply marker SE of Paris) as the rail line remained closed.

There wasn't a great deal the Allies could do about this catastrophe with several field armies now in the 'eliminated' box and waiting to be rebuilt (a two turn process). One of the French armies sallied from the Maginot Line to threaten Dijon, otherwise the rest just tried to form a line along the west to avoid losing more cities. I've put the air sortie markers on top of the air units so you can see the state of the air forces - I think you are supposed to do that anyway.

The Germans didn't have enough MP to take Lyons last turn so there is an Allied marker on it. Next turn the French will be able to put a replacement unit in there.

July to September is guaranteed Fair Weather, so in July the Germans took Paris while launching an assault on the western Maginot Line to open the rail line south led by Panzer Group 2. The attack managed to reduce the garrison but not eliminate it - forts are tough.  

They also managed to reduce the fort at Strasbourg but not take it - the writing was on the wall for the Maginot Line now. The fall of Paris also allowed the Germans to isolate the BEF east of Calais. If only they had retreated into the town when they had the chance. Instead they were surrounded, isolated and destroyed by a series of concentric attacks. Finally the starving Germans in Vichy stumbled southeast and captured Lyons - coupled with the fall of Paris and Calais, that was enough to reduce the French Will to zero and France surrendered.

Given the game length (May to September) I suspect France is always going to lose this one in the long run barring an early German disaster. The France 1941 scenario is more balanced, but this is excellent as a training scenario as it exercises all the mechanisms - I'm just sorry I never got to player the British 'naval evacuation' event. I actually felt like I was playing the game in that second run rather than just being buffeted by events and scratching my head, so I'm getting there I think. The Italy and France 1944 scenarios are both pretty big, so I need some more practice before then. The invasion of the Balkans beckons.

Room at the Inn

 Time for another trip to our on/off early 1980s WW3 series. This time we are joining the plucky socialist heroes of the Czech 15th Motor Rifle Division on their trip through Austria, previously seen here from our last game a couple of years ago: https://tgamesweplay.blogspot.com/2024/04/phaffing-around.html

I really must dig out my central front stuff again, I've not put on a game for almost ten years now, but Tim was running this one with his 6mm toys and NATO Brigade Commander. And yes, he does have all right Czech kit, including wheeled artillery, wheeled 57mm AA guns etc. 

The field of battle, north is left. The River Inn runs down the centre of the screen and the outskirts of Brunau (sp? ) are visible at the top. The entire city is large, so the Czechs are going around it. The Inn also marks the border between Germany and Austria.

We had a pretty good turnout for this one. Pete did the overall plan for the Czechs, I was the division commisar to ensure everyone followed the plan in the correct spirit (and I also ran the divisional assets). Russell commanded a regiment of fearless Czech paratroops, Jim the 68th Motor Rifle Regiment and Terry the (Divisional) 20th Tank Regiment.

The Capitalist Running Dogs were Ian running the Bundeswehr, Micheal the Austrians and John A in overall command.

Our general scheme was to drop the paras at the far end of the bridge, and race to the rescue with the MR Regiment and Tank Regiment, clearing out any annoying pockets of resistance on the way.

As a couple of units I was assigned included traffic control units, I broke out my ancient copy of 'Armies of the Warsaw Pact'. Cheery Soviet traffic regulation troops can be seen on the left, while traffic regulation diagrams and unit march orders are on the right.

As we had no intel on the defences at all, and as we had been thoughtfully supplied with a bridging train, I thought it best to prepare a plan B just in case the paradrop wasn't fully successful....

Diagrams for assault river crossings, there were a couple of suitable sites west of the autobahn bridge with decent deployment areas for the bridging train. The manual did mention preparation of the opposing bank with tactical nuclear weapon fires. I'm sure that will be just fine and dandy.

Tim ran the game with his usual roving eye camera view, which certainly introduces an element of fog of war. Dimly visible in the distance is the head of  Jims MRR while in the foreground, the paras have had quite a decent drop without too much scatter and only discovered one company of German jaegers in the town beside the autobahn.

The explosions are from the Czech preparatory barrage, which was noisy and spectacular but ineffective.

Slightly alarming was what looked like an entire Austrian mechanised battalion in the outskirts of Brunau. An armoured combat team was on a rise overlooking the bridge and an infantry heavy combat team was in the city itself. You can just see Austrian M60s on the ridge above the bridge, accompanied by an AA platoon of Dusters.

Also noisy and spectacular was the unwelcome arrival of an Austrian Saab Draken. Fortunately it got distarcted chasing away the paras Antonovs.

The Czech barrage lands beside the bridge! (luckily not on it), and the Jaegers shoot up one of the para companies. It is hard to see but I've put a PT76 recce company into the village just above the bridge and a company of OT65s onto the river bank at the far end to scout out crossing sites.

More Germans rock up, another Jaeger company and a company of Jagdpanzer Kanone. The M60s and Duster shoot up the paras from across the river.

To everyone amazement, the para AT missile platoon manages to hit and knock out some of the M60s. Two more companies of paras assault the Jaegers in the town and destroy them, only to run into their own artillery barrage. The para commander clearly didn't read the fire plan. The paras took losses and hit the dirt.

The lead battalion of the MRR reached the southern end of the bridge as Austrian refugees fled in terror. The Regimental T55 battalion peeled off to engage the M60s, covered by an airstrike from venerable Mig 21s. Eagle eyed readers will spot the PT76s lurking around the pump control station on the dam. They have spotters for the divisional artillery attached and I want to get them in position to spot the Austrians. The dam is passable by foot troops, so another potential crossing site.

The leading APCs crunch across the bridge and link up with the paras, who have now taken losses from the German jaegers and are looking distinctly shaky. A Frogfoot strike misses the M60s, but they are finished off by the para AT missile platoon while the T55s knock out the Dusters.

Back at the river, the Czech OT65s start swimming across the river! Very carefully...

Back the bridgehead, the shattered paras fall back to regroup under German artillery fire and the Motor Rifle troops take up the fight. Czech Frogfoots target the Germans and inflict some losses.

A bit of a problem further back down the column! The Austrian mechanised infantry venture forth from the city and attack the MRRs (towed) artillery battalion. This of course blocks the autobahn and stops the bridging column moving on. Terrys Tank Regiment is marching on in column to cross the river, but someone is going to have to deal with the Austrian infantry.

Well, we will leave that conundrum until tomorrow night as we broke for the evening at that point.

The action resumed the following day. Given the 'flying camera' viewpoint, expect a certain degree of chaos as to what gets photographed for here on in, as things were happening all over the place.

Back down on the Autobahn, the Czech artillerymen tried to break off from the vicious Austrian infantry assault. They retreated in a disorganised fashion under the guns of the Tank Regiment. Unfortunately the Austrians were made of stern stuff and pursued them! 

Some Hinds turned up and set themselves up in range of the rampaging Austrians. The MRR HQ pulled off the road to allow the leading units of 20th Tank Regiment to approach the bridge, but unfortunately the trailing two tank battalions had become embroiled in the battle down on the Autobahn.

The Austrians meanwhile covered themselves with glory. They dispersed the Czech gunners, then routed one of the T72 battalions which tried to overrun them! Sadly they had taken heavy losses from close range tank guns by this point.

Hearing alarming radio chatter about incoming artillery strikes, they engaged the T55s more closely.

I had meanwhile called down the entire Divisional artillery (152mm guns and MLRS) on the impudent Austrians, and despite the proximity to the our own troops, just let fly. More Hinds appeared and both wings poured rockets into the melee too. 

A certain degree of friendly fire took place, but more importantly, the last of the Austrians had enough and disappeared, so we had (finally) cleared the southern bank of the river.

North of the river, the MRR finally managed to deploy two battalions and the Regimental mortar and AT companies while the paras dug in. With more force to bear, they soon saw off the Jaegers and consolidated the bridgehead as the Tank Regiment thundered past.

And what of the swimming OT65s? Well, they finally made it across the Inn despite some strong currents, and scouted out a bridge site. A German panzergrenadier battalion briefy made an appearance, took one look at the massed Soviet armour across the river and thought better of it and went away again. So, several hours later, a pontoon bridge went across the river upstream from the dam as an alternate crossing point. Bravo!

That was excellent fun and purely by chance we managed a strategic victory by seizing the Autobahn bridge intact. The paras had very fortunately managed to forestall the demolition team, and some of us had misunderstood the victory conditions and completely ignored the Austrians in Brunau, not realising we were supposed to clear them out until we'd already bypassed them. Ahem. It worked out OK in the end, even if it did cost us an artillery and tank battalion to do it

The game rattled along very well as ever, and reminded me that I really, really must dust off the central front again..

More Leaders pt3 - French

 As I noted in my post on substitute figures, I don't actually have any dedicated WW2 French figures although I have boxfuls of WW1 French. I tend to use Adrian helmeted SCW figures instead as they look much the same and many of them were originally French figures anyway. Well, after the now numerous appearances of my General de Gaulle figure, I realised I 'needed' some French officer figures in Kepis for an upcoming game as they are so distinctive.

Another bunch of Skytrex figures, this time from the French command pack, which contained no less than 11 figures, which I think must have been an error. Slightly disappointingly, only three of them were in kepis, although it did have the inevitable pigeon team, like the Airfix WW1 set. Most of them were NCOS in greatcoats with helmets and rifles. Never mind, a cunning plan presented itself.

I just based up six of the figures as an extra pair of infantry stands. Five of these are Skytrex NCOs and the tall guy in the middle of the second base is Essex I think. He came out of my bag of spare gunners in Adrian helmets.

These will be useful supplements for my other SCW figures in Adrians, although they are very obviously wearing French style greatcoats too. My regular group seem to enjoy 1940 games, so it will be nice to have a few more proper French troops.

The three actual figures in kepis are these. Two of them with pistols and one with binoculars, they are all wearing greatcoats. I did the guy with binos in a kepi with a khaki cover (the most common configuration), a second in an uncovered kepi, so dark blue with a red top and finally one in an FFL kepi blanc. Yes I know only ORs were supposed to wear white kepi covers, but it is such an iconic piece of headgear.

Like the British and Russians, these were basecoated in Vallejo English Uniform, and then various details and highlights picked out with a pinwash around the equipment, inkwash on the flesh and a light drybrush.

Painting these finally finished my pot of Vallejo English Uniform! I've had this for years and it has painted hundreds of figures and provided mud on scores of vehicles. It was one of the first Vallejo paints I bought once my last pot of Humbrol Khaki ran out. I still absolutely hate dropper bottles as I prefer to dip my brush in the paint and not waste it on a palette, but this was great paint with lovely coverage and consistent colour right to the end. I could probably unscrew the top with a pair of pliers to get the last out, but I already had a replacement in stock as it is such a useful colour.

As a postscript, I've subsequently discovered that if I store the bottle upside down, there is still tons of usable paint in it. So a few more months life in it. Maybe you are supposed to store them upside down? Search me. 

 
  

More ACW experimentation - Bakers Creek 1863

After my rather unsatisfactory experiment with various changes at Stones Creek, I toned the modifications to my ACW rules down a bit and reverted to units facing a hexside, not a hex vertex. What works really well for Napoleonics just seemed to break everything in the ACW, possibly because units are more mobile? Who knows, but I know a bad game when I see one. I kept the additional activation modifiers, tidied up the turn sequence and retained the more generous road movement and rallying near the  enemy distances as they work better with a hex grid. I also upped the Army break point to 66% of infantry bases as the rules are so bloody armies were breaking tooo quickly.

It turned out one of my regular blogging acquaintances was having an ACW month over at https://angrydackel.com/ and he made the brilliant suggestion to adopt the same fire/move sequence as I use in the Napoleonic set. So, with the latest set of revisions in place, off we go for another play test. Grant vs Pemberton.

This time we are at Bakers Creek in 1863 where US Grant faced off against JC Pemberton. There is a proper scenario for this in the V&B ACW scenario book, but I wanted a quick and decisive engagement, so instead modelled the scenario on OHW Scenario 7 'Flank Attack'. Grant had managed to outflank Pemberton, although in the real battle, it was more like a 50:50 split between the pinning force and the flanking force.

To win the Union needs exclusive control of the hill while the Confederates just need one unit left on it to win, but have the huge disadvantage of being surprised from their right flank.

I used Neil Thomas's ACW army generator for this. The CSA have seven infantry units and two guns, two of the infantry are Green and two are Veteran. I used Zouaves for the Veteran units and put the Green ones in a three base wide line with one base in support (you can see them both on the front edge of the ridge with the guns). The seasoned and veteran units I just put in double ranked supported line, the best formation in Fire and Fury.

The CSA units all have to set up on the hill and all facing south. Limits of real estate force them to set up in at least two lines. I stacked their left flank in expectation of the Union attack. Fortunately they make a very unattractive melee target, being uphill, despite being flanked. 

Grants pinning force is two green infantry units, deployed the same as the CSA green units, plus a gun. The US guns are rifled, so more effective at range than the CSA. The two ridges are at long cannon shot but out of rifle range.

The flanking force has four seasoned and one veteran unit plus another gun, so the CSA have the edge in quality and position and equal numbers too. Grants strike force has superiority at the decisive point however. Both sides have a leader (Grant and Pemberton), needed for activation and can help with rallying.

There is little point charging the CSA units as being uphill the attackers can only hit them on 5+, so I'm going to move into close range and get a free point blank shot while the enemy pivot to face. Five units against three should give the US significant fire superiority.

The Union guns roar out and completely miss, the rest of the Union troops move forward. I've reverted to the old move system, so infantry can move two hexes straight ahead, but if they pivot they can only move one, but can pivot multiple times.

The green units shuffle slowly forward, keeping out of rifle range. On the right, the unit in the woods fires at long range while the other four close up - one of the benefits of the fire then move sequence. Both the guns and the supporting unit are now masked as they have a friendly unit halfway to the hill. Hills are assumed to be twice as high as units or woods for LOF purposes. Grant has accompanied one of the assaulting units, and Pemberton is the middle of the units defending the east side of the ridge.

The CSA mostly pass their activation checks (all within LOS of the CinC so anything but a 1) and variously pivot to face the threats. Annoyingly one of the reserve veteran units fails to activate so can only pivot in place, but  turns to set up a two hex move next turn.

The CSA guns concentrate on the green US units and chip off a couple of hits (lucky!).

Both sides have identical breakpoints, 19 bases lost. No bases lost yet though.

Things hot up. Despite being out of LOS of Grant the two green units move up the ridge from the south, while almost everyone else opens up at point blank range. Ouch! I've removed the restriction that fire has to spread evenly. It may be more realisiic but it makes the game dull. The US inflict enough losses to remove some bases and two CSA units are forced to retreat.

They are now horribly stacked up and if unable to retreat any more lose extra bases instead. I do allow units to interpenetrate if they start the turn facing in the same direction, so some of them still have a retreat route, but others don't. 

The CSA suddenly realise that the units which just retreated are out of sight on the reverse slope! They rally in place and each recover a base. The US are now in a tricky position as if they advance onto the ridge it is they who will be on the wrong end of a 2:1 firepower ratio. Umm, perhaps the CSA should have defended one hex back to start with....

The Union shoot away at the CSA units they can still see. That CSA unit in the top right is a veteran and quite resilient.

The CSA have committed all their reserves now as a US unit braves the ridge. The CSA Zouaves in the top right are apparently bullet proof and hang on! Surprisingly the US green units are doing quite well and force one of their opposite numbers to retreat. The CSA leave the gun behind as it still requires a morale check to assault frontally.

Hard pounding gentlemen! Both sides bang away and now it is a union green unit which retreats. The retired CSA green unit is busy trying to rally (it lost two bases to concentrated fire) but it is hard to rally green units (5+). The CSA gun withdrew to join another unit as it was a bit exposed on its own.

A bad hour for the Confederacy. Not one but two units go down demoralised by close range fire and then unable to retreat due to friends blocking the way. The other CSA battery is now exposed on its own, and the breakpoint (BP) count is well in the Union favour.

Now the Union starts to crack and the division on the ridge falls back, as do the Zouaves in the northeast. The CSA still control the ridge but are now compressed into an arc facing southeast. Grant can dimly be seen in the northeast. 

The union now has a choice to make. Spend a couple of turns rallying or push on? Grant opts to be aggressive and three US units crest the ridge from the southeast.

Both green US units would have joined them but they are both dithering (the green counters) as is the unit in the wood. Grant has moved to the very southeast now to better control the army from a central position as his other wing was out of sight before. 

The Union managed to drive one CSA unit back and the unit in the woods manages to rally. Everyone else blazes away.

The CSA also blaze away and one Union unit breaks and runs with two bases lost.

The Union keeps plugging away however and pushes the CSA back into the northwest corner. While trying to steady his troops, Pemberton is hit and carried from the field.  

Despite one last big effort by the CSA which pushes back another union unit, US fire tips the Confederates over their break point. 

The CSA only hope is to do the same to the US. Most of their units dither (losing the CinC makes failing their activation far more likely) but although they chip some hits off the US, at the end of the turn the US are still in the field while the Confederates are pulling back exhausted. A US victory.

That went much better than Stones River, and while there were periods of intense slugging, (as in so many ACW battles), the revised mechanisms all worked fine. I'm particularly pleased with the fire/move sequence which worked really well, and the new Army breakpoints prevent the game becoming endless as units rally, which was always a problem with the older system. The players will have to get used to managing the pace of combat though, as if they just chuck everything in, they are going to get burned out very quickly. I've got a couple of scenarios (Chickamauge and Chancellorsville) which I've only ever soloed, so I'd like to try them real players. They will be appearing in due course.