Friendly Fire

This was a game put on by Tim a few weeks ago. For no apparent reason, our erstwhile allies and ideological comrades, Svenhasselstein conducted a raid on peace loving Vulgaria and made off with the only motor vehicle in the entire country. Time to teach our pointy headed neighbours a lesson.

The table from Svenhasslestein. The river marks the border.

The Vulgarian army assembles, a brigade each of infantry and cavalry (at half scale for a tabletop game).

Svenhasselstein forces climb out of their boxes.

The enemy column enters the table.

British observer.

Detached Vulgarian forces move to cut the road.

Vulgarian infantry and guns under Johns supervision move to cut off the enemy retreat.

The defenceless column approaches as our troops move to intercept.

While the bridge is firmly brought under fire.

Oh dear, enemy infantry and cavalry appear.

One lot appear right behind the heroic Vulgarians. What a shabby trick!

Fortunately our brave cavalry ride to the rescue on the other flank.

And also turn up to help our infantry.

Leaving the field littered with enemy corpses.

The cavalry screen the flank of the  surviving infantry

On the other flank the cavalry ride off to sieze the car

A stray shell lands right behind the enemy staff car, which certainly reduced the number of wounded to evacate.

Confused melee on the approaches to the bridge

Just a few survivors as more of our troops cross the bridge

On the other side of the river one lonely gunner survives the enemy counterbattery fire

Events ended with the Svenhasselstein survivors being escorted back over the border by the remaining Vulgarians. The Vulgarian High Command is still slightly baffled as to why Svenhasselstein should have risked all out war with Vulgaria for no apparent reason at all, and the engagement proved hideously costly for both sides. The Vulgarian losses were mainly infantrymen however, and there are plenty more where they came from.

Grossenfartz (Part 3)

I bring you the concluding part of the struggle from the Vulgrian pov. The Anglophobians have been admirably catered for over on Tims blog. As you recall, we left things with the Vulgrian  left wing locked in battle with the enemy trenches.

The Vulgarian CO looks on somewhat blankly. He might be dim but he has a big moustache,

Anglophobian reserves and armoured train form up as the Vulgarian train approaches the buffers.

Over on the right, the Anglophobians unwisely leave their trenches just as the Vulgarian heavy cavalry and reserve infantry battalion put in an appearance. I discovered that firing at a thin line of infantry with matchsticks is really hard, even at point blank range!

Heavy cavalry advance.

The struggle for the trench finally ends with the Vulgarians victorious. The intention had been to shoot this attack in with the guns, but they were masked by the train. Ooops...

The victorious Vulgarians push on to the next line of resistance. The advanatage of their deep formation becomes apparent.

The cavalry charge the Anglophobian infantry who are already weakened by artillery fire.

And wipe them out....

Enemy artillery tears huge gaps in the Vulgarian formation but they press on.

Vulgarians leap from the train and surprise the enemy HQ!

The surviving Vulgarians close with the Anglophobian reserves.

Over on the right the cavalry approach the brewery.

To everyones astonishment, the HQ drives off its assailants.

Sadly things don't go quite so well for the Anglos in the centre and Vulgarian infantry overrun their opponents.

At this point all three Anglophobian battalions had been destroyed and they had lost two guns, so the Anglophobians decided to pack up and head for home.

An interesting and enjoyable battle, I was particularly pleased with the success of the 'wave attack', perhaps those C19 drill manual writers knew what they were talking about. Another interesting feature was the effectiveness of a single rank open order line against artillery fire, I blazed away at the right hand Anglo battalion for several turns and only managed to hit a couple of figures. In contrast, once the armoured train got the range it blew huge holes in the deep Vulgarian waves. A realistic effect from the simple mechanism of actually firing projectiles.

Despite being compoletely set up for it, both sides managed to avoid blowing up the brewery, which was a bonus.

Righto, time to pursue the Anglophobians back to their ships I think. Lets hope there aren't any nasty surprises on the way....

Grossenfartz (Part 2)

We last left the action with the Lancers about to overrun the Anglophibian heavy artillery and the surprise appearance of the Vulgarian steam train.

The train roars past the infantry at top speed, unfortunately runnng over a few individuals who strayed too close to the track. Vulgarian infantry brigade HQs follow the assault waves closely.

The enemy artillery knocks out the lead wagon of the train, scattering the occupants across the tracks.

The Lancers meanwhile make short work of the gunners, only to be faced with a Anglophibian motorised infantry debussing.

The train crashes through the enemy trenches as the survivors from the lead wagon assault the gun in desperate hand-hand combat. The train is going at top speed at this point and needs to start thinking about slowing down.

The Lancers charge the motorised infantry.

The battle for the gun rages, both sides down to one figure each...

The Lancers suffer badly at the hands of the infantry.

Despite the gaps torn in their formation by enemy fire, the leading waves of Vulgarians reach the trench.

The divisional commander and staff move on (rather blurrily)

View from behind the Anglophobian trench line.

The fighting for the trench was vicious with heaps of casualties on both sides, but for every Vulgarian who fell, another stepped up to fill his place from the following waves.

And there we leave it with the Lancers bloodied, the train steaming at full pelt for the buffers at the end of the line and fighting for the first trench in progress. Another instalment soon to come!

Grossenfartz (Part 1)

This battle was run at the Sheffield Wargames Society in June 2013 and was a follow up to the entirely unprovoked Anglophobian invasion of Vulgaria. Tim organised the game, I provided the Vulgarian hordes and Mark Hides commanded the perfidious Anglophobians. We ran it using the successful 'half scale' game version ,substituting cm for inches and using half size units. This meant we could run it on a tabletop and save our poor suffering knees and backs.

Having played a few games of FLW now, I have been pondering how on earth you are supposed to attack stationary defenders who get to blaze away happily while their plodding opponents obligingly march into rifle range. For this game I had sufficient forces to employ an appropriate tactical response, straight out of late nineteenth century drill manuals. Concentration of effort (naturally), but also accepting that casualties would be appalling so:

i) open order to minimise losses, regardless of the reduction in effect for melee
ii) form up in successive waves to maintain the momentum of the attack a.k.a. step over the  bodies in front. A bit like the Russian charge in 'Enemy at the Gates'
iii) keep going, don't stop to fire or change formation, it just increases the time spent in the beaten zone

So essentially just line up and charge, but with the chaps sufficiently spread out that hopefully they could advance faster than the enemy could kill them. My own artillery would try to shoot them in as much as possible.

The Vulgarians assemble, the largest force used to date (albeit at half scale), six infantry battalions, two cavalry regiments, three artillery batteries plus various HQ types.

The Anglophobians deploy to defend the vital rail junction and brewery. They have dug trenches, what a rotten trick!

The brewery containing the very gassy (and highly volatile) Vulgarian beer.

Leading Vulgarian waves march on left of the railway line. Four battalions in open order supported lines and deployed in echelon, four waves in all. The Jagers are getting a bit ahead of themselves.

Field artillery dragged ponderously into position. Lack of table space meant I didn't use the limbers. The plan was to fire diagonally in support of the infantry, covered from fire to the front by the wood.

Anglophobian hordes smugly in their trenches.

Worms eye view of the Vulgarians.

The Vulgarian secret weapon! A steam train loaded with infantry and carrying and artillery battery. The plan was for it to crash through the Anglophobian lines once they had been softened up, sadly the train entered a little prematurely...

Another surprise! The Lancer regiment successfully flank marches and emerges behind the Anglophobian heavy gun.

At the same time, an Anglophibian armoured train makes an appearance, oh dear! The Anglophobian HQ signals frantically.

So, there we leave it for now. The opening moves have been made, and already there are some unexpected developments.