The Last Redoubt, Belgium 1914 with Funny Little Wars

 Our latest f2f 54mm outing was back to 1914, and the Belgian defence of Antwerp, or at least the approaches to it. Tim ran it with his liberal interpretation of 'Funny Little Wars'.

The general layout, Antwerp and the National Redoubt are up in the top left with Russell modelling for scale. There is a canal  cutting across the battlefield and various towns dotted around. We christened the larger town on the canal Louvian.

Tim had recently scored a good eBay deal on a load of model railway buildings, and really lovely they were too. They really enhanced the look of the battlefield. Here is 'Louvain' with a few civilians scattered about, anxiously looking eastwards where Beastly Germans might be.

The National Redoubt. No, those aren't Airfix coastal gun emplacements but a carefully modelled Belgian fort. I was designated as overall commander of 6th Mixed Brigade and had my HQ here along with a company of Carabinieri and the mighty 40cm fortress battery. There are a couple of field batteries in evidence, I would allocate those to the front line units.

A nunnery nervously awaits the Germans, there was a monastery on the other side of the battlefield.

The Teutonic horde! An entire German Reserve Corps with two divisions of four Regiments and a reserve brigade of two Regiments. The Corps also had a cavalry regiment and seven field or howitzer batteries.

Pete and Lloyd commanded a division each while Simon was Corps commander.

The mobile element of 6th Mixed Brigade. A Cavalry Regiment supported by cyclists, a battalion of Chasseurs and a detachment of Minerva armoured cars! Russell commanded these - I assigned them to a mobile screening role well forward.

The infantry component was two small battalions of infantry with an MG detachment plus a mobile field kitchen (!). I assigned both field batteries to support them.

This force was the pivot of manouvre, holding both Louvain and one of the villages behind the canal which we had further fortified with inundations to act as a strongpoint.

We had to designate three objectives, the Germans then secretly assigned points values to them. We selected Louvain, the flooded village and the outskirts of Antwerp.

Close up of the fort with my personal figure manning the ramparts. I had a lengthy list of personal objectives which included giving as many press briefings as possible to emphasise the 'plucky; nature of our defence. Another was to appear to support the forward units, while actually amassing as many resources as possible for the defence of Antwerp...

Lloyds division came marching on down the main road in column, and then diverted off the highway across country (assume minor roads).

This was followed by Petes division which came straight down the highway in march column. It really looked quite menacing. The German Corps HQ with its howitzer batteries was further back, and there was no sign of the Reserve brigade. Unfortunately Lloyd had forgotten the German cavalry, so we used dismounted cavalry figures as scout squadrons. These busied themselves visiting the various settlements and engaging in beastly behaviour.

Russell meanwhile had conducted a masterful mobile defence and withdrawn across the canal, before marching north to defend the this canal crossing - the same one Lloyd was approaching. The Minerva was extremely mobile and reached the bridge long before anyone else.

The Germans deployed into fighting lines as they were sprayed with MG fire from the armoured cars. Their return fire was shrugged off by the vehicles armour, although the German field batteries can just be seen deploying in the distance.

The armoured cars brave defence allowed the Chasseurs and Cavalry to move into position. A ring of steel around the bridge!

Meanwhile the Germans were lining up for a frontal assault on Louvain, their two leading Regiments covered by artillery and MGs. The Belgian field batteries were hotly engaging the Germans now.

A bit of an overview, the flooded village is to the right and the Belgian artillery can just be seen to the bottom left of the inundations.

Sadly the defenders of Louvain didn't hold out for long as they were outnumbered about 8:1 and the town fell. Petes Germans fought their way through the town.

This brought them into cannister range of the Belgian guns. Instead of matchsticks, they got to fire Party Poppers at this range, and John got to fire two salvoes. Just look at the streamers all over those massed Germans...

The close range artillery fire shredded the Germans, and although they struggled to maintain their position for a while, the writing was on the wall for these two Regiments.

A German aircraft surveys the battlefield! The miracle of AI photo editing has removed the arm holding it....

One of the great things about playing at Tapton Hall are the lunches. I was going out in the evening, I 'just' had this very nice Shepherds Pie with gravy, cabbage and broccoli.

After lunch the massacre resumed, more close range cannon/Party Popper fire.

Followed up a cavalry/cyclist charge!

Which largely put Petes boys to flight. This division was finished now.

With most of Russells troops now in the centre, Lloyd finally managed to cross the canal on the left, while Petes artillery pounded the flooded village. This inflicted losses on the defenders and knocked out one of the field batteries. The Field Kitchen can just be seen in the foreground falling back to Antwerp.

Having crossed the canal, Lloyds Germans started marching right to relieve the pressure on Pete. This put their marching columns right across the front of the mighty Fortress artillery, personally directed by me, in the awed presence of the world press.

Hopefully you can see the German columns in the distance. Closer than it looks for matchstick cannon.

Much of Russells cavalry and the Minerva was now reinforcing the flooded village, which was still holding out. Lloyds first Regiments can be seen lined up along the highway, but flanking fire from the fortress had thinned their numbers considerably.

Back in Antwerp, the surviving Field Battery is set up on the highway, while Russells Chasseurs and busy digging in between the fortress and the outskirts of the city, awaiting the arrival of the British Naval Division.

The Germans clearly weren't going to take the village with the force they still had available. The Reserve Brigade never turned up at all, and with that we called it a day.

Most of us had achieved at least some of our personal objectives but when we totted up the Victory Points, it was a draw!

I think the Belgians can be quite pleased with that, and although I didn't capture it in pictures, the mobile force spent the game charging around all over the place, very heroic.

That was a great day out, very enjoyable, and while it may not be 100% historically accurate, captured the flavour of the period very well. Lovely toys too, a pleasure to push them around.

Herring Wars - Operation Kamerad

 Tim has been running a hypothetical late nineteenth/early twentieth century conflict between Denmark and Norway for some years now, "The Herring Wars". This is mainly an excuse to drag out lovely 1/1200th scale models of pre dreadnoughts, armoured cruisers etc but for various reasons I've missed every single session!

The rules themselves are fairly simple, but combat is resolved using Fred Jane type ship silhouettes as seen below.

If the ship is large and nearby, use a big template, small and far away, use a small template. They go into the custom shooting box. Instead of dropping darts on them as Fred Jane did however...

The actual firing is resolved by using Britains 25pdrs firing matchsticks at the targets. Here are the deadly guns lined up waiting for action. Of all the Britains various spring loaded guns, we've found over the years that the 25pdr is invariably the most accurate and powerful.

This time we were up at Tapton and making use of the very handy gridded floor in the main Masonic Lodge room. The original orders for each contingent had been written by various 'Admirals' scattered around the globe, I was cast as German , and Admiral von Holtzendorff (Micheal over in the US) had ordered me to locate and shadow a Russian squadron believed to be transiting the area. The first few moves were adjudicated hidden using these huge playing cards (easily A4 sized), and each square represents around 2 nautical miles.

A pair of Norwegian (?) armoured cruisers, delightful metal models from Navis (?) in Germany. Even the turrets rotate... hideously expensive models and we were under strict orders about when and where we were allowed to walk on the floor. Russell commanded the Norwegians.

We were aware that the Danes and Norwegians were out there, but what they were up to was anyones guess. My orders were to avoid an engagement unless attacked, I was basically to show the flag and shadow the Russians across the table.

Three Danish torpedo boats. Stacking too many ships in a square risked a collision, less of a problem with small ships, but you certainly didn't want to stack too many battleships or cruisers. Major turns required a dice roll, easy for small ships, harder for big ones and modified by damage sustained.

John commanded the Danes.

The main Danish battle squadron, a battleship and a pair of cruisers. We rolled each turn for visibility (the Skagerrac is notorious for fog banks etc) ands ships within a few squares were revealed. There were a number of dummies too. These guys are sailing a bit close to the wind in terms of collision risk.

My squadron eventually revealed itself as we approached an interesting (and slow moving set of cards). KMS Strassburg, (a Konigsberg class light cruiser) and a pair of torpedo boats. We'd been ordered to stay in one square to ease signalling, but we did seem a bit packed in. 

Fortunately in the distance was our target, a big old Russian battleship and a cruiser. They were wisely spread out, as the BB needed a 3+ to make a turn. Jerry was commanding the Russians The big surprise was that also in attendance was HMS Weymouth, a Royal Navy cruiser (commanded by Diego).

I had orders for a pre arranged signal to send to the Russians and a flurry of signal lamps ensued as we all attempted to hail each other and inform everyone of our identity and intentions. The poor weather and lack of skill of our signallers repeatedly interfered with our efforts, and only fragmentary messages were received. It was apparent no-one was shooting at anyone else so we all sailed eastwards in amiable company.

Further east a Danish airship had spotted some Norwegian fishing boats. Or are they Japanese torpedo boats?

There suddenly seemed to be an awful lot of warships in close proximity, but repeatedly bad weather hampered sighting attempts. There were sounds of gunfire as a squadron of Danish torpedo boats found one of the Norwegian fishing fleets and started to sink it! I'm fairly sure that is piracy on the high seas.

The Royal Navy (HMS Sussex?) investigates the Danish battleship. There seemed to be quite a few RN ships floating around. This particular encounter passed peacefully.

In the face of the Danish aggression, the other Norwegian fishing fleet scattered. The Royal Navy went tearing off to see what the Scandinavians were up to. 

In the south the Danes broke off their attacks after a number of TBDs became fouled in fishing nets. We and the Russians turned south and started to look for survivors, being a bit careful after a couple of dodgy turning rolls. We finally seemed to have established satisfactory communications and sailed along in convoy.

One of the nice things about Tapton are the great lunches! Meat pie, chips, mushy peas, gravy and Hendersons, washed down with a pint. Mmmmm.

Back in the hell of the Skagerrac, a major action developed between the Danes and Norwegians. Danish Torpedo Boats engaged Norwegian cruisers and came off rather worst (the big red golf tees).

Even the Danish battleship got into action, but in all the excitement I'm afraid I forgot to take enough pictures!

Having seen the Russians safely across the Skagerrac and into the Baltic, my squadron headed north towards the sound of the gunfire.

But by then both the Danes and Norwegians had broken off the action, neither apparently wanted to risk significant damage to their major surface units. You can see the damaged TBDs retreating past the fishing boats, and the rest of the Danes pulling back further north shadowed by the Royal Navy.

As the fighting had obviously finished, we called it a day at that point and did a round robin washup of what our various orders and aims had been. The Russians and Germans had managed their transit of the sea without major incident, the Norwegians claimed a winning draw based on how many ships/fishing boats they had sunk, but had clearly come off the worst in the encounter. The Royal Navy had however signally failed to keep the peace.

That was lots of fun and I found it quite inspiring. I don't do huge amounts of naval gaming but I thought the rules might work quite well with my Russo-Japanese War stuff, although I'd have to come up with some sort of dice system to resolve hits on the various sizes of target. 

 

Der Tag 1916 revisited

 We fancied another trip to the North Sea in 1916, so Jim put on 'Der Tag 1916' again. This featured on the blog a few months ago, but briefly it is a solo game about Jutland, although we played it as teams. 

The campaign is regulated on this abstract map of the North Sea over four seasons/turns which span 1916. As it features every single battleship and armoured cruiser, combat is rather abstracted to cope with the sheer number of potential ships involved.

The British allocate their ships between Dover, Rosyth and Scapa. The Germans then draw an operations card (which can be anything from a raid to The Big One) and the British try to stop them. VPS are scored for sinking enemy ships, and the Germans get them for successful ops too. 

Once again an array of dodgy hats was on display. I was Admiral Bacon again (Dover Patrol), Tim was Beatty, Mark Jellicoe and Russell was Jerram. John played the role of Scheer and had made a special Imperial Navy badge for his naval officers hat. Very impressive.

The spreadsheet for keeping track of the ship locations and statuses. There are an awful lot of them! The fleet locations are important because each port has a minimum and maximum berthing number, and each port has a greater or lesser chance of getting to the various sea areas. If any combat occurs, it is over three rounds and ships further away may only arrive on turn 2 or later, if at all. BCs and ACS tend to get their quicker, and bad weather can foul up all plans.

In the event, the weather was generally lousy, which favoured the Germans.

Spring 1916 saw a raid on Scarborough in good weather, the BCs sortied and there was a brief battle with the Germans which resulted in no losses on either side, although both had some damaged ships. The German broke off at that point. 

Summer 1916 had a raid on Harwich in bad weather. The Dover Patrol managed to intercept and in a brief engagement we sank the Margraf (a German BB+), but lost HMS Hibernia in the process. As the latter was a clunky pre-dreadnought, that was a good exchange. The Germans broke off before the fleet from Rosyth could intervene.

Autumn 1916 saw no action in bad weather and the Germans remained in port and build up morale (VPs).

Winter 1916 was also down as no action in bad weather,but Scheer always has the option to override and he declared Der Tag, so a fleet action was fought in the central zone of the North Sea. Beatty arrived on the scene first and was duly pummelled by the massed High Seas Fleet, losing two BCs and two BB+ (Indefatigable, Queen Mary, Malaya and Valiant). 

The Grand Fleet arrived on the scene in the third phase (due to bad weather) and a single huge round of combat was fought between the massed battleships. When the smoke cleared, no further ships had been sunk! The Germans were well ahead on points at that point, but out of time and had to break off and head for Germany with the Grand Fleet undefeated.

Overall it was another German campaign win on points.

That is a really fun game and we managed to rattle through the whole thing fairly quickly now we know what we are doing. I am sure there is an optimum strategy for the British, but we haven't figured it out yet. So much is down to vagaries of the German action cards, but it is very atmospheric and works well for team play.

Ottoman Eclipse

 This is another one in Tims seemingly inexaustible supply of strategic solo games. This one is 'Ottoman Eclipse' and covers the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The general structure is that there are a series of 'fronts' - Mesopotamia, Caucasus, Palestine, Galliopli etc which wicked enemies advance along, while there are also external fronts (France etc) and various external events driven by event cards. The player has a number of action points each turn to be able to influence/respond to these and the aim is to keep the "National Will" at sufficient level to avoid defeat for as long as possible. You do that by having military successes, avoiding the enemy occupying key points, fometing successful rebellions abroad etc. With anything up to six active fronts, various external things and only 1-3 actions per turn, there is always more to do than you can, so it is about prioritising.

The general layout, you can make out the nearer campaign tracks for Palestine, Arab Revolt, Mespot and the Caucasus. Over on the other side are Gallipoli, Salonika and 'The Narrows'. There are also boxes to track external theatres like Galicia and the Western Front, as well as India, Afghanistan etc. The National Will track is in the  bottom right, and we surrender when it hits -4. 

This was naturally an excuse to field ridiculous headgear. Many fez on the assembled Pashas (Pashi?). Mine is from the grand bazaar in Istanbul, purchased by a friends son. I also have one from Kosovo, obtained by a friend doing reconstruction work over there after the civil war.

There were repeated but disjointed attacks in the Middle East and Caucasus, and we beat a lot of these back with varying degrees of success.They are are only really a problem once they get within two zones of Istanbul, as each space lost then reduces Will by one. The British have just landed at Gallipoli and the Germans have won a great victory over the Russians so we are currently on +1.

We used some spare actions to fortify The Narrows with minefields and gun batteries and after a few turns it was looking quite strong.

It all went a bit pear shaped after that. Although we defeated the landings at Gallipoli and held off the various attacks from advancing too far, a string of overseas disasters (all those counters in the top right box) saw our National Will whittled down and the government finally collapsed in 1917! It wasn't quite a catastrophic defeat, but merely a strategic defeat. According to Tim, the worst performance so far. I think we'd over prioritised the immediate threats and should have put more resources into supporting the overseas fronts.

That was actually a very good game, and it very much felt like running a country on the back foot. There were just too many things to fix at once, and I think our priorities went out of the window as the pressure ramped up.

We tried it again on Wednesday night and this time put some more resources into the overseas fronts, which generated some more victories in both Russia and the Western Front and we were also quite successful holding back the various enemy offensives. Having built the Gaza line and with no landings at Gallipoli, we were feeling quite pleased with ourselves. Sadly we had reckoned without the Royal Navy who assaulted The Narrows and proceeded to fighting their way through all the minefields and forts to bombard Constantinople! At which point we were forced to surrender.

It transpired that this time we'd achieved a tactical defeat this timet, so we'd done slightly better than the day before, but still no win and worse than Ottomans irl.