Some light lorry bodgery

 Among Tims various donations to my 15mm lorry fleet were a few dodgy diecasts, which I thought would benefit from some TLC.

There were a couple of flatbed lorries, which I think just look much better with all enclosed sides. I had some similar ones in my old AK47 armies, and I adjusted the bed size they could carry a base of heavy weapons, so doubling up as a Technical. 

I just made up some extra side panels from plasticard. 'Steel' sides I guess. 

Having done that, I can't help thinking the cabs might need some attention too, possibly add a split windscreen and a more 1940s style radiator. They'd look a bit more like Bedfords then. I shall think on.

One of the other lorries was this die cast horse box. Ideal to make into an ambulance as I have plenty of command bus type vehicles already.

I made up a couple of rear doors with strip plastic handles.

And added a couple of window cover flaps on the side. There are a couple of great big red crosses in the decal box, so I reckon that will do.

Painting of these to follow....

Marston Less

 I could only attend one night of gaming this week so I offered to put on a quick session of Tony Cullens 'Marston Less' ECW rules. We played a few games of these at the club before lockdown, and I'd modified them to incorporate the Thirty Years War and adjusted the combat system to use 2D6 instead of a D20. We'd done a couple of hypothetical battles as well as Edge Hill and Fleurus (an early TYW battle).

Early in lockdown I'd been playing around with the Portable Morschauserscope and hacked the code to update the unit types, maps etc and I'd done a Marston Less scenario for First Newbury in 1643 intending it for remote play.  

As we only had about an hour and a quarter of game time and a lot of players, I just went with the historical setup. 

The game is played on a grid three zones wide (left flank, centre, right flank) and seven zones deep. There is a extra column at each end for dragoons. Once individual units are deployed in a zone, they form a part of an indissoluble unit - this models dividing the army up into brigades. It is those larger elements that then manouvre, essentially straight forwards or backwards! Although there is scope for victorious cavalry to turn in on the infantry centre.

The Kings Army was covering a siege east of Newbury and Essex marched to lift it. Charles/Rupert inexplicably gave up a critical terrain feature (Round Hill) which was immediately occupied by the Parliamentarians who emplaced artillery on it which threatened to dominate the battlefield.

Both sides had 12-14,000 men, the Royalists had superior numbers and quality of cavalry, while Parliament was superior in Infantry. The terrain to the north (left) was very broken, so poor ground for cavalry. The main cavalry action was fought on Wash Common to the south, but ultimately Charles had to take the guns on Round Hill or be forced to retire so the onus of attack was on the Royalists.

John A was Essex, Russell had the Parliamentarian Horse and John B the Foot and Guns.

Tim was Charles, Pete had the Royalist Horse and Prince Rupert, Micheal the Royalist Foot.

After a relatively ineffective cannonade, the Parliamentarian Horse charged on the right and was successful in moving up both lines of cavalry. You get one activation for free, any subsequent moves have to be diced for, and any failure ends the turn. I like that for this period where armies are relatively cumbersome. 

The initial cavalry melee was indecisive, both sides had supported lines and Essex's Dragoons on the flank counteracted the superior quality of the Ruperts cavalry.

After a bloody struggle however, eventually Rupert was victorious, albeit suffering three hits (lines rout on four hits). The Royalist guns had cunningly focussed on the second line of Essex's cavalry, inflicting two hits and firing so enthusiastically that one battery ran out of ammunition. 

Rupert managed to restrain his victorious troopers from pursuit, but Essex's guns on Round Hill managed to rout them anyway. The last Royalist battery exhausted its ammunition firing on the remaining Parliamentarian cavalry.

Rupert went to join the Royalist infantry in the centre, while his second line swept away the remains of the enemy horse, and set off for the rear to loot the baggage. They did actually manage to rally before disappearing, and turned in on the rear line of Parliamentarian infantry. (I forgot to take a photo of that). Sadly, cavalry are really bad in rough ground, and there were an awful lot of Pikemen in there.

Anyway, it was attack or lose for Rupert, so the cavalry attacked and the first line of infantry attacked, the second line lagged behind somewhat. 

The Royalist cavalry were repulsed however, albeit not without loss, and in the absence of any meaningful artillery preparation, the first line of infantry were also routed. Essex's first line was in some disarray (three hits) but the chances of the last line of Royalist infantry carrying the hill was slim, so we called it a day at that point.

It was interesting to get the rules out again, although I was a bit rusty. I do like the clumsy movement, although they suffer a bit from lots of fiddly things to remember in terms of dice modifiers - I think some tables would help with the presentation. The main issue I have is with the combat system, once formed each 'line' has a morale/SP value of four, regardless of of how many or few units there are, whereas line firepower is based on how many units there are. This is fine until you get two sets of weak lines engaging each other, in which case the combat never ends (as on the left flank here). It would be better to compare the relative strengths to determine combat outcomes, not the absolute strengths.

I am sure it is fixable quite easily, but I'm not sure I can be bothered at the moment. 

   

World War One in Three Turns at COW 2023

 I wanted to put something on in the short games slot at COW this year, and as it is well over 20 years since I last ran World War One in Three turns, I got all the stuff for that out again. I did a bit of light tweaking on the 1918 combat results table, as it is a bit harsh for some of the player options, but otherwise the game is unchanged.

Players take on the role of a British divisional commander and conduct a series of attacks in 1916, 1917 and 1918, selecting a plan from one of the options presented by their staff, and then pushing a lot of toys over the table and throwing lots of dice to see if the plan succeeds or not.

As the war proceeds, the range of options change as the tactical capabilities of both sides change and the defensive posture of the Germans is modified. The final outcome each year is determined by the interaction of the players plan with the current German tactical stance, so what works well in 1916 isn't necessarily going to work in 1918.

Unfortunately the plenary game started late due to catering delays at the venue, so my session was delayed as well and we didn't get going until after 11pm. A number of players dropped in though, and we managed to run it four times before it was time to go to bed around 1220am.

This 1918 British attack has foundered on the third line of defences. So near and yet so far! The players have a chance to win medals and gain public recognition the further they penetrate the German defences.

This game ran on the show circuit back in 2001, and I made up a special battle board for ease of transport, but that has been long recycled. This is just using my trenches on my Ciger Box mat.

View of the British start line from the German front line. The British start with 12 battalions in 1916 and 1917, dropping to 9 battalions in 1918. They have increasing amounts of support as the war progresses, including the option for tanks in 1918. The German defenders are generally a reinforced Regiment.

In 1916 the Germans have much of the strength in the front line, as doctrine was to hold the Haupkampflinie (HKL or Main Battle Line) at all costs.

Again, for the original game I made up a special set of figures, but they have also been incorporated into my existing stuff. The figures are my usual 20mm WW1 stuff, a mix of Emhar, Revell, HaT and Tumbling Dice.

By 1917 the Germans had figured out an upfront defence as very costly and the Allied artillery was very adept at demolishing, or at least suppressing, the first trench system.  The Germans deepened their defences and created a 'Battle Zone' a few thousand yards deep between the first and second defence lines, studded with concrete pillboxes. These dispersed defences were far less easy to locate, but with modern weapons each small positions could dominate the ground around them with automatic weapons fire.

Essentially each plan option has varying dice scores required for each battalion to penetrate each line of defences. Failures result in elements being forced back or destroyed. Each destroyed element results in 1000 casualties, and each force back results in 500. Losses are replaced between rounds.

Over the course of the war, the average British division on the Western Front lost around 25,000 men. A far cry from Robert Graves` claim that his battalion alone lost 20,000 men, but pretty sobering nonetheless.

The German third line was typically where reserves were positioned to counterattack any penetrations of the Battle Zone, and also where the bulk of the field artillery was held. Generally it was out of range of the Allied field guns.

In this 1918 attack, a single British battalion has made it as far as the Third Line, while all the tanks are knocked or bogged somewhere back in the Battle Zone.

Sadly the odds are against a single battalion, a full brigade would stand a much better chance. The players losses per division over the three years varied between 23,000 and 27,000, so all around the average. Very few of them managed to even take the second line however.

Mark F shows how it should be done as infantry and tanks roll over the Third Line in 1918.

We managed to get through the game four times, but cumulative British losses were in excess of 100,000 men by the end,  although Mark F did eventually manage to break through with a masterful surprise tank attack, bearing a strong resemblance of the Battle of Amiens. Some of the players kept conducting lengthy bombardments, not apparently noticing the effect they were having on the ground, and were puzzled as their attacks ran out of steam in the depths of the German positions.

That was actually a load of fun to get out and run again, and John A asked if I wanted to take it to Partisan. So yes, it will be doing the show circuit again this year.

 

 

NQM Stalingrad

 I've had various conversations with Chris over the years about NQM, and I've incorporated some of the concepts into my own rules. I'm always very interested in rules based on how real armies actually do things, rather than wargamers fantasies, and NQM as written, has a whole ton of sensible stuff about the practicalities of manouvering military formations and assaulting positions defended by modern weapons with a significant perspective on the importance of recce, resupply and casualty evacuation. 

Chris has recently been working on a grid based version of his rules, and an early iteration was used to fight El Alamein and Gazala, and more recently, various trips to Stalingrad. We arranged for me to visit NQM HQ in Wellingborough to push some toys around.

Stalingrad in full swing. Chris has reported extensively on the fighting to date on his blog. I arrived as November 1942 rolled around, so it was going to get cold.

The northern part of the city where the Russians have been compressed into a tight pocket around beneath the Mamyan Kurgev hill.

We were going to focus on the southern part in the morning, the struggle for Pavlovs House, the Grain Elevator and the Department Store, all still in Russian hands. The German starting forces were a (very) depleted infantry division left of the gully and a Panzer Division in rather better shape to the right. The Corps had a regiment of heavy artillery in support along with the Luftwaffe, but more importantly, the fresh 100th Jager Division was on the way.

The department store, hanging on. The German infantry here are largely fought out and have been reinforced by elements of the Panzer Division (24th?). Over the river are lots of boats loaded with Soviet troops, this is the last turn they can cross before the river becomes choked with ice floes. The Russians don't have any medical units this side of the river so are unable to remove losses.

The Corps boundary with the northern sector is the rail line. German infantry divisional HQ, artillery and logistics train. There is a recce company holding the 3km (!) square in front. The infantry in the city have been reduced to the equivalent of two battalions, but are supported by a battalion of panzergrenadiers.

The Luftwaffe focusses on bombing the Soviet reinforcements while the Panzers have a go at the Grain Silo. Russian AA downs some Heinkels. I figured out fairly quickly that concentration of effort was key, so focussed on one or two squares at a time.

The new combat system is very different to the old, there is no longer artillery suppression, there is no ammo tracking (just random ammo depletion), no fire superiority, no distribution of losses across elements in a unit and no risk style multi round close combat. Instead, there is recce, indirect fire, movement, then 'fighting' which rolls fire and assault together and then reorg/resupply.

Both artillery and 'fight' use Table 12 for losses (rolls of one result in ammo depletion), and then in assault both sides make an opposed roll, modified by current morale level and who inflicted the most casualties in the 'fight' phase. The winner of the dice roll pushes the other out. Hits accumulate on a single element, so whole bases get removed quite quickly, instead of being spread all over the unit. This produces very similar effects to the old system with morale throws etc but is much quicker and with less book keeping.

100th Jager Div marches on through Pitomnik Airfield. Infantry only move one square (3km at this scale) per turn. The division is at full strength, for a Jager Div, so two infantry regiments, artillery regiment, engineers, recce etc and they have brought a Stug battalion with them too. The HQ has a little dice with '3' on it. This is their morale, and is added to assault dice rolls, and it is also reduced by one for each regiment every time they reorg. So the individual regiments can reorg three times, becoming less effective each time until it hits zero at which point they have to withdraw. I rather like that idea. 

I unwisely attack both Pavlovs House and the Grain Elevator. Losses are heavy on both sides and the defenders of the elevator are destroyed.

The remains of the infantry in the north pull back to reorganise (that stand with all the hits is now stacked with a medical unit).

Two of the battalions of the panzer division also reorg with the divisional medical halftrack, this drops their regimental morale from four to three. Working out the cycle of fighting and reorganising is quite satisfying.

100th Jager approaches the outskirts of the city.

The enter the city and close in on the department store. The Russians are pushed back into a tight bunch. The river is choked with ice floes now and impassable to river traffic, so no more Russian reinforcements.

This isolated pocket of Russians is reduced by artillery.

The Grain Elevator is cleared by fire.

The department store is heavily bombed.

As the elevator is unoccupied, both sides move to occupy it. This time the German engineers win the race and finally take it.

The Panzers shift north (left) and mass against Pavlovs House.

The Jagers have cleared out pockets of resistance and focus on the Department Store. They have already suffered such heavy losses to Russian artillery that two battalions pull back to reorganise and resupply. Elements run out of ammo on a roll of '1' and lose their combat dice, then need to link up with the divisional logistic column to resupply. I'm sure I can incorporate something similar in my One Hour WW2 rules.

The combined might of the Jagers and Panzers push the Russians into the Volga. The Department Store and Pavlovs House have fallen! The superior morale and firepower of the Germans (most of the Russians are morale 2, whereas the Jagers are 3 and the Panzers 4) lets the Germans push the Russians out, although the opposed dice roll system makes this quite a crap shoot. The southern half of Stalingrad is now clear.

View from the Russian side.

We broke for lunch at that point. The plan for the afternoon was to run through the old combat system at regimental level (so the elements are companies and the units battalions).

The action switched to the Russians pocketed beneath Mamayev Kurgan Hill. 

Using the old Regimental level rules, there are combat stands, support stands etc and each stand is a company, grouped into battalions. To assault, the attackers need to win the firefight (inflict more losses). They can then close with the enemy. In this system hits are spread over the whole unit instead of accumulating on one element.

Close combat is resolved as a series of opposed dice rolls using the Risk system, limited by how many assaulting SP you have left on the stands. The number of rounds you fight is determined by the attackers morale, and each 'success' inflicts a hit and pushes an enemy base out of the position.

This works fine in more open battles, but in a high intensity urban environment, an awful lot of markers of various types accumulate quite quickly. It was a similar battle to this one in the El Alamein game which prompted Chris to switch to the newer system.

That was a great day out and many thanks to Chris for hosting, it was good to actually push stuff around as there is a big difference between doing it and just reading rules. I'm already reasonably happy with the various levels of rules I use but there were some mechanisms in the Corps level game which worked very well and I'll try to figure out how to incorporate them without breaking stuff or having a complete re-write.

 

More 15mm Char Bs

 The final bit of the missing QRF order which eventually turned up was a pair of Char Bs. 

And here they are, either in action intimidating the Germans, or parked up waiting to refuel.

Simple yet quite imposing models. Not as heavy as the PP one as they have a lot less metal in the hull. Just the two tracks to stick on, so simple assembly, and a bit of flash to clear up. The 47mm barrel is quite thin, which is fine, but may be vulnerable to damage, so I'll need to keep an eye on that.

There is a reasonable amount of moulded detail, although the vulnerable radiator grill on the left side is a very faint moulding. The only oddity is that the track links look a bit narrow to me. I know there were two variants of Char B track, so maybe this is the earlier one. They look OK painted up though. 

I've already got two Char Bs in three colour camo, so I thought I'd try this insanely complex five colour camo scheme instead. Ochre, red brown, light green and mid green with each area of colour edged in dark green. Halfway through it looked pretty awful but adding the edging with a fine brush transformed it. The design is straight from my copy of Vauvilliers 'French armoured vehicles 1914 to 1940'. 2nd DCR I think?

I added a few markings but they seemed to be fairly sparse on Char Bs, apart from 4th DCR with its huge roundels. Once the basic paint job was thoroughly dry, the whole thing got an ink wash, some mud and then a tan drybrush.

Side by side with the BPM one. The hull dimensions are identical, but the BPM turret (which looks suspiciously like a Somua turret) is a bit taller. The BPM tracks look more like the the ones commonly seen in photos though.

The two QRF ones on the left, the BPM one on the right and the Peter Pig one in the middle. The PP one is definitely overscale, but close enough. It weighs as much as all the others put together as well. The PP one is actually in German markings to stand in for Panzer Kompany 224, so perhaps now I've got some actual French Char Bs I should finish the conversion to a flammpanzer and add the fuel tank on the engine deck

So, rather like the Somuas, I think I've got more Char Bs than I'll ever need, although funnily enough I just came across a scenario calling for four companies of them, so who knows...

Bruce Quarries AiW rules at COW 2023

I have all the various ‘Tank Battles in Miniature’ books, and one of the more intriguing ones has always been the Arab-Israeli Wars one, which is notable for a distinct lack of any rules in it at all, although my own 6mm IDF units are all painted according to Quarrie, with sand yellow Centurians and sand grey everything else. ‘Based on the information available’.

Russell has painstakingly gone through the book and made a brave attempt to construct a playable set of rules out of the ideas presented therein. What it ends up as is two sides of A4 with various charts and numbers, and an awful lot of percentages.

 

A general view of the battlefield from the Israeli side.

For the game we had two small forces, the IDF with four M48s, two M51 Shermans and a couple of infantry sections in M3 halftracks with some randomly arriving Mysteres for air support. The Syrians had a platoon each of 3xT62, 3xT34/85 and 3xPanzer IVs (!) as well as a BRDM recce section and a JS-III.

The Israeli forces. I'm commanding those two M48s in the middle, although hilariously one of them broke down on the first turn. 

Russell explains his approach to producing an actual set of rules from the vague suggestions contained in the book. 

Both sides clashed and it became apparent very quickly that the game was extremely lethal. The Israeli gunnery was better, but what was critical was firing first, as tanks had a high rate of fire, and the chance of hitting increased dramatically with each extra shot. As we’d cleverly moved our guys into range first, we took disproportionate losses, compounded by the issue that the smaller enemy tanks were harder to see than our larger western vehicles.

We find out the hard way that even ancient T34s are very, very dangerous.

When we did eventually spot something though, it blew up very satisfactorily, and then it became apparent that the Syrian morale was awful, and half the enemy just ran away. At least we ended up something like honours even, but should have just sat on the baseline and shot the baddies as they rolled into range (as Matt suggested).

That was actually really interesting as the rules reflected some of the concerns of the time, the lower Russian vehicles were harder to spot, but any hits at all were invariably lethal, with fairly minimal saving rolls even for heavy armour. High rates of fire made combat very dangerous indeed, but the air rules were bizarrely confusing (why do bombs hit on 4-7 on a D10?). One real oddity was having to roll for breakdowns every single time a vehicle moved, at very low odds (5%), which was all a bit Squad Leader, although both sides suffered a number of breakdowns in the game which did add some flavour.


You could pick all sorts of holes in the rules from a more modern perspective, but hats off to Russell for producing an entertaining game, and it was a good trip back to the 1970s.