O Group - Spring 1946. Soviet Invasion of The West, Part Two.

The invasion continues. 

(Editors Note - The link below is to Steve's previous AAR for his Soviet Invasion 1946 setup, posted back in March this year.)

Devon Wargames Group - O Group. Spring 1946. Soviet Invasion of The West AAR

The British have incorporated the better Fallschirmjäger units into the Airborne division although, currently there are insufficient uniforms, so they are fighting in their original ones.

Rumour has it that someone has got to de Gaulle and has suggested that a new unit of 

French Foreign Legion be formed from German Units held in captivity. What will he do? 

Procrastinate as usual and then blame everyone else for his failings? We will see.

The West are once again on the defensive. All along the front the allies are being pushed back. 

SHAEF is being run by Air Marshall Tedder whilst the Western Governments can’t agree on a New Supreme Commander. Montgomery, Patton? The egos have it or not. More later.

More villages, more choke points. Hold them boys. Trouble is there are hordes of the buggers all wanting a share of what is in the west. They’ve been promised the earth, all they have to do is give their lives or get shot by their own side. NKVD units follow behind, after all they have to have nice clean uniforms for all the pretty ladies (or gentlemen) that are left behind their lines.

Both sides are without reserves this time and the allies are scraping up whatever equipment they can get their hands on. Meanwhile the Soviets have just put IS3’s in the line for the first time.

The Game.
The game was set up so that the west was defending a village. At their disposal they had two companies of British Infantry, a company of German Fallschirmjager, a 17Pdr ATG, two 6Pdr, one recently repaired Tiger 2 and two Comets. They also had two rounds of off board artillery.

The Soviet forces arrayed against them were three companies of infantry, two T34/85’s, two IS2 and two IS3.

During the deployment phase the allies lost one platoon of infantry but were able to have two ambushes. The 17Pdr and one of the 6Pdr’s were allocated.

This will be a shortish AAR as things happened which caused great discussion after the game in a flurry of emails. Comments or rule corrections that any reader sees will be greatly appreciated.

The game started in the usual way with Combat Patrols being arrayed by both sides. The allies had their paras on the right with the British infantry in the centre and left.

As the Soviets advanced their CP’s the allied commander deployed on his own CP’s and shot them away. Whilst this appeared the correct action at the time it did leave him open.

Having shown his hand to the Soviets, the Soviet commander deployed his super weapons. I have, as the game organiser have to take a little bit of criticism here as I should have realised the immense fire power being unleashed.

As a platoon of two IS3’s advanced in one area and two IS’s advanced in another they dominated the battlefield. The Allies did deploy their Tiger 2 in the centre and caused some inconvenience to the IS3’s but they simply manoeuvred behind a BUA and found another target.

The Comets deployed on the allied right in support of the paras and did threaten the Soviets to the point where they had serious concerns.

However the centre and allied left was where the action was. Now comes our issues and the discussions continue. Chas opened up with IS2’s and 3’s. Now these are big-gunned tanks with six HE dice each. So if they don’t move and they fire at a BUA they have 11 dice. With a Company Command Order that is 22 in a PHASE. If they have react fire to a movement that is 33 dice in a turn on the same unit in a TURN. As a Heavy Artillery mission is only 8 dice the fire laid down is immense.

That was our issue. The outcome was that the allies were blown away and only inflicted one casualty. There were a lot of suppressions but non converted. As Ian put it later “I should not have put all my sweeties on display in one go”.

We are looking at alternative ways that AFV HE is used.

I enjoyed umpiring these guys, they knew the rules. Because of a local show participance was sparse. Our players were Ian and Chas. These are guys I game with often.

This series of games will continue in due course. I hope you will keep a look out in the future.

Steve L

The figures and vehicles came from all over the place, I can’t remember where now. Building by Hovels and a company which is no longer in being. Trees, mainly from Buffers of Axminster and the walls and hedges from eBay. Roads by Fat Frank. The BUA’s I made from bits and bobs I had lying around. I made them generic so they can be used for other eras.