New Donnigton 100 years war in 15mm at Colours 2010

Following our regular club meeting on Saturday several of us travelled to Newbury on Sunday to visit "Colours".

I have attended this show for many years and it continues to be a good day out, at an easy to get to venue, with good games and traders.

Whilst browsing the show stands at the end of the day I was attracted to the Donnington stand as I still toy with the idea of putting together a 15mm Wars of the Roses collection. It was then I spotted these beautifully painted minis and I thought you might like a look.

These models were also featured in Wargames Illustrated.

Very Nice!!

September Game, Tel el Eisa

Battle of Tel el Eisa First Alamein 1942

Steve M held a FOW desert clash between the Ausies of 9^th Australian Infantry Division and the Italian Sabratha Division supported by elements of Afrika Korps.

This battle represented the crumbling attacks carried out by General Auckinleck to hold Rommel's forces in a battle of attrition, forcing him to commit his mobile armoured reserves to bolster his Italian allies.

Auchinleck attacked again on July 10 at Tel el Eisa in the north with the fresh 9th Australian Division. 89 Germans of the 621st Radio Intercept Company and 835 Italian troops that were largely part of an infantry battalion and artillery group of the "Sabratha" Division were taken prisoner by the Australian 2/48th Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel H. H. Hammer. A battalion of the Italian Bersaglieri was committed to plug the gap and initially recovered some of the lost ground at Tel el Eisa and even took 13 prisoners. According to the 2/48th Battalion diary: "[a]t approx 2000 hrs enemy tks-number unknown-and inf attacked D Coy front. They overrun posn and enemy inf forced D Coy to withdraw and occupied their psn."^[18] While the Bersaglieri suffered heavy losses, it bought time to allow the Italian XXI Corps to rush in a battalion of the "Trieste" Division and L3 and M13/40 tanks of the 3rd "Novara" Armoured Group and Major Gabriele Verri's 11th Armoured Battalion to affected sector and seal off the Australian breakthrough.^[19]

The picture below shows the initial Italian position upon their ridge with wire out front. As in the original action the Aussies attacked at night struggling to get their vehicles up to the ridge without bogging in the broken terrain.

The position was penetrated on the Italian left, but the leading Aussie platoon was destroyed carrying the position.The ridge was consolidated by the Crusader and a follow up infantry platoon, both having doubled to get to the ridge.

On turn 6 the German armour with Bersaglieri infantry turned up and we ended up with a historical result, with Aussies on the ridge but unlikely to penetrate the position further. However the German commander had been forced to bring up the Panzers, losing a Panzer IIIJ for his pains.

Good game Steve, a very enjoyable encounter.

Operation Bluecoat July Game

Hi all,

I was aware there wasn't a game report for July so have included some photos and brief report on the game and outcome.

Hill 192, Maisoncelles is a scenario from Olivier Perronny and pitches Guards Armoured Division against 9th SS Panzer Division during Operation Bluecoat, August 1944. The ptwo pictures below show the three objectives of the Guards, the most important being the 88mm gun on the hill, the other two being the road junctions. The other picture shows the initial set up with Guards position in red and the SS in blue.

The Guards attempted to push into the village of Maisoncelles with their tanks supporting the leading platoons, only to come under withering fire from the panzergrenadiers in the hedgerows. The casualties on the Guards started to mount and seeing that the objectives could not be achieved after the losses sustained, the Guards attempted to make an orderly withdrawal, only to fail their morale checks and leave the field in a disordered state. (that's Guards speak for rout).

Juno Beach Nan Red

Hi all,
A report on yesterdays game at the club which launches our Firestorm Normandy campaign

Juno Beach was the initial assault and the St Aubin sur Mer stronghold WN27 defended by a platoon from II/736th Grenadier Regiment, with a 5omm bunker gun, one 37mm tank turret bunker, an HMG tobruk, Pak, HMG and mortar support. In addition two pre-planned artillery strikes were available from the 7/1716th Artillery Regiment inland at Beny sur Mer with 4 x 100mm howitzers.
The Canadians consisted of a company from the North Shore Regiment supported by "funnies" and Royal Marines from 48 Commando, with a preliminary naval bombardment and artillery and air support.
As in the actual battle, the fight was a costly affair with the Canadians struggling under AT and mortar fire to scale the 13 foot high sea wall and penetrate the only exit of the beach which was mined and wired

The initial assault by the leading platoons and funnies succeded in creating two breaches in the wall and knocking out the 50mm AT gun but at a cost of the two platoons and supporting armour. The follow up armour a nd two further platoons succeeded in exploiting the breaches using CRABs and infantry to break into the position. This was not helped when they were mistakenly attacked by their own air strike.
The Tank Turret bunker was particularly successful at disabling several AVRE's and breaking up several infantry assaults on the forward wall.


The final blows inflicted on the Canadians was a pre planned artillery strike on the beach which knocked out half a platoon, and a mortar strike which wiped out the HMG platoon from the Cameron Highlanders of Canada just as they disembarked from the landing craft.
However by turn 6 the pressure told and the final morale check by the German defenders was failed prompting the surrender of WN27 as the Sherman Crabs and infantry started to break in.
If the losses sustained are broken down in thirds Killed/Ser.Wounded/Lt.Wounded, the Canadins suffered over two platoons worth of killed and seriously wounded taking the position.

August Meeting

This month saw a big turnout of 11 club members and 3 "casuals".

Two games ran, with JJ putting on a D-Day beach landing scenario in 15mm, whilst I ran the "Magnificent Seven" in 28mm.

Jack gave a painting master class. Given the quality of his painting I certainly took note !

In Normandy the Allies were having trouble getting parked in town. Things weren't helped by "Jabos" that wouldn't tolerate any loitering on the sand (when the RAF appears we duck, when we see the USAF everyone ducks, when the Luftwaffe is in the sky no one ducks). Last I saw the assault force was still making sand castles.

Meanwhile in Mexico Yul Brunner had decided that "no one throws me my guns and says run. No one." He led the other six to rescue the oppressed peasants the Evil ChasCalvera was holding hostage in the church (I guess the Yanks thought if someone was oppressing Mexicans it should be them).

Britt and Chris passed the blind Mexican sentry and Britt's throwing knife made sure one bandit would never see the dawn. Unfortunately Banditos never sleep alone and his bed fellow emptied his gun at the Hollywood stars. Yul Brunner and James Coburn would never take bit parts and remained unscathed, slaughtering their opponent in the ensuing hand to hand combat (two on one ? Hardly the American way).

On the other side of the village Chico (Horst Buchholz - who ?), Harry Luck (Brad Dexter) and Bernardo O'Reilly (Charles Bronson), were shooting it out with the 20 or so bandits rushing their way.

It was all too much for Chico, who went down in a moment of youthful inpetuosity and would never get to marry the local girl (never mind, she wasn't all that anyway).

Lee (Robert Vaughn), was struggling with his own demons, as he hid shaking at the sight of the first Bandit he saw. Luckily for him his "fearsome reputation" meant few bad guys would willingly face his six gun.

In a touching display Chris and Britt stuck close together as they moved on, gunning down everyone who tried to block their progress to the church. At least one bandit's dying breath was "but I was behind a wall". That won't help you in the sixties version of the wild west mate, you don't even get a mention in the credits !

Charles Bronson obviously had a death wish as he duked it out with 3 mexicans, killing them all with his star quality. Eventually Chas Calvera killed him with his "dirty fighting" as Mr Bronson tried to protect the children. Boo, Hiss.

The final scene saw Brad Dexter beat Calvera to death (all the messy stuff occured off camera), whilst Robert Vaughn found his nerve and came good in the end, abley assisted by Steve McQueen, whilst Yul Brunner and James Coburn released the grateful peasants from captivity.

I'm sure there is message in the sub-text here.

Many thanks to Chas, Guy, Steve M, Steve H and Eoghan who bore it all with good humour and bad acting.

Vince

July Game

What no post ?

June Meeting

June saw a large Spanish Civil War skirmish run by Chas. It was an early war scenario, so both sides were seeking to grab territory and had fixed on taking a village.

Two Nationalist columns approached the centrally located village from opposite corners, whilst two Republican forces came from the other corners.

The Government army rushed into the village led by the brave POUM militia's armoured car and occupied as many buildings as they could.

The Foreign Legion led by Brett took the edge of the village and exchanged machine gun fire with the Assaultos armoured car and Malcolm's workers militia, that were lining the edge of a wood.

Elsewhere JJ's militia contested a wood on the opposite edge of town with the mad Moroccans led by Steve M, whilst Rob's Carlists rushed into the village and straight into hand to hand combat.

Following a vicious melee the remaining Carlists and miltia settled to firing at each other from the buildings.

All around the village a fire fight ensued, with both sides die rolls leaving a lot to be desired, although some Civil Guard who tried to double down the road wished they hadn't and the odd unit of militia was wiped out.

The POUM armoured car (the mobile chip shop) sat in the middle of the square, where it failed to see any of the combats around it !

Eventually Steve's Moroccans and Falange tried to throw JJ's militia out of the church, whilst the Carlists assaulted the POUM armoured car.

It was touch and go, but massed fire cut down the Carlists and Ian's Stalinist 5th Column supported by the Chip Shop gunned down the Moroccans at the church door. The respite allowed JJ's militia to halt the Falange and the the Nationalists, bolt well and truly shot, conceded.

I thought it was odd that, having waited for half the game, in the queue at the Chip Shop the Nationalists went home as soon as it opened for business.

A good game to "Rate of Fire" rules, run with a light touch by Chas.

It was nice to see 250 figures in a fast flowing 28mm skirmish game and it could easily have gone either way.

I think Malcolm and I were competing for the title of "Worst Shots in the Game". I think I won, as my guys were supposed to be professionals, although I will let him have the "Blind G*t" award, for failing to spot a small war happening within a 100 yards of his Chip Shop.



Vince