October 2010 Meeting - Winter War

Chas and Steve M attempted to storm famous "Polar Bear" bunker on the Mannerheim line, in this 2500 point FOW Winter War game. Andy tried to survive long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

This was a Winter War game to the "Hold the Line" scenario in the FOW rule book.


HERE THEY COME -



Andy, keen to get in shot, poses for the camera, as the Soviet horde gets uncomfortably close to the line. Frustrated he returns to the field telephone in his bunker to check if my men have left Helsinki yet.

A LITTLE HELP HERE -

A couple of hideous turns for the Soviets see Chas and Steve remember they have left the gas on in Leningrad.


HOME TIME -

A good bash, with the Soviets getting close, but being check by accurate fire from the A/T guns in the bunkers and fire from the infantry in the trenches. That said, the Fins looked in trouble when they lost the A/T gun platoon and the HMG platoon in the trenches.

Despite it all we weren't so cocky until the landships were burning though !

I decided Andy was doing so well I would leave my troops in the box until turn 4. Glad I bothered to paint them.............

Vince

Steve M and Chas attempted to storm part of the Mannerheim line, which Andy defended whilst awaiting the arrival of reinforcements.

This was a 2500 points a side FOW game based on the Winter War fighting in Finland.

HERE THEY COME

Jon's Book Reviews

The Odin Mission by James Holland, the first of the Jack Tanner series. This is the WWII Sharp, which features Sgt Jack Tanner in a mission set during the ill fated Norway campaign in 1940. Really good read, with plenty of historical detail to capture the feel of that campaign. A must for holiday reading.

The second book in the series is now out in paperback which sees Jack Tanner and his company plunged into the Dunkirk campaign where he comes up against two villains, one German and a member of the SS and the other a senior NCO from a previous encounter during his service in India. Great read, that again follows the events of history.

18 Platoon by Sydney Jary was first published in the late 1980s following a platoon re-union, and describes the young Sydney Jarry taking command of 18 platoon of the Somerset Light Infantry part of 43rd Infantry Division in Normandy just after the division had suffered terrible casualties at Hill 112. Jarry after being told he would only survive a few days in combat went on to command the platoon to the end of the war in Germany. This is a really good description of a British infantry platoon in action 1944-45 in Europe and is reccomended reading for todays young subalterns.

Books focussing on the German Infantry forces in late war Europe at the platoon and company level are very rare, so this book looking in particular at the fusilier battalion of the 272nd Volksgrenadier Division was a great find. The book was able to draw on a unique discovery made after the Berlin wall came down of an old suitcase containing the battalion records of this particular unit that would have been kept by the company clerk. In most cases these records were destroyed at the end of the war, but remarkably these survived to enable a phorensic reconstruction of the personel that were recruited into one of the first Volksgrenadier divisions that was hastily thrown into the fighting in the Hurtgen forest.

The book follows and charts in detail the small scale actions the various companies in the fusiliers fought against the Americans allong side the other units in the division, ending with their final surrender in the Ruhr pocket.

Facinating read and reccomended for those interested in the period.

October Game, "Kiss Me Hardy" Play Test

This month gave us a chance to get the sailing ships out and playtest the rules from the Two Fat Lardies, "Kiss me Hardy". The scenario was the free one available on the Yahoo discussion group which pits four British 74s against four French 74s and two 80s. The victory conditions being who could inflict the most damage to the other side. The two forces sailed on to the table in line ahead, with movement, firing, strike tests, boarding attempts and damage checks being carried out in the move as governed by the turn of an appropriate card. I really like the card system as it removes the need to write orders, and events occur in a totally random sequence in each move. The rules are simple to follow without being simplistic, and we picked them up really quickly. We all thought they would make it easy to play with large numbers of ships on the table.

Our game ended with two British 74s badly damaged and forced to strike, and two French ships badly shot up. The photos illustrate the close broadsides being swapped and a fair amount of rigging ending up overboard.

We thought about adding some command and control rules in to govern formations that the sides could use, which should be an easy addition to make. We will run another game next month to get better acquainted with these very nice rules.

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.