Little Landsers: Getting Ready for OGroup

I suspect that like a lot of people in the Too Fat Lardies community that are excited about the release of David Brown’s O Group rules for battalion sized battles, I have gone back to the 15mm WW2 part of my lead mountain to see what I could find.  There is a LOT in my 15mm lead mountain, some of it dating back to the release of Flames of War.   I decided the first thing to do was to increase the number of my early war Germans - a useful force, as I already have a massive number of 15mm Russians for them to contest the steppes with.

The figures are a mix of Battlefront and Old Glory that I bought in a mass order with some friends some years back.  The OG figures are, frankly, a mixed lot, some downright ugly, but they mix well enough with the BF figures.  I filled up enough painting sticks to do several platoons of generic Heer infantry with supports and command.  I put two man LMG figures on separate small bases to stretch the number of figures, so one LMG stand, with a five man infantry stand, is more or less a section.  Seems legit.

The figures were mass produced, and with a “good enough” attitude towards the final outcome.   I am not ashamed to say that I bought a can of Army Painter Field Gray spray primer to give me a base coat, and then picked out the flesh, weapons, helmets and gear.  Everything got a final wash of Windsor and Newton Nut Brown ink, a trick I saw from someone who uses it as a wash for 6mm Napoleonics, and I was happy with the end result.  The bases are coloured FOW size bases from 4Ground, covered with a blend of model railroad turfs.  I'm a slow painted, but I raced through all these figures in about five one hour sessions.

Two tripod mounted MG sections, a tank hunting team with ATR, a sniper team, a 50mm mortar, a section of combat engineers should cover most support options for smaller scale actions using TFL’s Chain of Command.

Finally, I had enough senior figures to make two command stands suitable for company or battalion level.  The fellow with the fancy overcoat has ben dubbed General Von Klinkerhoffen, in tribute to the late Hilary Minster of Allo Allo.

That should be enough for a decent sized engagement.   It’s pleasant to work in this scale again and not be too overly fussed over mistakes on a single figure.  I have a company of Battlefront Commonwealth infantry in the queue as I have become quite excited about 1st Canadian Division in Italy, but that’s another story.

Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

On the Road to Izdeshkovo: An I Ain't Been Shot Mum Eastern Front AAR

On Saturday last I played in 15mm WW2  game using the Too Fat Lardies’ I Ain’t Been Shot Mum! rules.  James kindly gave me the choice of games since it would be my last chance before the coming move to hang out with the Stratford gang at Rabbit HQ.   It seemed a natural choice to play with my new Soviet horde.  For the occasion I bought the TFL campaign book, Vyzama or Bust, written by Richard Avery.  VorB is a laddered campaign game, with about a dozen scenarios that vary depending on who wins or loses.  

We started at the very beginning, “Germans Thrust Toward Izdeshkovo”, which is set at the opening of Operation Typhoon, in September of 1941, as the Germans try one last push on Moscow before the winter comes.   The Soviets get a scratch force to try and hold a vital road on the road leading east from Smolensk, which is already in German hands.  You can read my thrilling account below, or read James’ highly biased and inaccurate report here.

The Major’s voice cut through their murmuring as the young conscripts shuffled into the farmhouse.  “Allright, boys, remember your defensive drills.  I want this farm to be a proper fighting position when I get back.”  Private Evgenny Gradov finished smashing the farmhouse window with his rifle butt and gazed outside anxiously.   He watched Major Sveshnikov trot across the street and enter the house where the Maxim team was located.   Gradov liked the Major and hoped he would return soon.   He always felt safer when the Major was nearby.  Sveshnikov reminded Evgenny of his father.   The major’s age and competence helped the young riflemen to feel brave even as the army seemed to be coming apart around them.   Evgenny liked how the Major called them “boys” whereas Commissar Petrov called them “comrades”.  “Boys” was a warm word.  They did not fear the Major, but they respected him and wanted to please him.  The Commissar, well, they just feared him.

 “Evgenny Alexeiovitch, help me move this table over.”  Startled from his thoughts, Evgenny helped his friend Sasha place the heavy farmhouse table on its side against the wall.  It might help stop a bullet.  They could hope.  Evgenny didn’t like being trapped in the log farmhouse, especially with the damned Stukas that always seemed to hover over head.  However, it was dry here, and he was glad he wasn’t with the other half of his platoon, in the dripping wet woods down the road.

Russian dispositions.  Scott C and I defended the Motherland.  We had a force of 4 45mm AT guns with ZIS trucks to tow them.  Our force could deploy anywhere north (left in the picture below) of the two hills.  We had to hold the village right beside the bridge as well as interdict the road running through our positions.  It seemed clever to put two of the AT guns in the woods on the far side of the creek.  The other two were set up blocking the road in case Fritz tried to run up it with his motorized elements.  We had an 82mm mortar and Maxim medium machine gun from the support company.  We placed the MMG and a Lvl 3 BM in the village, closest to the hills, with two of the rifle squads (including young Evgenny), our Company HQ, and the Commisar, in the rest of the village, to support the MMG position.  The other half of our rifle squads was in the woods in the centre, along with a sniper and a level 2 Big Man.   Our armour reserve was in the centre, ready to reinforce either way.   Our goal was to make it a tough fight for the village, but to leave enough forces along the road that we had a decent chance of still interdicting it at game’s end.

James and Patrick as the fascist hordes gloating over their imminent victory.  

 

“Here they come!”  His corporal’s voice startled Evgenny.  He chambered a round in his Mosin Nagant and peered through the broken window.  On the hills across the road, he saw grey shapes appear and his  mouth went dry as the dreaded German tanks appeared.   Three halftracks climbed down the hill, their tracks churning and finding it hard going on the muddy slopes.  Field grey forms jumped from the halftracks and went prone around them.  Evgenny had never seen Fritz so close before.   In all the long and chaotic month since he’d been called up he had seen his regiment dwindle, as companies were detached, sent off on missions, and never heard from again during the long retreat.  In fact, he’d never fired a shot in anger.  Now here they were.   

Behind him he could hear Commissar Petrov shouting into his field telephone.  “I don’t care if you’re not in position.   If I don’t get fire support now, I’ll shoot you myself!"

The Soviet ace in the sleeve was three fire missions from four 120mm mortar tubes.   However, in IABSM, off board artillery can be a bit of a chancy thing, so Scott and I weren't counting too much on it.  Here the first German blinds come into the open and are automatically spotted.  They know we have blinds in the village, but don’t spot them.  James and Patrick have the infantry platoon debus and go to ground while the Panzer IIIs take up hull down positions on the hill in overwatch.

“Why don’t they fire?”  Sasha sounded frightened.   Evgenny shushed him.  It wouldn’t be wise to appear nervous with the Commissar right behind them, but he was also nervous.   His heart lifted as he heard the Maxim gun’s rattle, and then loud sounds as the antitank gunners opened up from the woods.  Immediately two of the three halftracks erupted in flame and began burning, black smoke pouring out of the them.  The farmhouse erupted in cheers, and it took a moment for their corporal to get them back to their loopholes and fire positions.  “Make ready!”  

When Evgenny looked out the window again, he was horrified to see field grey forms swarming towards the farmhouse across the road.   Some lay still in the field, but he was awed by their speed and the skill with which they moved, some falling and firing while others dashed forward, then alternating.  His rifle company had never learned to move like that.  The Maxim’s rattle continued, but suddenly there was a flurry of explosions as stick grenades were tossed into the log house sheltering the machine gunners.  Evgenny watched a lace curtain billowing out from the window from the force of the grenades.  It looked incongruously delicate.    A few shouts, and then the Maxim was silent.  “Hold your fire!”  Commissar Petrov came over and peered through Evgenny’s window, making the young private nervous.  “Wait for my command and a good target!” Suddenly Evgenny realized that Major Sveshnikov was probably dead, and would never again be there to make him feel brave.

Scott and I were fortunate that our AT guns across the stream weren’t anticipated, so we got some good side shots and took advantage of them, using the Tea Break card to open fire at close range.  We weren’t so lucky with the MMG as the Germans had gone to ground and were poor targets.  James and Patrick were aggressive on their next card and rushed the MMG position with their Panzer Grenadier platoon, which also had a level three Big Man.  They used their surviving halftrack and tank fire to Pin the MMG team, which was an advantage in the close combat that followed.  While the Germans lost some men, they eliminated the MMG.  However, both the Soviet and German Level Three Big Men died in the assault.

Since we now saw what we thought was the main German attack, we rolled our armour forwards.  The KV1 engaged the Panzers while the T26 tanks engaged the Germans in the farmhouse with MG fire.  Note in the shot below that I have some wrong models on the table.  My early war Soviet tank recognition skills need work.  The PzIIIIs proved hard targets because they were hull down, while the KV1s armour saved it time and again.  Soon the damage began piling up on both sides.

“Look, comrades!  Stalin’s dragons roll forward!  Look at that big monster!  What a beauty!”   Evgenny didn’t understand how a tank could be a dragon, especially as his grandmother had showed him her icon of St. George and explained that the dragon was evil, but he was glad to see the tanks.   He wanted to watch the duel unfolding, but the corporal was ordering them to fire.   For the first few shots the Moisin hurt his shoulder.  None of them had much practice with firing, but Evgenny did his best, pointing his rifle at the house, firing, and working the bolt carefully to avoid jams.  He could hear the rest of his section shooting from the barn across the farmyard and heard the loud rattles as the smaller tanks added their machine guns.  Chips flew off the house where the Germans sheltered.  Not many bullets were coming back at them.     Evgenny was glad to be doing something.

Stuka!  James and Patrick did very well in obtaining their air support.  The JU-87s made several appearances over the battlefield, aiming primarily at our tanks, which were conveniently bunched together.    We were lucky as a direct hit would have been fatal, but the near misses began to accumulate damage and shock.  One of the nice things about IABSM is that even big tanks can be degraded by incremental damage and shock, so that the crew will eventually bail out if they’ve had too much.  We were coming close to that with out KV-1, which had accrued damage to its gunsight and engine.  On the other hand, we had immobilized one PzIII and knocked out the gun of another.  Our T26 tanks were horribly vulnerable, but their 45mm guns were shooting to good effect.  

Unfortunately at this point, the low ammunition card for the Soviets came up, reflecting the supply shortages of the period.  Our tanks and the 45mm AT guns across the stream could now only engage targets at close range (less than 18 inches), which was annoying.  The only good thing going for us at this point was that the Panzer Grenadier platoons had been badly shredded and was practically out of the fight.

James had put a lot of woods onto the table, and most of them weren’t really used.  He and Patrick did push a second infantry platoon into the centre of the woods, and I felt it best to pull my section back, harassing the Germans as our Sniper card came up.   In retrospect I realized I had misread the rules and could have put another two squads of ten men each on the table.  However, since Soviet troops are rated as Poor Regulars in this scenario, it wouldn’t have done much.   By game’s end this German section was in a position to threaten the village, and could see the 45mm AT gun that I had pulled over from my right flank.  We never got the 120mm support but we managed without it.    By 11:30pm James and Patrick hadn’t made enough headway to claim a reasonable chance of victory.  They were hamstrung by the fact that a third of their OOB, including their support platoon, never entered the fight because of the vagaries of the cards. They did make a final Stuka strike on the farmhouse where brave Evgenny and his section were holding out, but with minimal success.  If we were to play the next linked scenario, and I hope we will at some point, it will be a Soviet counterattack.

 

A second before the bomb hit the farmyard, Evgenny thought he heard the scream of the Stuka’s siren.  The next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back, covered with dust and fragments of wood and glass.   Faintly he could hear shouting, and then, through blurred eyes, saw a hand reaching out to him.  He gripped it and was hauled to his feet.  Evgenny was surprised to see that it was Commissar Petrov who had helped him up.  “They’re pulling back!  We won!   We won!”  The Commissar kept saying this, his voice sounding surprised that they should still be alive.   Evgenny felt that way too, but he wouldn’t admit it.

 

 

Catching Up: A Miscellaneous Sort of Post

Hello!

It’s been a good week since my last post and I don’t really have a reason for that, just a reflection of a somewhat unsettled state on the home front as we get ready to move in a month or so.  Time for a bit of a catchup.

A week ago I had the chance to play with our friend MikeyB’s (aka Weirdy Beardy) 15mm Western Desert toys.   Mikey’s been collecting WD stuff for some years and we persuaded him to haul it all outout.   James and I took the Italians (I’m a noted Italophile) and Barry and Mikey played the Brits.   We used I Ain’t Been Shot Mum v. 3 as the rules.

Here my fearless Italians advance on the British left flank, after taking out an unfortunate pair of 2pdr ATGs with a barrage of HE tank fire.   Everyone’s had their double espresso and almond biscotti and are feeling molto avanti.

Doesn’t he have some nice kit?

Autoblinda armoured cars race at the village, but are driven off by a platoon of Vickers guns.   Driving an up-engined tin can into a hail of .303 lead proves too much for the heroes of Italy.

James sends his force at the British centre, unlimbering his AT guns to hold the flank against the British armour we suspect is lurking in the sand dunes.

Surprise!   There’s a battery of 25pdrs in the British centre.   Having uncloaked this Death Star, the British proceeded to smash two of my poor little tanks and drive off the third in a somewhat less than functional state of repair.

Another surprise!  Barry’s infantry come charging out of the village to rip into my advancing platoon.   The melee goes for badly for my latter day legionaires and the survivors are sent packing.  Nice offensive spirit by Barry.

Andiamo!  Let’s get out of here!

In other gaming, I’ve been enjoying a chance courtesy of tireless painter and blogger Jonathan Freitag to play in a Play by Blog version of the Battle of Raab, an epic Austrian-French punch up in Italy.   I’m playing the part of Prince Eugene.   I give my orders to my divisional commanders via emails to Jonathan who compares my orders with those of my Austrian counterpart and then plays out the tactical consequences on his tabletop.   If you have some time, it’s worth checking out the ebb and flow of the battle here.   Feel free to give me some advice.   I’m trying very hard to punch a way through the Austrian lines on the far side of the Raab, but it’s proving a tough go.

Mayhem along the Pancza courtesy of Jonathan F.

This is the second such game I’ve played lately.   Conrad Kinch ran a very exciting game along similar lines, emailed orders from myself and the other player which he worked out on his tabletop, a very interesting combination of kriegspiel and roleplaying set in the Peninsula War, in which my gallant redcoats fought off a dastardly column of Frenchers to secure a vital bridge and village.   CK’s emailed updates and quick videos of the tab;e, with the terse “Your orders, sir?" came once every few weeks and kept me sane while I was ploughing away on my thesis this winter.   Both these experiences have given me much food for thought on how I might improve on an ACW game, the Bluffsburg campaign, which I ran here several years ago.

Speaking of young Kinch, I was also pleased in the last week to have played a small role in inspiring his “Victorian Volunteer Regimental Name Generator”, a useful sort of tool for naming fictitious units in Her Majesty’s far flung dominions.

The Kars Light Industrial Volunteers, useful chaps for skirmishing or for making decorative biscuit tins, as required. 

Finally I’ve been slogging away on getting more 6mm Napoleonic scenery finished.  Here are the finished bases for the Timecast bridges I showed in progress in my last post.

A quiet stream flows under a rustic bridge somewhere in central Europe.

Goes well with my Baccus rubber river sections, I think.

I’ve also been working on some 6mm buildings suitable for Italy from Paper Terrain, including a rather spiffing monastery on top of a small hill, which will be a useful terrain piece as an objective maker (seize the wine cellars!), an army HQ, or just a decorative bit on the side of the table.  It’s almost done so I’ll save that for another post.  Likewise, James and I had another go at Longstreet last night, and I’ll save that for another post as well.

Hope you’ve all had a good week and that I can catch up with your blogs in the week to come.

Blessings to your brushes and die rolls!

MP

Weekend Roundup

It was a good weekend all around, despite signs of winter settling in on SW Ontario.  I celebrated a birthday on Friday, and Madame Padre and I treated ourselves to a day in Niagara on the Lake, which is a town that people usually visit in the summer to attend plays at the Shaw Festival, visit the innumerable wineries in that region, and enjoy tourist pleasures.   On a cold November day we had the scenic old town mostly to ourselves, and enjoyed a pub lunch.  We visited Beau Chapeau, where Madame Padre treated me to a very stylish fedora to wear with my newly repaired British Warm, a coat that my father had tailored when he was first commissioned as an army subaltern many years ago, and which I am very happy to wear in his memory.  It’s as heavy as a load of bricks, but its warm and stylish in a retro, film noir kind of way   I am now set for a cold winter’s day and/or pulp gaming.

 

A little progress at the modelling bench.   Some of you had some helpful suggestions for basing my newly made trees into a more effective ensemble, so that gave me some ideas.   Still very much a work in progress, but here’s a sabot-style base with the holes cut into it for the trees.

And they seem to fit.  Now for some landscaping - ground texture, some rocks and perhaps a fallen tree trunk or two, and some bushes, but not enough to obstruct if I want to put some figures into the woods.

 

And some gaming on Saturday night.  My mate James brought his late war 15mm Canadians over and we devised a scenario pitting his Sherman Squadron of Doom against some 12th SS panzer grenadiers, using Too Fat LArdie’s I Aint’ Been Shot Mum company level rules.  I was very pleased that my friend Rod could attend.  He was my boss when I was posted to CFB Suffield and he was the Base Commander there.  After a distinguished career as a combat engineer, Rod left the military and now manages the maintenance department for the city of Guelph.  When we were in Suffield he was too busy to attend a wargaming night, but was always intrigued when his junior officers would report on their experiences at the Padre’s Land Warfare Simulation Centre, so this was his chance to experience tabletop wargaming for the first time.

Here’s a little slice of Normandy.  We weren’t trying to reproduce a particular action, just something generic (I plead being too lazy,  mean busy, to research a specific action). Germans (me) have two platoons of grenadiers, a aug of three MkIV panzers, two 7.5cm Pak 40s , and a FOO with an off board battery of 81cm mortars which never showed up.  Jerry could set up anywhere on the table.  I chose to put most of my stuff on the right hand to the railway tracks.   Canadians deployed on the left table edge.  Here Rod surveys the terrain and wonders what he got himself into.

 

A good start for me.  I put a tank killer team into the woods on the right hand side of the road below, and they took out the lead Sherman before trying to fall back on their supports.  Unfortunately they weren’t fast enough and got bagged when the Canadian infantry caught them looking sheepish with a smoking Panzerschreck.  “We give up. Tommy.  What, this?  How did this get here?"

 

I now committed a totally bone headed move and brought my PzIV aug out of cover, thinking they could support the lone AT gun I had currently engaged.  My other mistake was not to site both PAKs so they could mutually cover a kill zone with the Panzers and all fire together with a better chance of overwhelming the lead enemy tanks.  This was a disastrous mistake, as my Panzers all missed and were promptly chewed up by the enemy, including the dreaded Firefly 17pounders.   Rod and James confessed later they were quite surprised (they were too polite to say delighted) by this move.

With my Panzers committed in the centre and pounded into scrap, and one of my PAKs smothered by an enemy barrage, I had little to stop the enemy tanks from hooking around my right flank.   The grenadiers seen behind the hedge managed to stop one with a lucky Panzerfaust, but there was little else I could do.

 

Not as many pictures taken as I would like, but here’s a view of the Canadian juggernaut grinding forward in the centre.  The little cluster of dice at the bottom right of the picture mark the spot where my one PAK is getting pounded by tank HE fire and off board artillery.  It only claimed one victim.  My dead panzers are a little further up the road shown at the bottom of the frame.  The other PAK, very poorly sited, finally got off one shot and missed, then hooked onto its truck and skeddadled.

What can I say?  I look good in a fedora, and I can put a nice looking table together, but my tactical skills are pretty miserable.  I reset the table tonight, with a more intelligent German deployment, and it was much harder going for the Allies, so hopefully some lessons learned for me.   It was pleasant to see Rod having a good time.  During our debrief, be remarked that this war-game felt much more real than the kind that he played when he was in staff college.  Those wargames tended to be all IGO/UGP affairs, with all the assets one could want (attack helicopters, fast air, artillery) on call and ready to deliver.  Rod thought this felt more realistic, with a few scared leaders and men hiding in woods and a few others doing most of the hard work.   I suppose the staff college games are designed to give students all of the tools in the box to play with so they have a better grasp of doctrine, but it was certainly a vindication for the Too Fat Lardies philosophy that a good game is one where players have to manage the friction of the battlefield.

If you like, you can read James’ highly self-serving and annoying account of the game here.  He doesn’t mention what terrible luck I had getting the cards I needed.   Even so, win or lose, a night of gaming and laughter with good friends is what the hobby is all about, and hopefully I’ll learn something for the next time.  And there will be a next time.

Blessings to your die rolls!

MP+

 

 

 

Panthers and Concubines

Ah, I thought that post would get your attention.

This Monday saw me and RabbitMan with a shared day off, and we decided to throw down our Normandy kit again and pit his new and terrifying 17pdr AT guns against my new and terrified Panthers.   James has written a cracking good bat rep which you can find here.   Without question, the stars of the game were his two loveable Newfoundlander gunners who turned the tide for the good guys, despite the return of the dashing and sinister Dynamic Panther Man.   I must say that while all the attention currently is on its sexy skirmish-level younger sibling, Chain of Command, the more I play IABSM the more I like it.  The intelligent modelling of friction and leadership, and the sense of a battle being a near-run thing, makes it really entertaining.   In our game on Monday, my tanks charged a section of 17lbers while one was still hooked on to its transport and the other had used all of its actions pivoting.  The whole game hung on which unit’s card would show up next.  Das ist verrückt as a German friend of mine liked to say.

And now for the concubines … and no, this isn’t me getting on the wargaming blogging bandwagon of showing scantily clad young women (Paul Foster and Loki, I’m looking at you guys).

Flanking bonus for concubines.

Several days ago I saw a piece in the New Yorker magazine on a TV series, Magnificent Century, that has apparently been burning up Turkish TV screens for some years now.   It’s set in the 1500s and focuses on one of the great figures of Ottoman history, Sultan Suleyman.   There’s a brief commentary on it by Elif Batuan here, if you’re curious, with some fascinating comments on how the show intersects with Turkey’s complicated identity and desire to be a major power in the 21st century.   After watching the first episode on YouTube, I found it a bit of a soap opera, with much attention paid to a spunky Russian slave girl who finds herself a Sultan’s concubine and throws herself into the role (and Suleyman’s arms), but there’s also some court intrigue, some history, and lots of eye candy.   I would say it’s a few notches up in class and credibility from that dreadful Tudors series of a few years back.  While it is set in the Renaissance, I think it will be useful for ideas for painting my 18th century Ottomans.

Have a look and see what you think.  Be warned, though, that it’s tricky to watch if you are painting or modelling, as there are a lot of subtitles.  There are also apparently four years of shows, each almost two hours in length, if you can track them all down.

The Cats Die At Night: An IABSM Report (Part 2 of 2)

Some readers of my last post on this battle commented that the last photo only showed me with an untied bow tie, looking rather perplexed.  I was indeed perplexed.  Thank goodness for HowTo videos on YouTube.   I did complete my first hand-tied bow tie and looked rather natty as I took Mrs. Padre to the jazz club for Valentines Day.   Readers interested in that sort of thing can scroll down to the bottom to see that and to read the Padre’s advice for a happy relationship.
Picking up on where I left off, a confusing night action in Normandy got far more confusing and vicious before it ended.

Here one of the Panthers attacking the Canadian right flank rests, digesting its prey, a 6lber AT gun which it overran and crushed in its move, avenging its littermate, seen burning in the back right.   To the left, the AT gun’s section partners frantically pivot their gun, using one of their three actions.   Their other two actions go for an aimed shot on the Panther’s flank at near point blank range.  Incidentally, the blue dice are used to track Canadian casualties.   On my patented blanket terrain system, these dice behaved sub-optimally, frequently rolling away down slopes and getting me muddled as to who took what casualties.

Unbelievably, the AT shell fails to penetrate and the Panther suffers no adverse results.   Even in the dark, the tank commander knows that someone just rung his doorbell.  He pivots and drives forward, crushing his second AT gun.  Unlike the first overrun, I read the rules more carefully and learned that in an overrun, if infantry roll higher than any shock points they may have accumulated, they get another chance to use their AT weapons.  I hadn’t done this for the first 6lber crew, but I figured it made sense to give the crew one more chance as the beast bore down on them.  Of such things medals and heroes are made.  Alas, not this time.  The second shell missed and the Panther had its prey.  Nom nom nom.

However, it’s not going all the way of Jerries.  The supporting Cdn Achilles tank destroyer has snuggled up against the rear of a ruined house, enjoying the protection of the defending infantry and covering the road in overwatch.  The German Dynamic Leader card comes up and the armour commander rolls forward, determined to get in the centre of the position and wreak havoc. He comes on slowly, 1 action for movement and the other two for spotting, but sees nothing in the dark.  Just then, the Cdn CO, Maj. LeBlanc, sends up another precious flare.  The Achilles sees the Panther lit up and immediately fires, it’s 17pdr gun ripping through the front armour like tissue.  The Panther explodes, killing its crew and leaving the German armour leaderless.


On the Cdn left, the German panzer grenadier platoon dismounts and soaks the house and garden with fire, supported by their halftrack’s machine guns.  The Canadiens don’t suffer much as I treat this as speculative fire, and return fire at the gun flashes and shadowy forms lit by the burning Hanomag.  The Vickers gun is particularly effective.  However, when the German tanks join in, the Vickers is silenced, while Cdn infantry casualties slowly mount.



Good news for the defenders.  A troop from the nearby 1st Hussars quick reaction force enters from the Canadian centre edge.  


However, bad news for the Canadians as the 2nd grenadier platoon assaults the house.   They lose men but evict the defenders, who are now down a house as well as losing an infantry section, a PIAT team, a 2” mortar team and a Vickers HMG team.


Even though it is now getting some attention from the defending mortars, the 1st Grenadier platoon rushes forward up the hill to take the church, emboldened by their colleagues’ success.   This charge is occasioned by the German’s getting the Heroic Leader card, a one-time opportunity to do something splendid.  The young Leutnant leads his men through the mortar shells, his inspirational example removing a point of shock from the PzGrs and inspiring them to follow.  Two sections tack the Canadian section in the church, while the third rushes at the last surviving 6lber gun.


Success.  The Cdn defenders are killed or captured and the AT crew put to flight.   The Germans take some losses, but now hold two of the three buildings they need to win.  The PzKw IVs move up to support their little friends in the captured church.


The Achilles claims its second victim, sneaking around a corner to get a flank shot at the third Panther on the Cdn right, it’s spotting attempts helped by friendly infantry.  The Panther takes two in the gut and explodes.


Nearby, aggressive German training wins over self-preservation.  The surviving tank of the Panther HQ troop moves forward beside the pyre of his boss and engages two of the relieving Shermans.   The Panther is brightly lit, the Shermans are just shadowy forms, but by aiming at the muzzle flashes the Panther immobilizes first one, and disables the gun on the other.  Both Sherman crews bail out, but not before causing some damage to the sights on the Panther.

The PzGr 2nd platoon sees an opportunity to take a third building while it is relatively unoccupied.  Major LeBlanc’s company HQ stand bugs out just in time.

One of the relieving Shermans knocks out an advancing PzKwIV.


The situation this far.   Only one Panther is left in action in the centre.  The Canadians now hold only one of the four buildings.   A section of Canadian infantry still holds the woods on the top left, forcing the Germans to keep their precious infantry in their captured buildings to precent recapture.   The blind visible on the extreme right edge is the German company HQ (Big Man, two HMGs, and a tank killer section moving into the woods at the base of the ridge.

The two Canadian Shermans take cunning hull down positions in the blanket fold terrain, keeping a wary distance from the German infantry and their panzerfausts to their front.

Those Shermans have to go if the Germans are to capture the road at the table edge.  A squad of grenadiers and their two panzerfausts are sent out to deal with them.  Both shots miss badly.  The Grenadiers wisely withdraw before they are cut down by HE and coax fire.

The Achilles and an accompanying section of infantry, with Pte Blondin, the intrepid PIAT gunner, are trying to outflank the remaining Panther but are caught by the two HMGs now set up in the wood, when the German HQ card comes up.  Several Canadians fall, but fortunately not Blondin.  The survivors of the section are badly shocked.  The German company commander also uses the card to send his tank killer team forward with two actions, hoping to use their remaining action to hit the Achilles with a panzerfaust.

They succeed.  The Achilles explodes nastily.  They won’t claim their hat trick this game.

But fortune goes both ways.  Having relocated and regained their composure, Maj. LeBlanc and his FOO bring 25lber shells down on the church, chipping away at its defenders.   LeBlanc fires his very last flare (the red blob in this picture), which has decisive results.   It catches the two surviving PzKwIVs in its deadly light, and they are engaged by the two Shermans from their protective darkness.  The Firefly brews up the troop leader, and his mate shocks the lone survivor into retreating.  With that reverse, and a steady stream of HE now falling, and with fears of more of those flares, the Germans have probably felt they’ve done enough, and would likely think of withdrawing.


German high-water mark.   The game ends with three out of four objectives held, giving the Germans a partial and pyrrhic victory.  My observations about night actions is that they are best avoided.   As far as possible, I handicapped the German attack by forcing them to advance into unpleasant situations and to take punishment from an unseen foe.  The difficulty of maneuvering at night over unknown ground also slowed the German advance.   While there were several occasions where the cover of darkness minimized German casualties from defending fire, there were others where the German armour, caught by flares, took losses from the Shermans that could essentially hide in the darkness and pick them off.  This would have made a terrifically tense action with an umpire, given the right players.
In the action I was basing this on, the Chaudieres beat off the German attack but lost a platoon in the process, which roughly coincides with this outcome.  One can see why the Germans largely refrained from night actions after the first few days of the Normandy campaign.
To finish, here are the Padre’s two suggestions for a happy relationship.  First, make a big deal of Valentines' Day and other such occasions.  Dress up and go out somewhere.   Ms. Padre and I enjoyed a romantic evening at the local jazz club.  And yes, I did achieve a major victory over the bow tie, with some spousal assistance.  Bow ties are cool.

Second, share the wargames table.  I forced myself to finish this action in two days rather than drag it out forever, so Ms. Padre could get back to her jigsaw puzzle, cleverly protected by a sheet of plexiglass.  She thinks I have patience painting my little men.  I admire her patience with jigsaws, as I can’t stand ‘em.

Thank you for reading this long two-part bat rep.  Blessings to your brushes and die rolls!

MP