The Cats Go Out At Night - An " I Ain't Been Shot Mum!" Battle Report, Part 1

After a demanding week, I gave myself Thursday off to set up this table, for a solitaire battle using Too Fat Lardies’ I Ain’t Been Shot Mum (IABSM) version 3.   My objectives were to a) use my newly completed Panzers (see last post), and b) to see how confusing a night action might be.  The inspiration for this battle was an attack made the night of 6-7 June 1944 on positions of La Regiment de la Chaudiere by elements of 21st Pz Div.  For this battle I rated the Canadian and German troops of equal quality.   The Germans had two platoons of infantry in halftracks, supported by a full zug of PzIVs, a full aug of PZ Vs, and  an HQ aug of two PzVs led by the senior armour commander, a Dynamic Leader.   The Germans had two initial stonks of 105s, but no other artillery assets.
The Canadians had two platoons of infantry, dug in, supported by 4 6 pounders from the battalion AT platoon, and an Achilles tank destroyer.  A section of two 3” mortars was on table, on call from Company HQ, and a forward observer is attached who can call on a troop of 25 pounders.    A reinforcement card, if it turns up, allows the Canadians a chance of a tank troop from a nearby leaguer of armour support.   The Canadians are holding a small village on a low, rolling ridge.
To win a decisive victory, the Germans need to take 3 of the four buildings and control the road leading off the Canadian table edge.  The German plan is to probe on the Canadian right flank with the Panther zug, and to attack the Canadian left with one of the Grenadier platoons supported by the 3 Panzer IVs.  The remaining two Panthers and the other Panzer Grenadier platoon will attack up the centre when both flanks are engaged.   The plan is to go as quickly as possible.
Since it is very dark, I follow the IABSM rules and half spotting ranges and make the required spotting rolls high ones.  For tanks, I assume that all dug-in infantry and AT guns are invisible until they open fire.   To simulate the difficulties in attacking over strange terrain in the dark, I give the Germans a movement penalty of -1 pip per die.   All firing will be one band worse than it would be in daylight, unless the target is illuminated.


The German stonk is very successful, knocking out on of the AT guns in the Canadian left centre, by the church, and giving the other crew six shock.   Several infantry sections in the centre also suffer from shock and lose several men.  On his blind card, the Cdn company commander, Major LeBlanc, hastens forward to assist in rallying the shocked AT crew, while his two platoon commanders tend to their men.  While trying to set things to rights, they hear the sound of vehicles approaching in the dark.   Major LeBlanc orders a flare since as the Cdn senior he's the only Big Man with that capability.  I give him an EDNA (Ever Decreasing Number of Availability) four sided dice so that he doesn't have an unlimited number of flares, and his initial role is 3.  Lucky for him, he has a few flares.  He’ll likely need them.  The first one goes up, revealing German blinds moving up the central road.


This image pretty much wiped out this blog’s special effects budget for the month.  One of those blinds is a dummy, but the Grenadiers in halftracks and the two Panthers can seen during the flare’s hang time.

On the German left, the three Panthers bump into their first opposition.   A PIAT team gets a slight hit on one Panther, and gives it a point of shock.   An infantry section throws bundles of grenades at the centre tank, to no effect.   In their turn, the Panthers blindly fire HE in the dark, and actually kill two Canadians.


The Cdn FOO in the church gets his troop on the horn immediately, and a salvo of 25lber HE slams into the German halftracks clearly visible under the hanging flare.


A halftack is knocked out and the squad hastily dismounts, less one casualty.    Now they are illuminated by the burning Hanomag as well by the flare, for as long as it lasts (until the next Tea Break card).



Not wanting a repeat of that ordeal, the platoon commander orders his Grenadiers of 1 platoon to debus, and they rush forward to the hedge line across the road from their centre objectives.


Even with two points of shock on it, one of the 6lber crews makes a good spotting roll and discerns the hulk of a Panther in the dark, aided in part by the yelling of the guys in the nearby foxholes to shoot the bastard (I figured the proximity of the friendly infantry would help the AT guys to spot the tank in the darkness).  The AT gun rolls good strike dice, the Panther less so for its armour save, even though it had ten save dice to seven strike dice - epic fail.   The result is a helpful bonfire.


The happy 6lber crew do some celebratory fist pumps.


Which are unfortunately suspended as the crew runs for their lives while their victim’s littermate crushes their gun in an overrun attack.


Meanwhile, on the Cdn left, things were heating up as the German 2nd Zug of Grenadiers tries to push up, supported by the Pz IVs.  One of the Hanomags falls victim to the PIAT team in the house, and its passengers disembark with shock and a casualty.   The Canadians line the garden wall and prepare for action.  They are supported by their platoon 2” mortar and an attached Vickers MG team, so they should be able to hold the place for a while.


Situation Turn 5.  Cdns still hold all buildings, but have now lost two AT guns.  Germans are threatening buildings on the Cdn left.  On the Cdn right the Panthers are annoying but, as they are not supported by infantry, are not a major threat.  Major LeBlanc is having trouble with his flare gun (his card has not come up for several turns now), and wondering when his appeals for tank support will be answered.


PzIVs move up to begin shelling les Canadiens out of that house.

Meanwhile, on the right flank, Pte. Guy Blondin, a little guy from Trois Rivieres, his PIAT team member dead, manages to sneak uo in the dark and hit a second Panther with a PIAT round, shocking and immobilizing it.  The  German crew will eventually bail out, only to be rounded up at pistol point by Blondin and marched to the rear.  Definitely a Military Medal for Blondin.  Tanks in the dark with enemy tank killers sneaking around are sitting ducks.



There was no action on Friday night, other than me trying to figure this out before I took Mrs. Padre to the jazz club.  Action continued today and the issue is still in doubt.   I’ll finish the story tomorrow.

Panzers Marsch! New German Tanks

 School work really beat me up in a dark alley this week, but I have a few moments today to post pictures of the four 15mm panzers I’ve recently finished.  Tonight they are in action on my games table (except for the Tiger) and none of them have blown up yet.

 

Battlefront 15mm Tiger Mk 1 driving over some Battlefront resin roads - which explains where those resin tank tracks came from.  The lighting here is rather dreadful, but hopefully its sufficient to show my attempt at using  pigment pigment to show mud gathered on the road wheels and lower tracks.  Hmmm, that turret doesn’t look like it’s seated properly.  :(

 

The Tiger crew takes a selfie.   Obviously this wouldn’t do for combat to have the driver’s head sticking out, but I liked the look of it.  These pictures don’t really show it, but I used a little Vallejo Armour Aces Rust and did some chipping around the seams and edges, though for 15mm scale this effort borders on work wasted.

 

Pz MkIV in the livery of 12th SS HJ Division.   I am not a Nazi fanboy but my late war collection focus on the first days of the Normandy campaign.  The numerals on the turret skirting are from Dom Skelton, the 12thSS and German cross decals are from a BF set.  The model itself is a resin model from Gaming Models, which make decent and inexpensive product.  Slightly smaller than Battlefront stuff, but not noticeably so.  With the advent of Plastic Soldier Company, I’m not sure if Gaming Models are as much of a bargain as they used to be, but they don’t have to be assembled and they do a lot of stuff that PSC hasn’t got to yet.

 

Two Gaming Models Panthers, also in 12th SS livery - same decals.

 

 

 Cats always have a way of showing you their butts, with more pigment.

 

“Look Kelly, a Tiger has only one weak point, that’s it’s ass."

 

 

 

General Rommel’s new command vehicle, the KampfKampingWagen Westfalia Mk 1, tours the  panzers ready to repel the invasion.

These figures bring my totals completed this year to:

28mm Mounted: 7

28mm Foot: 20

28mm Artillery: 1

15mm Vehicles: 4

Kilometres Run: 157

Saturday Painting Table

 

This Saturday I’m happy to report that my four German panzers, seen here on previous Saturdays, are now done and waiting their twenty minutes of fame in a subsequent post here, before driving to death and glory (most likely death) on the gaming table.

Today on the painting table we have the three Assault Group 28mm Spahis and three Foundry 28mm SYW hussars - no progress made on them this week because of the panzers were ahead in the queue.   I have some ideas on paint schemes and hope to crack on this week with these horse soldiers.

Also present are two 6mm resin buildings from Baccus that I am putting in the queue now that my Napoleonics horde has arrived (see previous post).  Some 6mm Adler figures run around excitedly  - the scale of the buildings to the figures looks right. I’m happy with that.

Also  just primed are two dangerous ladies for my Weird War Two project.

That’s it for today.

Blessings to your brushes!

Michael

The Napoleonic Wars In A Box

I apologize to all faithful readers who might have been in a frenzy of suspense at the end of my last post.   What was in the effing box, at least one of you asked?  A short story follows.

Some weeks back, there was a brief flurry of activity on the Yahoo list dedicated to Too Fat Lardies’ Napoleonic rules, Le Feu Sacre.  A number of the list members were talking about moving on to other Napoleonics rules and playing in bigger scales.  There was talk of people selling off their collections.   Well, last year I made some tentative steps to get into this period, ordering a small number of French 6mm figures from Baccus.  I painted some artillery up and then a move and other things distracted me.   It dawned on me that this would be a very slow way to get into this period, even at a small affordable scale.

So I made some inquires on the LFS Yahoo list, and a gentleman in Texas got back to me promptly.  He had a large collection of 6mm figures, all by Adler, all painted to a decent standard, a good mix of French, Austrian and Russian.  Was I interested?  With Mrs. Padre’s blessing, we haggled a bit, agreed on a prize, and after several weeks, the mailman staggered up our snowbound street, as seen here from our kitchen window.  Yes, it’s a white hell out there, and God bless the posties who go out in this lot.  At least, they will for a few more years, until the government  sacks them all and makes us walk through Canada’s weather to pick up our mail at so-called "super boxes".  Yes, mail delivery to the door is going the way of the penny.  But I digress.

The box I showed last night contained a mess of styrofoam peanuts, nestled in which were these ten smaller boxes.

 

I haven’t opened all ten of the boxes yet, but here are the contents of a few.  I was pleased at how carefully the vendor had packed them, and how well they survived the shipment.

Napoleonics, Mr. Rico!  Zillions of them!

They keep coming!

Now here’s the rub.  I love this era but haven’t really been to school in it.  I know a little about the French and British armies, but that’s about it.   I have what I am led to believe is a good reference book en route, but I don’t know a lot about the French and their eastern adversaries.   For example, these fellows.

Chaps on the left are obviously French.  White trousers, blue coats, shakos with the red cords and whatnots on them.   Mais oui, certainment, ils sont francais.  Mais les autres?  Light blue pants and grey coats?  I am guessing they’re Austrians?  Help?

Clearly many days of sorting these chaps lay ahead of me.   Then will come some big decisions.   Since they are all based in small groups, will I rebase them, or at least, combine these small bases into larger, brigade sized stands?  I’ve had a look at the Baccus rules and the larger, Corps d’Armee set favours big bases.  That might be easier and would prevent wear and tear on the figures.  And I’ll need more scenery as well, as what the sum total of my 6mm scenery are two Baccus models, both quite nice.   I also don’t see as many cavalry as I would like, so that will be an ongoing project.   One can’t do Napoleonics without hordes of cavalry running amuck.

This will be an exciting project, to be sure.  Expect me to post more pictures of these little fellows and requests for IDs quite often.  

Zut alors, this is exciting!

 

Annibal's Blog Celebration and a Mysterious Box Arrives

I’m very happy to give a shout out here to my friend Benito (Annibal Invictius) who is having a celebration on his blog for having reached 200,000 hits recently.  Benito’s blog is one of my favourite places in the wargaming blogosphere. His enthusiasm for the Too Fat Lardies stable of wargaming rules is a great example of why the “World of Lard” is such a quirky and interesting corner of the hobby.   He also games with an amazing group in Madrid who put on some spectacular and well thought out games.   If you’re interested in World War Two, the Spanish Civil War, or Vietnam, among other subjects, check out his blog.

In other news, a mysterious box arrived today at the Mad Padre’s painting chapel.  Is it?  Could it be?  Finally?  

(To be Continued)

The Guns Of The Sultan

As I mentioned here recently, Sultan Osman the Petulant is delighted to take delivery of his new cannon.   The Czar’s Overseer of Intelligence, Count Boris Badinoff, has learned that the Sultan has organized his gunners into a western-style battery, and has ordered training to develop their skills.  Count Boris suspects that the Sultan has hired military advisers from Prussia.   Here the Sultan instructs his Master Gunner prior to the first battery shoot.


The massed battery preparing to fire.  The gunners in the foreground wear the parade or garrison uniform designed by the Sultan’s father, who admired the look of Europe’s armies and liked things smart and tidy.   His son is more of a traditionalist, and does not mind that his master gunner and his crew wear a more informal field dress.



The heaviest gun yet cast by the Sultan’s foundries, “The Prophet’s Honour”, passes its first test.   The special effects are supplied by an infernal device that young Kinch kindly gave me.

 Battery fire techniques are tried, and the fall of shot measured against ranged stakes.   The Sultan is pleased with what he sees.  Fortunately no barrels burst and the Master Gunner and the Foundry Master will be handsomely rewarded, as opposed to being horribly punished.

It seems that preparations for the coming campaign season with Russia are well underway!

Saturday Painting Table

Here’s this Saturday’s paint table.   There’s a cup of strong hot tea on the left, my reward for clearing the driveway.  I predict I’ll have to blow it again tonight, as it has been snowing steadily all day and shows no signs of stopping.

Two projects to focus on today.   First, that group of German armour I’ve been working on for the last few days is almost finished.  They just need some pigment and some final weathering, and their decals, and they’re done.

The next project in the queue, three Wargames Foundry hussars to serve as characters in my SYW Russian Army, and the Spahi command group from The Assault Group, the next step in my Spahi unit.  Everytime I sit in front of these figures, I question them about their desired uniforms and colour schemes.  So far, they haven’t given me much to work with.


Blessings to your brushes!
Michael