Fort Floreat 31/08/05

Chris and Nick tonight -- Starn out sick, and no visits.

1500 pt Breakthrough of the small table -- DAK vs US Infantry.

Chris had a Tiger, and not much else.

At the end of 5 turns, Chris had a Tiger and nothing else.

The dice gods were not kind to Chris. His planes attacked his own troops. His tiger couldnt hit the side of a barn -- it managed to bail one Stuart in the whole game. His infantry rolled low in assaults. The US artillery ranged in every turn except one, even when they needed 6 to range in.

Fort Floreat 23/08/05

We tried out some new rules -- Kampfgruppe Commander. Very different from flames of war -- the turn is more of an interaction between sides. If the enemy moves in sight, you may roll to get opportunity fire. Each time you get opportunity fire, your chances of getting more opportunity fire decrease. In addition, units may move and fire multiple times if they have sufficient command points. We were reading the rules as we played -- I'm sure we got lots wrong, especially the morale. But we had fun with their intro scenario -- 12 x T 34, 2 x BA 64, 5 x inf vs 4 x Stug III, 2 x 222/1, 3 x inf. In the end the T34's triumphed, overwhelming the Stugs. Notable was the german armoured cars killing two t34s with side armour shots (before they were obliterated by the remaining t34s)

While the rules were fun they werent to my taste -- you had to use dice to mark unit status. I prefer to keep the table clean. Hopefully one day my terrain will be worthy of a clean table :)

Maharajah - Chris's DAK Pioneers vs Leigh's Russian Guards

Italian Besaglieri Supported by German AT Guns somewhere in Russia

A Free for all was diced for which Chris vetoed. But when re rolled a Free for all still came up. No tanks or artillery anywhere -- it was going to be a long slog. The DAK had priority air.

Leigh won the dice off for table edge choice and had 1st turn as the attacker. The DAK had the deployment advantage with 7 platoons to 6.

The Russians put 2 infantry units and 2 AT guns on their right, AA trucks and AA Bofors in the centre and 2 AT guns and a large infantry Company on their left.

Facing the Russian right the DAK had 1 Bersagliari unit (Fearless Veteran), 3 Pak 36’s 5cm AT guns, a small Kampfgruppe with 2 HMG’s + C in C. Nothing in the DAK centre, and facing the Russian left 1 Bersaglieri, 3 PJK 4.1 AT guns and a 2 pioneer platoons.

The Russians tried advancing on their left and flanking with their storm group on the right of the battlefield. The DAK were thinly stretched trying to hold on their right.

The DAK beat off the Russian left losing their Bersaglieri unit in the process. The Russian left retreated with 5 stands left out of 30 after a pounding from 3 DAK platoons and air strikes. The DAK air also took out the Russian AA trucks in the centre. The Russian right continued manoeuvring round a forest losing a couple of stands which strayed too close to the DAK AT guns.

With the Russian left exposed the DAK pioneers advanced towards the Russians left hand objective killing the remaining AT gun on the way. Meanwhile the Storm group set up on the Russian right ready to attack. The DAK air came on in force doing enough damage to force the storm group to retreat to the forest.

The Russians were forced to protect their left, so Leigh pulled his 3rd infantry unit back from the centre to cover the left. This allowed the other Italian unit to move to the Russians right objective, which was now poorly defended. The DAK pioneers reached the other objective, which was contested.

Italians grabbed the Russians right objective uncontested game over: 5 – 2 win to Chris’s DAK.

The Russians were unlucky almost killing a second platoon which managed to pass its morale, this would have changed the result to a 4-3 win to the DAK.

Post mortem

The DAK air came often and in numbers 12 out of 17 turns. The Russians got possession of them twice. Which still gave the DAK 10 turns of air attacks with Henschels. Chris’s dice were hot! Must be the Italian dice gods?

Leigh admitted the Russians made several mistakes.
1) The flanking move with the storm group, which only killed 2 stands in the whole game, left one of his best units out of the action.
2) Not supporting the attack on the Russian left with the second platoon.
3) Moving the AT guns from the right allowing the Italians to seize the right objective unopposed.
4) A long game always favoured the Germans with priority air.

The extra elements for manoeuvre gave the DAK a big advantage once the Russian left had been defeated.

german grenadiers v US mechanized 3000pts

Today the battle worn elements of the 221st grenadier battalion withheld an attack by superior US mechanised infantry. It was reported that Wild Bill Kelso, a rouge pilot rather bombed his own troops, than face the famous german 88s. That was the last ever seen of the US air force (most likely he was arrested or shot by his own troops)

The big push mission was elected, germans defending. The terrain bennefited the defender and with a defence of 2 rows of wire and then a mine field it would take some good dice and alot of praying for the americans to get through. German artillery became devestating if caught in the open. The luftwaffe ruled the sky, but had limited success againstany real targets due to AA fire.

The whole US attack began to falter after reaching the third defensive line, which gave the germans time to bring in most of their reinforcments. By this time the only thing the 2 tigers had killed was an american bulldozer. Game over. No US player wanted to tempt the 88s with any juicy targets so they could spot them for their artillery and rerole their misses.

Rumour has it that it was Oakies bad dice

Camp Cromwell Bulletin 11/08/05

Steve J's Grenadiers attacked Mark II's Australians in a Big Push

Steve's infantry attacked under cover of 88's, mgs & bulk smoke.
He lost lost 1 platoon, but the other made it through and took the objective.
The Oz Armour arrived too late to stop them.


Jim's Saharana v. Barrie's DRATs

My LRDG are still at undercoat stage (but looking good already). So we used the Saharana for some raiding.
The Itie 700 pt raiding force was 8 Saharana & 4 AB41.
The Brits had 1500 pts: hq, 2x lorried inf, mgs, 2pdr portees, 2x bugs, 2x Crusader IIs & 25pdrs.
The raiding missions often don't last long so we got through 3 of them.

1. The raid

The Sahararana shot up 4 objectives then ran for home.
Barrie threw lousy reinforcement dice. His 25 pdrs turned up in the right place in front of the Itie's escape route but the rest were either in the wrong place ot not at all.
The Ities charged the unsupported guns & mowed them down (the 8 trucks tote 16 mgs, 2 20mm AA, & 2 47s between them, and then there were 4 AB41s as well).
A Brat inf platoon arrived in the right place at the last moment, but it was too little too late & the Ities blasted a gap & escaped through it.

2. Get the general

The Ities shot the General in the first turn. Too easy.

3. Convoy

The Ities shot up the convoy & their supporting portees in 2 turns.
Barrie failed to get any reserves before they made their escape.

The Random Reserve rules makes these Raid scenarios very luck dependant. Barrie's lousy luck made all the games tonight easy wins for the Ities and not as exciting as they should be.

Fort Floreat 10/08/05

Starn was busy, Chris was marking, no visits from down South, so I decided to paint instead.

To go with my British 'Red Devils' I managed to paint:

3 x Sherman Firefly
3 x Churchill
3 x Cromwell

And for my Russians:

6 x T26
3 x SU76

Camp Cromwell Bulletin 04/08/05

At Fort Floreat on Tuesday

Jim’s Bersaliglieri v. Nick’s US Armour
1500 pts Cauldron scenario. Ities chose to defend.

Nick got a good deployment – all in one corner except his Shermans which were in reserve, but they came on immediately anyway.

The US advanced cautiously with 90/53 paranoia very evident, but the Honeys mowed down the crew of the 90/53 deployed facing the US advance for the loss of just one.
With one 88 gone & the other on the wrong end of the ridge, the Shermans came out to play.

They were slowly and systematically blasting the defenceless Itie infantry on the exposed hillside, when Musollini’s minion pointed out that the closest Sherman was 405mm away from the nearest objective and that this constituted an Itie victory under the Cauldron rules. Was that Cheesey or what?


Jim’s Bersaliglieri v. Chris’ Russians

1500 pts Hold the Line scenario. Ities chose to defend. Infantry & a/t guns deployed around the objective. Light guns & 90.53s in ambush.

The Russians advanced two hordes of infantry directly at the closest objective. Their SUs & Matildas skulked in the rear with 90/53 paranoia.

The Sturmovics came 1st turn, but there was slim pickings with so few Ities actually on the table.

The light guns ambushed one of the hordes and decimated it. The SUs came out to try and counter them, but the 90/53s zapped the SUs.

M14s attacked the infantry but were beaten off with heavy losses, but the survivors rallied and destroyed the Russian command.

The Sturmovics finally returned with a bang and wiped out the Itie Recon plus a heap of Itie infantry (missing all their own near the template).

Despite enormous losses both Russian infantry hordes had just kept passing morale and grinding their way forward onto the objective.

The Russians had just 3 teams left in their inf platoon on the objective. The other platoon had 2 teams left. The Matildas were intact but still too far away. (The SUs & command had been exterminated).

The best Itie infantry was still too far away (curse of the big table & lousy reinforcement dice), but the remnants at the front had little opposition and made one last counterattack to save the battle. But they just could not buy a kill & were beaten off leaving the Russians on the objective.

Camp Cromwell on Thursday

Steve MkII's Russians v. Jim's Bersaligieri

1500 pts Envelopment Mission, Russians defending as Inf v. Motorised. Steve MkI provided advice to MkII.

The Envelopment Mission is on the website this week - similar to a Hold the Line with some defences, but the attackers get flank manouvres.

The Ities advanced cautiously wary of the priority Sturmoviks. The Ities were kept well spread out & did a lot of skulking behind woods as well as having the 90s deployed as AA. The Sturmoviks came often as priority should, but mostly weren't that effective. They attacked their own side twice, but without effect.

The Ities got a big boost when a Bersaligeri Platoon charged an infantry horde in a wood and destroyed it losing only 3 teams.

Then the Recon came in on the flank and with help from the infantry destroyed the SU76s before the KVs got them.

The Russians struck back destroying the other Bersaligieri and the light guns on the other flank with an SMG attack + Sturmovics.

The Russians were reduced to a few smg inf, their artillery, & their KVs, but their minefields restricted the Itie lines of attack & the KVs were invincible (90s too far away).

Dodging the KVs, the M14s forced the artillery to redeploy and a combination of tank fire & artillery destroyed them.

The artillery then smoke screened the KVs so the M14s could take an objective unopposed after finishing off the smgs..

Fort Floreat 02/08/05

Disaster in Sicily

I'm sure Jim will post his news soon, but tonight was a monumental disaster for the US in Sicily.

Cauldron, 1500 pts, Nick's US Armour vs Jim's Italian Bersaligeri

The Italians were defending a hill, with a 90mm AA gun at each end of the hill . The US deployment started badly, with their Shermans starting off the table. In retrospect, this was what won Jim the game -- as if the Shermans had been deployed on table the US would have done a rush of the 90mm AA guns as their initial move.

Anyway, with only honeys, halftracks, and artillery, the US forces opted to hide behind terrain and wait till the artillery ranged in on the 90mm guns.

The Shermans arrived first turn, but rather than try to rush the guns using their stabilizers, they too hid behind terrain.

On turn 2, the artillery got the range of the AA gun.

On turn 3, the tanks moved up to deal with the AA gun. They missed, so the artillery dropped smoke. Unfortunately, the smoke lifted, and one honey was destroyed.

On turn 4, a gun line of 7 shermans and 4 honeys tanks took out the AA gun.

On turn 5, the shermans moved to take out an AA platoon -- doing significant damage, but not breaking them.

Jim then pointed out that I was over 40cm from the objective, and hence lost under the cauldron rules. :(

If we had continued the Italian army would have been destroyed -- they had nothing left that could take on the Shermans. The US would have slowly pounded the Italians to dust. Oh well -- good to be reminded of such things in friendlies :)


See This!!!!

http://fow.flamesofwar.com/viewtopic.php?t=21934

I'm going to finish basing my US infantry ready for this!!!!!

And I better get my Sicily terrain built!!!!!