Mech War in the desert: Brits v. Italians

 Jim's Italians v. Chris' Brits. House rules.  Encounter battle.  Deployement BA style. 

The Italians are on the near side.

Both sides are sending most of their infantry into the oasis & have most of their tanks on the far flank.

On the near flank 4 Italian light tanks are doing well against 4 Crusaders.  On the far flank the Brits have advanced & the Italians have advanced over the ridge to take them on.  In the centre the bugs were doing serious damage to the Bersegliari until the Italian artlery landed on them with a bunch of good dice.

On both flanks the Italian armour have had good runs of luck & destroyed the British armour.

With their armour gone & plenty of Carri left, the British position is hopeless.  A bif win for the Italians. 
  

Ancients at Black Hills: Rome v. Ponic Kingdom

 Mithradates on the near side lines up again against his old foes., the Romans.

Mithradets made a general advance, charging with his infnatry in the centre.  The Romans attacked with their light cavalry on their right, advanced to meet the enemy infantry in the centre & held their heavy cavalry back on their left.

On the left, the Pontic light horse are being driven back by the better Roman allied light horse.
Lefit of centre the front cohort was getting the worst of it & has fallen back from the Pontic phalanx.

Right of centre, the  Pontic allied Warband was dispatched quickly by Romans throwing hot dice.

On the right the Pontic heavy cavalry tried to break the weaker enemy force.  Their second line was supposed to cover the left flank of the lead unit, but failed command leaving the cavalry flanked by the Roman foot.

The pontic cavary was broken by the flank attack.  The phalanx broke one cohort, but the Roman had plenty more of them.  The Pontic army has failed its army morale test.

WWII in the desert

Brits: Mark, Mike & Mitch
Italians: SteveJ & Chris
All troops Confident Trained (Italian infantry Bergaslieri)
Rules Camp Cromwell house rules for WWII.

The Italians have secret deployment behind the line of ridges running diagonally across the table (not easy to see in this shot). The British are coming on from the LHS with orders to drive the Italians from the ridge & take the oasis.

The Brits advance their armour on their right.  Bugs lead their advance in tehe centre.  The first Italians to show themselves are anti-tank guns on the centre ridge that engage the bugs.

The Crusaders & Grants crest the ridge to find Italian armour in ambush.  The ambush only takes out 1 Crusader & the Italians lose 2M14 in the reply.

On the near flank the armour slug it out at close range with heavy loss on boths sides.  Semovente appear on the far flank & engage the British left.  Italian artillery is firing indirect at the British artillery.

The tank fight on the near flank has ended in the Italians favour. The British armour has been destroyed with 3 Italian tanks surviving on that flank.   The Italians also have 3 Semoventes left on the far flank while the only British armour remaining are 3 bugs.  The British decided to cut their losses & retreat.

The British plan was sound enough.  Had they won the tank fight (which with better luck they could well have done), the Italians would have been flanked with 2 infantry platoons, bugs & the surviving tanks making converging attacks while their 3rd infnatry in the wadi & artillery held up the Semoventes.  

English Civil War 15mm: New Model v. Scots

Scots: Mike & Chris.  New Model: Jim & SteveJ.

We used map deployment.  The New Model is on the near side did a boring conventional deployment with pike & shot in the centre, musketeers on each flank & cavalry on each wing. The Scots put their highlander& artillery on the ridge in the their centre with cavalry on their left & lowland pike & shot on their right. 

The English plan was to outflank the Scots' left with cavalry, holding back their foot. Their left flank cavalry is being re-deployed to the right.  Their right flank cavalry going out wide. The infantry have pulled back their left onto a ridge.  
The Scots have responded by puling back their left to cover that flank batter & advancing with their pike & shot on their right.

The English cavalry have completed their re-deployment to the right.  The Scots have sent half their highlanders forward to support their Pike & shot.

The Sots have deployed their musketeers in front of their pike schiltons & are trying to soften up the English foot.  The English ordered their LH cavalry to attack the highander's flank, but despite being Well Trained Vets the order did not get activated, for the moment frustrating their plan. 

The Scottish musketeers got much the worse of the musket duel & got out of the way for the pikes to charge.  The Scots had bigger units v. better troops making a the infantry fight a tough slog.  The Scots won on their right, but the angle in the line helped the English in the centre & the Highlanders were overlapped on the near side. 
The English cavalry have finally got their orders & despite taking some fire from the Scots' artillery are threatening the lowlander's rear.

The Scots have sent half their cavalry to support their infantry, but too late.  The Roundheads have already broken a musketeer unit & the the lowlanders are about to break.
On the Scottish left, the English cavalry attacked after half the Scots cavalry was pulled out.  The Scots horse countercharged down hill armed with hot dice & shattered half of the English cavalry brigade, but their highland foot are being beaten by the other half.

The Scots failed army morale at this point.  The battle showed how the extra space you get on the table with 15mm provides much more scope for manouvre than 28mm.

Operation Sudlicht: Bolt Action event in Devonport

Chris & Jim travelled north to Devonport for another Operation Sudlicht Bolt Action event in Devonport.  Mark had to drop out due to a (non-covid) lurgu).  20 players had 3 games on 10 tables.  As always the event  featured excellent terrain & was run like clockwork in a spirit of having a good time rather than intense competition.   

Chris' Soviets won 1 & lost 2.

In game 1 v. a mainly vet US force, the Afrika Korps had a terrible turn 1.  The MkIII was ranged in on 1st go by a medium howitzer & pinned out of the game until it was destroyed, a sniper took out the  MMG & the Chaffee took out the the LG105.  The enemy was too good a player to let the Afrika Korps recover from that.

Having given the Afrika Korps a hard time in game 1, the dice gods relented in game 2 v. British Paras.  The Afrika Korps took every trick & totally destroyed the enemy force while losing no units itself.

In Game 3 the Afrika Korps fought more British vets & had another decisive victory. 

For more pics of the tables & action go to Tasmania Bolt Action Facebook  (1) Bolt Action Tasmania | Facebook

English Civil War: Scots v. New Model

Scots: Mike & Chris
English:  Mark & Mitch

The Scots are on the right.  Both sides are advancing.

The action begins with a charge of Scotts chiltrons on the left.  

On the far flank the Scottish cavalry have crossed the creek.  2 Roundhead cavalry wait for them while 2 support their foot against the schiltrons.  Highlanders have charged in the centre.  Right of centre 2 schiltons & 2 roundhead cavalry face each other off.  On the right roundhead cavalry are moving to the flank.

There is confused fighting in the centre while both sides try to advance their right flank cavalry.

On the far flank the Scottish cavalry finally charged & with 2:1 odds overcame the better quality roundheads opposing them. They are now advancing on the English flank.
In the centre the infantry fight has been a mixed bag for both sides leading to lull in the fighting there.
On the near flank the English foot has been beaten off, but their cavalry is onto the Scot's flank.

The Scots are mopping up the English left, but the English cavalry had done more damage more quickly to the Scot's left & are sweeping across their rear.  The Scots fail army morale before the English do.  The English have won, but it was a close run thing that could have gone either way right up to the last turn.  

 

Bolt Action Practice for Devonport Event

With a BA event at Devonport only 2 weeks away a practice match is need to refresh on the rules.
JohnM: Japanese vets.
Jim: Afrika Korps vets.
It's a blue in blue on unlikely terrain for both sides, but we're practicing for a BA tourney, so it's the sort thing we might get.  Mission 2: Scenario : Meeting Engagement.

The Afrika Korps are on the near side.  The Scenario has no objectives other than to destroy two more enemy units than you lose.  Both sides went for each with reckless abandon, resulting in a bloodbath.   The Japanese got ahead with Banzai & flamethower attacks, but the Germans clawed their back to a draw on the last turn with their HE & a counterattack with their pioneers.  A fun game & good to get our heads around the rules again.

The North Flank at Austerlitz

This is a scenario we have done before, but always a good one as two pretty evenly matched forces small enough to do in realistic scale with 28mm fighting pretty much in isolation  from the rest of the battle.  The table is 10x6'.  Rules: Our Marathon to Mafeking house rules.
French: Jim & PeterC.  Russians: Mark & Chris.

The French are on the left. They have weighted their left flank with an infantry division in 3 lines.  Their centre is covered by a division extending 2 line with all the artillery.  Their cavalry is in reserve behind the left flank 
The Russians have their  best cavalry massed on their right flank (in the distance).  Line infnatry hold the centre with their Yeger reg on the left & a cossack brigade on their extreme left. 

The French have boldly advanced infantry in line towards the Russian cavalry. The hussars have charged them but their heavy cavalry haven't responded to their orders yet. On the near flank the French light cavalry have come out to face the cossacks. The Russian yegers are advancing in columns.  Thier line infantry is plodding forward in line. The French have sent 2 legere battalions forward as skirmishers. in front of their centre.

On the far flank the Hussars broke thru the front line but were stopped by a square behind & fell back.  The heavy cavalry also attacked, but fell back after failing to break thru.  The Russian centre continues a slow advance.  The yeger's advance has slowed with French cheassurs in front.  The cossacks are being pushed back by Hussars.

On the far flank the Russians have detached theri hussars & are sending them across their rear to support their left.  Another attack of the Russian heavy cavalry broke part of the French line, but was stopped by supporting columns.  On the near flank the cossacks have been broken & the end of the yeger line has formed square. 

On the far flank poor command has left the Russian cavalry flat footed as the better lead French infantry advance & shoot them up.  In the centre the French skirmishers have been driven off & the infantry are exchanging musketry

On the far flank the Russian heavy cavalry have been broken by French musketry leaving the right flank of their foot overlapped & exposed. On the left only the end battalion formed square, showing some disrespect to the mere chasseurs to their front.  But after they took a pounding from the French artillery the Chasseurs chanced a charge on a line of yegers & with a flurry of hot dice made a hole in the Russian line.

On the near flank the yegers in column tried to form square, but were caught before completing the charge by more chasseurs bearing good dice.  A Russian column attack on the right of the yeger's position was broken by artillery & musket fire.  The remain square is surrounded by hussars,fails brigade morale & surrenders.  The hussars have arrived from the far flank, but too late.   In the centre the French line is holding .  On the far flank the Russian infantry is outflanked & looks doomed.

The Russian Hussars make a last desperate charge on the near flank, the French Hussars hold firm.  The Russian right is being rolled up.  The appointed time for nightfall has arrived & the Russians wil slink away in the dark claiming some kudos for hanging on until dark.  

According to our points system the French had 1360 points to the Russian's 1138.  But it didn't look like it for a long time as the Russians had many more troops, including the only heavy cavalry, a lot more artillery & their infantry though poorly trained were rated "stubborn" & hard to break..  It looked scary for the French while the Russian line stayed continuous, but once cracks were made in it, the superior command rating of the French allowed them to take advantage & the Russians suddenly collapsed.  It was probably a mistake for the Russians to send the hussars across the rear, as they arrived to late to help their left & their absence on the right was fatal to the heavy brigade facing aggressive infantry in numbers.

 
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