Saturday 29 July 2017

The land of Oz


Last Saturday, I popped over to see Ozy and his friends at Rhosesmor Village Hall.  It's in a lovely spot just less than 5 minutes form the A55 in one direction and 5 minutes from Mold in the other.

The hall area is about 18' x 30' in one wing and a kitchen and toilets in the other wing.  You could easily fit in 3 or 4 different games, or one operational game.

Oz and co are planning to use the facilities again in October and it might be an opportunity for us all to put on a game.  Ozy's friend's are a friendly bunch and one of them is into Spearhead and has a WW2 Russian army.

The custodian is a friend of Ozy and is a member of Deeside Defenders!

The venue is easily accessible for all of us, just 5/10 mins further along from the A55/Queensferry interchange and may give us an alternative venue for the future.

Thursday 27 July 2017

On The Work Bench July 2017


Selection Of July's Painting Projects 





Baccus Early Imperial Roman Legion


All based and ready - 60mm x 30mm bases

For DBx, Impetus and Adlg


I primed these grey this time and found them a joy to paint






Heroics & Ros Modern Soviet SP 120mm Artillery (4 per regiment!)




Regimental Recon AC and support tank



ZSU 23-4 AA


Regimental HQ and Defense vehicle


Soviet Tanks

Wednesday 26 July 2017

On the work bench

A selection of stuff that is on the work bench at the moment
 
1980's British
Chieftains



APC, some with MG turret

 
 
Battle group WW2 rules

American rifle section including BAR LMG

Platoon, 3 rifle sections,50mm mortar, 30cal MMG and command section.
This would be represented by one base of infantry in Spearhead

Higher HQ and 50cal HMG

German rifle section and MG34 MMG section

German platoon
3 rifle sections, 3 MG34 sections and command section
with 3No MG34 per platoon, no wonder spearhead Germans are so good

Higher HQ, 50mm mortar, MG42 HMG section, sniper stand and Panzerschreck


Tuesday 4 July 2017

Gauntlet

Deeside defenders annual gamming weekend
This year we put on a Star wars battle







A crushing defeat for the rebels
they couldn't stand up to the power of the dark side
 
A selection of other games played











Desert operational battle - British revue

Frank:- "Here's a map of all the territory we captured after the big push last Sunday"
Mark:- "excellent, and what scale is this"
Phil:-"one to one"
Mark:- "Excellent, excellent, that will teach the Huns not to mess with the British empire"
Frank:- "Mark  we lost at least half of a division for only two Italian battalions"
Mark:- "Two battalions, that's twice as much as was expected, Mussolini must be quaking in his jackboots now"
 
The Plan
Frank on table AB was the push, forcing a hole thru the minefield and taking out the airfield as we saw this as our biggest threat.
Frank sent infantry support to Phil to take the fort
Whilst Phil sent Frank tanks to help his predominantly infantry force
Massed artillery was used to support the infantry attack.

Phil had tables CD his job was to demonstrate on tables CD whist taking the fort from 3 directions and keeping the Germans guessing as to the direction of the attack.
Phil had a Tank Brigade in reserve (30+ tanks) to punch down tables C towards the end of the operation.
Phil's recon battalion was tasked with finding the forces in front of Phil.
 
The British air power was tasked with destroying the German air force
with the bomber elements to aid in supporting ground attacks.
 
Now over to Captain hindsight for a revue of the battle.
 
Frank and Phil did well within the constraints of their orders.
Frank would have taken the airfield eventually.
The tank reserve for Phil's late push was frittered away to blunt German thrusts.
A more aggressive plan was called for, forcing the Germans to react to British attacks and not the other way round.
There were opportunities to claim uncontested and weakly defended tables that were missed, which would have put pressure on the Germans
Too many British units sat immobile after having completed their initial manoeuvres,
these units should have been used to probe the German defences looking for a weak point to exploit.
The British had no plan to contest the second row of tables except at 2A, which allowed the Germans free reign to manoeuvre to any threat.
The fighter wing wasted most of the day hunting their opposition and would have been better used in a ground attach role.
 
To summarise
A more aggressive use of on table units was called for, the British had the numbers to take the attack to the Germans