Thursday's battle

This will be an Eastern Front battle - the Seige of Kholm (Feb 1942).

(This is for the attention of our wargaming group obviously!)

You will need to acquaint yourselves with the winter warfare house rules.  Rules - Spearhead.

The background
After the failed attempt to take Moscow and the strong Russian counter-offensive against exhausted and ill-prepared troops, Hitler ordered his forces to stand and fight in small 'hedgehogs' - especially around key settlements and communication centres.

One such settlement was Kholm - a small town in Southern Russia.

The battlefield
Kholm is in the middle of the table,  A road runs from top to bottom of the table and through the middle of the town.  A frozen river runs across the middle of the table.  Infantry and manhandled guns should cross the frozen river - vehicles can only safely cross the river by using the bridge in the middle of town.

Forests are found at the top and bottom of the table. 

The town will have a number of 'village' sectors providing the defenders with +1 cover - and the Germans can 'dig in' units if they choose providing an additional +1.

There is also on the outskirts of Kholm a 'reboubt' made up of broken down vehicles.  This acts like a village sector with +1 cover. 


The Germans
Under the command of Maj-General Thomas Scherer a motley collection of units is offering stubborn resistance to the 3rd Shock Army.

Soviet ski troops have cut Kholm's last link with XXXIX Corps and supply is only possible from Ju52's.  The small airstrip has since been captured so only parachute drops are available to keep the Germans in supply.

FOO's caught in the town can still call in artillery from two artillery battalions emplaced behind the main German lines. In addition, reinforcements and some anti-tank guns were airlifted in before the airfield was overrun.

The Germans have limited forces and face attacks from two sides.

Note that as winter rules apply, the Germans are NOT as good as they usually are!


The Russians
The battle will represent the Russian's most aggressive attempt to take the town.

The STAVKA have gathered together a significant force including a Naval Brigade, A Rifle Regiment, a ski battalion, artillery, tanks and air support.

But these forces are split and the town is a tough nut to crack.


Victory conditions  
The Russians must capture the town and / or rout or force the surrender of the defenders.


Who wants who?
Let m know which force you'd rather play and I'll give you the list of troops available to you.

AAR - Mini-Cassino

Thursday night Ian put on a great little battle based in Italy in WW2 where a small group of veteran German paratroopers took on an attacking force of American infantry with tank and artillery support.  Scale 6mm and Spearhead as the rules.

It was also an exercise is how town and village sector fighting - as well as supply lines and different hill levels - had an impact on the battle.  Ian is planning an operational battle around Monte Cassino so its worth demonstrating to the players how each of these elements work.

The table accounted for 3 victory points based on 3 sectors - lower town, upper town and the monestary. .  The Americans had to take 2 sectors to draw, 3 to win.

Our plan was simple.  Put the HQ in a central position to provide command and control over most of the map.  We put our FOO and Nashorn (mobile 88mm) on the outskirts of the monestary - giving the FOO greater spotting range and the Nashorn a wide angle of fire.

The key objective - the monestary

The 3 layer mountain dominating the town

The town from the side - you can see my German troops dug in closest to camera - Russ' on the far side

 We dug our infantry in on both sides of the town and had a small reserve of engineers between them in the area in front of the hill.  The idea being that if the Americans pushed on one side the reserve could be switched to support the threatened plan.

Engineers dug in to the left - FOO and Nashorn on the hill.  Mortar tucked away by the road

The Americans came on and Mark was immediately pulled up for trying to angle his troops to attack my dug in troops in the town sector.  It was explained that he did not know they were there and he had to follow his attack arrow. So only a few of his bases could move into the area my troops were dug in.  They got badly shot up.

Mark's first brush with the Germans

Meanwhile Frank was brushing up against Russ' troops - and the massed firepower persuaded Russ to back off and fall back.

Mark meanwhile was determined to eliminate my small band of paratroopers and managed to surround and attack my merry band.

Here comes the attack!

The Germans were Veteran and dug-in and the Americans were Green.  They got shot at as they came in and (for a change) I managed to roll well.  Veterans are at an advantage in melee and the overall result was the Germans lost 1 stand to the American's 8!  Mark made the morale check to not rout, but as he was generally left with crew-served weapons and a small number of infantry he knew they could not attack again.

After the attack - Americans decimated,

Frank on the other side was gamely attacking but the Nashorn polished off a couple of his Shermans and Russ' indirect and direct fire was taking its toll.  But Frank had pushed Russ to the back of the town.  He also called in artillery on the village sector the surviving numbers of Russ' troops has converged in - forcing them to move out.

He also crept up their ATG followed by a Sherman with the express objective of killing the Nashorn.  Luckily for us we kept suppressing the ATG and the German's own ATG suppressed the Sherman.  In the next shooting phase these two units became the target of choice and both were taken out (the Nashorn killing his 3rd Sherman of the day). 

However, the battle had taken its toll and Frank's failed morale roll meant that his force routed.  Mark however was already moving up the reserve - also attacking Russ' troops. 

Frank's artillery blasts the Germans at the back of the town as Mark's reserve moves up. 

 As Mark pushed up, he moved two machine guns into the village Russ had vacated.  They got shot to bits then Russ moved into the village sector themselves.  The Americans realised that that they could not achieve their objectives.  The Germans still held all three sectors and so victory was declared.

Russ moves back into the village and the Americans jack it in,

Man of the match - our Nashorn took out all 3 Shermans which would have made a decisive difference. 

It was a battle that could easily have gone the other way and if the Shermans had got in they would have swung it to the Americans. 

Great battle and food for thought for the operational game.

Russ and Mark...

Thursday night game; Assault on San Marco.

Any similarities to an actual battle are entirely intentional.

The monastery of San Marco broods above the desolated town below.  The Allies have also secured Papal authorisation to bomb the monastery if it is required.

Background

It is late September 1943 and Kesselring, the German commander in charge of Axis forces Italy is desperate to slow down the Allied advance from the Salerno beachheads which threaten to take Naples and Rome in one bound.  He has tasked a reinforced parachute battalion with holding the strategic position of San Marco and imposing at least one days delay on the American advance.

General Mark Clark has been commended with holding on at Salerno against determined German counter attacks and he is desperate to resume the advance ahead of General Montgomery's 8th Army. American forces took heavy casualties and his only immediately available mobile force is a recently landed motorised infantry regiment which he has reinforced with a company of tanks and a regiment of artillery. He has tasked this force to take and hold the monastery and town of San Marco which dominates the Appian Way and the surrounding countryside.  The town has already been bombed in advance of the attack and there is a further option of carpet bombing the monastery.

Order of battle

See Spearhead TOEs for fuller details.

United States

1x full 1942 infantry regiment plus 1 x company of Shermans.
(optional; 3x FOOs and 1x regiment of 105mm.  Carpet bombing of the monastery.)
Command radius regardless of number of troops in a battalion is 9".

German

1x 1943 parachute battalion reinforced with a company of engineers, 1x PAK 40 platoon and a SP Gun platoon.
(optional 1x FOO and 1 x battalion of off table artillery)
All units may begin the game dug in.  Command radius is 15".

Objectives and Terrain

There are three objective points.  1x point for taking holding the lower town (the rectangle in the lower right of the picture).  1x point for taking the upper town and lower level of the mountain.  1x point for taking the upper level of the mountain and the monastery.  Americans require 3 points for a win and two points for a draw.  Any other result is a German win.

All of the mountain area except the road and monastery is mountainous terrain - see my previous post for rules.  Any troops on the mountain are out of supply.

Any unit that cannot trace a line of supply to their base line via open terrain or the road is out of supply and will suffer -1 in combat and direct fire.

The rectangle in the lower left of the picture is open ground except for the walled enclosures which are village sectors.

The lower town area will count as woods for movement, spotting and cover whilst the BUAs are town sectors.

The upper town area is rough ground for movement, units count as in cover for spotting but do not count as in cover when fired at.  The BUAs count as village sectors.


I have used varied terrain effects in the different areas to illustrate the flexibility of the terrain boards. I am hoping this small but detailed battlefield will give us an interesting game and a chance to try out some new mechanics for imminent operational games.  As usual I have tried to create an asymmetrical balance but please let me know if you think I have missed anything.

D Day Landings Normandy Campaign

I have had this idea in my head for a while and Mark and I have had a detailed chat about it.

I would like to re create the Normandy campaign using spearhead at some point and think this would be the ultimate WW2 campaign and think it would certainly raise the level of gaming higher.

There are lots of things to plan and discuss but my initial idea is one based around doing this as a Thursday night set of games. We would use a large map of North West France and use historical forces as they were at the time.

The idea would be for the allies to plan their beach landings with the Axis planning a staunch defence of the beach heads. Naval and air assets would be available to both sides much as the real thing.

Attacks could be made at various locations across the Normandy coast to suit the allied attack plan.

Specific encounters would only happen if both forces happened to meet one another by means of a grand strategic map and movement of forces.

The allies would plan their route through the terrain of Normandy with a final objective to take Caen.

We could fight out the battles on our 4 x 3 boards using whatever terrain features to match the location on the main map.

I think this would work based on the fact we could play out the campaign at our own pace on Thursday evenings.

There is a lot of planning to be done and we would all need to buy into this but my own thoughts are leading to me thinking this could be a fantastic wargaming experience.

We have all the stuff to do this but just need to structure how it should be done, I think with our experience with operational games and previous campaign knowledge this could be done 100%

Rule Sets and more Rule Sets - Ancients & Medieval

Rolling back the clock to 2009, Phil and I started off on our Ancients wargaming project.

Back then the newly released Field Of Glory rules had just come out and were the talk of the town.

Down at the club Phil and I were playing Napoleonic's and only stumbled on Ancients after Steve Oats and Martin put a game on using 6 mm figures. I was instantly hooked and Phil and I decided to buy into the period.

We both purchased the FOG rules together with our first 10mm armies - Carthage and Rome and went on to own Persians, Macedonians, Greeks, Indians and Gauls

This set the scene for the next three Years and we played FOG to death and in the end just became bored. There were other periods made available in 2011, World War 2, English Civil War, Seven Years war all of which we got more involved in. Ancients took more of a sunset period.

Since then I have had the urge to put a Thursday night game on and have tried out other rule sets, of which included the new DBA3.0 rules, Hail Caesar, Sword & Spear, Impetus and ADLG, not to mention the much maligned DBMM!

I am writing this post as I find it most odd that the Ancient period seems to be the black sheep of all periods as far as rule sets go. When Ian introduced us to spearhead I instantly like them, 8 Years later I still like them and have never sought to look for another set of replacement WW2 rules.

The same can be said for Principles of War, they are even today a very good set of rules.

General Quarters has stole the show over Victory at Sea and despite it's abstract nature Grand Armee still provides me with the most fun Napoleonic rules to date, probably borne out of the fact that Mark has put on some brilliant big historical battles, all of which I have very much enjoyed.

This cannot be said for ancients however and I seem to have gone through a lot of different rules, non of which have really hooked me since Field Of Glory.

Recently I have been putting on games on Thursday using the Impetus rules and more recently ADLG which is a hybrid set mixing elements of DBA and FOG.

It's certainly been a colourful experience for various reasons and after ditching Impetus we have been focusing on learning the ADLG rules these last two weeks.

I think that there is plenty of detail in these rules and they are not badly written, last nights game flowed a lot better than the week before and we got a decisive result by 10.15, a miracle!

The problem for me with ADLG is that the rules are trying to be too clever. The amount of effort and fiddly sub rules does not for me make the game better, it just bogs down gameplay. Being a competition set there are a lot of sub rules for movement and these have just been lifted from FOG.

If I am being brutally honest I would actually prefer to just play Field Of Glory again if I wanted that much detail, but do I?

I'll stop here and mention the revised DBA 3.0 rules. These were revised in 2014 and a new hardback book with army lists was published. I think that for a Thursday night or even a customised Saturday game these rules probably work the best for me, albeit they do lack some extra detail.

That said you have to ask the question, is this detail necessary?, does it make the game better or more enjoyable?

It's a difficult dilemma, the DBA rules allow you to create a "big battle" version using 36 elements.

The problem is that there are no army lists with point values to allow you to custom build your own lists. You are stuck with just multiplying the basic lists x 3, perhaps not such a bad thing?

That said the actual game mechanics are possibly the fastest and easiest to manage. Turns are played quickly and the push back of troops makes for a more realistic game. Another big plus for me is the complete freedom of casualty markers or coloured markers on table.

As good as DBA plays it is held back by its simplistic army lists and perhaps the lack of additional detail in other sets.

On the other hand I look back at the games of DBA we have played and would vote them as being the most fun and headache free set of Ancients / Medieval rules played.

So where is this all going?, nowhere really! I was just taking a snapshot and making a few observations.

For me there are plenty of other periods I have bought into more deeply such as WW1 and WW2.

I am not going continue in the search for the "Holy Grail" of an ancient rule set. I actually think that the period is just a difficult one for whatever reason.


I have less time and patience than I did in 2009 so would find it very hard to push along a new set of rules so my conclusion is that I will probably bring out the DBA 3.0 rules next time I fancy putting on a game. I could be tempted with the help of Frank and Ian to play DBM or even DBMM with some proper play testing but for me I would say DBA 3.0 strikes the perfect compromise in a set of ancient rules.

ADLG is a good set of rules but I am not prepared to endure the torture learning these rules to the "T"
I just don't see the return on the investment.


I think that for the Medieval period Mark might be best to re ignite the Poleaxe rules, but the period for me is very linear. Troops just lined up and clashed together. It does not share the same nuances as say the renaissance or ECW periods so perhaps poleaxe might suit the period best?


It's a funny hobby this wargaming....................

Will need some help here!

I'm looking to set up an Eastern Front winter operational battle in the near future.  Working on the scenery and the last bit of the troops at present.

I've set up a spreadsheet to work out the points for the respective armies - applying the national quality multipliers and based on the T&OE for 1941.  Working off 2,000 points I have got the Russians 2 infantry divisions, a tank division, a ski battalion, a cavalry division, an independent tank brigade and still am short of the 2,000 point tally!

Giving the Germans 1,000 points and the multipliers I can just about muster 1 infantry division!

Do I increase the German points tally?  Do I give the Germans more leeway to choose the units they want?  Have I got the sums right?

Anyone got an example of previous operational battle lists I can work from?

Ta!