Canadian 6 pounder with Sniper Team

Gosh, I've had these minis primed, waiting on pill containers, for years! Time to get them done up.

Being easily entertained, I often collect and paint stuff inspired from books, movies or graphic novels. So this group of miniatures follows suit. 

I sought out these models after reading Mark Zuehlke's 'Ortona', which provides a great history of the 'Little Stalingrad' Canadians fought in order to take the Italian coastal town of Ortona in December, 1943.

The house-to-house fighting experienced in Ortona was so fierce that the Canadians brought forward their 6-pounder anti-tank guns to help reduce Fallshirmjager strong-points. The guns were positioned in a flanking position on the town's pier and coastal mole, allowing them to have a clear line-of-sight to enemy positions in Ortona. 

A 6-Pounder in action in Ortona, December 1943

The downside to this was that, with very little cover, the gun's crews were terribly exposed to German artillery fire. The Canadian gunners found that they had to scamper from their 6-pounders as enemy shells whistled in, and then dash back to quickly re-lay their guns and fire off a few shots before, once again, running back for cover.

Into this story comes Private Howard Mabley.  A country boy from Peace River, Alberta. Mabley was one of those recruits who, no matter how hard his drill instructors tried, could not learn the fundamentals of being an infantryman. It wasn't that he was disrespectful, he just couldn't retain the skills. Finally his officers gave up in frustration and sent Mabley to the regiment's kitchens to help there. 

So it came somewhat as a surprise that an officer found Mabley, under fire, happily loading one of the anti-tank guns. The officer upbraided the sergeant commanding the gun for having a cook there, but was told that Mabley could not be deterred, desperately wanting to help his mates in the fighting. The gunner went on to say that he never saw loading done so quickly and without mishap. 'Eight hundred rounds when through that gun and every shell was loaded by Mabley.' He served as loader for the rest of the battle, permanently loosing his hearing from the firing of the gun. 

These are 20mm figures from AB Miniatures. All of them, exquisite castings. The 6-pounder is from Empress Miniatures and fits perfectly with the gunners. 

As an interesting side-note, the Canadian version of the 6-pounder had it's gun manufactured in Longueuil, Quebec, whereas the carriages were made right here in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Finally, to finish off, I'm including a prone Canadian sniper team, searching for targets in the rubble. 

Another set from AB. Not as crisply realized as their usual fair, but still more than serviceable.

- Curt

Worst Case Scenario #15: A Pint-Sized Campaign for the Battle of Ortona

A few years ago I painted up a force of WWII Canadian infantry and a troop of Sherman tanks with the idea of staging a game set around the 1943 Battle of Ortona - 'Canada's Little Stalingrad'.  

I've enjoyed reading JohnM's posts recounting his group's playing of several Normandy-based campaigns using the Too Fat Lardies ladder system. So, suitably inspired, I thought I'd give it a try by creating a series of interlinked scenarios based on the historical actions leading up to and including the battle for the Italian coastal town. 

'Reinforcements Moving up in the Ortona Salient' by Lawren Philips Harris

In the Lardies' campaign system, 'At the Sharp End', players typically take on the role of opposing platoon commanders, whose abilities and 'character' are reflected by their success (or lack thereof) on the tabletop. Due to the fact that several battalions were involved on both sides during the struggle for Ortona, there would be no distinct individuals to give a continuous personal narrative to the campaign, so I decided to have the results of each engagement affect the tactical makeup/character of the subsequent scenarios, thereby (hopefully) creating an overarching story narrative. Here are the four stages, or chapters, which make up our pint-sized campaign:

1. Castle Sterlin / Casa Berardi on the Moro River Line
2. Outskirts of Ortona
3. 48th Highlanders Attempt the Flank on Cemetery Ridge
4. The Final Push to the Castello

Map showing all four themed mission areas.

Map detail of the Ortona missions.

Scenario #1: Castle Sterlin and Casa Berardi

Background

The first engagement of the campaign, and the subject of this AAR, is based on the assault on the defences of the Moro River line, a few miles south of Ortona. These were held by men of the 90th Panzergrenadier Division, a polyglot formation made up of sweepings from the North African and Sicilian campaigns. So while they were all hardened veterans, it was a force that was largely worn-out, exhausted and on the brink of dissolution. Nonetheless, the German corps commander in this sector hoped to bleed the Canadians with the 90th while trying to avoid the early commitment of his crack Fallshirmjaegers to the battle. He wanted the parachutists held for the struggle for Ortona.

Arrayed against the Germans on the south bank of the Moro River were three brigades of the 1st Canadian Division. This was a relatively fresh, but largely untested force. While some battalions saw action in Sicily, others were quite limited in their combat experience. This was an army made up of the sons of those who gained fame at Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele and the Hundred Days, in fact many of the older officers saw action in many of those battles, and so the Canadians of the 1st Division wished to prove that they were made of the same mettle as their forefathers.

This scenario is a composite of two closely related actions which occurred during the Moro operation, both involving the taking and subsequent defence of two strategically situated farmhouses: 'Sterlin Castle' and 'Casa Berardi'.

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'Sterlin Castle' took its name from the leader of its defenders, Lt. Mitch Sterlin of the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR). 

On December 10th, 'Sterlin Castle' was a front-position outpost to the main RCR positions. With riflemen at the doors and windows, Lt. Sterlin positioned the platoon's Bren guns in weapons pits outside the structure. The firefight that ensued was ferocious. The enemy attack finally exhausted their ammunition and the light machine gunners escaped in the direction of the river, leaving eleven men of No. 16 Platoon remaining inside the house. 

'Sterlin Castle' as it exists today.

Six remaining German machine guns targeted the structure, and in mid-afternoon, the Germans assaulted the building once again. Enemy dead were stacked up against the walls, with one officer killed in the act of trying to force a grenade into a window and another just four feet away trying to give cover fire. Artillery concentrations called down around the house killed thirty Germans. An hour later, Sterlin was able to pull out with the survivors to rejoin the Hastings regiment. Lieutenant Mitch Sterlin was subsequently killed in the fighting for Ortona, and given a posthumous Mention in Dispatches.

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The second action, fought on the 14th of December, saw  Cpt. Paul Triquet of the Royal 22e of Quebec City, known as the 'Van Doos' (an anglicized pronunciation of the French for '22') take and hold a stone house called Casa Berardi.

By late in a day of brutal fighting, Triquet was the sole surviving officer of his battalion's assault force. He reorganized the remnants of his units into two platoons under the two remaining sergeants, and spurred them forward. "There are enemy in front of us, behind us and on our flanks," he warned. "There is only one safe place, that is on the objective." 

Casa Berardi then and now.

The attacks continued. Ammunition was short; there was none following, and no one who could be sent for it. The wounded were treated hurriedly, and left where they had fallen. A Mark IV approaching along the road was first blinded by smoke laid down by a supporting Sherman, and then destroyed by tank fire through the smoke. In the late afternoon Casa Berardi was finally taken by the Van Doos, and the indomitable few fought on almost to the crossroads. Finally the enemy's mortar fire stopped them, and the survivors, less than fifteen, drew back to the big house. A count revealed five Bren guns and five Thompson submachine guns on hand, and a woefully small supply of ammunition. "C" Squadron had four tanks left. With these slender resources Triquet organized his defences against counter-attack, and issued the order, "Ils ne passeront pas!" (They shall not pass!) The small force held out until reinforced during the early hours of the 15th.

Captain Triquet was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions that day. 

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The Terrain

So with these two actions in mind I decided to combine them thematically into one scenario.

Positioned near the center of the tabletop is a large Italian farmhouse (The Casa) set alongside a crossroads. The Casa is ringed by several smaller structures, all of which have been shattered by recent artillery strikes. Large shellholes offer some options for defensive emplacements, or as launch points for assaults. The roads are lined with low stone walls, often broken in places. A small vineyard, gone to winter fallow, is behind the farmhouse. All of the ground except for the roads and buildings/ruins is to be considered extremely boggy from the seemingly continuous winter rain. Any vehicle will have a very high chance of becoming bogged down if it tries to maneuver in this morass (any doubles rolled on 3 dice).

Here is a map of the scenario. My apologies for the awkward hand-drawn attempt, but after a long day parked in front of a computer monitor I take inordinate pleasure in the simple fun of sketching and colouring maps for our games.

The map of Scenario #1: Casa Berardi / Sterlin Castle

The Combatants  

The Germans start with a small screening force (one section, or two teams) in or near the farmhouse. 

The remainder of their force sits waiting off-table, poised for a counterattack. It is composed of a panzergrenadier kampfgruppe made up of two reduced infantry platoons (each commanded by a Senior Leader) along with some armour support in the form of a Mk IV, a StuG and a Hetzer. This counterattacking force will be made available once the German players(s) expend a 'filled' a Chain of Command die (ie. accrued 6 Chain of Command points). The Germans are veterans, but always add a +1 to their 'Bad Things Happen' checks to reflect their combat exhaustion.

The Canadians will launch their assault from the south edge (bottom of the map following) with their entire force. 

It is composed of a full strength infantry platoon, an artillery observer from a 3" battery, and a reduced squadron of three Shermans from The Ontario Regiment (they have their own Level III armour leader). The Canadians are considered Average, but are Aggressive in close combat.

Victory Conditions

The Canadians will need to quickly neutralize the German screening force and take up positions in and around the Casa before the German counterattack falls upon them. They need to hold the position until reinforced later in the day (ie. when four turns have passed), or by breaking the German counterattack. Either of these two events will mark the end of the battle.

The Germans need to hammer the Canadians as hard as they can as they are playing for time and blood. If they can break the Canadians they will buy valuable time for their Fallshirmjaeger comrades in their defensive preparations in Ortona. Also, any allied armour kills will carry forward to affect future availability of Sherman reinforcements for the Canadians.

      

Our Replay

In the patrol phase the Germans (Stacy) occupied the Casa with one section of panzergrenadiers in the upper floors. 

The Canadian infantry (Peter) advanced on a broad front with one section straight up the central road while the two others took to coming up the right flank. The Shermans (Jeremy) began with one tank on the road while the other two took the calculated risk of maneuvering in the boggy ground near the center. (They later became bogged and were immobilized for the rest of the game but served as gun bunkers for support.) 

The three allied tanks opened fire on the upper floor of the Casa, ultimately bringing down its roof. The Germans squad, minus a few casualties, were forced to scramble down to the second level to relocate their defensive position there. The Canadian infantry, under the protection of the tanks' fire, advanced towards the farmhouse, taking some desultory return fire from the pinned down Germans. 

As the Canadians closed in for the kill, the German player (Stacy) decided that caution was the better part of valour and it would be best to pull out his chewed-up German squad to defend the jump-off point positioned just behind the house. At this point it was looking pretty bad for the Germans as Stacy had very few Chain of Command points saved up for the counterattack and Peter and Jeremy were pushing hard.

But lady luck pitched the scales to the Panzergrenadiers' favour in a big way, when, just as the Canadians were about to storm the Casa, Stacy rolled four 6's allowing him to immediately bring in his counterattacking forces and maintain the initiative.

A fresh Panzergrenadier squad leapt from the jump-off point and stormed into the Casa, while a Mark IV panzer and a Hetzer rolled down the road towards the Casa to challenge the single Sherman that had not bogged down. The tables had been turned and the Canadians were caught on their back foot. It was a brand new game now, and the tension was ratcheting up!

Mark IV and Hetzer coming up the road to face off with the Shermans...

With his dander up, Peter decided to grasp the nettle and storm the Casa to clear it of enemy forces. The ensuing close combat turned to be bit of a rude shock as the Germans benefitted heavily from being in a good defensive position. The Canadians suffered heavy casualties and were bundled out of the Casa to regroup down the road, tending to their wounded. The Germans, while bloodied, maintained their firm hold on the building.

The remnants of the Canadian section regroup behind a Sherman bogged amongst the ruins of a house.

Nearby, on the flank, the Canadians were being hard pressed by a heavy German counterattack, supported by a tripod deployed MG42 and the not too distant panzers. Peter decided to take another risk by having his Forward Observer request a barrage just in front of the Canadian lines. Without the benefit of spotting rounds to allow correction this could have gone very, very badly - definitely a 'Danger Close' moment.  

Canadian Forward Observer team: MVP award for the game.

But the winds of fate turned again with the barrage landing right on target, pinning most of the panzergrenadier force and causing several casualties amongst the entire kampfgruppe. Artillery barrages are particularly nasty in Chain of Command as they can last numerous play rounds, causing havoc and pinning down troops, which this one did for the entire remainder of the game, pounding the German lines, whittling away at their squads bit-by-bit.

Next, Jeremy's only unimobilized Sherman edged forward down the road and sent a armour piercing round ricocheting off the Mark IV's armour, shocking it's crew. The two tanks would exchange three volleys before the Sherman gunner 'got in his eye' and knocked out the panzer. 

The Sherman nudges forward to take a shot at the Mark IV.

The Mark IV is knocked out and the remainder of the German counterattack begins to falter.

Scenario #1 Conclusion

At this point nightfall had arrived and the fighting ebbed. I declared the scenario to be a draw, but not entirely inconclusive - both sides had met some of their goals, while failing to achieve others. 

So, how would the scenario's results affect the next game in the campaign?  Well, due to the time bought by Stacy's skillful defence of the Casa, the Fallshirmjaegers will benefit from some additional defensive benefits in 'The Outskirts of Ortona' mission.  But in turn, the 90th Panzergrenadiers would no longer play any supporting role in the campaign as the Battle for the Moro had crippled it as a fighting force.

We'll move onto the second chapter in a few weeks and I'll try to keep a log of our progress.


Next: A sally mission in Renaissance Italy.

Three Shermans, Three Rivers & Three Brothers

Since I'm slowly (oh, sooo slowly) collecting the forces that fought at the battle of Ortona I thought it best to include some of the Canadian Shermans who were tasked to support their fellow infantry in their assault on the town.  These were A and C Squadron's tanks from The Three Rivers Regiment (a regiment that originated from Trois-Rivieres a town between Montreal an Quebec City). One of extraordinary things I discovered while researching the battle was that there were three brothers who all served in A Squadron: Joe, Gord and Bill Turnbull (much of the following was taken from Zuehlke's excellent 'Ortona'). 

Gord and Joe both served as tank commanders, while Bill, the youngest, was a crewman in another Sherman.

At just eighteen, Bill had been to first to enlist in October 1940. Gord and Joe followed a few weeks later.  Joe, the eldest at twenty-five, had served in the Spanish Civil war in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.  He had first tried to join the Royal Canadian Air Force but when the recruiters discovered about his past service in Spain, which was seen as an illegal act at best and smacked of Communism at worst, they had rejected him out of hand.  So a few weeks later he tried again, this time with the Army and conveniently neglected to bring up his fighting in Spain and as such was welcomed into the fold.

The three brothers were very devoted to one another and Joe in particular felt a great weight of responsibility to get his two younger brothers through the war alive.  This was quite a tall order especially with all of them serving in the same active tank squadron. In August 19143, in Sicily, eighty-four men in the regiment were killed or wounded and in one battle alone, with ten of the thirty tanks of their squadron being knocked out by enemy fire. 

After Sicily, the three Turnbull brothers participated in the heavy fighting along the Moro River and then were tasked to enter the vicious urban combat of Ortona.

A Three Rivers Sherman at a crossroads in Ortona. Note the commander spotting for the gunner and the ejector port open for the spent shell casings.

Joe wrote to his new wife, Peg, just before entering Ortona, explaining why he had become somewhat distant in his correspondence over the previous few months. ‘We are not fighting Italians now but the Germans, and they are in every sense equal to the toughest and finest soldiers in the world. They will not retire. They have to be killed. And there is only one way we can beat them, Peg, we have to be just a little bit tougher and that means we have to be put aside finer human feelings.’ 

Early in the battle Bill was wounded in the leg and evacuated. A few days later Joe had his tank knocked out in the tight confines of the town’s center.  After helping his crew to bail out of their Sherman Joe became separated from them and was forced to take refuge in a nearby cellar from raking machinegun fire. 

Ortona mural by Gerald Trottier

Joe’s brother, Gord, saw his older sibling’s tank get knocked out and then observed the escaping crew come under heavy fire. He quickly brought his main gun to bear on the machine gun position and silenced it.  Nonetheless, the resulting dust and debris obscured Gord’s vision so he could not spot his brother afterwards. 

It was not until the end of the battle, when Gord was searching the ruined town for his brother that he came upon him sitting in a shellhole, looking off into the distance, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to himself (it was indeed his birthday).  Joe looked up and saw Gord, stopped singing, and the two brothers sat together for awhile in quiet companionship.

In the end, after serving through the rest of the Italian Campaign and then through North West Europe, the Three Rivers Regiment along with the three Turnbull brothers all returned safely home to Canada.

These three 1/72 scale plastic Shermans are from PSC.  Though I'm a bit of a muppet when it comes to doing-up vehicles, I found they were great little kits to work on. I built one as a ‘Firefly’ with its signature 17 pounder gun.  This in fact is a bit of cheat as ‘Fireflys’ were not issued in the Italian theatre until quite late in the war, but I've always liked the look of them and I thought I would indulge myself.

I like vehicles that look like they've been lived in, with lots of supplies, parts, etc. So I sourced the extra stowage bits (mostly resin with some white metal) from Milicast Models.  Fairly pricy but well worth it I think.   

When researching the Three Rivers Regiment I came across a great picture of one of their Shermans with a BSA bicycle strapped to the back of the tank.

I assume the crew thought it handy for scooting around when they were halted. I thought this quite neat and so sourced a bicycle from SHQ’s 20mm Volksturm range, trimmed off the base, added some new handlebars and positioned it atop the rear deck of one of the Shermans along with its other stowage.

I painted the trio in a basic British bronze khaki without the black 'Micky Mouse' camo pattern often seen in the Italian theatre. It is argued that the Regiment didn't use it at this time and in fact the vehicles may have been holdovers from the North African campaign.  I then heavily drybrushed and dappled them in dust tones as many of the pictures of Shermans at Ortona shows them as being completely filthy and begrimed from the rubble and clouds of dust.

The decals, as discrete as they are, are correct to the Regiment and are from Milicast as well.

So there you have it folks.  Three Shermans, from the Three Rivers, for three Brothers.

Thanks for visiting!

20mm WWII Canadian Infantry at Ortona (Part III)

Several months ago I started a project to collect and paint the forces which were involved in the 1943 Battle for Ortona. To most, this battle, if known at all, is regarded as nothing but a tiny sideshow within the larger Italian campaign, but for Canada it is our ‘little Stalingrad’, the battle that brought us out from the shadow of Dieppe and re-established our reputation as a battle-winning partner of the Allied 'family'.

The struggle for Ortona was known for its vicious, grinding and intense urban combat. Fighting which the Canadians earned a hard-earned reputation for effective house-clearing during those last weeks of 1943. Their opponents were tough veteran Fallshirmjaegers from the 1st Parachute Division and as such the fighting was ferocious, often with no quarter given or received. In the end the Canadians drove the German paratroopers from the town but at a fearsome cost. Almost 1,400 men from the Canadian 1st Division (the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, Seaforth Highlanders and the Three Rivers Regiment specifically in Ortona) lost their lives during this campaign.

The models you see here are 20mm castings from AB Miniatures. These figures are, in my opinion, the best models available for this period, in this scale (and arguably most 28mm ranges as well). They are quite lanky and have a wonderful sense of animation. Many of the figures do a great job in telling a story by how they're posed. For example, I love the figure of the soldier about to throw a grenade. He is leaning back, probably meant to have his back against a wall, finger-to-pin, waiting for the signal from his section to throw his Mills bomb into an enemy-held room. There is also a figure of a rifleman on his knees firing up to an upper story. You get a sense that he has just come up from a prone position to get a quick shot before dropping back to cover again. Amazing sculpting in any scale.

This is the last section of my Canadian platoon, which also has the command team and some special weapons teams. (The other two sections, and a bit more background, can be seen here and here.)

Okay, in more detail, we have:

The Command Team, made up of the CO accompanied by his radioman, his senior sergeant waving the boys forward and a corporal charging forward with Sten SMG at the ready (the presence of the Stens are a bit anachronistic as the Canadians typically hated them and exchanged them for Thompsons at every  opportunity). The base shapes is what I use for all my skirmish gaming. Hexes for officers, squares for NCOs, rounds for troopers, octagons for special weapons, oblongs for weapon teams.

Next is an artillery Forward Observer with his radioman. Along the Moro River and in Ortona the Fallshirmjaegers specifically targeted Canadian radio operators and the brigade went through an appalling number during the month's fighting.

Here are the dogface infantry. Nothing too sexy, just the trusty SMLE rifle, loads of ammunition and a bunch of grenades. As I mentioned previously there is some brilliant animation here, specifically with the man with the grenade and the kneeling rifleman. 

Finally, here is an assortment of heavy weapon teams. 

First up a set of PIAT teams. One pair legging it and the other deployed prone for firing. The Candadians reportedly loved the PIAT and even used the weapon for 'mouseholing' during their house-to-house fighting (something that sounds suicidally dangerous to me, but I suppose when the situation demands...). 

The next duo is a 2" mortar team. From what I understand they used these to try to mask the movement of men clambering through the rubble-filled streets. 

Concluding the special weapons is this Bren gun team. I like the third man hollering back telling others from the section to bring up some more ammunition.

Another debut in this post are three MDF buildings, the designs of which I had commissioned from Byron at SG2 Creations (who, I must add, is also one of our generous prize sponsors for the Challenge). The need for region-specific buildings came about when I noticed that there were not many retailers who were providing buildings for the Italian campaign in 20mm. Byron and I poured over period photographs of the buildings at Ortona and have come up with a base ‘recipe’ to represent the narrow multi-story structures that were typical to the town. 

MDF buildings are great but one thing that they have a hard time at conveying is the wonderful bodged randomness of older architecture. We all know that any pre-20th century building is a conceit to straight walls and level floors. As such I decided to roughen up the flat, perfect face of these buildings by giving them a rough skim coat of Liquitex gel medium. Once dry, I drybrushed them in khaki and tan to give them that quasi-Mediterranean look.

While the stucco is a bit dour, Ortona was (and still is) a vibrant seaside resort town and so I thought I’d paint the shutters and doors in somewhat brighter, more festive colours. I used thinned-down ink to give them bit of a sun-bleached, care-worn look. (I have to apologize for the roofs as I haven't figured out how I want to replicate the tile. In the meantime I've just painted them a reddish terracotta so they don't look so 'MDF-ish'.)

These three buildings are separate structures so they can be swapped around, but I’m also having Byron make up some 3 and 4-unit row house sections that will have common walls but irregular roofs and facades. We’re also doing a bunch of wrecked structures (as, sadly, most of Ortona was destroyed) that will use these structures as a basic template. It should provide for a tabletop that is thematically closer to the actual location. I have a couple ideas for special one-off buildings that were notable during the campaign but I’ll post on that when things get more clear on how they're coming along.

Of course, if you're looking for an excellent and economical set of Italian Campaign buildings you now know Byron is the man to talk to. :)

Thanks for visiting folks!