15mm WWII Tank Battle: Hunting T-34s

Sylvain, in his usual phlegmatic gallic style, tells Jeremy to cheer up - there is always the good wine (or is that whine?)

Sylvain here, reporting from my basement. I hosted a game set on the Eastern Front and the players were provided with the following intelligence:

German Objective: May 1942. The rasputitsa is almost over. In one month, the Heer will launch Fall Blau. High command wants us to test the Soviet defence line and to accomplish our mission, we have been given three band new PzIV equipped with the new long 75mm gun. A recent air reconnaissance patrol reported the presence of a company of T-34s in the village of Karrotgrad. This is where we are going. Our mission is to hunt T-34s.

- The German player gets one victory point per T-34s destroyed and minus one victory point per PzIV F2 destroyed.

Soviet Objective: Kamarads, the Motherland has been invaded by the nazi barbarians and the time for retreat is now over. General Zhukov wants us to protect the village of Karrotgrad and I intend to destroy any enemy coming close. We already have a company of T-34s, the best tank ever designed. We also received 10 new tanks from our Canadian friends. We will see what we can do with them. If we see the enemy coming, we will hunt him with our T-34s!

- The Soviet player gets one victory point per German vehicle destroyed and minus one victory point per T-34 destroyed.

House Rules: The core rules were “Flames of War” with a few significant changes:
1. The turn sequence used cards (inspired by Too Fat Lardies).
2. A spotting rule was added to make reccon units more important (inspired by Firefly).
3. The artillery was off board (inspired by reality).

Jeremy, in the back, confident that the Gods of Dice will be smiling upon him. (They won't!)

My goal was to come up with a somewhat realistic simulation of tank warfare on the Eastern Front with 15mm miniatures. I decided to set-up a table as big as possible. It was 10'x6', and there was barely any room to move around.

Each unit (platoon or company) was represented by a card. There was a deck to set up on the table an another deck to use for orders.

Jeremy commanded the Panzers while Curt and Stacy oversaw the defences of Karrotgrad. The Soviet players hid half of the cards representing their units under terrain features like hills, woods or buildings.

A BA-10M, minding his own business.

I added a rule for spotting. It was to be used by the German to reveal Soviet units in ambush and by the Soviet to accumulate "threat points". These threat points could be used to call reinforcement and stronger units, like a company of T-34s, required more points than a simple platoon of anti-tank rifle.

Some German panzers bogged down in the stream.

Jeremy entered his units on the other side of the river. There was a small platoon of BA-10M in the woods that the panzers quickly dispatched. However, Fortune started to become unfavorable to the German side. You can see in the picture above that some units got bogged down while crossing the river, including the Air Liaison unit in charge of calling in the Stukas.

Lend-Lease Valentine tanks sent from Canada, in neat parade formation, en route to intercept the panzers.

This was a very lucky company of Valentines. They survived a few bomb runs from the Stukas (when the observer was not trying to push his half-track out of stream) and many hits from the German guns.

Realizing that staying too close can be dangerous, the Valentines fan out in the field.

Destruction brings satisfaction to the host.

More reinforcement on the way. This does not look good for the German.

 

The Valentines are standing firm in front of intense German fire.

A company of seven T-34s enters the battlefield. Is there any end to this flow of reinforcement?

In conclusion, the German did not make it very far onto the table. Crossing the river proved difficult, with lots of units bogged down. It took too long for the German to deploy effectively and use their superior gunnery. Basically, the Soviet were able to destroy the German tanks piecemeal as they showed up.

The house rules I prepared for this scenario did not work very well. The spotting rules were not clear enough and the Soviet were able to activate most of their units before the German got too close. The activation sequence needs to be fine-tuned as well. Eventually,  I will come up with a satisfactory set of rules. I just love 15mm scale and I have a few more ideas for scenarios.

Many thanks to the players who showed up. Their patience and good sense of humor made the whole evening enjoyable despite glitches in the rules.

1:1200 Napoleonic Naval - The Battle of Trafalgar or: 'Trafalgarage'

Sylvain here, reporting from my garage. A few years ago, I painted enough sail ships to play the battle of Trafalgar, and since I have been looking for a set of rules that could handle this huge engagement in a reasonable amount of time. "Trafalgar", by Mark Latham, is elegant yet it would take days of gaming to bring the battle to its conclusion. Another difficulty is the sheer size of the gaming surface. Even at 1:1200. Nelson's column is four feet long, making it impractical on any gaming table. 

So I came up with the idea of playing the battle in my garage. I decided to regroup ships in squadrons of three and set them on a twelve inch long block. Each block has been identified with a huge sticker to facilitate recognition from a standing point of view. Movement and firing have been simplified. Ships move at twelve inches per turn, which is exactly the length of a block. Here is an example of a ship display.

Flag Officers. Some ships carry a flag officer. Each die shown beside the name represents an opportunity to re-roll any die roll during a turn. This can be applied to any unit within 12" of the flag ship.

Orange boxes. Every time one or more orange boxes are marked off during a turn, the ship must test for morale.

Masts. Each box represent one hit and the white ones must be marked off  before the orange ones. For the leading ship, each box lost reduces the speed by 2", resulting in the whole squadron loosing movement. For the other ships in the squadron, damage on masts only counts towards a morale check.

Hull. Each box represent one hit, to be marked off from left to right. The number inside each box represents the number of attack dice.

Crew. Each crew box represents one die roll to be used for boarding.

We played during our regular Friday night session. Curt and Jeremy took command of the Allies, respectively as French and Spanish, while Sean and Conn shared control of the British fleet.

The Admirals and the Referee

The Hispano-French fleet, minding its own business, heading for Cadix, just beyond the garage door, already dreaming of the pleasures of wine and love... Many times during the evening I've heard suggestions to paint the garage floor the color of the ocean.

The British fleet, ready to enter from the West wall of the garage. Even my garage was to small to fully accommodate the original disposition at Trafalgar. The next logical step will be to play in the backyard.

Two British columns converging on the French and Spanish ships. In this new iteration of the battle, both Nelson and Collingwood sail in the same super column. But wait! What is the rearguard doing?

Admiral Curt, boldly changing history, tacks his squadrons in the opposite direction, trying to lure the British fleet into pursuit while the vanguard, lead by Admiral Jeremy, would go for a quick exit.

So, if I do this it will really cock-up the game right? Excellent...

Sylvain and Admiral Conn trying to puzzle through Curt's crazy gambit.

Okay, time to pay the piper.

The vanguard is almost at the door! Three British squadrons are close behind. Many ships will be able to escape.

The final, savage, melee for the rearguard.

The game was flowing at a nice pace and four players were able to bring this huge battle to a conclusion during the course of four hours. The gaming experience was satisfactory for both sides, although I should have had established clearer victory conditions at the start. The rules, although simplified to the extreme, produced results compatible with the historical outcome. All in all, I would say the experience was a complete success.

From Sylvain: 1:2400 WWII Royal Navy for Mers-El-Kebir (24 points)

From Sylvain:

Above is what I have painted so far for the Royal Navy. Unfortunately, I will not be able to paint any more until the 23rd of March, so after the end of the challenge. I am seriously considering early retirement in order to be more competitive next year :-). 

This time, I am submitting HMS Valiant, HMS Hood, HMS Ark Royal, HMS Enterprise (a light cruiser) and 6 destroyers. The first two ships mentioned are from CinC, all the rest are from GHQ. HMS Hood is not in WW2 configuration, but only experts like PeterD can tell the difference. 

What do all these ships have in common? They fought at Mers-El-Kebir.  PeterD has in his collection the remaining ships present at the battle.  So it is now a matter of time before you read a battle report from Algeria in 1940. 

This close-up of HMS Ark Royal shows heavy weathering. When I asked PeterD what color he painted his own Royal Navy models, he mentioned that British ships were at sea most of the time and, therefore, battered by the elements. It's a little difficult to "scale down" rust at 1:2400, but I am quite pleased with the result. Liferafts were usually grey, but I cheated and used a dull orange to create some contrast. 

Here is HMS Hood, eternally associated to the hunt for the Bismark. But Hood also played an important role at Mers-El-Kebir. I used Hood to test colors for the Royal Navy and was not really satisfied with the result. But since it's a CinC model I got for cheap, I'll just keep it the way she is and will eventually buy the GHQ model. Sorry CinC, but the details on GHQ models are just too awesome. 

Best of luck to all the participants in the challenge!

Lovely work Sylvain! I"m really looking forward to you and Peter putting these through their paces at Mers-El-Kebir in the near future.

These ships from the Royal Navy will give Sylvain 24 well-earned points.

From SylvainR: 1:2400 WWII French Naval Force (86 points)

From Sylvain:

This is "La Royale" in 1940, as French sailors affectuously refer to their "Marine Nationale", even centuries after beheading Louis XVI.

I just finished a batch of 14 destroyers, 14 cruisers and 4 battleships. The cruiser category includes 6 light cruisers, 5 heavy cruisers, 2 old battleships (Lorraine and Bretagne) and 1 carrier (Béarn). Note that one of the modern battleships, the "Jean Bart", does not have a B-turret, as it was not completed when she had to flee France for Dakar.

This close-up shows an old WW1 era battleship close to a Dunkerque-class battleship and a Richelieu-class battleship. I decided to have a unified color scheme: the French Navy in 1940, instead of painting the most fancy camouflage scheme for each ship. "Gloire", a light cruiser, had what is probably the most disturbing razzle dazzle camouflage ever seen (see picture 44).

A light cruiser, a heavy cruiser and an aircraft carrier (seen at top of post). The cruisers were built as responses to the Italian vessels of the same type, that were fast and well armed.

Three destroyers and a light cruisers. It is difficult to appreciate how big the destroyers are in reality, and I have no British destroyer handy to make a comparison. The Washington treaty did impose strict weight limitations on battleships and cruisers, but none on destroyers. So the French produced destroyers on steroids that were the size of older light cruisers and were designed to go as fast as 45 knots (in theory).

Excellent work Sylvain! I'm very impressed at your progress with this project, bravo! I also look forward to having you and Peter dream up some scenarios for us to try these models out.

Sylvain's French fleet will garner him a well-earned 86 points. Great job!

From SylvainR: 1:2400 WWII Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz & Graf Zeppelin (12 points)

From Sylvain: 

I've just finished the last four units of my Kriegsmarine project:

Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz and Graf Zeppelin. Above, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are sporting the colors of their most famous sortie: Operation Berlin. The ship on the right is from CinC while the left one was made by GHQ. CinC's details, like the guns, are more to scale, but they are much fragile. I prefer the exaggerated details on the GHQ units. I also think the planes and the lifeboats add "life" to the model, details neglected on CinC units.

Tirpitz is escorted by the Bismarck in the foreground and the Graf Zeppelin in the background.

Lower image, Graf Zeppelin is escorting a U-boat. Since this aircraft carrier was never commissioned, I chose to paint it in the same pattern as the Bismarck, a pattern also featured on many other Kriegsmarine units. Apparently, Graf Zeppelin's primary mission was to serve as a spotting platform for U-boats. The planned complement of aircrafts included 20 spotter planes out of a capacity of 43 airplanes. It will be fun to see what kind of trouble these ships could have caused to the royal Navy if they would have operated together.

Next up, another enemy of the Royal Navy: la Marine française!!!

Excellent work Sylvain. I really like the Graf Zeppelin in the 'Razzle Dazzle' paint scheme. 

These four ships will give Sylvain 12 points. I look forward to seeing the upcoming French Fleet!

From SylvainR: 1:2400 WWII Kriegsmarine Cruisers (22 points)

Sylvain, the 'Lion of Hillsdale' sends us some more microscale German ships for us to marvel at.

From Sylvain:

Here is my new batch of German ships. There are 11 cruiser size ships.

First, 6 light cruisers.

Top: Emden (first German modern light cruiser, totally undergunned), Nurnberg and Leipzig.

Bottom: Köln, Königsberg and Karlsruhe (the "K" class)

3 heavy cruisers.

Top: Blücher on her way to invade Oslo and impress the fortress garrison with her 8" guns and Admiral Hipper, with her signature camouflage.

Bottom: Prinz Eugen in one of her many attire. She's like a princess with so many

dresses. I chose the camouflage of early 1941, similar to how the Bismarck was painted on her last voyage.

Note now colourful the ships are with their turrets featuring air recognition colours.

They almost rival the Italians.

Now, Top: The Altmark, cruising under the sun with the Graf Spee in the background (previously painted).

Bottom: the Scheswig-Holstein, a pre-dreadnought battleship known for firing the very first shots of WW2.

Next up: German capital ships.

Lovely work Sylvain (though likening the Prinz Eugen to a 'princess' made me tilt my head a bit) . These eleven will give you 22 points. Well done!

From SylvainR: 1:2400 WWII German Naval & Ronin #45 (58 points)

Sylvain opens his gambit with a wonderful selection of microscale WWII German U-Boats,  Z-Boats and his Challenge Ronin (#45).

From Sylvain:

Here is my first entry:

10 U-boots & 9 Z-boots, all at 1:2400, from GHQ. I've provided a close-up of a type IX U-boot hanging on my finger.

There is also my entrance fee, a samurai archer.  I don't know the maker. There is this notice on the base: AEG - Murch. I got this one from a friend in Montréal a long time ago.

Next up: Kriegsmarine light cruisers.

Beautiful work, Sylvain, and on such tiny castings! Very impressive. I also really like the basing you've done. Can't wait to play a game with them.  :)

With the work on the basing I'm going to score these ships the same as a 6mm vehicle, so 2 points each. Along with the samurai archer (Thank you again, Sylvain!), this will give him 58 points as a basis for his climb up the points roster.

It Truly Is The End Times: Sylvain Attacked - 6mm Battle of Corunna

The French advancing down the ridge towards the British lines near Corunna.

As many of you know, according to a bunch of ancient Mayan guys (whose claim to fame seems to be designing the heaviest desktop calendar in history and their unquenchable appetite for human hearts) we're apparently mere hours away from snuffing it. I have to say that I've been a little skeptical of this prediction for a variety of reasons, a few being: it's not even the end of the tax year, the NHL is still in lockout, George R.R. Martin has not finished the Game of Thrones series... and we've not even started the Painting Challenge!

But my conviction regarding the safety of the human race was severely shaken the other week when during a game an omen appeared before my very eyes. The unthinkable happened. 

Sylvain attacked.

For those who do not know Sylvain you have to realize that this man is the master of caution, moderation and consideration. To his credit he is as tenacious as a tick when on the defensive - notoriously difficult to dislodge and fights like a outraged French waiter when pressed. But he is not the poster child for the 'Attaque a Outrance'. 

The table at the beginning of the game, before deployment.

But that night the world wobbled on its axis as Sylvain ordered the 'attaque'. As background I put on a 'Fast Play Grande Armee' game which focused on the British rearguard on the outskirts of Corunna, 1809. Stacy took the British and Peter and Sylvain commanded the French. It was a fairly close-run affair for the majority of the game but then, all in one turn, the French were either pushed back in combat or where falling back from bad command rolls. 

My storm-swept craft paper 'River del Burgo'

Ships ferrying the British off the Spanish mainland.

The seemingly solid British line.

The British still occupy the villages, push back the French and the battle hangs in the balance.

At this point Peter lost his bottle and wanted to throw in the towel (to his credit most of us were nodding in agreement at this point), but Sylvain quietly chirped-in, saying, 'No, we have a fresh reserve.  We will attack.' The room went silent and in the back of my mind I was wondering when I had last called my mother and if we had any prayer beads in the house.

British reinforcements arrive in an attempt to stem the tide.

So Sylvain duely launched his attack, the dice were cast and just like the Seventh Seal, Stacy's British broke and a fatal hole was punched in their lines. We called it at that point as it was late and some of us were thinking we needed to get home to arrange our private affairs.

Sylvain's French (top right) break through the British lines!

So, forget the black holes, alien landing sites and rogue asteroids. Sylvain has determined our fate. If you have anything on your bucket list you want to get sorted before the 21st you best get to it...