Wargames Weekend: Mission - The Manor

Our penultimate game was another alternative history outing, this time set in World War 2. Set as part of Operation Sealion, I played a platoon of Fallschirmjaeger intent on capturing The Manor, a British communications centre. Lenin took charge of the small force defending it.

Everything went quite well with me advancing the section on the right flank up to the road followed by the centre section. Then some fool in the left hand section managed to get spotted coming out of the woods and the game was up! So instead of finding the Manor with only light defences the entire defending force was stood to waiting for me.

My first attempt to get an MG34 out of the woods to cover the perimeter was a bit of a fiasco. So I decided on a more co-ordinated approach which did draw plenty of fire but left me with some troops in a position to return fire. My MG34s managed to keep the Brit's heads down and I sent a small party forward to cut the barbed wire fence on the right. After that it was a desperate holding action for the defenders, hoping to give the communications room enough time to destroy the code books, equipment and the like.

Reinforcements from the local Home Guard turned up, better late than never. But had been spotted by one of my men and so came under some heavy fire when they tried to advance and decided that discretion was the better part of valour and withdrew.

So the Manor and what remained of its equipment and documents fell into the hands of the Reich despite the valiant efforts of the defenders.

The Manor itself is my Grand Manner building with the figures mostly from Foundry. We used our favourite WW2 rules, Nuts! from Two Hour Wargames.

Invasion! Operation Sealion 1940

Living in Kent and with a fascination for the Second World War I have been interested in Operation Sealion, the planned German invasion, for some time. Accordingly, I keep an eye out for any new material on the subject. I actually bought Martin Marix Evans' book a little while ago but have had quite a few books ahead of it on my reading list (as you will have noticed if you follow my Shelfari shelf).

I finished reading it yesterday and so I thought I write a quick outline of the book and my thoughts on it.

The book is split into two parts; Part 1 covers the history leading up to the planned invasion and Part 2 is a conjectural description of the invasion itself had it been launched.

The first part begins on 1 September 1939 and covers the successful invasions of Norway, the Low Countries and France. At first this might seem to be widening the scope of the book somewhat, or if you are a bit of a cynic padding; however, the narrative is clear and provides a useful context to Sealion.

The second part assumes a September invasion and covers the period from 9 to 29 September 1940. It makes a number of quite plausible assumptions and tries to weave real deployment, defences and plans with the conjectural landings and subsequent advance inland.

Whilst the book brings together a good amount of useful information and the conjectural invasion is interesting it doesn't really add very much to the material already published. The invasion is nicely described, although some maps would have made following the narrative easier, and provides some nice low level encounters which anchor it.

Overall I was a little disappointed, not because this is a bad book, it isn't, but rather because it could have been so much more. As it is the book is worth reading if you don't have a library of other material on the subject (which I do) although I did think the ending of the second part could have been handled a little more imaginatively.

Project Update

As 2009 rushes by I thought it might be an idea to collect my thoughts as to the "current" projects. These have changed a little from the plan I outlined in December but that's par for the course. Here's what's been happening with my 2008 projects:

28mm Winter War
The Soviets are now based with only a mortar to be completed. I am about to start on the second Bolt Action Miniatures building and, of course, there are the Snapdragon revetments to paint up.

28mm Spanish Civil War
Having based up quite a few for one of the gaming weekends the remainder, including the Assaltos, Carlists, Moroccan Regulares and the Falange are in progress. The Grand Manner buildings have worked out nicely and I'm still toying with the idea of getting their church (on the back of a project later down the list!)

28mm WW1
The early war Brits are nearly all based, apart from the HMGs. I still have some additional figures for the early and later war Germans to finish basing and the late war French to get around to. I'm hoping that the upcoming TooFatLardies rules will spur me into action on these. In any event I am planning to stage a game for late April which should force me to make some progress!

28mm Irish War of Independence
I'm afraid that this hasn't moved forward much since the last game; however, that did prompt me to get the Crossley tenders painted. In reality I only have the Sloppy Jalopy armoured car to assemble and I suspect that my 1938 project may benefit from having that available. Again the BEF figures I have bought, mainly for 1938, will also be useable for the British Army and so will widen the possible scenarios. I am hoping that someone will produce the Lancia armoured carriers:

Musketeer did suggest that they might but were having casting issues IIRC.

28mm Tudor Irish
OK, I have to own up on this one - there has been no real progress at all here. I suspect this is partly because I have been caught up in other things and party because I still have to settle on which rules to use (or to write my own). I often find that without that element being sorted it is difficult to see when a project will make it to the table and so they often get parked.

Moving on to 2009:

28mm Early WW2
The Foundry and Crusader British, German and French figures are being painted at the moment and I've picked up a couple of pieces of armour for the Germans but I am waiting for the launch of the new BEF Miniatures (allegedly at Salute) to see what I can get for the Brits and the French.

28mm 1938 A Very British Civil War
Originally a minor spin off from the previous project this one has really taken on a life of its own and I have been spending quite a bit of time looking around for figures, vehicles and terrain to bring this period to life. The big advantage is the obvious overlap with my Operation Sealion plans and so most of the generic stuff I pick up will work for either.

Musketeer have been the main source for the specific 1938 figures and their BUF and BEF (to be used as Regulars or Territorials as appropriate) are off for painting. I will also be using figures from the early WW2 and IWI projects along with a few appropriate SCW ones. I am also hoping to get some of the upcoming Musketeer militia at Salute (which may also find their way into WW2 as LDV).

Given that terrain has been more difficult to find I have been trying to look for pieces to make the table more obviously English. Picked up some telephone boxes (you can't get more quinticentially English than that - can you?) from Black Cat Bases:


As you can see they've got the basic look but I can't understand why they didn't make them square. The casting is a little on the basic side too. These will need a bit of work but it will be interesting to see if they look better once they're tidied up and painted.

I'm pleased with the Grand Manner manor house which will work nicely and I have my eye on a couple of other pieces which might work but I'd like to have a look at them in the flesh (or is that the resin) at Salute before buying as they are a major "investment".

28mm Wild West
This is pretty much ready to go. Ideally I could do with a couple more buildings to bulk out the town but the figures are painted and based and I plan to use the Two Hour Wargames Six Gun Sound rules. I just need to come up with some scenarios.

28mm Polar Bear Expedition
I managed to pick up the HLBS figures but I now need to work out what to use for opposition. Lenin does have some Copplestone figures in greatcoats so they may well do in the interim but it would be nice to get some which are based with snow (his are for Back of Beyond)!

28mm Greek Myth
No real progress here as yet. Lenin will be painting these figures for me and he's been snowed under with other stuff so I suspect they'll be a little while yet. I have picked up some buts and pieces of minor set dressing but that's pretty much all.

28mm Napoleonics
This wasn't on the agenda in December but I have been thinking of expanding my existing small collection of Peninsular figures for a while and the TooFatLardies' Sharp Practice rules have provided the springboard. I plan to get quite a few more Front Rank figures at Salute to enable a much larger game to be put on. The other reason this has resurfaced is that it gives me an opportunity to use those Grand Manner buildings I mentioned earlier.

15mm early WW2
I have some figures ready for this but it has been on a back burner for a little while. I am thinking of starting a small Operation Sealion campaign with the larger games at 15mm (possibly using a tweaked version of Spearhead) tied in with the 28mm skirmish games. Only time will tell whether this comes off!

15mm Seven Years War
I've had a decent collection of figures to do French & Indian Wars for a number of years now. When I put them together I conciously got the British figures in the traditional tricornes rather than the F&IW campaign dress so that I could use them for the European theatre at some future time. I am thinking of kicking this off again but we'll need to see if it has the "legs" to actually get to the table. I will be putting on a F&IW game in early April which may spur me on though.

On your bike!

Following their acquisition of Bolt Action Miniatures, Warlord Games are giving some sneak peeks of upcoming products including:

I hope it's not too long before this one, and others like him, are released.

Grand Manner 28mm Manor House

I've been looking around for buildings to use for my planned 1938 and Operation Sealion games but haven't been having much luck. Then I remembered that Grand Manner had a manor house in their WWII Carentan range. I had looked at it previously for earlier period games as it's described as a 16th/17th Century stone manor house; however, I think it looks more like 18th Century but, in any case, it looked pretty usable. I popped an order in just under two weeks ago (which, when you remember it's hand painted is pretty rapid turnaround) and it arrived this morning:

Grand Manner Manor House

I know it's pretty pricey but, I hope you'll agree, it is a lovely model and nicely painted too. Plus the service I have received from Grand Manner has always been excellent.

And All The King's Men

And All The King's Men is a novel by Gordon Stevens which was kindly recommended by Felix in a comment on my Operation Sealion reading list post.

The story covers the period up to and beyond a successful invasion of Britain in 1940. Whilst there are a few passages in the book which don't flow as well as I might like the overall storyline is engaging and the tale moves along at a brisk pace. As with all alternative fiction there are places where you could question the credibility of some of the plot devices but if you are prepared to do a little suspension of disbelief (this is alternative history and fiction after all!) it makes a ripping yarn.

Operation Sealion: The Miniature Operational Campaign Game

Having had an interest in Operation Sealion for some time, I was interested to see a Campaign Game being published by S-2 Shop Productions. The campaign consists of two volumes, the first covering the initial landings and the up through Kent and Sussex to London and the second widening the theatre of operations to the west and into London itself. The campaign is designed to be used with a variety of different sets of wargames rules including Spearhead, Command Decision, Kampfgruppe Commander, WW2 Micro Armor: The Game, Clash of Armor and Tac. It reflects the invasion plan for September 1940.

The campaign is designed to be played with rules having a single stand representing a platoon; however, the orders of battle have been scaled down one level from reality so that a Corps becomes a Division, a Division a Brigade/Regiment and so on.

Volume 1 is a 64 page softback booklet broken down into a number of distinct sections introducing the campaign, special rules, orders of battle and maps of the locations. The campaign map consists of a double page theatre map showing the individual locations and the transport connections between them. Each location has an individual map which is intended to present the particular locale on the tabletop. Units may travel between locations and the time taken is indicated (although not on the theatre map in this volume). The individual landing areas are covered with the different invasion waves being shown as well as the historic deployment of the British forces (who are focussed on the anticipated East Coast landing).

Volume 2 is a 40 page softback booklet and comes with a separate theatre map which covers the locations from both volumes and also shows the travel distances between the locations on the map itself. It covers the introduction and rules from volume 1 (with some revisions and corrections) and then provides the orders of battle for the later invasion waves and British reserve forces along with the individual maps for the new locations.

It is clear that a lot of effort has gone into the product and it provides a straighforward way to put on the land element of a Sealion campaign with the minimum of effort. Some may not like the downscaling of the units but this is understandable. Others may feel that the individual location maps oversimplify things but it certainly does make setting up the wargames table an awful lot easier.

My major qualm was, however, the price with each volume costing $24.99. This has changed recently as it appears that S-2 Shop Productions are closing down and are currently offering both volumes together at $5.99 plus shipping. It is also available in the UK from Monarch Military Books but at the higher price of £28.

Operation Sealion - Reading List

Here is a quick run down of my own little library on the subject:

Invasion 1940
An account of the German preparations and the British counter-measures
Peter Fleming
Published in 1957 and with the author being the older brother of the creator of James Bond this book is quite different to some of the later ones on this list. Fleming is quite realistic regarding the flaws in the German plans and presents a clear and balanced view of the opposing plans. It presents a purely factual account and is one of my favourites.

Invasion of England 1940
The planning of Operation Sealion
Peter Schenk
This account, translated from the original German, provides one of the most detailed explorations of the German plans. It is by far the most useful book here from a gaming perspective as it gives details of the invasion fleet, landing plans and units proposed. Highly recommended.

Invasion
The Alternate History of the German Invasion of England, July 1940
Kenneth Macksey
Macksey's book is essentially a fictional history of the invasion. He decided to base his story on a July 1940 invasion which makes the British defence somewhat weaker, coming not long after Dunkirk but makes the invasion less plausible historically as the Germans simply weren't ready. Of course as a "what if" you can make whatever assumptions you need to make the story work and, had the Germans been serious about an invasion and not been surprised by the speed of their own advance, you can make a case for this approach. It is an interesting read.

If Britain Had Fallen
The real Nazi occupation plans
Norman Longmate
Based on a BBC television film of the same name, this book is similar to Macksey's in that it is a fictionalised account of the invasion. In this case it takes the more usual September 1940 date for the invasion. Another interesting read.

Invasion 1940
The Nazi Invasion Plan for Britain
SS General Walter Schellenberg
The introduction to the book by John Erickson puts the remainder into an interesting context. The balance of the book is actually a translation of a handbook, for which Schellenberg claimed a large part of the credit, developed by the Germans in preparation for an invasion. This book is interesting for the glimpse it provides into the German view of Britain at the time; however, it is not really "The Nazi Invasion Plan" as the sub-title suggests. Interesting for background.

Operation Sea Lion
The German plan to invade Britain, 1940
Egbert Kieser
Another translation from German this book has a somewhat wider scope than some of the others in that it covers a much greater portion of the early part of the war in the lead up to Operation Sealion. As such it does provide the appropriate context for the invasion and approaches it from the German perspective; however, it does not go into the level of detail of some of the other books here.

Invasion, 1940
The explosive truth about the Battle of Britain
Derek Robinson
The "explosive truth" of the sub-title isn't really terribly explosive I'm afraid. It is simply that, whilst important, the Battle of Britain wasn't the only reason the Germans didn't actually invade. Put simply the Royal Navy played a significant part. Even with air superiority or even supremacy the invasion force would still have had to cross the Channel and the Royal Navy was much larger than the Kriegsmarine. Robinson makes his case well, even if it is a rather easy case to make, and tries not to play down the part played by the RAF.

Invasion!
Operation Sealion 1940
Martin Marix Evans
Unfortunately I can't really say much about this one as its still on my reading list. I'm hoping to get on to it after I've finished the three books I'm currently reading. In which case I'll post my thoughts then.