The second engagement at Okcorralska

While the tank fight  was going on (previous post), two German infantrymen were looting a house. Each holding an anti-tank grenade bundle, they decide to hunt down the t-34.  They move; Hans however stumbles on the flooring exiting the house [ two Move Dice and I rolling two ones!] Franz fall over him [yup, another one inch move!] but gets up and runs 6 inches further [Wild turned into a Move] and acquires the Russian tank.

Hans (right), Franz (left) 

Sensing the Germans could be near by, the Russian reverse and rotate the turret and see the German (Franz) approaching and load up the main gun.

Hans gets up and runs to a position on the other side of a low fence while Franz runs directly toward the tank fast enough that he was now within range to throw his grenade charge under the muzzle of the 85mm.

The Russian driver cleverly reveres the tank while pivoting, allowing the front face toward the element but more importantly, allowing the  hull mg to acquire the German.   The MG rounds hit  Franz wounding him [loss of two Comm, Die]

Hans, meanwhile, cautiously creep slowly to the fence [only one Move Die this time and, due on form, I again roll a 1(inch) for the move]

Franz behind the Russian t-34

While wounded, but apparently not in his legs, Franz moved to the immediate rear of the t-34.  But he forgot one critical issue - the Russian tank could reverse and crush him under their tracks. Oh, dear.

Hans, finally made his way to the fence and acquired the tank.

Hans slowly moving into position ( despite his pose!)

The Russians backed up further and aimed the big gun toward the German and aimed.

Hans looked at his options [the Command Dice] and decided on the “Heil der Fuehrer” option and would run toward the beast.  Luckily his legs cooperated ( I rolled for the distance after deciding on his course of action ).  He threw the grenade toward the Russian but it bounced off the top of the engine compartment and exploded harmlessly behind the tank.

Hans about to throw is grenade...poorly it must be said....

The Russian hull machine gun chatted again but the German avoided the stream of lead.  The main gun then fired.  The shell blew by Hans but the blast alone shook him up [ Remarkably, the 8 Russian strike dice only allowed 3 hits, 1 of which was negated. ]

But not frozen in place, Hans ran away, ostensibly to get another grenade.

Hans shown in his final moments.....

The German could still be seen by the Russian crew, so they loaded another round and fired. The shot took off poor Han’s head.  

(he rolled a very poor double 1s for savings rolls - so we can justify this outcome, what! )

Epilogue: 

In the cellar of one of the houses of OKcorralska, a father says to his little boy, you can take your hands from your ears.  Our village will again be quiet…for now….

CoC game in the sun

 This may be the first wargame I played outside in the sun,  but as we are a small group, double vaccinated and outside, felt safe enough to have a game of Chain of Command, hosted by WillB on his new terrain.  He extended it with an extensive town and fields which indeed became the focus of most of the fighting.

The Sicilian town with all of WillB's myriad of scatter terrain and civilians. The church which would play an important role in the defence from the German flank attack- from the right of the scene 

The German Panzergrenadiers (in tropical uniforms) are pinned by the mortar barrage as shown by the white cotton puffs.

 WillB has a nice report at his blog at : link

 As a new-off-the-boat lieutenant fresh from the Borden Training Camp, I had good help from my more experienced Sergeant, Craig, in navigating the decisions one must make with these rules.   The mortar barrage continued for a goodly amount of time and if it had continued, most of the German Panzergrenadiers would have eventually succumb to its effects but I would roll three 6's ending it.    ( I rolling three sixes?! and all at once?! And that = bad?! uggh...).    Of course the survivors of the mortars happened to be the machine gun crews.  The firepower now unleashed would shread - literally - any hope of defeating the town as on the other flank of the German two-pronged attack had forced my defenders from the stronghold of the church.  

The Canadians' simple tactics had no response to the firepower of the German's MG42s.  

new WW2 tanks

Not a lot of wargaming of note lately for me.  Always piddling about on this project or that, but nothing write home blog about.

Did do up a couple of Waffenkammer resin tanks included for me in an order by WillB [link to company].  I added a late war T-34 to go against any German Kitties (Panthers or Tigers) others might have for a game of 'What a Tanker', or to be hunted by my German panzerfaust-armed lads.  

T-34/85 with a 'Bad Squiddo' female driver (used as more 1:48 scale to the Warlord plastic infantry than the provided driver) She seems to be shaking her fist in defiance . 

But of course one just MUST do all the rust and weathering!  Mind you I really don't think tanks lasted long enough to acquire such wear in reality.

The other, a rather smaller R-35 in Italian employ for support of my Italian Camicie Nere/ Blackshirt militia contingent.  A famous ‘charge’ of 12 of these caused consternation for the Americans at Gera in Sicily… for several minutes….. 

The two man crewed R-35 with the supplied commander/gunloader/gunner having a seat outside ("unbuttoned") .  He is attached by a magnet in his knee...

...to the internal magnet which allows me to remove him and....

...manually close the hatch.  I managed to drill a very small hole through the hatch's hinge to allow a thin piece of plastic rod - the type which is used to attach price tags to clothing - to be fed through and squeezed at both ends so gluing was not required.     While not partial to resin, I do like the effect of it to portray the historically rough casting of the metal turret.

This R-35 was inspired by the following images of the tanks engaged at Geta:

Armour Rescue - WaT game

 

I really like this pic of WillB's "Cyclops" crossing my new bridge - see previous post-

Another fun battle of “What a Tanker!”  armour combat rules with WillB providing his collection of Sicily-appropriate Canadian tanks and a few German opposition.  I provided the terrain (probably more desert than Sicily but that is all I had Italian…) and, of course, using my new bridge. That did not surprise WillB.  The scenario was a ‘rescue’ of a immobile Valentine but functioning “Harry” by the intrepid C Troop of Canadians consisting of Shermans “Chief”, “Cyclops”, “Corvette” (a Firefly with a 17 lb) and “Cobault”.  Against these Allies were a PaK 35 waiting behind a stonewall, a Beutepanzer StuG M42 / Semovente 75/18, and, well, a big bad Tiger I. 

The battlefield with the PaK35 fifth in line to activate and WillB's tanks in the far corner.  "Harry" the track-missing Valentine is off-camera to the left and the Semovente to the right near the foremost clump of rocks.

C troop after 'Cobault' (left) was brewed by the Tiger.

WillB’s troop had a bit of rough time of it as the scenario had them bunched together and needing to crossing the bridge.  After the usual fits and starts and stops of WaT, the Valentine was destroyed and my Tiger finally took out a Sherman (poor “Cobault”) but “Cyclops” proved to be the star crew as it took out the PaK 35 (squish!) and distracted the Tiger.  At one point, I had positioned the Tiger for a nice close flank shot on the Sherman but had not the dice (yet) to shoot.  But “Cyclops” was in a position that, if it got initiative first, to move behind the Cat. The Kitty did not get to go first and so lost sight of the Sherman.  It was not “Cyclops” in the rear but “Corvette” and its powerful 17lb which took out the German beast.  That left the crew of the Semovente to call it a day and depart thus giving the area to the Canadians. 

The low profile Semovente tank-destroyer hull down on the hill was a hard target to hit

"Cyclops" (lower left) on the move to deal with the PaK. The other Shermans offer support.

just after 'Cyclops' moved behind the German Kitty which was unable to respond effectively and would be shortly shot....

.... and destroyed by the 17lb.   Yes, I was still "unbuttoned" but WillB had way more hits than I had armor saves! The extra had got did not matter....

"What a Tanker!" is an easy, fun game.  OK, it can be frustrating at times:

Yes, that was one of my command rolls!! For WaT it means I can REALLY aim but little else.

but of what I read and have learnt of tank combat, it is not far off the mark if you add a bit of narrative into each turn of play.  Things happen, things get FUBAR'd, commands are misunderstood, etc, etc. all this in a span of actually only several minutes of combat.  It has scratched my WW2 need in any case.

Solo WaT in Japan

I had only a few full torso WW2 Japanese infantry left on the sprues and since a few weeks ago now I was still on the “What a Tanker” infantry anti-tank theme, I thought I use them to create essentially a suicide AT squad armed with some ‘lunge mines’ supplied. Two of them have those weapons on a long stick, one has his in the hand (I used the pole elsewhere!) and the fourth is using a rifle to keep the tank commander ‘buttoned-up’ making it harder for the target tank to see these infantry threats. So to explain these new Japanese warriors AND, more critically, the use of an old British Matilda tank, AND further, to show off my new Japanese Plasticraft building, I have this Alt-History story: April 1946, U.S. President Truman was not delivered the atomic bomb and so had to defeat the still defiant Japan the old fashion way. Operation Coronet is almost two months old with Tokyo and adjacent areas secured but pockets of resistance needed to be removed. While a relatively small part of this operation, the Australian contribution was tasked toward one of these areas. Sergeant Forlorn’s old Matilda tank had become separated from its infantry support and had entered a small village seemingly untouched by the destruction of war…. Inside the Matty stopped before the village, a conversation rages: “Where are the bloomin’ infantry?!” “lost them back a ways” “Why didn’t you bloody say?!” “you seemed happy looking at the cherry blossoms” “Well, step on it and get past this bloody village!”

The engine of the Matty sputtered and then roared to life (rolling doubled ones for first Move Dice followed by rolling 10 inches for the Second!). Hearing the tank, Ieko sprang from his position behind the house’s corner while yelling “For the Emperor!”, slipped on the wet ground [I only rolling 3(inches) with 2d6] yet reached the tank and aimed his thrust with the mine held in his hand to the side of the green monster.

His aim (double sixes! …my rather erratic and dramatic dice rolling trend continues…) adds 2 more Strike Dice to his attack.

“Its a Kamikaze!” is all the C.O. who was in the open hatch could say before the sharpshooter with the rifle put a bullet into his head. [ I must say my rolling of the dice in this case was perfect for this event to occur] The Matty is now down to three Command Dice but luckily the driver was composed enough [actually I rolled a Drive Dice] and the tank went into reverse and the gunner acquired the shooter but could not do more. Seeing that his chance to finish off the tank was fading as it slowly reversed away from him, Ichiro sprang from his hiding spot positioned behind the straw fence near the sharpshooter and ran up the road. “Bansai!” His sacrifice shook the tank crew further having one further Command Dice lost.

Kenso, in the door of the rice barn, needed to be much closer and so hoped to move into a better position without being spotted but his nerves …and my dice rolling…prevented his feet from moving.

Meanwhile the Matilda slowly moved backward from the village. Kenso finally called to the Emperor for help and I rolled a 1,2,3,4,5,6 combo! Kenso acquired the location for the tank, ran as few have [ I rolled 20 (inches) on 4d6 !] - having converted the Wild (6) into an extra “Drive/Move Die - which had him reach the distant tank and thrust his lunge mine [successful aim roll] but alas, the blast, while killing Kenso, did little to the armour of the Matilda.

The sharpshooter, lowered his rifle (not rolling the dice for him to fire) and mourned the loss of his comrades, as the green beast moved away….

Bringing a ‘faust to a tank fight……

“What a Tanker!” is a unashamedly tank vs tank game.
However, wargamers being wargamers,  can’t leave well enough alone and many have done much work to expand upon the original premise to include anti-tank guns and anti-armour infantry weapons.  While I have done so, I was surprised to discover that even the Two Fat Lardies authors have also done their own version!  [ LARD Magazine 2019 ]  Their rules had the panzerfausts/bazookas stationary while I have gone the 'more traditional ' route and play the mobile infantry carrying blasters of tanker hell more in tune with the original rules.

As a play test, WillB was given my 3D print Matilda II - a Lend-Lease provided by the British,  while I played the late war Germans. These are Warlord plastics painted by me recently and armed with the always popular panzerfausts for hunting the lost tank in a Russian village.

Because of the need of certain dice at certain times …and that not happening… it does mean the infantry don’t necessary have free reign and indeed at times became the hunted.  At one point the Matty rounded the corner of the church almost running down one of the Germans who was frightened stiff with fear (he did not get any ‘move’ or even ‘fire’ dice at the time).  The tank could not move any further unfortunately and the German finally turned and made his escape.

It gives me the opportunity to have the late war enemy tanks on the table without the need for me to build an additional tank model to face them ;))

Scrap Iron

A tank model with this much damage is just scrap  iron  plastic.

My friend WillB builds his nice tank models then kindly donates the left over bits to me. This time parts of a German panzer including a partial turret and hull.  From those I glued on any and every bit or piece which he left on the sprue.  The gun really sets off the model sagging as it is.  I hope the whole image suggests a massive internal explosion.

The model is for my Russia winter 1941 theme for What a Tanker and will be a ‘terrain piece’ for the vehicles to move around or hide

a 20th C. Roman infantryman....

Inspired by a friend’s inventive mashup of Landsknecht armed with a MG34 WW2 machine gun (!) and images of modern soldiers with very Imperial Roman looking armour of which I have always wanted to create,  I have done my own plastics mashup of a Imperial Roman (c. 100 AD and an Imperial Japanese infantryman WW2 (c. 1940) both by Warlord Games.

Obviously the armour - the famous Lorica Segmentata must be shown - heck, not Imperial Roman without it - as would the helmet which I smoothed of details to get a slightly more modern look.  Steel colour was used but a more modern dull green could be effective for more current looking soldiers.  Two more quintessential Roman items are the ‘caligae’ [army sandals] and the ‘baltea’ [ the dangly straps in front of, well, the dangly bits ]. Both these were kept, but the main uniform is early 20th century.  The Japanese uniform has a long tunic covering the rump which was about the same length as the Roman one thus I painted in a dull red which is over the long sleeves and trousers painted a modern dull colour. As this uniform is from the 1930’s/WW2, I did not go for a baggier camouflaged version and so left the puttees which are painted in buff so giving a leather bound look instead (something picked up from the barbarians in the intervening years?).

Fun little project.

The large amount of plastic Romans I have might still be “amended”.  Looking toward making them the “Lost IX Legio”.  Lots of skeletons, mangled limbs, dead flesh and rusted armour. That could be an army.  Now to get some bits and parts.

I have cheated a bit and already created a ballista crew from the few skellie bits I had at the very bottom of a box for some reason….

My new Italian WW2 Camicie Nere

Gaming buddy WillB needs constant focusing on a project lest he wander off and paint civilians or some such…LOL… see his blog at : link   for his wonderful ‘diversions’

Sooo, I said I would create a suitable opposition to his illustrious Canadians fighting in Sicily during 1943.  Interested in his campaign efforts I found a Too Fat Lardy “codex” for the Italians of that campaign.  It mentions ‘coastal’ and’Blackshirt’ units.  Hmm, as I don’t have Italian figures, what do the Blackshirts look like?  A bit of image viewing prompted me to start on these rather poorly rated soldiers.  I only had plastic American GI torsos available - a gift of bits from KevinA who had rather hacked these at the waist.  Obviously these boys need to be in trenches to hide the rather distressing fact they had no legs.  Arms literally (!) had to searched for in my bits box found from such varied sources as US, Zulu, Napoleonic and 18th century….  But the real prompt was the Blackshirt use of the black fez with tassel.  I have a box of unused plastic Zouaves from which I could take the fez and still leaving a turbaned version for their use.  Bonus!

Italian Blackshirt soldier

That was Sunday of last week.  So, still working full time and all the other distraction of life, I had a rushed time frame.  The scraping, manipulation, gluing and painting of the plastic was done, trenches quickly built, barbed wire areas speedily created.  I knew I could use the maximum number of the latter allowed in the rules as the poor Blackshirts had a minimum of an extra +8 support points (!) to be taken in the required entrenchments and these new barbed wire emplacements. In the Chain of Command rules, the attacker rolls for support points and the defender gets half of these with the difference in strengths added.  Between WillB and myself, poor dice rolling seems to be the norm so I got only one more point which was not enough for the sniper I had available.  Nevertheless, the barbed wire did prove very useful to funnel Will’s attack toward my ‘killing ground’ in front of my trenches.  But I get ahead of myself.

All this preparation was kept from Will as I wanted to to surprise him militarily with this unknown enemy.  The scenario had a translator provide this information taken from a villager to his colonel:

“ The shirts of black infest our (town) with sharp string and holes of ferrets.”

We gave no real concept to the terrain and simply put pieces down with only a bit of thought to position and function.  Will started with a farm house in a stone walled courtyard but ended up placing all but the largest of his buildings.  I think it was so he could place his colourful new Sicilian civilians about on the table. (grin).   That was fine as my backstory to the Blackshirts rather poor position outside the village was that they THOUGHT they were getting support from the local German garrison but these had been order away without informing the Italians!  The civilians were thus ‘in the streets’ celebrating their departure.  Nevertheless, Will’s orders are to take the crossroads at the town.  My Blackshirts’ duty was to stop them.

The patrol phase of Chain of Command is interesting and a bit tricky as, if played wrong, could limit your deployment choices and we are both rather inexperienced with the rules.  I had the added problem that, with the necessity of being in entrenchments, my forces would not desire to deploy behind walls or such. I still didn't want to give too much away to spoil the surprise for Will.
My Blackshirts would end up in a bottom of a slight depression between two ridges in farm land to await the Canadians appearing on the rise in front of them.  Will used his support points in a pre-game barrage which would have me roll of units if units would indeed arrive and me, more often that not, failing to bring in my leaders or units until turns later.

My rather ad-hoc Blackshirt contingent.

Green troops in the rules really suffer (rightfully) with less command dice, shorter jump-off ranges and can suffer greater casualties.  We started calling them "kermits" as in Kermit the Frog with his "It's not easy being green" phrase....

WillB avoided the barbed wire and a direct assault on the village and so was forced to attack frontally but helped by the hillock between my entrenchments and his line of attack - again, a result of the patrol/deployment part of the rules. The hillock also blocks line of sight for his supporting troops and his favourite tactic of laying smoke, lots of smoke, suffered from accuracy and so did not get the perfect effect he hoped to achieve.  But while only somewhat limiting the fire from my entrenched Italians, it did stay around.  Smoke only dissipates on the end of ‘a turn’ and for three successive games now, neither of us, let alone me, has rolled the required three sixes to do so, with the result that we only play “one turn” a game and the hiding smoke remains.

WillB likes his smoke rounds but without line of sight they sometime even land on his troops!

Nevertheless I could do some shooting and even going ‘tactical’ (shown by Will’s unique markers which have copious shrubbery on them — going tactical in the open effectively has the unit be like they were in light cover i.e. behind shrubbery…) my first round of fire was quite good….this would of course fall off during the game with my impotent firing dice.

Will's Canadians engage in hand-to-hand with my Italians

The rather shiny barbed wire in the background at least forced Will to go in front of my position.  The best I could hope for.  Being 'green' troops, the Blackshirts cannot be expected to give too much resistance.  However forcing the Canadians to engage in direct attacks would mean the Canadians would suffer huge casualties.

The final Canadian assault 

 However, mounting casualties from Italian fire and the dropping sun had him do risky frontal charges, which while costly, did force the Italians from their trenches and have them vanish into the countryside.  The Italian Force Morale was close to zero, all the leaders dead or wounded and only one command remained - my only recently deployed unit - I could do little to change the outcome.
The crossroads would be taken.

Don’t know how much use my new Blackshirts will be in any future games, but it was a inexpensive (read: nil cost!) and rather short timeframe foray into WW2 Sicily.
You can read Will's blog here for his version of this 'battle'.

Wading ashore

"I truly hope that puddle on the floor is from the ocean and not from your crotch, Kowalski!" intoned the tank commander to his loader.  But even he couldn't wait to get to the beach before thoughts of sinking entombed in this hunk of metal overcame him......

WillB, made his beautiful WW2 Sherman tank with a Rubicon kit which offers MANY variations. (link: Will's build )

Of course this leaves some extra bits left over.  Two of which were a hull (top only) and turret with a spare gun.  "Perhaps you might model a dug-in tank or something" he said as he offered the parts to me - he knows I enjoy the creative thought process of how to 'justify' any of it on the tabletop.   I thought about it for sometime and finally watched some video of the tanks in action and expert modellers employing some techniques to make it look convincing:  the tank in water, perhaps wading in on shore on a Pacific island beach.  Do I have a US Pacific War army? No.  Not even planning to have one which will be surprising to people who know me ....

While I did watch the various expert modellers display their talents, they make it look so easy.  All I have to say is don't stare too long or hard at MY model!

P.S.  Photographed on my new "Island" neoprene mat.  And yes, from personal experience, tropical waters can be that colour!
P.S.S  This makes two recent posts where only the top half of 'submerged' models.  Hmm. But I do stick my head in the water while I swim nevertheless.....

a dark and snowy tale

The inventory guy says, “If you are interested in the mat, you should buy now as the next shipment will be over 30% higher due to our tanking dollar.”   Does one need any more encouragement than that?

So I took it home, laid out my new neoprene(mousepad) mat and thought, “Oh dear, there is more ‘ash’ dust on this than what was showing in the packaging…”   Clearly I would need to decide on “the look” of my two winter projects - What a Tanker, 1941 and The Retreat, 1812 -

I decided to separate the two as the re-painting of the bases of the Napoleonics would be a challenge.  The Retreat would remain with the bright white sheet, with the snow covered church while my burnt out buildings, tank traps, trees and fences basing will get a darker treatment.

So with a sigh, I attempt to blend in my terrain to the mat’s coloration of spotty extremely dark patches.  While it was trying, the result is now a more self-contained game; a more dark and less white almost dystopian in nature but was not the Eastern Front at the time like that?