Kampfgruppe Heller: Battle 04, Poland

After having butted into the defences around Mokra then been comprehensively rebutted, KG Heller is facing an armoured Polish counter-attack! The Polish brigadier wants to exploit local success, although it is being done in a pretty crude and unco-ordinated way. Although still in some disorder after their recent drubbings, KG Heller is ordered to put in an immediate counter-attack ("Christ, not us again" mutters Oberst Heller...).

This is the battle from Just Jack's original KG Klink campaign here.

The Forces:

The Germans:

KG Comd: 1 x Armoured Car, 1 x Command group

Tank Pl: 3 x PzII, 2 x PzI

Rifle Coy Comd: 1 x SMG + Belt-fed LMG (Comd section)

#1 Rifle Pl: 2 x Rifle + Belt-fed LMG sections (1 is the Pl Comd Section) 

#2 Rifle Pl: 2 x Rifle + Belt-fed LMG sections (1 is the Pl Comd Section) 

The Polish:

Coy Comd: 1 x Coy Comd (Rifles), 1 x Truck

1st Cavalry Pl: 3 x Rifle + BAR sections (1 is the Pl Comd)

1st Tank Pl: 5 x 7TP-jw

2nd Tank Pl: 2 x Vickers-jw

3rd Tank Pl: 2 x Vickers-dw

German morale is higher '3' than the Polish '2'

 Eagle-eyed observers will note that the armoured orders of battle are slightly different from the original, with the Germans having PzII and PzI rather than PzIII available, whilst the Poles have actual Polish tanks rather than the T-26, Matildas and so on that were used in the original. For what JustJack described as tankettes he used Vickers tanks - I have gone with the content rather than the form and retained them as machinegun tanks rather than actual tankettes, but I could have used a couple of TKs instead...

Set-Up:

Germans attacking from the West (left), Poles from the East (right)

The very weak German infantry company wends its way through the woods.

The German tank platoon in its wedge formation

The two Vickers tank platoons behind the treeline

The 7TP platoon divided into two sections; the Polish company commander vaguely wondering if the lorry he is riding in is really suitable for being at the front of the impending armoured battle...

A Polish Cavalry Pl in the woods

The Battle:

The German Panzer Platoon breaks left

A wider view; note that one of the 7TP sections has advanced, screened by the treeline (centre-right); both the German infantry and Polish cavalry are advancing (bottom)

First blood to the Poles! One of the 7TPs knocks out a Panzer I (top-left); mostly firing on the move is a waste of time for everyone though

Note the Vickers-dw on the road at the top - they need to get out of there!

The German infantry and Polish cavalry continue to advance

Then, suddenly, the battle was won! One of the Vickers-dw did manage to knock out the Panzer I with its HMG*, although the other Vickers-dw was then knocked out; then another Panzer II was knocked out by a 7TP...

Followed by another Panzer II, again by a 7TP!

The 7TPs who have done such great work (bottom-right)

The Polish cavalry and German infantry bump into each other at the edge of the wood

A wider view at this stage of the battle

Close-range fighting begins at the edge of the wood...two German squads go down in the first minute...

One of the Polish cavalry sections is then eliminated by German counter-fire...the Germans at least manage to pin down the Polish cavalry platoon

The game is of course up for the Germans - the last remaining vehicles escape, avoiding the Polish 'seeing them off' fire

The remnants of the German infantry join them...

The scene at the end of the battle

Game Notes: 

Another very fun game using these rules I am playtesting. This was the first armoured clash and it all seemed to go pretty well I think. There is a little complexity in what vehicles can do what and how they respond, but it is pretty easy to understand and gives a little richness to the game - it somewhat recalls the modes in the second edition of WRG 1925-1950 but it is easier to understand, whilst also giving more flexibility.

Although we have all been brought up on tales of German armour superiority in the early war, in this clash the Germans were both out-numbered and outclassed: the 7TP with the 37mm and the Vickers with the 3pdr are just straightforwardly better than the 20mm armed Panzer IIs.  So nice to get some of that Polish armour on the table! The to hit/to penetrates mechanisms are simple but easily capture both the relative qualities of the weapons and armour, but also the effects of fire: it, really easily, with hardly any extra 'weight' in the rules, tells you if the hit didn't penetrate, was close enough to get the enemy's attention or missed so badly they didn't even really notice...and which shots hit, but you were saved because you were hit with a 20mm rather than a 2pdr...

The cavalry vs infantry fight was more random - the cavalry were just in a slightly better position, and 50m or less is when you want to bring a BAR against MG34 armed opposition! 

For losses, the Germans lost 2 PzII, 2 Pz I, 14 KIA and 22 WIA (16 of whom were POW also). The Poles lost a single tank (a Vickers-dw), 5 KIA and 9 WIA.

Nuts! Patrol in Poland, 1939

I wasn't sure what I wanted to get on the table - and then would actually play - so I picked Nuts! 

 

This comes after two 'failed' games: another attempt at White Mountain, and then a WW2 company action.  So just to feel the excitement of the dice in the hand, and wanting something different than another One Hour Wargame scenario, I decided it was high time I got my 15mm WW2 Poles on the table.  I set up a 'patrol' scenario, with the Poles attempting to recce through some woods and hills and scattered farm buildings

For those, who know Nuts! Polish investment level in this sector was '2' and '4' for the Germans.  Since it has been a while since I played, I just used very generic ratings: the Polish were led by Sierzant Suszczyk (5) and consisted of him, an LMG gunner(4) and 7 riflemen(three (4), four (3).

n.b. I didn't take too many pictures here, it has been a while since I played Nuts! and I wanted to focus on recalling exactly how the rules worked.

The Polish squad stacks by an empty house.

A wider shot: the German PEFs (potential enemy forces) are on the far side of the hill, with one in the woods in the centre.

The Polish LMG team occupy the farmhouse, with a sentry left outside, while Sierzant Suszczyk leads the others into the woods (right); however, just as they have entered the wood, a German AFV (a StugIIIB) arrives in the rear of the Polish position...and proceeds to kill the sentry with machinegun fire, then demolish the house with the Polish LMG team inside it.

Meanwhile, a German MG34 team wanders into the sights of the Polish patrol...

And a particularly deadly volley of rifle fire kills two and incapacitates the other...

The patrol continues on, carrying out the rest of its mission

Avoiding the Stug, the Polish skirt back through the woods...

Well, despite the heavy Polish losses (4 killed and the squad machinegun lost!) the mission was in fact a success.  Very luckily, only one of the PEFs resolved into an actual contact with the Germans, and they walked straight into an ambush.  Obviously there was pretty much nothing the Polish could do about the StuG turning up...but that it is the beauty(?!?) of Nuts! you can be over-matched and a simple mission can get hairy very quickly.  The game actually worked fine, but I was a bit rusty with the 'flow' of the game, Nuts! goes a lot quicker if you intuitively understand which table you need to be looking at at any given moment.  It was generally fine, I really like Nuts! I have never been totally convinced by the wording of the In-Sight tests, but as long as I play it the way I like it, not much harm done...

I can't now remember who made the 15mm buildings. I think the Polish figures are Forged in Battle, the Germans were Battlefront.  The StuG...Zvezda, possibly?

Hobby Update 26 Mar 23

I am still making slow but steady progress through the lead hillock although again there has been a lot less actual gaming than I might have liked.  The old conconction of being busy with work (and just as importantly, feeling pretty lethargic when I have finished work), busy with family things and not really having easily accessible gaming spaces and gaming stuff have continued to defy my efforts.  But I have made a little progress in sorting that I hope, so I have a small stable of 'doable' games near my work space whilst everything else gets stored out of the way.

Anyway, first up is more WW2 Polish stuff: an infantry company (more-or-less), a couple of tank, tankette and armoured car platoons, and one anti-tank, artillery and anti-aircraft artillery battery.  These are a mixture of Heroics & Ros (most of the vehicles and guns) and Scotia (all the figures, plus one of the armoured car platoons and one of the tankette platoons).  Annoyingly H&R don't do any Polish gun crews for their Polish guns. Grrr.  In retrospect, I might have been better off using French WW2 gun crews than some spare Scotia Polish heavy weapons crews, they look a bit big. Oh well.

Two platoons of Polish tanks, in their rather nifty camouflage scheme.

The armoured cars and tankettes and tracked artillery tractors.

The Scotia infantry aren't as shapely as the GHQ stuff or as dynamic as Baccus or Adler or as 'correctly silhouetted' as H&R, but they are sort of okay - they are like an old-fashioned Minifig if you like, simple and easy to paint and not quite as reliant on nifty brushwork as some of the Irregular stuff.

H&R anti-tank guns (front), guns (middle) and Bofors AAA (rear)

Next up is a bit more British and German WW2 stuff: the British for early war, the Germans are a mixture.

H&R A13s (left) and A10s (right)

Ok, Panzerjaeger Is at the front, 21 Pz vehicles back-right(a 75mm anti-tank gun on a Somua chassis, a 150mm on a Lorraine and a converted French half-track carrier, I think); A StuG42 and two Hanomags with heavy weapons top-left - these are Scotia, IIRC...

The British have a few Morris armoured cars (centre) and some Beaverettes (right), the latter a common feature of 'what-if' Sealion 1940 scenarios, I am finding.

Next-up is a group of figures that I completed a little while ago, but don't think I have posted: 15mm Cold War Dutch from Battlefront:

The figures were nice enough.  I have done a couple of female head-swaps, using the Peter Pig female head pack.  They are a tiny bit small really but I think that they basically worked okay.  Finding the right colours wasn't as easy as it might have been, but blogger Jemima Fawr did some really brilliant posts on doing a Cold War Dutch Army in 15mm, highly highly recommended!

I have managed to get a figure game to the table but more of that later; otherwise I have been mainly plaing the Thirty Years' War board game Europe in Agony:

Previous experience has told me that you can't get enough 'practice runs' with a boardgame you intend on using as a campaign engine!  Also, actually playing solo and using it as a campaign engine will always require a few small changes to be made, but only familiarity with the game can help you judge the secondary effects of any changes.  But in any case, the game itself is full of interest and I have been learning a lot thinking about the challenges facing Wallenstein, Mansfeld, Tilly, Spinola et al.  Compared to the previous campaign board games I have used, it feels closest to the Gallic War in terms of how the game plays out.  Where this one is a little tricky is that the first couple of turns seem incredibly important in determining the likely flow of the game, since neither side has many troops and they start in pretty close proximity.

Hobby Update 03 Nov 22

I still haven't got many wargames in for one reason or another - although I did get to play a DBA game head-to-head for the first time yesterday! I really enjoyed it, although my abysmal combat dice rolling meant there was only going to be one result!!!  I have been playing some roleplaying games, specifically Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition (review here, adventure review here)

In any case, I have managed to get a few things painted up.  Some rather nice Stargrave figures:

There are a couple of conversions using some Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors at the back of this one

Apologies, some of this crew have darker skintones which rather blended into the background in this shot!!!

And another bunch of Skaven, which I have in mind for a very specific project next month:

A platoon of Battlefront "Team Yankee" West German infantry, plus some civilian vehicles from a 15mm 3D printing company.  Apologies, the name escapes me, but these were actually got at the JoS show this year(!)

And some limbers for my Heroics & Ros 6mm WW2 French artillery pieces:

In my last update I mentioned that I had been painting up a few figures for my 6-year old son.  I have finished these off now, a platoon of Warlord Waffen SS Grenadiers and a platoon of their British Paratroopers, along with their 'Ruined Building'.  I think that they turned out quite nicely despite my fairly duff painting - the bairn seemed quite pleased in any case.

And lastly, I got a few Soviet assault guns from 2d6 wargaming painted up, alongside a Baccus 6mm US Armored Infantry company's halftracks and extra bazookas and what-not.

I also went to the Other Partizan show a few weeks back. I didn't stay for too long, I developed a bit of a nasty headache quite early.  I didn't get much for me, although I did pick up some cheap Airfix kits being sold off for my son. I got a chance to say hello to a couple of people, including Steve Jones who was putting on a very nice-looking WW2 game and trying to sell me on the virtues of Fireball Foward, and I had a chance to have a quick chat to Henry Hyde for the first time, which was nice.  I didn't take many photos, but I thought I might share these of the TooFatLardies amazing Arnhem game - check out just how authentic all the buildings look:

The story of this game is on Henry Hyde's latest Battlechat podcast, for anyone who might be interested.

Looking forward, I am going to start a new job next week. This new job looks much busier than the last one, so I think that painting and paying time will be at a premium.  I mentioned in the last update that I was looking to organize things a bit better to make quick games more easy for me to do.  I have had a few failed experiments in that regard but I am going to give that another shot today!  It is important to me: my life is better when I get a game to the table each week or two, worse when I don't.