Operation Pulawy

I've been concentrating quite heavily on the SYW for the last few months, what with the new rules in development, so I decided it was time to take a break and try some WW2 to refresh my mind.

Looking for a scenario, my purchase at the recent WMMS show of Jumping Into Hell by Frank Kurowski (about the German Fallschirmjaeger in WW2) reminded me it was time I used those gliders I bought a while back. A quote from early in the book concerning a cancelled operation during the Polish campaign gave me all the inspiration I needed,

Generalmajor Student had wargamed a number of employment possibilities for his small number of paratroops. One of them was to be employed at the bridge over the Vistula at Pulawy. The paratroopers would jump into the area around the bridge, eliminate its security, remove the charges and hold open the route for the advancing armoured forces.

The soldiers of the battalion were already sitting in their transports when the operation was called off. Cursing, they got off the aircraft. It was later found out that the German armoured forces had already taken the bridge in a coup de main. (p.16)

Well, who'd have thought it? General Student a fellow wargamer! Anyway, looking in my copy of Case White, by William Russ, which gives a detailed breakdown of German operations day by day, the nearest I got to any extra clues about the operation was the map shown below. As you can see, there is no indication of tank units crossing the Vistula at Pulawy, which seems to have been taken by the 13th Infantry Division. So where the idea of an armoured coup de main came from I don't know. I found no further clues after the usual trawl of the internet, so I had to go with the scanty details I had. To make a good game, I picked the nearest armoured formation on the map that didn't have Czech tanks (2nd Light Division) as the unit racing for the bridge, which was to be captured in advance by a battalion of Fallschirmjaeger. Alright, not the most original airborne forces scenario, but reading Kurowski's book showed it was a surprisingly common mission in real life, though the number of cancellations was high. Rather like the Allies at the other end of the war.

Scenario - Operation Pulawy, 10th September 1939.

A bridge across the Vistula near the town of Pulawy, south east of Warsaw, has become a vital objective. Retreating Polish forces west of the Vistula are aiming for it as an escape route, whilst German mobile forces seek to cut them off by taking Pulawy themselves. A battalion of German paratroops has been detailed to capture the bridge and hold it, preventing its use by the Poles until friendly armoured forces arrive to relieve them. The map below shows the table setup (6' x 5'). The terrain is fairly flat, with just some low bluffs near the river, but quite heavily wooded.

A reinforced Polish company is deployed in each of the 2 indicated areas.
A German glider company arrives at the LZ on move 1 to start the game,
then on move 2 the paras drop on the DZ, provided they make their command roll for mobile deployment.
Then on move 5 the Panzers should arrive at A and the final Polish company at B.

The present day crossings of the Vistula at Pulawy

Closer shot of the older road crossing.
Built in the mid 1930s, this bridge was destroyed in the war but rebuilt post war.

Polish Forces

Infantry Battalion, 39^th Infantry Division (Regular)

At Pulawy

Infantry Company:  HQ CV8, 3 infantry units, 3 mg units (2 in bridge pillboxes), 1 40mm AA unit.

At Road Junction 

Infantry Company:  HQ CV8, 3 infantry units, 1 mg unit, 1 37mm ATG.

Artillery Battalion:  FAO CV6, 2 75mm artillery units (off table)

Reinforcements. Arrive move 5 at 'B', mobile deployment.

Infantry Company:  CO CV8, 3 infantry units, 1 mg unit, 1 37mm ATG (all in trucks).

17 units, BP = 9

German Forces

II/FJR.1 (Elite)

Glider Company, arrive move 1: HQ CV9, 3 infantry units, 1 engineer unit, 4 gliders. 

2 Parachute Companies, arrive move 2, mobile deployment. 
CO CV10, 6 infantry units, 2 mg units, 2 engineer units, 6 Ju52s. 

Elements of 2^nd Light Division (Regular). Arrive move 5 at 'A', mobile deployment.

Panzer Battalion: CO CV9 4 PzI, 4 PzII.

Recce Company:  HQ CV9, 1 Sdkfz 221 (recce), 1 Sdkfz 222 (recce), 2 infantry units (m/c), 1 mg unit (truck).

FAC:  CV 7, 2 HS-123 units, 2 assets.

27 units, BP = 14

The Game

The gliders land north east of the bridge.
One glider veers away from the Polish AA fire and is placed on the table edge.

On move 2 the paras suffer a disastrous drop due to an epidemic of 1s, and most are placed on the table edge north of their DZ. Here they make their way back over the wooded hill towards the bridge. The sole platoon that landed on target has already been destroyed by Polish fire.

The paras struggle forward, but take heavy fire from the bridge area and from the road junction
and farm area on their right flank.

The cavalry arrive on time on move 5. The recce company moves round through the haystacks
to outflank the Polish position to the north.

The Polish reinforcements are delayed by failed command rolls for a couple of moves,
but then advance straight onto the bridge.

The German armoured troops allow themselves to get bogged down confronting the Polish blocking position.
An all-out advance to the bridge, bypassing the defended area, would have been more profitable.

HS-123 prepares to attack the Polish-held farm area.

End of the game. It was 2300 and bedtime, after 8 moves had been completed. The Germans had lost 12 units, the Poles none (yes, none). The paras and glider troops had been annihilated and the advancing panzers were stuck at the junction, whilst the Polish reinforcements had arrived and secured the bridge. So make that a German failure!

Debrief

Overall, the Germans (me) ended up with a fiasco on their hands. The airborne troops cocked up their landing (oh that stream of ones! Unbelievable!), and then were shot to pieces. The reinforcements needed to race for the bridge at all costs, but I got fixated on the Polish blocking position.

In my defence, I think the Polish forces at the bridge were a bit too strong. The heavy fire of 3 machine guns and the Bofors, plus extra flanking fire from the farm area, gave the German paras little chance. This was exacerbated by our use of the 'static hits' rule, meaning no hits came off at the end of the turn. A more sensible bridge force would be a company of 3 infantry units and an mg unit, reinforced by an AAmg unit. 

Airborne Deployment

BKC II is a little lacking on rules for airborne deployment, and as in my Airfield Attack game I developed my own. In fact the ones used in this game were a little flaky, so I have now updated them. This is the current version, for early-war Fallschirmjaeger:

Fallschirmjaeger Deployment

Formations arriving by parachute or glider use mobile deployment in their command phase but may be deemed to arrive on schedule if preferred. They always count as attackers. Two units per Ju-52, one unit per DFS-230.

Parachute troops. Mark the intended drop point before game start. Carry out AA fire against transport aircraft using the drop point as the aiming point. Units in aborted aircraft are placed on the nearest table edge; units in destroyed aircraft are destroyed. For each remaining unit (including command units), roll 3D6 and a direction dice and place the unit this distance and direction from the drop point. Then roll a D6 per unit. On a 1, 2 or 3 the unit has not recovered its weapons containers and for the first move has no ranged attacks. It will close assault with 3 attacks only.

Glider troops. Mark the landing point and carry out AA fire against gliders as for transport aircraft. For unit deviation use only 2D6. 

Terrain. Any glider or parachute units landing in high area terrain take 6 attacks as if in the open. If landing in deep wet terrain or impassable terrain they are destroyed.

Command bonus. As normal, 2 actions are allowed.

Command blunder. If a blunder occurs, roll a D6.

1, 2 – roll one die for each unit. A score of 6 indicates the unit is knocked out. No saves allowed.

3, 4 – land this turn, but move the drop point or landing point using 3D6 and a direction die. 

5, 6 – move drop point as above, but land on the displaced point next turn.

And that, as they say, is that. Good to get the WW2 toys out again, and congratulations to Paul on his victory (the bugger). See you soon.

Spendin' cash, talkin' trash...

With Colours 2014 not taking place, The In Crowd decided we owed ourselves a visit to another wargames show. Therefore, Craig, Steve and myself made the journey north to the West Midlands Military Show in Wolverhampton on Sunday 9th March. Many thanks for the lift Craig - you're a star.

Talkin' Trash

So - three wargamers who hadn't met up in a while confined in a car for a couple of hours. Naturally, the conversation quickly turned to... yes, wargaming. If I remember correctly we discussed painting standards and how many hours one could reasonably spend painting a figure, as well as the relationship between painting competitions and wargaming. And then what latest temptations we were trying to avoid, and some stuff about what made a good wargames show. I'm afraid Salute got a bit of a hammering (too big, too crowded, too far away, too expensive to visit), but we all agreed Colours would be sorely missed this year. With myself and Craig contemplating house moves, there was some wistful dreaming about having separate wargames rooms in our new homes, and some discussion of the merits of erecting a big shed in the garden versus going for a proper extension to your home. We concluded that a nice big conservatory makes a lovely wargaming space.

Spendin' Cash

And then we were there. A lovely sunny day, and we celebrated the spring-like feeling by joining other wargamers driving over the newly sprung bulbs to park on the grassed area of the car park. Well, it might not actually have been part of the car park officially, but needs must when spaces are at a premium. No time for sentimentality when there is a bring and buy waiting!

The show is in a large, modern sports hall. The ad promised 50 trade stands and 25 games, and we were not disappointed - this a good size show. The games were just about universally excellent, with a great variety in period, type and size. There was perhaps some space for a few more tables, but generally the hall was well filled, whilst not too overcrowded. Overall, plenty to keep you inspired and interested for a good few hours. Traders were also varied and numerous. We were all glad we went, and will very likely go again. Well done to the Alumwell Wargames Society.

Picture This

And so to the photo report. This is by no means exhaustive, and the pictures were mainly compiled to test out my new camera. Therefore the names of those putting on the games, and sometimes the nature of the games themselves, are mostly missing. If by chance you recognise your game here, please leave some details in the comments section. Personally, I noticed the modest but significant number of quite small games, which might be a trend. And in general, when talking to participants, it was interesting the number of people who were using their own rules. Well done chaps.

Negatives? None to speak of really, except for the continuing grim determination of some wargamers to spend months on modelling a marvellous wargames terrain, then come the great day bestrewing it with playsheets, coffee cups and fizzy drink bottles. Presenters and organisers need to get together to prevent this by requesting/providing more room than the game itself actually requires, so that side tables or vacant space can be used for rules and refreshments.

Overview. A nice light and airy hall

Beautifully modelled game of Norway 1940 - except that  information on what
the game represented was noticeable by its absence.

A lot of effort had obviously gone into producing the game.
A pleasure to behold.

Snow. I like snow.

Battle of Britain game. 

Cabbage crates over the briny.

Hex terrain, models balanced on house roofs - I should hate this game...

...but I didn't. Looked extremely tempting and I wanted to join in.
Love the bright green terrain colour - sets off the figures well.
Oh yes, this was The Battle of the Marne, 1914.

Cracking Hougomont game set up by some local gamers.

Inside the courtyard.

The defenders prepare.

Aha, tricornes!

Behind the display boards were a host of lovely 40mm AWI figures.

Oh dear, a great looking game I forgot to record the details of.
Move those playsheets gentlemen!

This is what we want - good size figures and lots of colour!

One of three Zulu Wars games present. Note the PC being used for the rules.

Crikey - a Flames of War game that actually looks like a real battle.
Oops - sorry to be patronising. A very nice presentation, I thought.

Yes, another unidentified game with some lovely units - as you can see here.

Two very friendly gentlemen were overseeing a participation skirmish game
set in Poland 1939, which naturally drew my attention.

They had assembled some lovely early-war armour in 1/32nd scale.

The future of wargaming? (1). A small but nice looking game
of something sci-fi in progress.

The future of wargaming? (2). The Society of Ancients also chose
a small but perfectly formed game to tempt new recruits.

One of those post 1945 WW2 games, apparently set in 1947 with walking tanks and
Shermans with some sort of las-cannon. These were mixed in with ordinary 1945 stuff.
Interesting and fun. That's a lot of technological advance in 2 years, though.

Eagle Figures stand, with some lovely SYW stuff on display.

Outstanding 20mm Arab-Iraeli game.

Great work, but I dislike that (currently popular) style of burning marker.
Looks very artificial to me. 

I've been pining for this particular model for some years, as transport for one of my SYW generals.
But there's too much other work to be done first. Get thee behind me Satan.
An alternative from Warlord Games is also now available.

Excellent, more tricornes. A game set in the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion.

As the Scots weren't wearing tricornes I didn't bother to photograph them.

More redcoats in the same battle.

Finally, a small band of 18th century re-enactors were present, and so yours truly couldn't resist the temptation to
handle a replica Brown Bess. And yes, it's just as heavy and unbalanced as it looks. Shit!

Oh yes, purchases. Steve and Craig contented themselves with picking up some pre-orders from Pendraken. I bought a couple of books - reviews may well follow. I did however shell out about £55 on 20mm WW2 stuff for my friend Paul. Always a pleasure to spend other people's money!

And remember - if it's square, we ain't there.


P.S. Another blogger has captured some of the games my camera missed. I think the demo games at the show really were of a great standard, so for more proof go to:

http://willwarweb.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/wmms-good-day-out.html

Honours Of War

Now it can be revealed. 2014 will be an interesting year for me wargaming-wise, as I have been commissioned by Osprey Publishing to write a set of wargaming rules for the Seven Years War.

The working title is Honours of War, a phrase I found in Donald Featherstone's book on this period, Wargames Through the Ages 1420-1783,

'On the wargame table each commander will endeavour to manoeuvre the enemy

 into untenable positions so that they must accept the Honours of War...'

The definition of the phrase in the Collins dictionary is,

'The honours granted by the victorious to the defeated, 

esp. as of marching out with all arms and flags flying.'

So the phrase seemed to say something about 18th century warfare, as well as the spirit in which miniature wargames themselves should be played.

Most of you will be familiar with the range of Osprey rules published so far. Last year, some adverts for the range carried the invitation to send in proposals for further titles. This offer was backed up by an interview in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy (no.68) with Phil Smith, who is head of the Osprey Wargames project. He confirmed the offer and the sort of thing Osprey were looking for.

I have enjoyed a few games of Dux Bellorum, courtesy of my old muckers Steve and Craig

Those familiar with this blog will know I have been playing games with my own set of rules for the SYW. So in the spirit of 'what the hell', and not expecting to get anywhere, I sent off the current version to Phil. 

His reply was a surprise. He wasn't completely sold, but he gave me room to get back to him and indicate how I thought his doubts could be resolved. These were mostly around making the rules inviting to those who might be new to the period, providing them with the possibility of modestly sized starter games and a points system to help them build their armies. I was able to confirm that these concerns could be fixed, along with making the rules playable with smaller figures than the 30mm ones I used.

And then there were 2 more surprises in store for me. Phil wrote back saying he felt I had addressed his concerns and was prepared to take my proposal to a publishing meeting and pitch it to those involved. Crikey. Then, not long after, he emailed me to say 'we have a wargame'. In other words, my proposal was accepted, and I had around a year to get the rules re-written, play tested, and ready for publication with associated diagrams and illustrations. I was gobsmacked. What an opportunity!

This was at the end of September last year. Since then I have been working the rules up towards a publishable standard. This has involved widening them to include all the nations involved in the SYW in Europe (rather than just Prussia and Austria), developing a points system, showing how the rules would work for 15mm, 10mm and 6mm models, and writing all the introductions, explanations and explanatory diagrams needed to make everything understandable to someone completely new to the rules.

The work so far has been great - my knowledge of the period is now much improved, and the intellectual exercise of getting everything together has been very rewarding. Phil at Osprey has been helpful and supportive - having the backing of a decent-sized publisher will make this project so much more enjoyable. Assuming all goes well, it will be great to get my work out there and see what people think about it. And then there will be the buzz of going to wargames shows or visiting blogs and seeing people enjoying playing games with my rules. Plus I might even make a few quid to spend on more toys!

But before all that comes the playtesting. This is where you can get involved. I have to submit my final manuscript around this time next year, so until then I want to invite gamers who don't know either me or the rules to take a look at Honours of War, play them if possible, and get back to me with feedback. You might only be able to give the rules a quick read through and let me know what you think, or you might have armies for the period already and be prepared to try a few games to really test how the rules play. All genuine contributions will be gratefully received. Apart from the chance to be on the ground floor of a new set of wargames rules, I can't offer much in return, except the possibility of a name check in the rules and maybe a free copy when they get published (no promises I'm afraid).

If you're interested, you can contact me at:

 keithflint57@gmail.com

Or, visit the Yahoo Group at this address and apply to join. A brief explanation of your interest would be appreciated:

     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/honoursofwar

All you need to explore the rules is available for download once you've joined the group.

Publication date is planned for November 2015, so there's plenty of time. Hope you can get involved.

The Final Spurt

Oh Matron! What I mean is, 2014 is destined to be the year that I complete my Seven Years War armies. Things have dragged on quite long enough, and now that I can afford to get figures painted for me rather than doing all my own painting the rate of completion of the final units will increase from extremely sluggish to... magnificently gradual.

Following the arrival of a recent order from RSM Miniatures, the first units to be completed were my Austrian grenadier battalions; so now I have a brigade of three.

Grenadier battalions Soro, Fiorenza and Siskovics

Also recently acquired are some heavy guns. I simply had to see how good the new Fife and Drum artillery was, and as Mr Purky doesn't do an Austrian gun as yet, I bought a couple of the Napoleonic Austrian 12pdrs from Front Rank. I preferred the look of the latter to the generic SYW 12pdr Front Rank offer. Not much to choose between the 2 manufacturers in terms of quality - both are excellent.

Fife & Drum Prussian 12pdr on left, Front Rank Austrian 12pdr on right.

And Wargaming As Well!

Just to prove the odd game is still getting played, a few photos from a recent SYW bash. Nothing fancy, just your typical weekend evening pick up game. The attacking Prussians won, by the way.

Table set up. I'm finding my new 6' x 5' table size very useful.

The Austrian defenders.

Those sneaky Grenzers secure the Austrian left flank.

How it all ended. The Austrians were conclusively overcome.
Those cavalry on the near baseline are actually Prussian Hussars - the devils
broke through  between the village and Grenzers and took me in the rear. Ouch!
I guess that explains the camera shake.

Standby for some interesting news - coming up in the next post.

Wargaming In History vol.5

I am recently returned from a very pleasurable skiing holiday. For the first time in a long time, my wife and I would be holidaying on our own, and in the evenings there would be relaxing hours to fill in the hotel lounge. Some holiday reading was called for, so I brought Barnaby Rudge and the fifth volume in the Wargaming In History series. I leave it to the reader to guess which got the preferential treatment. 

You guessed right.

I already have volume 1 in this series, and I very much enjoyed volume 5. It was a rewarding and interesting read, as most purchasers of this series find. Of particular interest was that some of the most intriguing content involved those parts of the book where I disagreed with Charles' approach. This reflects the best thing about these books - there are the nice photos and the high production values, but it is the combination of these with detailed, thought provoking and well researched content which creates the true value. In summary, there is plenty to get your teeth into. So let's get our teeth into my reservations.

Big vanilla battalions in the wrong formation.

To start with I'm at a distinct disadvantage with this series, as they are uncompromisingly based on a set of rules I don't particularly like. For me, the original Charles Grant Snr. rules are now rather old-fashioned and clunky. What's more they involve Big Battalions of 48 figures, whereas my preference is for infantry units less than half that size. 

This latter point is important because I feel using big units makes representing big battles more difficult than it needs to be. This comes out particularly in the representation of Kunersdorf, where the cramped Russian deployment of the real battle is overemphasised (in my opinion) by units that are just too large. The forces need to be divided down into more and smaller units to give both sides (but especially the Russians) the flexibility to employ their forces effectively. To my mind, a number of the photos demonstrate this, and not just those of Kunersdorf. They are impressive at first sight but on a closer look illuminate games where there are just too many figures crammed into the available space. Of course, I have to admit this seems to be no problem at all for the players of the games themselves, so this has to remain a matter of opinion. But it surely is no coincidence that those rules which are designed to represent big battles (like Volley and Bayonet) tend to use small units - a single stand in the case of V&B. 

Another point, which I found carried over from my impressions of volume 1, is Charles' reluctance to differentiate between the qualities of different armies. This derives from the rules themselves, which it seems to me were designed for imagi-nations rather than historical play, and in which a battalion is a battalion, regardless of which army it belongs to. The refight of the 'Action at Torgau' brings this out. How could a Prussian force defeat a combined Austrian/Reichsarmee force which outnumbered it 3 to 1? One very obvious factor is the low quality of the Reichsarmee units (and the high quality of the Prussian ones), but the book deliberately decides to ignore this, which to my mind is ahistorical. To take but one example, the grandly named Hohenzollern Cuirassiers were a Reicharmee unit formed from 61 different contingents (one of them a single horseman), making it what the Kronoskaf SYW website describes as a 'prime example of a motley crew'. The author acknowledges such potential morale/quality factors, but disregards them without explaining why. Strangely, Charles is willing to apply low morale to some Russian units in the Kunersdorf game, which seems to work well in that case. 

There is also no differentiation between armies in the command and control rules, which basically consist of the use of written orders transmitted by ADCs. Overall, there is very little idea of whether one army or its commanders was better than the other, and if so in what ways and why. This for me is one of the basics if one is attempting 'wargaming in history', and the absence of such considerations is a big disappointment in the books, which nevertheless include much well researched historical detail (such as in the presentation of opposing OOBs).

Finally I was struck by the efficaciousness (is that a word?) of tactics I felt were unhistorical; viz. attacks by battalions in assault column. These turn out very well for the attackers in a couple of the games, but as far as my reading of the Seven Years War goes, attacks in column were not undertaken, presumably for the reason that they didn't work very well. But the rules appear to make them work very well indeed.

So there we have it. The units are too big, national differences are unexplored, and unhistorical tactics win the day. Doesn't sound too good, does it? But of course what shines through is the enthusiasm and enjoyment of the author and the other participants, and the spectacle of the battles represented. So as holiday reading, this book was thoroughly entertaining and much appreciated. I will be pleased to have it on my bookshelf, but further purchases from this series are unlikely. The author's approach is simply too different to my own.

I look forward to comments from defenders of the Grant style!