World War Two Without Tanks

WW2 was my first wargaming period, and I have been gaming it for the best part of 5 decades now. Over that time I have often reflected that many, perhaps most, WW2 engagements didn't involve tanks at all. This would be particualrly true of the period I mostly game at the moment, the 1939 Polish campaign. But of course, tanks are a lot of fun to game with. Rather like their effect on real warfare, they provide the mobilty and firepower which can enliven wargames, bringing manoeuvre and the hope of that decisive breakthrough.

Nevertheless, I have thought many times over the years that some infantry-only, or at least some non-tank, games would be worth trying. But I must admit I can't actually remember ever having done so. Well, a couple of weeks ago I actually bit the bullet and got round to it.

The rules, of course, were Startline, and the period September 1939 - the Polish campaign. I decided to use the 'Bypass' scenario which I had used before for a Startline game, as it would test the idea of a tankless battle quite well. I don't think there's any need to give full details of the forces. Suffice to say the defending Poles had a company of infantry with supporting artillery plus some anti-tank guns, a cavalry platoon and a platoon of tankettes. Oh yes, and an armoured train! The Germans also had an infantry company with off-table fire support, plus an assault engineer platoon, a platoon of armoured cars and a recce section on motorcycles. They also had a little ace up their sleeve in the form of a section of 2 88mm-armed 'Bunkerflaks'. About 40% of the Polish force would start off-table as reserves.

The game, though tankless, did therefore have some armour in the form of tankettes and armoured cars, and the attackers had trucks and motorcycles to help them with their attack. To put it another way, I decided not to go cold-turkey in my pursuit of infantry-only WW2 gaming. Best to ease myself gently into things, I thought. 

The Game

So, let's see how things went using photos of the action. There were two game objectives - the road bridge and the railway station.

Overview at game start.
The Poles are deployed around the village and railway station in the centre,
the Germans are deployed on the left hand baseline.

Polish infantry in position.

On the far side from the approaching Germans,
Polish AA guns defend the station.

No tanks, but plenty of other vehicles. The Germans wait on their startline.

With the recce motorcyclists and the armoured cars rated 'skilful'
they got off to a cracking start, outflanking the Polish defenders
and heading for the road bridge objective.

Meanwhile the German Pioneers and an infantry platoon
put in a diversionary attack against the village.

The Polish tankettes arrive from reserve. Armed only with machine guns,
their chances of stopping the German advance seemed slim

The armoured train arrived and was directed towards the bridges.
It would be the Poles main hope of making a decisive difference.

Helped by a shielding smoke screen, the German outflanking force make
good progress. The armoured cars have reached the road bridge,
but have been cut off by the Polish tankettes..

Here come the cavalry! They arrived on table at the rail bridge.

Here we see the results of a very eventful move 5.
A Stuka strike has damaged the train, but fire from the train
 and a rare Polish air strike have claimed 3 out of 4
of the German armoured cars on the road bridge.

Motorised Polish infantry reserves arrive in the village,
but the German diversion has already been easily seen off.

Both attacking German platoons have taken heavy casualties
and have retreated (left of photo).
At the top of this picture it can be seen that the 2 Bunkerflaks
are suffering from the attentions of Polish anti-tank guns.

At the end of the game, the road bridge was disputed,
with a lone German armoured car facing the Polish tankettes
and the arriving Polish cavalry.

Well, having no tanks didn't stop the game from being very mobile and exciting. The German armoured cars managed to race across the board to a vital objective, only to be isolated and largely destroyed by hastily reacting Polish forces. As the attackers had not taken either of the two objectives after 6 moves, the Poles had won. My main disappointment was that the anticipated firefight between the armoured train and the Bunkerflaks never took place! The soft-skinned Bunkerflaks strayed too close to the village and were sitting ducks for Polish 37mm anti-tank guns.

If I had left out the Polish and German AFVs, the game would certainly have needed to be expanded to 8 or more turns, but this would not really have been a problem as Startline moves along at a reasonable pace. Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that a true infantry-only battle would be more suited to a daytime game rather than a 2-3 hour evening battle. 

It was great fun to get the armoured train out of storage after a long lay-off, and also give the Polish cavalry a rare run-out. And having some air attacks always adds spice to a WW2 game. Although a solo game, this battle was a lot of fun.

Until next time!

The (Fictional) Engagement at Verba, June 1941

My friend and wargaming buddy Roy used to play a lot of Flames of War, and he has an extensive (and I mean extensive) 15mm collection for most WW2 periods. Being based for FoW means the figures and models are ideal for Startline as well, so he's just the guy to go to if you want to explore the many and various campaigns of WW2 with the best WW2 rules out there (did I just say that?).

Recently I have been dipping into books about Operation Barbarossa in 1941, so we decided to construct a game based on that campaign. When I heard that Roy had some T-28s and T-35s, as well as lots of the more ususal T-26s and BT-7s, I was sold. 

My research showed that the few T-35s that actually made it into combat belonged to 34th Tank Division, and that they were involved in the series of counter-attacks against the German invasion carried out from 23rd to 30th June usually known as The Battle of Brody. More specifically, they took part in actions along the Dubno-Brody road around 26-27th June. 

So I came up with the idea of combining this historical action with one of the scenarios from the current Flames of War 'Missions Pack' (see previous post). I chose 'Valley of Death', as it seemed to fit in with a hasty Soviet counter-attack putting its head into a potential German noose. Both the Wikipedia article on the T-35, and a colourised photo I found online mentioned the small town/village of Verba, so that became the name of the game. By a weird coincidence, our wargame was scheduled for 27th June.

The photo mentioned in the text. Obviously taken well after the battle
as the barrels of the tank guns have been removed for some reason.
Courtesy Royston Colour.

Details of the Valley of Death mission. 
© Battlefront Miniatures, reproduced by permission.

The two photos below show the terrain we set up based on the scenario. This was a quick twenty minute job, done after I arrived at Roy's. The group of houses around the two objectives were declared to be the village of Verba. The objectives were the two road T junctions.

Soviet deployment at the east end of the table.

German deployment north and south of Verba.

The forces involved were as below. Using the Startline points system, both came out at around 2500 points.

German (elements 11th Panzer Division)
Medium tank company: HQ 1 x Panzer I

3 platoons: 4 x panzer IIC, 4 x Panzer IIIH, 4 x Panzer IVE

Infantry company: HQ 1 x command base with light car

3 x platoons each 6 infantry bases, 1 x ATR base. 1 platoon in armoured half tracks.

Anti-tank section: 2 x Pak36 with tows

Recce section: 1 x Sdkfz 231 6-rad, 1 x Sdkfz 221

Off-table artillery: 4 x 10.5cm howitzers, AFO (radio)

Off-table mortars: 6 x 8cm mortars, MFO (radio)

Random air attacks on a 9+ (Hs-123 or Ju-87)

Note: all tank platoons and armoured cars are classed as skilful. All other units are regular/reliable. All AFVs have individual radios.

Soviet (elements of 34th Tank Division)

Light tank company: HQ 1 x BT-7

3 platoons each 3 x BT-7

Light tank platoon: 3 x T-26

Heavy tank platoon: 2 x T-28C, 1 x T-35

Armoured car section: 2 x Ba-10

Infantry company: HQ 1 x command base

3 platoons, each 6 x infantry bases

1 platoon truck-mounted, other platoons may ride tanks.

Machine gun section: 2 x Maxim MG with horse tows

Anti-tank section: 2 x 45mm guns with tows

On-table mortar section: 2 x 8cm mortars, MFO (telephone)

Off-table artillery: 8 x Zis-3 field guns, AFO (telephone)

Random air attacks on a 11+ (I-153 or I-16 fighters, strafe only, 4 x VMG)

Note: BT-7 and T-26 are inept training class for firing. Training for movement is regular. All other units are regular/reliable. BT-7s and T-26s do not have radios below platoon command level. 

The Game in Photos (note that the green discs are suppressed markers)

Ready for move 1!

First blood to the Germans.
Truck-mounted troops make such good artillery targets.

The Soviet right flank grinds forward.

The heavy tanks were going straight for the first road junction...

... as was a German infantry platoon.

The BTs made rapid progress and thought they had the
Panzer IVs nicely surrounded.

The T-35 reaches the first objective,
but a platoon of Panzer IIIs is on the way.

The T-26 platoon with its infantry (minus trucks)
 is still advancing on the Soviet left flank.

The German Panzer IIs took up a nice hull-down position, hoping to stop them. 
But they were spotted by Soviet artillery and thoroughly shot up.
That's 2 knocked out and 2 suppressed. 

Heavy fighting in Verba. The T-35 attempts to hold off 3 Panzer IIIs.

The second T junction is well defended by tanks,
anti-tank guns and infantry.

The German Mark IVs have retreated out of the wood,
tempting the BT-7s onto their guns.

Oops! The T-35 is hit 3 times and brews up.
The Germans have both infantry and tanks disputing the T junction objective.

Meanwhile the Mark IVs pick off Soviet light tanks at will.

End of move 6. We called it there. Bottom left you can see that the
T-26 platoon ended up suffering badly, not least by fire
from the German Sdkfz 231 with its 20mm cannon.

Conclusions

According to the FoW scenario rules, neither side had won, as both sides had units within 4" of the same objective. In FoW terms, the attacker has not captured an objective, but the defender has not 'repelled' the attacker either.  However, in the last two moves BT-7s had been dropping like flies, and the Germans had both tanks and infantry (in the house) disputing the only objective the Soviets had any chance of gaining. A couple of extra moves might have been fun, but it was time to go home. A German win was declared.

The final score in AFVs was 9 Soviet vehicles lost against 2 German - and the German tanks had fallen to artillery fire. It was nice to see that the simple adjustment in skill levels between the 2 sides had worked effectively. The moves had gone past quickly - 6 moves in about 2.5 hours gaming. The rules seem to be functioning quite nicely. One thing I learnt was that the Soviets didn't have anti-tank rifles in mid-1941 - the well known PTRD-41 didn't get into serviice until later in the year.

The two objectives would have been better placed side by side, rather than one behind the other. This would have given the attackers a genuine choice, but as it was only the nearest road junction was really attainable. The shape of the 'objectives zone' is obviously made to encourage this - something I missed during the quick set up.

To round off this report, a couple of illustrations that seem to fit the game. First, a very nice artwork is shown below, from Seven Zaloga's German Tanks In Barbarossa 1941 (Osprey NVG 339). Very relevant to the game, I thought. The companion volume, Soviet Tanks in Barbarossa 1941 (NVG 342), is also invaluable to the wargamer interested in this period.

© Osprey Publishing 2025. Reproduced with permission.

And to finish, an evocative photo from June 1941 showing a burning BT-7. 

Bundesarchiv/Wikipedia Commons.

And that's about it. Comments very welcome as usual. 'Til next time!

In Which Startline Meets Flames of War

Looking back, I can see my Startline project dates back to autumn 2023, more than two and a half years ago. To say I've been 'working' on this project for that long wouldn't really be true - it's more like I've been dabbling in writing a set of WW2 gaming rules during that time, sometimes quite intensively, sometimes hardly at all.

About two years ago I decided to change from an IGO-UGO turn system to a Bolt Action-style alternate-unit activation. It seemed more modern (dare I say, more fashionable) and I had the idea it might represent the cut and thrust of WW2 combat more believably. But now I've changed my mind, and Startline is back to IGO-UGO. 

The reason is simple - the rules play better and more easily with IGO-UGO. I realised that Startline is not Bolt Action - it's company level, not skirmish, and the basic units are platoons, not single vehicles or squads of infantry. And Startline has fairly traditional combat and morale mechanics which don't really fit into an alternate-unit move sequence. The fact was, players (me included) were finding the rules non-intuitive and more complex than necessary. As soon as I went back to IGO-UGO (with a straightforward opportunity-fire rule included) I felt the game become much cleaner.

After some solo playtesting, it was time to get some proper face-to-face games in. So I invited two long-time gaming friends over to make sure everything worked - and this is where Flames of War came in. 

© Battlefront Miniatures. Reproduced with permission.

In March this year Flames of War made their latest list of scenarios (which they call 'Missions') available for free online. I have found these mission ideas very useful in the past, and the latest list has 35 scenarios, each presented in a 2 page format with a deployment map on page 1 and special rules laid out on page 2. The list is a great source of ideas for WW2 games regardless of which rules you use, and many of the set-ups are quite original. All are described assuming a 6' x 4' table and opposing forces of equal points. I went for the 'Bypass' scenario as it seemed to me to fit very well into a 1939 Blitzkrieg setting, which of course is the part of WW2 which my collection represents. The full Missions Pack can be downloaded here.

Naturally the Germans would be the attackers. The forces in use were as follows:

German

Panzer Company (-): company HQ of 1 x Panzer I

Light tank platoon: 2 x Panzer II, 3 x Panzer I

Heavy tank platoon: 2 x Panzer III, 2 x Panzer IV

Infantry Company: company HQ of 1 command base in light truck

3 x platoons, each 6 infantry bases, 1 ATR base

2 platoons each in 3 Protze trucks, 1 platoon on motorcycles

Armoured car section: 1 x Sdkfz 231 6-rad, 1 x Sdkfz 221

6 x off table 8cm mortars, MFO with radio in light truck

2 moves pre-planned fire

Random air attacks on 10+

All units regular training, reliable morale

Points 1685

Polish

Infantry Company: company HQ of 1 command base, 1 ATR base, Lazik jeep

3 platoons each 7 x infantry bases, 1 x ATR base

*1 platoon in 2 x Praga medium trucks

*Tank platoon: 4 x Renault R-35

*Recce section: 2 x TKS (MG)

ATG section: 2 x 37mm Bofors + Lazik tows

*Field Artillery section: 2 x 75mm m.1897 75mm guns + halftrack tows

MMG section: 2 x MMG, 2 x Lazik jeeps

8 x off-table m.1897 75mm guns,  AFO with telephone + Lazik jeep

Random air attacks on 11+

All units regular training, reliable morale

Field defences: both the infantry platoons which start on-table, plus the AFO, comapny HQ and the 37mm Bofors may be dug-in

Points 1680

*Polish designated reserves (30% in points)

Tank platoon

Recce section

Infantry platoon in trucks

Field artillery section

The photo below (taken late in the game) shows how I set out the terrain. The Polish baseline is the long table edge to the top right, the German baseline is bottom right. Rather than have each player place an objective as per the mission description, I set up the terrain to include two obvious objectives (a road junction and bridge) at what I judged to be sensible places. It's just the way I prefer to do things.

And so the game commenced. Readers will have already realised that the Germans have two main options - go for the road junction, hoping to punch through the dug-in Polish defenders, or loop round to the more distant bridge, avoiding the area already occupied by the defenders. Let's see how that worked out.

The Game in Photos

To provide a little fog of war, both sides set up divided by my home-made cardboard screen. The screen's folding nature made it pretty easy to use. 

Paul (Germans) and Steve (Poles) deploy simultaneously,
unaware of what their opponent is doing.

Paul decided to hedge his bets - the motorcycle platoon, armoured cars and the heavy tanks went left for the bridge, whilst the 2 lorried platoons and the light panzers went for the road junction. Centre left you can see that an advancing truck-mounted Polish platoon has been wrecked by artillery fire.

Unfortunately the German armoured cars and motorcycles were not making the dashing advance hoped for. Both units threw a rash of 1s in the early turns of the game, halving their movement.

Despite losing most of an infantry platoon to a devastating artillery strike, the light panzers and the remaining infantry pressed on into the Polish defences and made steady if slow progress.

The Poles were in luck in turn 2, when their tanks arrived from reserve just where
they were needed to defend the village and road junction.

The Germans battled on, destroying many first-line Polish infantry teams
in their slit trenches and driving the remainder back into the nearby woods.

Another piece of Polish luck - their reserve infantry platoon arrives
in just the right place to occupy the bridge objective.

Realising the bridge is now out of reach, the German heavy panzers and motorcycle platoon
turn towards the village, hoping to break through to the road junction objective.

The right flank of the Polish defences is now under severe threat.

A Polish anti-tank rifle team have their trench overrun by an attacking Panzer IV. Ouch!

The Germans deploy a smoke screen to prevent the Polish R-35s from engaging their frontal attack. 
Instead, an indecisive firefight develops along the central road between Polish and German tanks.

Close up of the German armour and motorcycles.

The Polish 75mm guns have arrived, and they set up to cover the approaches to the bridge.

The bridge is now firmly in Polish hands.

Turn 5 ends, and Paul decides to admit defeat. The Polish defence has held,
and neither objective is in reach within the number of moves remaining.

Conclusions and Comparisons

The return to IGO-UGO seems to be the right thing, as long as it is supported by a reasonable opportunity-fire rule. Steve is a longtime supporter and user of the Blitzkrieg Commander rules, which makes him a player well versed in the use of opportunity fire in a wargame. He demonstrated that familiarity during the game, quickly identifying situations where the rule could help him, and showing me that the rule was both necessary and easy to use. 

Unusually (in fact, very unusually) not a single AFV was knocked out during the game. There were plenty of hits, but the KO rolls never materialised. What was interesting was that the Germans managed to lose despite not losing any tanks! I think in this scenario the attacking player has to concentrate on one of the two objectives and go all out for that objective, with the slimmest possible covering force to divert the defender. As so often, I got the feeling that if the Dice Gods had decided differently the game could easily have gone the other way. For an alternative view of this engagement, see Steve's blog post.

Only one or two minor rule tweaks suggested themselves during the game. I felt the game played easily and encouraged period tactics. I was particularly pleased that the close combat rules were quick and bloody, involving a good deal of knockabout fun involving foxholes being overrun by advancing tanks. 

In fact, I am optimistic that the development of Startline is entering it's final phase. If I can manage a bit of solid playtesting over the next few months, I reckon I might have a pretty good set of rules on my hands - or at least, a set of rules that pleases me and that my gaming associates will be happy to join in with. The rules occupy much the same space as Flames of War, but I consider them simpler and more intuitive to play than those rules (well, I suppose I would). 

Sadly, of course, there's not much chance of Startline becoming as popular as FoW! My own opinion is that FoW owes its popularity as much to the ambition and business acumen of the owners of Battlefront Miniatures as it does to its qualities as a rule set. It is relentlessly advertised and renewed. But then, as probably the most popular WW2 miniatures game out there after Bolt Action, FoW is genuinely enjoyed by thousands of wargamers around the world, so I must conclude that the game has qualities that I personally fail to appreciate. 

As the biggest WW2 miniatures game out there (according to Google AI), Bolt Action has the advantage of being a skirmish game that seems to capture the current zeitgeist for an easy-to-access and easy-to-play game with a limited amount of collecting, painting and research needed. It also seems to capture a large number of gamers looking to transfer from the world of sci-fi and fantasy to historical gaming. There's not much hope of me capturing much of that market, but maybe a few FoW gamers might give Startline a try - assuming I ever decide to get it published.

But that's enough daydreaming. I'll happily repeat that the Missions Pack for FoW is a great free resource for which we should be grateful to Battlefront. If you're a WW2 gamer, check it out. 

The current version of Startline (version 8) and a QRS can be downloaded free from Google Drive via the links below. Enjoy.

STARTLINE v.8 PDF

STARTLINE v.8 QRS PDF

Thanks for reading. 'Til next time!

EDIT 17th June: apologies to those trying to use the links above - I forgot to select the 'anyone with the link' button. If you've been denied access, that should now be fixed.