AWI dust up

Sundays game saw my Dad and I turn our attention to a AWI Blackpowder game with myself taking command of the British force. The game was back and forth and saw the both of us holding the advantage at various points of the game.

We Ramdomly rolled to see what raiting  our generals and brigade leaders would be with a mixed bag of results.

The first of the action saw my British line infantry engage in a fire fight with the American continental troops across the centre fields pushing the American forces back and shaking a couple of brigades with a very effective first volley fire from all my units.

The American continentals of the second division take a defensive position on the hill as reinforcements arrive to support th shaken units in the fields.

The Rebel militia defending the farm buildings, with a few Indian in support.

 

British line infantry break in the centre under deadly fire from the Continental toops which have arrived from reserve.

Things start to go from bad to worse for the British at this stage as my first division is broken in the centre after the two sides got involved in melee. The broken division now started to retreat from he battlefield 

After holding there ground for a couple of turns  the Hanoverian troops close to short range and unleash a deverstsing couple of rounds of shooting, breaking the Militia troops on my left, fleeing the farm compound

More sucess for my British as a second American division breaks after a fierce fire fight with the Britsh guards. In breaking the 2nd AMerican divisions my units had taken heavy casualties and had to hold there ground for a couple of turns rally some points off them.

The British militia reserve try to hold the line together behind he fence line as the broken British troops retreat towards the table edge. A blunder roll by my dad sees a shaken unit of Continentals suddenly find some courage and they storm forward rather recklessly into point blank range where they are duely shot up and broken. At this point he Ameican troops could not get to move due to my dad failing to roll a successful order for a number of turns. This allowed me to somewhat steady my right flank 

The final position , my dads right flank had complely collapsed the right centre had also been broken. However the left flank was still strong and was only opposed by my 3 brigades of militia. 

At this point it was time to call it a day. It was a see saw game which saw after I had taken the initiative  in early stages my dad hit back hard with good success in the centre. If my dad could have passed a few important command rolls he would have broken my entire centre but it wasn't to be. With this restbite i was able to launch a strong attack against my dads right flank/centre which saw my British gain great success in breaking two divisions of Americans. I was starting to hold the upper hand again and with my dad losing 2 divisions to my 1 we decided that the British had forced a minor victory.

It was a very good game, definitely a period I enjoy  fighting.

Somewhere on the fields of Kursk

Russian tanks and cargo head towards the battle raging on the fields of Kursk

German mechanics repairing a Panzer IV ready to meet the on coming Russian hordes

The fields somewhere on the edges of Kursk, I took command of a German armed division to take on my Dad who was in command of a Russian armoured division. We decided to have a tank only battle of 600 points aside to see who would come out on top. The church was the only objective in the middle of the table. Aircraft chits would count as a one to your battle rating and low on ammo chits could be played on tanks (yes this would come back to bite me). As a little gimmick I had made one of my Tiger 1 tanks a panzer ace, if my dad could destroy this tank I would have to pull two chits instead of the usual one as it would have a demoralising effect on the rest of my Panzers.

Starl Starl Starl, The first wave of T34 tanks waste no time in rushing towards the initial German forces firing a few HE pot shots as they advance.

German Panzer III tanks head down the road towards the objective, taking it at the end of he turn.

Strike one to the Russians, my Panzer ace in the Tiger tank becomes the first casualty. My dad was forced to take a morale chit thanks to me taking the objective, my dad draws a low on ammo chit which we are allowing to be played on tanks tonight. The said chit is placed on my tiger ace and on the roll of 6 the tiger ace was completely out of ammo so decided to quit the battle field in search of more!! My two chits later saw 9 points wiped off my battle rating, I was getting a bad feeling about how this game was going to be heading!

               ( han's we seem to be out of ammo, best call it a day )

As the tiger ace leaves the field a second tiger enters the game in support of the Stug III platoon 

The second wave of Russian tanks enters the left flank in the form of  3 SU-76 tank hunters and some T-70 light tanks.

The Panzer III tank defending the objective 

A T34 advances to tne cover of the walled field and makes light work of the Panzer III but suffers the same fate as a second panzer III returns fire and moves into securing he objective again.

The Stug III platoon becomes involved in a long range fire fight over a few turns with 5 T34's, after a few rounds of firing and pinning one another a StuG manages to destroy a T34 before it suffers a direct hit and is destroyed. One of the other remaining StuGs has to fall back to the memo truck to be re supplied . 

The Panzer III in the back of the picture fails a morale test while pinned after suffering a glancing hit from the T70 and the crew abandon it and a second Panzer III erupts into flames from a direct SU-76 shot. The command Panzer III does manage to destroy the T70 in return fire in the lol owing turn.

 

A T34 is flanked by a Stug who some how fails to spot his target (must be because of all the smoke from the burning German tanks). The T34 returns fire pinning to Stug.

Some return fire over a few moves sees a t34 and the Panzer III command tank knocked out and a SU-76 destroy a tiger with a roll of eleven on the armour penetration roll, my Germans were all but broke by this stage.

The final nail in the coffin saw my final Tiger tank hit and pinned and then roll a morale of one, again leading Germany's finest Panzer crews to abandon there Tiger and LEG IT!!!!

Well that was me comprehensively beaten, my break point of 41 was passed with the chit drawn for the running tiger crew, I had lost a full squad of Tiger 1's, two of whom abandoned their tanks as the T34 shells bounced off the Tigers armour. I had suffered some terrible luck during the game finding it hard to roll high enough to penetrate the Russian armour and the less said about my morale throwing the better, I also had picked high chits at an alarming rate but to be fair to my dad he kept my fire power limited due to consistently pinning my tanks forcing me to take morale chits to un pin my units as his tanks advanced, especially neutralising my a tigers deadly 88mm guns.

 In the end it was a big and glorious victory for the red army.

The victorious Russian armour heads down the road as German Panzers burn all around them, victory was had today but plenty more Panzers still lay ahead...

Competed Fall of the Reich Platoons

Here is my newly completed Fall of the Reich (FOTR) German infantry platoons, x 1 Volksstrum platoon with heavy weapon supports and a Auxilary platoon.

The Auxillary platoon I pictured as a right rag tag unit if any troop type the Germans could muster armed with anything they could put their hands to. To represent this I have used a number of various troop types ranging from Lufftwaffee piolets  Kriegsmarine, SS troops, Grenadiers in different theatre uniforms, troops armed with Russian sub machine guns and mixed them together, the command team are field police with a dog. The figures are Peter pig for the most part but I think some maybe command decision as I dipped my hand into my dads spares box to help complete the platoon.

I feel the unit captures the state of the German army available come 1945 .

My Volksstrum platoon are Peter pig figures and look really good with their civilian clothes mixed with bits of uniforms. The unit has a mixture of panzerfausts and rifles with the odd sub machine gun mixed in and and LMG teams. The heavy support comes in the shape of a MG38 tripod and a 80mm mortar.

How long this unit remains in its positions when they get on the table and start to come under fire top only time will tell!

Next up for the Germans FOTR army list will be. Massive Jagdtiger, Battlefront minitures are releasing a lovely box set for the tank which includes a Jagdtiger and dismounted crew and ammo loading teams which I'm sure il will find a home for in this army list.