Battle of Hürtgen Forest

Last Thursday I played a game of Flames of War (FoW) (version 4) against Guus under supervision of gamemaster Lex. Guus is working on a FoW incarnation of the Windhundpanzerdivision; to test the first batch of his freshly painted troops a setting and scenario in line with their history were chosen.

The setting was inspired by the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, in which the Germans fought American troops in the last phase of ww2. In our case however it was my Tsejcho-Russian tank army that would try to drive off the defenders of das Reich. Lex had worked out a scenario based on the 'No Retreat', with some tweaks. And he was also our very hospitable host, rules official and just judge.

Like always I had prepared properly and read Lex' instructions intently (right...). However, one of those minor tweaks, stating that the attacker (me) was not allowed to use air support had somehow missed me. This was not a big thing, since I had expected to fight a panzer army (never heard of the Hürtgen battle before) I could now replace the Sturmovik points for tank riders, which would hopefully come in handy against all the infancty Guus had selected.

The other major setting for this battle was that almost the whole table would be 'forest' (the 'FoW type' of forest being indicated by the shade of green of the playing mat). My tanks would have a hard time driving through let alone fighting infantry!

In so far this was a historicly correct setting the battle worked out fine, for Guus and the Germans that is. Guus deployed his force dug in, waiting for the invaders, panzer IV's and HMG's in reserve and a small but important scouting group forward (in turn 0). My tank force of 15 T-34's, 3 SU-85M's, a pack of T-70's(!) and 4 BA-64's were deployed in a way to make most use of the one road on the board. My idea was to make use of my recce to spearhead a force of tanks up that road, but Guus clever use of his recce prevented this (wonder where he got this cunning plan from..?).

This meant my main force of a small and big contingent of T-34's were 'blocked' by the recce unit and stuck on the lef flank. To put some pressure on the other side I sent the T-70's and BA-64 there, trying to manouvre past the dug in troops there.




This plan did not work out too bad, except for some small problems: The smaller group of T-34's did not manage to get past the three stands of recce, the main force did smack through the other part of the German recce unit, but this took (too) much time. Moving through woods means bogging down a lot, taking (too) much time. Failing armour saves against artillery fire (PAK 50!) takes (too) much losses, even if you have a Russian number of tanks.
Medals (hero of the motherland!) went to the 'little ones' of my army: The BA-64 and especially T-70's made a heroic quest through the woods, around the left flank of the Germans just in time to pin down the defending infantry and PAK's to support the final all out atttack of the main unit on the trenches.

However Guus' dice rolling was not up to Guus' normal high standards, hitting, destroying and bailing enough tanks to force a break off of the assault :-)


All in all a very good start of the year and a return to the Flames. Can't wait for the next engagement!!

Half tracked, half tricked

Finally, after a long production run, I finished eight (8!) Sd. Kfz. 251 half tracks. These iconic transporters were needed for my Tsecho-Sovjet army(!). Captured two or three of them will be used by a spetsnaz unit, leading a spearhead attack into enemy territory. Two 251's are for this purpose 'masked'' with canvases (of Heer46 make). Serious trickery!

Spetsnaz under the canvas?

A while back I was at the receiving end of such an attack at a tournament. My opponent used a spetsnaz unit to lead a group of nine (9!) T-34's. That meant that after turn one they were in assault range, threatening a objective defended by a lone group of panzergrenadiers. Only a ambush of Pak 40's saved my day...

Command group

Besides the two 251's with the canvases there are two ridden by commanders, one with the characteristic framework antenna and one with a 3.7 cm Pak cannon, to annoy Russian tankers.

Crowded, must be rush hour

One thing that I found out when placing miniatures in the vehicles is how crammed they are. Having been a passenger aboard a real 251 once, I had not remembered that. At maximum I managed to place six soldiers on the benches; this were the smaller plastic soldier passengers, battle front soldiers are a bit more bulkier.

Top view: Spot the differences between PSC and Battlefront 251's

The unit consists of five Plastic Soldier Company and three Battlefront vehicles. They mix well, and I used the stowage of both kits on 251's of both builds. The canvases of Heer46 fitted the battlefront vehicles better, so they were used on that ones. Machine guns were standardized by using the Battlefront ones, a matter of taste.

Assembly line: Half tracks in half...

All in all a very nice, but as usual more time consuming than planned, project. In a few weeks the captured ones will been seen in battle at a tournament in The Hague. And a few weeks later the whole group will probably join my german force in the next tournament.

Hopefully they will do a good job (if only they had a commander who knows what he's doing...) And now: Time to paint my Frostgrave wizard!!

Small report of a small battle

A few days ago I played a Flames of War battle against Lex, a new found opponent. Lex is a long time wargamer who just started playing FoW; picking me as a trainer won't help off course, but results in very interesting battles :-)
His friend Guus showed up to watch and was so kind to take some pictures. So all pictures courtesy of Guus ©.

In our preparation of a tournament that will take place at Table Top Kingdom, we played late war lists. Lex took a British, excuse me, Scottish infantry list. My list was a German tank army from the Desperate Measures book, shown in the table. Playing trained panzer instead of the usual veteran waffen ss infantry would require a new approach.

We decide to play the 'hasty attack' scenario. Half of my opponents force would be in reserve at the start of the game. Lex decided to place all his anti tank guns and infantry on the board, and place his mortars, hmg's and M10's in reserve. Having the M10's in reserve was a bit dubious (and Lex had meant them to be in ambush), on the other hand they were save there for any long range gunnery.

The battlefield (photograph on the left, Lex force was deployed on the left side of this picture) looked very very nice with a small village half way between the forces at my right flank. Through the village a road stretched across the full width, as a border between the two parties. On the left of the village some bushes were located on either side of the road.

Trying to make use of the absence of half my opponents units (still in reserver), I rushed all units forward (with the exception for the nebelwerfers). Lex' anti tank guns tried to respond to this, but were hindered by the woods on his side. Further more it turned out that despite having quite a few anti tank assets in number, they lacked the power of hurting the panzers at lange range. (And that's not even taken into account Lex's dice rolls...).

The first wave of attack took place on my left flank. The StuG's went forward, hiding behind a little wood. The Panzer IV's joined the Panthers and also went forward, but a little more cautiously. My infantry tried to keep up and at the same time stay out of sight of the Scots.

Lex' response came in the form of the arrival of the M10's, who came in from reserve, ready to kill off my StuG's (a completely overlooked the possibility of the immediate arrival of reserves). However, both M10 and StuG crews turned out to be hopeless gunners and would shoot each other for two round without any result other than bailing a crew. In the long run I was very lucky on that flank, when my StuG's blew up the M10's just before a unit of Scot infantry failed their tank terror test. The picture shows Lex' forces on this side of the battle (with a poor burning StuG hidden in). After driving off my attack on this flank, his troops pushed forward through the woods.

At the right flank my Panthers supported by the grenadiers managed to rush through the village without losses. The second in command Panzer IV was blown up and the first in command almost suffered the same fate, being bailed. In the last turn the Panthers assaulted the unit guarding the second objective on the right flank and managed to wipe them out. As there were no way for the Scots  to challenge this objective, the Germans won this battle.

As for the aftermath... It was a very nice and hectic game, played in some very nice scenery. The lack of 'big guns' in Lex' list gave me the opportunity to maneuver freely with my tanks. Having a 'stormtrooper' move' boosted this even further. I was very very lucky when the M10's showed up and managed to miss all shots.

This panzer list does not leave much room for compensation of losses. The Panthers and also the modest Nebelwerfers performed outstanding. The Nebels pinned the anti tank guns almost continually through the game (and at the same time Lex failed to unpin them almost every time..).

Time for a rematch! ;-)

(Ook gepubliceerd op NLFoW)

Panthera pardus

Finally my Flames of War Panther are finished! Just in time to support my good friend Tom at the tournament next saturday. And off course just in time to kill off my T-34's and JS-2 when we batttle it out at this tournament....

Originally (and in the long run they will certainly be used for that) they were intended to support my 'legion of the damned' dutch waffen ss army. And in the first battles of this army they actually fought, in mono-color mittel gelb bare skin.

The idea was to give the Panther are worn out and 'dirty' look, in the process of loosing their winter fur... 

I find it's hard to create 'realistic' damage, dirt and soil in this scale and imho it's a bit overdone.But I had a lot of fun doing so :-)

Just in time StuGs

Finished just before leaving for a holliday trip, these Flames of War StuGs are my first air brushed models. I camouflaged the more or less acceptable camouflage with mud and some snow, in line with my Waffen SS panzergrenadiers..

Feedback is welcome, holliday even more :-)

Personal Development, No Plan

At the start of this year I (re)found work at a foundation in my beautiful home country. And as an employee in the Netherlands there's almost no escape from the compulsory ritual that's called 'persoonlijk ontwikkel plan' (personal development plan) or 'POP'. In such a plan employer and employee agree on targets and intentions for the next working year. Hammered in stone these targets are (depending on company, boss and/or HR department) used to assess the contribution toward the company's and your private goals...

Anyways, in this case the writing of my development plan was a process of filling in a excel sheet with a not entirely transparent structure, in which 'smart'goals were given 'weights' (in percentages) that resulted some work spaces and lots of excel scripts later in a very objective judgment of yours truly. Since I stepped in a few weeks after the deadline for filling in the excel, one of my first tasks was to fill in all categories satisfactory.

So I started out, sending in 'alpha' and 'beta' releases of my plan to my boss, who then returned my versions full of his remarks. This process repeated it self for quite some incarnations of my plan until it turned out all of a sudden to be 'ok'. During this workflow no goal, intention or other fiction was left untouched, except for one item, counting for one (1) percent of my personal development: Painting Waffen SS infantry for Flames of War. Being approved by my manager and HR department, I faced this challenge!

Having painted a Flames of War Czech-Russian tank army, I had become familiar with the practice of painting 15mm scale miniatures. The SS panzergrenadiers were however quite different: Instead of some tanks there were nearly 200 miniature men to be painted...
So actually it was a blessing in disguise that I managed to sneak in a little (bad) joke in my 'POP'. The pressure was on and I finished just in time!!

Let me know what you think of the paint job!

Regards and a happy wargaming filled 2014!

Pink is my new obsession

When I started painting my Battlefront IS-2 tanks, a plan to do one as the (in)famous Pink Tank from Prague got stuck in my head. Years ago, around 1991, I visited Prague and I remember seeing the tank, that was in those days still on it's original location. Nowadays it is displayed in the military museum of Lesany (which I still have to visit :-P )

After painting four IS-2 tanks in a 'normal' Russian green scheme it was both nice and a bit tricky to do this one pink, without transforming it into a Slaaneshi type of equipment. The idea is to use it in Flames of War as an objective (and as fifth IS-2 tank in case of emergencies). So it had to be a sort of 'realistic pink'. Well the results are down below, feel free to let me know what you think...