Battleground WWII, Barbarossa

Yet another early war Paul Carell -scenario from Mr H.

At dusk a squad of motorized Germans was left behind from their platoon due to a flat tire. Whe they had made repairs they followed others but failed to notice that these had at one point driven off road in order to make camp for the night. This one squad notices a small village and other trucks disembarking troops in it and stops thereo rest for the night. From the opposite other sides of the road the disembarking troops notice that something is terribly wrong -the troops on the other side of the road are the enemy!

Crappy Gemigabok night-o-vision is again enabled in this blog entry, this time with added tracers and such.



Initial setup.











On second turn the remaining squads of the German platoon arrive as they immediately started following the wayward squad when their truck passed them. The hapless German squad has barred itself in a hut and is getting fire from two squads of Soviets, MG from the one in open and one from the hut. The remaining Soviet squad is flanking the Germans from left.














While the Soviet MG in the open and half of the Soviets in the hut keeps the Germans in the hut pinned the two squads close up on the Jerries. Meanwhile the German reinforcements pile up fire against the Soviet hut which is also partly illuminated by the German truck. The German platoon leader is immediately wounded as is his Soviet counterpart in the hut.














German reinforcements of the leftmost squad have their leader and assistant leader become heroes (the assistant rolls from Knight's Cross!) who decide to to advance towards the Soviets. The other leaders do the same as well and the ones from the rightmost squad get close enough to lob some handgrenades, unfortunately while ying in the ground illuminated by their won truck. Meanwhile the other German squad is pinned by the Soviets that creep closer and closer.














With he truck lights switched off, the Germans assault the hut and majority of Soviets surrender and the Germans start pressing onward.














As the Soviets managed to assault and capture the one German squad furher up they decide to throw a molotow on the German truck and embark ther own trucks and disengage.

















Once again good 8 turn scenario from Mr. H. The nightfighting went smoothly but we had some probs with the huts even if they have removable walls/roofs leaving a burned out walls and rubble on the base -some kind of layouts or such need to be done for interiors.


-Janne
(Played: January 17rd. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Mr V. Germans: janne)

Battleground WWII, Barbarossa

Another early Barbarossa scenario!

Germans press forward and engage Soviet units they manage to locate. Here we have a couple of motorized panzergrenadier squads assisted with pzkfw II rooting a squad of Soviet infantry supoorted by an ATR.

Close by the German panzergenadier squad supported by stug III run across three T-26s (that were already trying to shoot the far away pzkfw II and twice just ever so narrowly missing!).

Pzkfw II lays some hoorendous supressing fire with its autocannon while the panzergenadiers push forward.
The Soviet squad boldly charges forward and manage to kill nearly al lthe German infantry. The driver of the halftrack panics and back the vehicle away despite the protests of the machine gunner. Even the Soviet comissar is impressed by this bold defence of motherland.

However the stug quicly blows up one T-26 and disable one (main gun destroyed and crew abandons the vehicle). As the last remaining T-26 tries to flank the stug from the other side of the forest two Pz 38s arrive and blow it up from the move!

The Soviet infantry is undaunted by this and the platoon leader orders a general charge but dies immediately after. The troops surge forward wanting to avenge their leader and rush over the open dominated by the German panzers into the other woods and make mincemeat oout of the last remaining German infantrymen there.

The Soviet squadleader and two other decide to engage the German halftrack right next to the wood but the lone machinegunner manages to heroically defend his vehicle with his hastily grabbed entrenching tool/rifle thereby killing the last remaining attacking Soviets.


The Soviets were doing reasonably well before the arrival of German reinforcements. At least the ones fightng near stug. On the other end they were receiving a beating. The one squad in the middle didn't do anything else than crawl forward in teh field and then backward when situation beccame hopeless.

Problem is that the objective of the Soviets was to get as many troops out of the board as possible... Well, the players just didn't want to withdraw without any combat and got more involved than thay should've. Great game but horrible blunder for the Soviets.

-Janne
(Played: January 3rd. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Eero, Janne. Germans: Mr V)

Battleground WWII, Barbarossa

Mr. H gamed us another excellent Battleground WWII scenario which was once again taken from Paul Carell's books.

Set in the inital stages of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans are waiting for the return of their recon unit and since the return seems to be delayed they send some troops eastward looking for it even if the night has fallen. At the same time the Soviets are pushing forward...


The German search party moves eastward in an attempt to locate the missing recon unit.
On the left you can see the game as we played it and on right a modified picture trying to represent what the situation would really have looked like.























At the same time the recon unit enters the table from the east end of the table. All the advancing Soviets have been placed using hidden setup. The exception to this is the T-26's which are following the German scout cars as they believe them to be on their side. On the islet left the Soviet infantry squad has noticed that German recon units are driving by so they open up. In the woods right there is a another T-26 (with the commander of Societ forces IIRC9 who stubborny refuse to believe the Germans to be enemy units (he rolls several critically failed perception rolls) and is puzzled why the infantry are firing at their own scout cars!























The T-26s following the recces finally do recognize the Germans for what they are and promptly shoot the front one to smithereens. The unramed radio car manages to escape however.


One German squad starts to flank from right but in the darkness get charged by a Soviet squad and after shooting their way out of that mess soon get run over by another similar human wave leaving just an odd few seeking a refuge behind a flanking pzkfw III.

The tank duel drags on adn Soviets score multiple hits on one pzkfw III killing the majority of crew but the tank won't ignite and the remaining crew won't abandon the tank either. Other highlights include a German soldier rolling a critical on morale table which means he becomes a hero and the hero table gives him another critical so he becomes a Knight's Cross decorated überjerry (but doesn't really affect the game).


The game was total blast!
The conditions (ie. darkness) REALLY changed the game. With regular lights a vehicle could see 12 inches forward and with dimmed "war lights" 6 inches. Visibility in the forest without any extra illumination was whopping one inch! If another night game is played we certainly have to make paper cutouts for the lights so it'll be immediately apparent how far away the lights extend and at a glance you notice who has lights on and where another forms of illumination is used.

The game actually has strange rules for light pistols since they stay around for 3 turns diminishing every round. This sound like flares to us, not light pistols (all players used both while in the army...).

-Janne
(Played: December 20th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Mr V. Germans: Janne)

Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna

Janne went to Vienna for a weekend so visit to local army museum or Heeresgeschichtliches Museum was in order.

One thing that is prominent in Vienna prior to christmas is the christmas market. It would seem that every open space in the city centre is filled with the small huts selling all sort of christmas related things. It would seem tha a quarter of the huts sell gluchwein and punc which the locals just seem to love. Here's the view in front of the rathaus aka. city hall.

On the left is the gatehouse-esque building in front of the army museum.
On the right is the actual museum building which suprisingly has some near eastern influences.
























On the left is the entry hall which has its pillars surrounded by local war heroes.
On the right is the upstairs entry hall with its high dome and paintings.























The photography permit costs around an euro and don't even dream about taking pics without it!
Sorry about the reflections from the cabins. It is more or less unavoidable.


An Austrian dragoon accompanied by infantry officer and private. Note that the infantry uniform is far from pure white, and the felt was really coarse and most certainly off white.























An Austrian grenadier.























On the left a hussar.
On the right, infantry officier, cuirassier and a hussar.























Austrian cuirassier & hussar.























Austrian landwehr.























Helmets for "Offizer der k k Infanteri und deutchen Kavallerie (M 1798)" and saddlecloth.














On left French shako & shako plates.
On right shako of Austrain 5th hussars that a cannonball went through on April 13th 1814. Note how flimsy the construction is. Just thin cardboard covered with a layer of velvet.























Some more captured French items, eagles, flags and headgear. Note how ever so thin and worn out the flag on the left is (like majority of the flags in the museum).























Some Austrian uniforms and muskets.























An Austrian flag.

On the left an Austrian flag of unusual design (for some reason the (#%¤! Blogger turns this picture 90 degrees...).
On the right A) Royal Pologne regiment (War of the Austrian Succession), B) & C)Prussian infantry- & cuirassierregiment no. 1 (both from the time of King Friedrich Wilhelms I), D) Bavarian cuirassierregiment (Törring ?) (18th c), E) French dragonregiment Orleans (War of the Austrian Succession).



















On the left Sabre m1765 resting on top of drum, 1750.
And on the right guidons for 6 cuirassier regiments: Kürassierregiment Erzherzog Leopold, Kürassierregiment Josef Graf Lucchesi d'Abarra, Kürassierregiment Erzherzog Leopold, Kürassierregiment Franz III. d'Este Herzog von Modena, Kürassierregiment Karl Paul Graf Pálffy ab Erdöd and Kürassierregiment August Marchese Voghera.
























The only aeroplane in the museum as well as an exquisetely ornamented revolver.















Some nazi embroidery and SS camo-uniform.
























A couple of posters from the WWI & II exhibitions. "And you?" and "Today Red -Tomorrow Dead! Vote Anti-Marxists"
























The museum also had plenty of material from 30 Years War as well as older arms and armor. Both local and Turkish. Unfortunately the tanks in the inner yard were not accessible as the yard is closed during winter months.

-janne
(Visited 27th November)