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)

Christmas game: Scramble!

Besides having some booze the Gemigabok Christmas games (almost every organization in Finland tends to organize pre-Christmas parties) have traditionally often involved games of several aspects of warfare, ie gemigabok in land, sea and air, but this year we decided to stick with the air theme.

After our success with the WWI campaign played with Canvas Eagles rules we've been discussin about finding a WWII aerial game that is fast and has a good feel to it. Also running a Winter War campaign has been discussed, but with a different approach than the previous campaign where players were playing either Allies of Central Powers. Perhaps every player might be able to have their own Finnish flight and if the flight wasn't active the player would then be playing the opposing Soviet planes. Also when using just Soviet bombers most likely no player would be actually needed for them...

In light of this Aksu has been pining for quite long time to give the Scramble! -rules a try. To this effect he also prepared the necessary 1/300, or 6mm, planes and two scenarios.


The first scenario was kinda themed for the event, it being a Winter War battle. It featured two flight of three Soviet SB-2s on a bombing run and two sections of Finnish Fiat G.50s trying to down them.

Here we have all the Finns concentrating on the righmost SB-2 flight.
Scratch one bomber! However the other SB-2 formation manages to slip past the Finns and bomb the target with little harrasment.
The second game had a section of Finnish Blenheims on raid escorted by two Fiats and intercepting these were three Soviet I-153 Chaikas with one of the pilots being a veteran from Spanish Civil War flying a newer model of the plane. This was supposed to be a Winter War game too, but as Aksu had erranously painted the Blenheim's with green/black camo (instead of plain green) it was decided that the battle was from Continuation War.

The Soviet veteran is harrasing the Blenheims on the end of their bombing run but is tailed by Fiat in turn. One of the Soviet wingmen is trying to get on Fiat's case too, but is still way too high. I think the remaining fighters were badly damaged and more or less withdrew from the action.

We used the random initial placement and this clearly gave the bombers a HUGE advantage, especially as the bombers used were quick and the fighters weren't. In future games rolling table will have to be used as movement distances per turn are so long.

The games went pretty well and the system is not that different from the free ruleset, Sturmovik Commander. However I'd be willing to bet that Sturmovik Commander is somewhat quicker. Both are definately good systems that we'll have to replay. Preferably immediately after one another. Perhaps we could even incorporate some of the better features from one to another?

-Janne
(Played: November 24th GM: Aksu. Also present: Eero, Janne, JaNNe, Mr H. & Mr V)

Epic Armageddon WWII test

For quite some time now whenever we've played a larger scale game Mr V has occasionally said that GW's Epic system has several nice features in it and that these might work well in historical games too.

In light of this when we had a queit clubevening with low attendance we decided to give the rules a test drive to see how they would function.

We had a bunch of Russians (T-34s accompanied with infantry) attacking the defending Germans, who might, or might not, have had some anti-tank capability. Most likely not. Since we didn't have need for that large a gaming area we just decided to ue whatever we had left from the previous game. Heh, on the second pic you can actually clearly see a mine right next to the Russian infantry unit's yellow markers.


Initial setup & the rules.

Russian tank rider are about to assault Germans. The Russian infantry unit has taken quite a lot of incoming fire and is struggling to reorganize itself.


Overall the rules worked quite well even if only Mr V had had previous experience with them. Then again, we just concentrated on the bare basics. Best thing would be the speed of the game so I'm guessing that the biggest benefit with the use of the ruleset would come from the availability to play bigger battles quicker than previously. The success of the system certainly warrants additional games with the system!

-Janne
(Played: November 8th. GM & Germans: Mr V. Soviets: Janne)

Battleground WWII, Jatkosota 1944

Mr H had dug up a suitable scenario that also could be played with the same terrain we used previously. The events are again from the same book.

During the Russian offensive of '44 a Finnish T-34 is sent to the front and as they approach an opean area they notice a squad of engineer mining the road ahead. The tank commander and one other crewmember walk to these to have a chat with them to find ut the situation. The tank is parked in the forest right next to the road.


"What-ho chaps! What seems to be the general situation here? We've been ordered to advance and give support to troops ahead."
"Ain't nuthin' but Ruskies ahead! If ya wanna head there it is on your own head"
"Ensign, sah! Ah though the tank Lt. just said that they arrived with one tank. Ah reckon' they just sent some extras to help 'em out..."
"Bloody hell! It is the Ruskies! Scram!"
And with the previous comment the truck drive hits the pedal to the metal and the only one making it to the truck is the engineer ensign. Together they flee the battlefield.
The remainder of engineers dart forward to the forest ahead asthe small forest behind them actually houses two PAK 40s and they don't want to be next to them when they begin to draw fire. The Tank men start rushing towards their tank.
To make matters worse a line of infantry emerges the forest east of the field and start running across! Luckily they turn out to be Finns who take the positions in the cover of the field next to the PAKs.
The combined fire of the undermanned tank and the PAKs wreak havok on the Russians. When the tank commnader reaches the T-34 he immediately rushes forward and finishes the last remaining Russian tank from point blank.

A very intense scenario with plenty of surprises for both sides. Good stuff!

-Janne
(Played: October 11th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Mr V. Finns: Janne)

Battleground WWII, Jatkosota 1941

Eero had nicked a scenario from Reino Lehväslaiho's more or less autobigraphical book, Panssarisotaa (Tank Warfare). During the late summer 1941 a platoon Finnish BT-5/7 tanks supported by platoon of jaegers (who are naturally bicycle mounted) have been given orders to ruthlessly push forward. While the term ruthlessly became almost a joke during 1941 as it was so overused in the orders, I'm sure it was far from funny to receive such orders!


First a couple of views on the initial round as the jaegers reach the open area.


The first squad is practically annihilated by the ambush Russians spring from the woods left.
As infantry advances in the ditches along the road, the tanks trundle forward and become targets theselves as an AA gun opens up from the forest on opposite side of the field. An AT gun joins up and quickly the road fills with burning tank wreckage.
A couple of jaeger squads start flanking the Russian infantry.
View from the Russian ATG. It might've even been destroyed by the last remaining finnish BT.

The Russians really gave the Finn a sound trashing. The rapid firing AA & AT guns firing from ambush do really nasty work against thinly armoured tanks like BT-5/7.

-Janne
(Played: September 28th. GM: Eero. Soviets: Mr H & Mr V(?). Finns: Janne & JaNNe)