Gaming

By Michael Rafferty

One time I almost played Harpoon.

I was at Fall-In 2021 (which was also Historicon) where I met a lot of great guys, including Mitch Reed who recruited me to write. It was a great time and unlike everyone else, I kind of liked the casino. Back in 2019 I won a couple hundred dollars betting on the Browns, one of the few times the Browns have ever won anything for me so I have fond memories there.

Rambling aside, I saw there was a Harpoon game scheduled and it was run by the creator, Larry Bond. What joy! I’ve been wanting to try Harpoon for awhile since I’ve wanted a good set of rules for modern naval combat. Naval wargames may be my favorite type of historical wargame and I wanted something when I could launch missiles at Soviet ships. This was perfect.

By Tom Gall

A number of weeks back I received my copy of Battlegroup Bagration, the latest source book written by Warwick Kinrade and published by the Plastic Soldier Company.

Battlegroup is a set of WWII rules, written back in 2012. It was made for 15/20mm and as a result for a gamer like myself, present the opportunity for me to utilize my Battlefront lead for more than one game system.

As Battlegroup has been around a while, the system has a long list of source books available which each focus on various time periods of the war.

Bagration, as you’ll recall, occurred on the eastern front during the summer of 1944, where German Army Group Center effectively disintegrated.

By Kreighton Long

With the recent release of Bolt Action Third Edition and the last round of Second Edition tournaments I set my sights on the future.  Warlord’s timing of their Third Edition release complimented by natural project schedule perfectly.  Over the last several years I’ve fallen into a routine build around Kalissa Skibicki’s Bolt Action tournament at the October Call to Arms convention in Williamsburg, VA.  Once that tournament concludes I begin planning, building, painting, and training with a new army with the goal of being battle ready in time for the next Call to Arms tournament.  In this manner I’ve built, competed with, and placed using Romanians, Italians, and Soviets in my last three appearances.  With the release of Third Edition I have the added challenge of adapting the new force structure and implementing the new ruleset.

Warlord has truly done a phenomenal job of tempting me with their recently released kits.  I snagged a box of Winter Americans with the Third Edition rulebook and was hard pressed to not do the same with their Winter Fallschirmjager.  My bank account was disappointed when they also released their German Veterans kit and I couldn’t help but snag the army box with my pre-order of the Armies of Germany Third Edition book.  Despite these temptations, I’m going to take my first dedicated Third Edition army in a different direction — somewhere notably warmer.

In 2023 I captured first at Kalissa’s Call to Arms tournament and as I won it with my Italians I decided to claim a box of Bersaglieri for my prize.  It seemed appropriate enough as I was riding a high after surprising wins with a force I did not anticipate to be as competitive as it ended up being.  That kit sat in my box of shame for the last year and once Third Edition was announced my mind kept wandering to that simple box of plastic.  For my first dedicated Third Edition army I am going to create an Africa Campaign themed Italian army using the Bersaglieri as the core of infantry.

With this project I have three goals in mind.  The first is that I want to challenge myself to leave my comfort zone by painting and basing an army outside of my typical temperate Europe theme.  By painting my army for the North African theater I will accomplish that.  The second goal is to make it thematic.  I will accomplish this by ensuring that whatever I put in this army makes sense within the scope of the Italian contribution to the North African campaign.  Considering that this is the theater that the Italians featured heavily I imagine this one will be fairly simple to pull off.  The third goal is to balance it between competitive and fun.  This is the area I am the most nervous about pulling off.  I want to avoid any units that break the game (looking at you Second Edition Dakka Stuarts/Panzers) while simultaneously keeping my list interesting and fun for me to take to games.  As I do like to win I hope that I can temper my competitive edge to keep my list enjoyable for me to play, and more importantly here, fun for my opponent to play against.

After committing to building my first Bolt Action Third Edition army around the Italian army in North Africa I started to map out how the company would be structured.  Some quick poking around online revealed that six Bersaglieri regiments served in North Africa so I can rest easy that we’re checking the box for historical accuracy (National Army Museum, New Zealand).  Since I already had a box of Bersaglieri in my box of shame the infantry component was decided.  Light Machine Guns will feature heavily in my squads due to the decreased point cost and that the Bersaglieri will play as Veterans which will give them more survivability to keep that LMG firing.  So that’s the infantry platoon worked out.

For the second platoon I envisioned some tankettes or light tanks to support my infantry.  Daydreaming in the twilight of Second Edition I wanted a platoon of tankettes to harass my opponents with.  The L3/33s looked like fun little mobile, armored, MMG teams that were cost effective and could be a real pain for my opponent to deal with if I used them correctly.  With the Third Edition change to vehicle mounted machine guns halving their rate of fire I was reluctantly turned away from the idea of a tankette swarm.  Instead I began looking at other light tanks of the Italian army — and in drove the L6/40.  In Third Edition, I can field a number of Regular L6/40s with a turret light auto-cannon in an 8+ hull with two negative rules (Vulnerable and One-Man Turret) offset by one positive (Recce).  For 100 points, that doesn’t sound like a terrible deal and the fact that this light tank will find itself outgunned and outmaneuvered by most other tanks fits my idea of the Italian armored forces frequently finding itself behind the curve in North Africa.

The L6/40s first arrived in North Africa in December, 1941 for testing and soon after began arriving for combat duty.  The 133rd Armored Division featured three squadrons of the light tank and served in the successful Axis siege of Tobruk in 1942 and continued to serve through the Third Battle of El Alamein (Tank Encyclopedia).  This one example of L6/40s in North Africa, alongside the presence of Bersaglieri, checks the second historical accuracy box in my planned list. Considering the affordable cost of this cute little guy I will start with three in the tank platoon and will likely alternate between two and three in my company depending on the point maximum of the game.

With LMGs and autocannons in my arsenal I decided my third platoon would need some heavy hitting power.  To accomplish this I turned to the Armored Platoon.  Fielding a number of artillery pieces will give my army some penetrating power to stall enemy armor and to knock out infantry squads.  Medium howitzers in Third Edition hit with a 3″ template and +3 penetration.  This level of howitzer can make quick work of Veteran infantry and can even destroy buildings with a lucky shot and the +3 penetration allows you to threaten medium armored vehicles and their 9+ armor.  Against the front armor of a medium tank (9+ armor), the +3 penetration is a poor substitute for a dedicated anti-tank gun requiring a roll of 6 to penetrate.  However, it is enough to force pins on Veteran 9+ vehicles and Inexperienced and Regular armored vehicles regardless of armor value.  And in my experience, pouring pins onto an armored vehicle with howitzers, while not likely to destroy it, can force it to take increasingly difficult order tests and possibly invest a turn rallying.  The indirect fire option is always a handy option when conducting counter-battery operations or trying to force dug in enemy units to displace.  At 90 points apiece for a medium howitzer with a gun shield I plan on picking up three for a healthy battery presence and again will likely fluctuate between two and three depending on point maximums.

I dug around online and struggled to find organic Bersaglieri artillery batteries.  Instead, I often found references to Bersaglieri working alongside divisional artillery assets in the form of the 100/17 Modello 14s which are treated as Medium Howitzers in Bolt Action (Comando Supremo Italy in WWII).  At the time of writing this I have not stumbled onto evidence of Bersaglieri manning 100/17 Modello 14s as these guns were typically Divisional assets manned by regular Army gunners.  Therefore, in keeping with my goal of making my list as historically accurate as I can I decided to purchase Warlord Games Italian Army 100/17 Modello 14 medium artillery kits rather than the Bersaglieri variants.  If anyone can find a source verifying that Beraglieri troops served as gunners of these medium howitzers I would love to be proven wrong before adding these guns to my holiday wish-list.

For a first draft I feel confident that my Bersaglieri Company, made up of an infantry, armored, and artillery platoon, will be able to respond to most threats.  The combination of mobility and firepower this list provides will hopefully end up being as fun to play in reality as it is in my head.  Keeping my list realistic to what was available to Italian forces in North Africa will hopefully create a thematic and cohesive looking army that will look good on the table and be grounded enough to be fun for my opponent to play against.  The next step is to start picking up the kits I need to make this happen and to add them to my painting queue.  More to follow.

Happy gaming!

 

By Kreighton Long

On Saturday, 12 October 2024, Kalissa Skibicki organized a Bolt Action tournament at the Call to Arms convention in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Sixteen players brought their armies and positive attitudes for one last Bolt Action Second Edition tournament. Due to the travel involved for me to get down to Williamsburg, this tournament feels like a Bolt Action geek reunion where I have the pleasure of catching up with like minded people on an annual basis. I caught up with familiar faces and made some new friends throughout the weekend. Overall, the tournament appeared to have been a success with plenty of laughs and jokes to compliment the friendly competition of the day.

Kalissa’s highlight from the tournament was the influx of new players.  She commented that around six of the sixteen players had recently started playing Bolt Action and that this was their first tournament.  Moving forward, Kalissa, as well as her players, will need to become familiar with the revised rules of Third Edition which will require a not-too-small investment in revamping the tournament packs for Kalissa’s future tournaments.

After three rounds of games including Double Envelopment, Demolition, and No Man’s Land, the players gathered around Kalissa to hear the final results of their efforts.  Due to all sixteen players tying in the second round, the final push to secure a place on the podium came down to secondary points.  In this tournament, the secondary points resulted from order dice claimed minus order dice lost. After all the scores were tabulated, the winners were announced with one order dice separating first place from second.

Story and images courtesy Warlord Games

Vanguard goes live on KickStarter!

Warlord Games are excited to announce that Vanguard: Normandy goes live on Kickstarter at 2pm GMT on 5th November 2024. Vanguard: Normandy is the ultimate World War II board game, bringing the key mechanics of our award-winning Bolt Action to the world of board gaming.

Navigate the fog of war, manage vital resources, and make swift tactical decisions in this 1-4 player World War II board game. Note that Vanguard: Normandy is in active development. All images shown are of pre-production prototypes and may not necessarily reflect the quality of the final product.

“Fortune favors the brave, but victory favors the prepared.” – Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus

by Patrick S. Baker

After two hits with Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War, the Creative Assembly (CA) Company determined to continue the Total War Series with Rome: Total War (Rome). The team at CA selected the Roman Era for many reasons. It is one of the most popular and well-documented periods in history and offered depth of events, characters, and battles that could be translated into an appealing game.

There was strong interest among gamers for a strategy game set in Roman times. Also, CA’s development team was deeply interested in the time period and thought it would provide a great setting for innovative game-play and a strong strategic narrative.

During the development of both Shogun and Medieval the CA team consulted with notable historians to maintain historical accuracy. While working on Rome, the CA team did a similar level of consultation.

By Troy Hill

“It is General Burnside’s special request,” Ferrero yelled to the two regiments, “that the two 51sts take that bridge. Will you do it?” Quickly, the teetotaling Cpl. Lewis Patterson replied, “Will you give us our whiskey, Colonel, if we take it?” The fired-up Ferrero answered affirmatively before asking again, “Will you take it?” “Yes,” the men shouted back. Sure enough, they did, and the men of the 51st Pennsylvania got their whiskey back. Source: Emerging Civil War:

I’m on a quest to play just about every American Civil War rules-set I can find. From the chart-heavy simulation depths of Johnny Reb II, to the abstract Army-Level approach of Altar of Freedom, I want to give each an afternoon’s play.

After a day of Johnny Reb II at my local game store, I can see where my tastes run to the more abstract. Currently in queue I’ve got Fire and Fury, both regimental and brigade tomes.

So when I saw that Larry Reber of the GettysburgSoldiers.com rules was going to be at HMGS-Great Lakes’ flagship event, Advance the Colors, I knew I had to wheedle my way into a game.

By Troy Hill

I have to blame Jeremy Duvall for this one.

Jeremy is one of the main co-hosts on the Counter Charge Podcast for all things Kings of War (KOW). For the last several months, he’s been sharing how he hopes to build a KOW scene by playing what the locals are playing, and then interesting them in his game of choice (KOW). Jeremy’s local group is playing Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings (hereafter: Conquest).

So far, it sounds like Jeremy is playing  a lot MORE Conquest than the locals are playing KOW.

Since my attempts at getting a local KOW scene to take hold have been fruitless, I decided to heed Jeremy’s advice. But the locals here are playing ye olde world of hammery-wars, which doesn’t interest me. Been there, done that. I’d rather trade my money for models and games from smaller companies.

 

When Battlefront published WORLD WAR III TEAM YANKEE SOVIETS https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=7154 four years ago, they introduced Soviet units with NATO capabilities – the Shock T80 company.  The backstory was that one of the regiments of 4^th Guards Tank Division was permitted to experiment with Western-style tactics.  The regiment created a special ‘shock’ battalion pairing shock tank companies with shock motor rifle companies.

Some consider the story inflated or perhaps fantasy.  The truth is the Soviets had units that trained beyond the NORMs for motor rifle and tank formations and some that mimicked NATO tactics.  The problem is that they weren’t equipped with T80s or BMP-3s.

This is their story, and PART II will be discussion of how to represent these units in casual gaming.

Independent Regiments for Border Screening

Soviet troops patrolled the Inner German Border (IGB) from 1946.  When the East Germans established their own military, they quickly established their own border troops – the Grenztruppen.  These were lightly armed paramilitary police units.  While effective at patrolling the border, they offered no security against a NATO attempt to forcibly reunify Germany.  The Soviets backed these troops up with tank battalions augmented with their own infantry.  These were called border screening troops, and distinct from KGB units.  Their purpose was to protect the Soviet (and later Volksarmee) units deploying from garrison.

After Khrushchev ended the Soviet heavy tank family, STAVKA had the problem of repurposing heavy tank organizations.  Many retained their original identities, even as they were re-equipped with Standard Tanks (the Soviet name for what the West called Main Battle Tanks or MBT).  However several became parent HQ for collections of border screening units.

Some heavy tank battalions were fed into the screening organizations or used to give independent tank battalions to motor rifle divisions in the Group of Soviet Forces Germany (GSFG), Central Group of Forces (CGF) and others. By 1980 this process was complete, leaving GSFG with seven Independent Tank regiments for Border Screening.  5^th Independent Tank Brigade’s conversion into the 138^th Independent Tank Regiment ended the process.

These new regiments initially retained their old tanks until fielding of the T64 made T62s available.  When T62s were withdrawn, they were re-equipped with T64As upgraded in East German workshops to T64B armor standards.  According to ex-Soviet tankers corresponding on TANKNET, the T64s were in place by 1983.

These units’ peacetime function was providing collective training for other Soviet units in their area.  They were encouraged to adopt Western style tactics, so that the beneficiaries of their attention became familiar with how NATO forces would respond.  While not as sophisticated as the National Training Center experience, it was different than the typical Soviet exercise.

The incidental effect was these units were better trained than the typical Soviet unit, and able to copy NATO tactics.  Put differently, they were virtually a match for BF’s description of ‘shock’ units.

In wartime, the role of the border screening regiments mirrored NATO’s covering forces with one significant difference – in short notice scenarios these regiments were expected to roar across the border and screen it from 20-30 kilometers deep in NATO territory, preventing NATO artillery from shelling border crossing points.

The organization differed from the standard tank regiment.  Each battalion had FOUR companies with a total of 41 tanks each, giving the regiment 124 tanks.  The regiment had a full BMP battalion with 45 BMPs (BMP-1P after 1983).  Some sources claim the reconnaissance company had an extra tracked recon platoon.  One oddity was the absence of an artillery battalion.

To keep Western intelligence guessing about the wartime purpose of these units, the artillery battalions stationed separately and the TANKNET correspondents claimed they would be augmented by 2S3 Acacia battalions (Coincidentally, seven Soviet divisions in GSFG had an extra 2S3 battalion).

A New (Old) System of Maneuver

In the late 1970s Soviet military thinking focused on two concepts designed to break up NATOs evolving Forward Defense/Active Defense strategy.  At the tactical level the concept was called Forward Detachments (FD) and at the operational (Army and Front) the method was the Operational Maneuver Group (OMG).

These techniques had been the cornerstone of Soviet success in WWII.  However, as the Soviet Army mechanized, the techniques seemed less relevant.  Both techniques exploited the speed differential between motorized units and the largely foot-mobile and horse-drawn formations fighting on the Eastern Front.

Soviet military theorists reconsidered the relevance when NATO moved from MASSIVE RETALIATION to FLEXIBLE RESPONSE in the mid-60s.  NATO’s operational level implementation was Forward Defense – essentially lining the IGB with conventional forces using fixed defenses punctuated with large reserves to contain a Soviet breakthrough.

This system’s weakness was displayed during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.  Both the Syrians and Egyptians broke through Israeli fixed defenses.  The Israelis ‘won’ the war suffering heavy losses.  The USA observed the war and concluded Forward Defense would fail.  They began moving to a different operational method – Active Defense.

Active Defense visualized the Soviet breakthrough being ‘swarmed’ by thinning the Main Line of Resistance (MLR) to commit local reserves in small packets.  Soviet strategists saw opportunities in the Active Defense technique.  This raised potential for smaller Soviet forces to penetrate the remaining cordon on the MLR, as well as counter elements of the ‘swarm.’  This was the job of FDs.

The other opportunity was penetration in operational depth – i.e. to the NATO corps rear boundary – of a large, combined arms force while the main breakthrough was contending with the ‘swarm.’  This penetration would disrupt NATO logistics over a wide area and be too big for the remaining local reserves.  This was the mission of the OMG.

FDs were combined arms units created at the division and regiment level as opportunities arose.  Ideally, the units had teamed together in training.  An OMG had to be preplanned.  Training exercises in the mid-70s showed that ad hoc ‘Corps’ comprising two divisions had the combat power necessary for the mission, but the long logistics tail of the corps and the ad hoc nature of the arrangement reduced efficiency.  Also the bigger the OMG, the longer the response time.

Ultimately the Soviets created specialized units to perform as OMGs at the TVD level, but at Front/Army levels repurposed existing formations to improve response time.  This gave new life to independent tank regiments and independent tank brigades.

I’ve already discussed the border screening regiments of GSFG.  Once their screening mission was complete, they assumed the role of normal independent tank regiments – a quick response OMG for their army.  Each GSFG army had at least one.

Frontal Tank Brigades had disappeared from the GSFG by 1980, but the resources remained.

Hiding In Plain Sight – Tank Training Centers

By 1980 GSFG had consolidated most of its tank training units into two tank training centers operated by the 41^st and 101^st Tank Training Regiments.  These were large organizations, providing both individual and collective training to GSFG units.

They each had several battalion sets of tanks, although most were T55s – cheaper to operate.  They also had advanced tanks for familiarization and transition training.

With hostilities imminent, they would close.  Western intelligence theorized that they could become the missing Frontal Tank Brigades, operating a mix of advanced (T80 or T64) tanks and T55s.

The Tank Brigade TOE (Table of Organization and Equipment) was like the tank regiment, with tank battalions having five companies instead of four, for a total of 154 tanks.  Both tank training centers easily met this threshold, and 101^st Regiment had two training areas and could easily have fielded a fourth tank battalion.    These centers had a mix of self-propelled artillery, likely fielding a mixed battalion.  Again BMPs would provide the transport, although the riflemen would come from reserve units activating in the USSR.

While T55s seem odd in this role, remember the OMG’s purpose was a quick penetration of the NATO MLR and exploitation into the logistics areas.  The T55 was easily a match for the equally old M48s that populated the West German Heimatschutzkommando brigades charged with Rear Area Combat Operations (RACO).  Any tank – including the airborne ASU-85 – was deadly to the logistics units targeted by the OMG.  And T55 fuel requirements were significantly lower than T64 or T80.

These units would have a high proportion of experienced praporschik (warrant officers) to command platoons thus being better able to operate independently.  If the GSFG transitioned to war maintaining this proportion, these units could also qualify as ‘elite.’

Combined (Unified) Army Corps

In 1980 the Soviets began experimenting with a new formation, variously called the Combined or Unified Army Corps.  This was a revival of the Soviet mechanized corps of World War II, not a Corps in either the Western sense or the Soviet usage (Soviet corps of the late Cold War were multidivisional territorial commands directly subordinate to a military district, and usually found protecting the external borders.  They lacked most of the support services normally found in a combined arms army).

Three divisions initially participated in this experiment – the 24^th (Iron) Motor Rifle Division (MRD) at Lvov, the 120^th (Rogachev Guards) Guards MRD at Minsk, and the 5^th Guards (Don-Budapest) Tank Division (TKD) at Kyakhta.

In 1982 STAVKA authorized the 120^th Guards MRD and the 5^th Guards TKD to proceed with the next phase of the experiment.  The 24^th MRD was frozen.  Western intelligence theorized that this was because the Soviets couldn’t afford the attack helicopter and air assault regiments demanded by the new TOE.

120^th Guards MRD now became the 5^th Combined Army Corps (CAC).  5^th Guards TKD became the 48^th Guards CAC.  The organization developed through 1983.  The CIA reported that the new organization was four brigades of five battalions each.  Figure 3 shows the Corps organization around 1985.

The brigades had an organic BM-21 rocket artillery battalion, doubled the size of their air defense company and later added a battery of eight SA-8 Geckos changing the ADA unit into a battalion.  The Corps air defense regiment eventually had five batteries of SA-11 Gadfly.  The Corps had a BM-27 battalion in addition to ‘divisional’ BM-21s.  The Artillery Regiment expanded to three 2S3 Acacia battalions.

The other unusual feature of these units was the Combined Arms Battalion (CAB).  There were at least two in each brigade.  Originally, two tank and one motor rifle battalion completed a Tank Brigade, and the companion Mechanized Brigade added one tank and two motor rifle battalions.

Both Corps had organic air assault capabilities, with a Landing Assault Regiment (including a BMD battalion) and an Independent Assault Helicopter Regiment.

The number of CABs and subunit organization varied between the two Corps and from year to year.  The baseline CAB appears to have been two tank companies and two motor rifle companies, but at times there were as many as five companies with Tank CAB having 3 tank companies plus 2 motor rifle companies and Mechanized CAB having the reverse.

The baseline organization would have 462 tanks and up to 566 BMPs, 45 BMDs, 72 2S1, 54 2S3, 90 BM21s, 18 BM-27s, 32+ ZSU-23 or Tunguska, 32+ SA-13, 32 SA-8, and 20 SA-11.  As the organization fluctuated, the tank strength approached 500 tanks.

One feature of this experiment was NATO-style task forces combining tanks and BMPs on a habitual basis, to the extent of putting them in the same motor pool.  Training exceeded the norms for the regular forces.

Initially the 5^th CAC fielded T72s and the 48^th CACs fielded T62s. As experimental units they had first call on newer equipment (T72B and T62M) and trained intensively.

The Soviets started the experiment with other units (notably 32^nd Guards TKD and 90^th Guards TKD) but they did not get as far as 24^th MRD.

Next article will cover the ways to represent these units in Team Yankee.

 

 

By Kreighton Long

For the last year I’ve had a squad of Vietnam War USMC Recon primed and sitting in my queue.  Every time a new project would join them and pass them up I could feel their crayon-craving stares boring into my soul.  Eventually I could take no more of their non-verbal harassment and promoted them from my queue to my painting desk.

After some brief investigating I decided to paint them in the ERDL lowland camouflage that was commonly worn by USMC Recon during the Vietnam War.  While replicating the complex pattern shown below in detail is beyond my skill level and patience I endeavored to replicate the colors well enough to represent the camouflage patter.

The paints I used are Vallejo’s Black (950), USA Uniform (922), German Cam. Medium Brown (826), Golden Olive (857), and Pale Sand (837).