Game Report: Drive to the East, run at Tapton Hall Sept.

Tim G of Megablitz fame has been running a series of monthly get togethers. About 6-7 of us gather for an all- day game including a very nice lunch. We have covered a variety of periods, scales and games often playing 54mm toy soldier extravaganders in the best traditions of HG Wells.

I decided it was time for me to put a game on and I had spoken to John A and we agreed to share a session with me doing the morning session and then John’s game running after lunch. I decided to do a 6mm ‘Cold War Goes Hot’ scenario set in the 1980s, using the 5core: Brigade Commander rules. I knew I had enough toys to give a big enough game and I knew the rules were fairly quick to pick up too so those that hadn’t played it would be quick to get up to speed. 

I’ve put the scenario into my new scenarios page so you can download it.

The game went really well. The changes that I had made to the activation system worked better than expected. The Soviet preplanning was fun- not much use in the game as they tended to shell the places the Americans hadn’t deployed in.

The game swung backwards and forwards, mostly it went the Americans’ way with their extensive support chewing through the Soviet tank regiment.  However, on the opposite flank a run of bad luck saw the Americans lose a string of units.

The surprise Spetsnaz assault on the HQ was defeated in Close Combat- much to everyones surprise.

At this point the Americans decided to retire to the next line of defenses. At that point we broke for lunch. 

The game went really well, I think. Nearly a division of Soviets attacking two brigades of Americans and we finished in just about two hours. If the players fancy another go I’ve got plans for more scenarios. 

Cheers, 

Pete.

Game Report: Cold War action in 6mm.

One of the (many) facebook groups I’m on posted a link to a you tube video… it was an old British Army of the Rhine instructional video of how to defend against a Soviet attack in the early 1980s. I’m a sucker for that doctrine/ training type of thing so gave it a watch. It did give me an idea for a 5core: Brigade Commander scenario and, mindful of the current climate, decided to run it for Evan and Bill.

Bailey has inspected the terrain set up and approves.

The video shows the escalating attacks of a Russian division as it contacts a BAOR defensive line. The video ends with the Soviets forming up for a bigger attack in regimental strength. For the scenario I swapped Brits for West Germans (all provided by Evan) and let the Soviets (from the collection of Bill) deploy after the West Germans had set up. Bill picked two points of Evan defensive line and deployed a company, followed by a battalion 6″ back and the rest of the regiment another 6″ behind that at each point selected. If you watch the video you’ll see where I was coming from with this deployment. The objective for the game was the crossroads.

The crossroads were the key terrain of the game.

The Soviets deploy in depth from their chosen routes of attack.

Leopard 1s further back in reserve.

The Soviets push forwards

As usual we used the Brigade Commander rules from Nordic Weasel. We three are big fans of the system and have built up considerable forces between us. We use a 50mm square base to represent a company and a smaller base for a platoon sized attached asset.

The dug in positions protected the vulnerable Leopard 1s from the worst of the fire, but they were slowly forced back.

With anti air support the BMPs push towards the crossroads.

The West German defenders in the BUA.

Airstrike: unfortunately the SU24 was driven of by the Gepard SPAA.

In return the West Germans send in their Alpha jet with impressive results.

The lone mechanised infantry company makes an attack against the German held BUA.

The game swung backwards and forwards with the crossroads changing hands a few times. In the end, although casualties were very light on both sides, Bill had pushed Evan back from the area around the crossroads and had disrupted Evan’s armour so I decided it was a winning draw to Bill’s Soviets.

I may do a urban skirmish game based on the final, defeated assault of Bill’s mechanised infantry company. Something for later on….

Cheers,

Pete.

From the Shed: M1 Abrams

Just finished this modest expansion for my 6mm Cold War collection: two battalions worth of M1 Abrams for 5core: Brigade Commander. This are the first production models with the 105mm gun.

For those ‘Cold War goes hot’ games I think that for tabletop games the balance of forces is ‘best’ in the early 80s, much later and the mix of 120mm APFSDSDU tank shells, MRLS and Apaches skews the balance too much.

I added some roads on the bases of one battalion to differentiate it. Also I went for the plain forest green paint job on these as that way they could be easily distinguished from the M60s (in MERDC) and the later M1A1s (in NATO 3 colour).

A trio of M1s on smaller bases rounds out this little force.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

VDV Air Assault Brigade in 5core: Brigade Commander.

During the Cold War the Soviet Union raised extensive parachute forces: the Vozdushno-Desantnya Voyska (VDV). Whilst the Airborne Division were under the command of high level HQs and would have been used for strategic and operational missions their smaller cousins the Air Assault Brigades were under the command of the Ground Forces so would get more tactical missions to undertake; because of this I thought they’d be an interesting force to field in our 6mm games of Nordic Weasel’s 5core: Brigade Commander.

Three- quarters of the Brigade lined up. 50mm square bases for companies, 30mm square bases for platoon sized attachments.

One of the things that would have hampered the Soviet Union’s deployment of its VDV was the lack of sufficient lift capacity, especially at the strategic/ operational level. At the tactical level insertion by helicopter would have been more common but even so the number of heavy- lift helicopters to move vehicles was limited. The non- mechanised companies could be para dropped of they could be flown in by helicopter. The engineers in the brigade were trained to make landing strips for aircraft out of West German roads (doubtless these would have been recce’d in advance) to bring in heavier vehicles.

The HQ company stand, three Heavy Companies and two recce  attachments in close up. All vehicles and figures are from Heroics and Ros.

Below is my interpretation of the brigade. Sources differ as to whether there are 2 Heavy battalions or one either way there are four battalions.

 

HQ coy

AT company, BRDM3- can be fielded as 3 AT attachments.

2 or 3 Air Assault Battalions:3 companies of Infantry (limited AT).

1 or 2 Heavy Air Assault Battalion: 3 companies of Mechanised Infantry, BMDs (Advanced AT).

Attachments:

1 light Recce, BRDM or GAZ jeep.

2 AA, ZSU 23/2s on BTRDs

3 Engineers, GAZ jeeps.

3 Mortar, 120mm.

1 AT, 85mm ATG

 

For my collection I’ve got far more attachments than I actually need, this is primarily to have some variation in what I can field.

 

Three Engineer attachments.

Three SO120 mortars (a breech loading 120mm mortar on the BMD APC chassis).

AGS17 Plamya automatic grenade launcher attachments.

The BRDM based ATGMs which act as the anti- tank attachments.

A MMG attachment.

 

I’ve come up with a couple of scenarios to use with the unit that reflect the sort of tactical missions they’d have been given. The first is a landing to capture a bridge and then hold it against a counter attack until relieved, the second is to attack into NATO rear areas to take out a HQ. I’ll post some game reports when I’ve played them.

I may yet expand my collection to be able to field a regiment from a fully fledged Airborne Division later on.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

 

The latest additions to my 6mm (1/300th) Cold War forces.

I’ve been busy in the shed expanding my Cold War micro armour collection in preparation for a multiplayer game of 5core: Brigade Commander that I am planning.

First up with have a mix of US Army vehicles: A Command stand and a company of M1A1s plus extra ATGM, mortars and Vulcan AA cannons mounted on the ubiquitous M113 chassis.

To give the US some air support I painted up a A10 Thunderbolt II aka The Warthog. Probably THE close air support aircraft for the Cold War period.

For the Brits I have done a Harrier GR3, for a change I decided to do it in the winter camo scheme often seen sported during deployments to Norway.

Also for the Brits I’ve painted up a SEPECAT Jaguar, one of my favourite Cold War era jets.

All the models are from Heroics and Ros apart from the infantry that are from Irregular.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

A small Cold War game.

I recently played a quick game of 5core: Brigade Commander with Bill. He had recently finished some late 80s Brits that he hadn’t had on the games table yet so it was a good excuse to have a game.

Bill brought a British tank Brigade consisting of 8 companies/ squadrons of Challenger I tanks and 4 companies of mechanised infantry in Warrior IFVs plus a HQ company and a flight of Lynx helicopters, these were backed up with supporting platoons of Scimitar and Scorpion recce tanks, Blowpipe MANPADs and Swingfire ATGMS.

I fielded a Soviet armoured regiment with the divisional recce battalion. This amounted to 7 companies of T64s with 5 companies of mechanised infantry in BMPs and a flight of Hinds. These were backed up with 4 recce platoons, 2 AA platoons and 3 Engineer platoons.

I figured given that our forces were roughly equal we should have a simple encounter game, we set up the table with plenty of woods and a big urban area in the middle. I lost the set up roll and deployed over the full 4 foot frontage I had. Bill favoured his right flank.

To add doctrinal differences to armies 5core uses tactics cards that can be played to give a slight advantage or to hinder the enemy. To counter Bill’s strength on my left flank it was to one of these cards I turned: ‘Commandos’. I placed they at the end of my first turn in the woods in the front of Bill’s units hindering their movement in the early turns. This gave me enough time to rush plenty of units forwards to the urban areas at the middle of the table. Losses were fairly equal for most of the game. Bill made good use of his ‘Scoot and Shoot’ tactics card and his Lynx helicopter- I was lucky not to lose both units to the ATGMs it carried. My artillery was slightly more effective than his; it didn’t kill anything but was good at pinning units in place. On the Soviet right flank Bill launched a devastating close assault by a mechanised infantry on a damaged T64 company stuck in the open and wiped it out, my Commandos too fell to a determined close assault by infantry and Warriors in the woods. I only managed to pull things round when I had 2 consecutive good turns, taking advantage of some re-positioning moves, my tanks opened up and with 4 shots killed 4 units. At this point Bill called the game as I’d taken out over 2/3s of his armour and his left flank had folded. Unusually for our games both helicopters survived to the end; I only moved mine once and never fired it.

All in all it was a great way to while away a couple of hours, Bill only lost due to my luck being so good. He has been busy painting up FV432s and Chieftains so hopefully we’ll have a rematch soon.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

6mm Cold War- the collection so far.

I’ve been busy trying to get as much as possible of my 1/300th, 6mm collection ready as quickly as possible. The few tryout games we’d played meant that when I had some free time they were the first things that I painted.

I’ve gone for a quick painting style that will hopefully look good en masse rather that individually. To be honest the infantry are too small for me to paint well.

They have been based for 5core- Brigade Commander on 50mm square company bases with 30mm square platoon bases for the attachments.

Last night I laid them all out on my table for the group photos.

Foucusing on each Brigade/ Regimental sized unit we have the following:

A Soviet Motor Rifle Regiment in BMP1s.

A Tank Regiment with BMP2s.

Some extra tank companies- both T72 and T62 as well as 2 companies to represent the Divisional recce element.

An amphbious ferry, a company of infantry as well as some post Cold War company bases.

Four companies of VDV parachustists and some support for them.

For opposition I’ve this motley mix of US companies. Covering quite a large time frame I have M60A3 and M60A2 ‘Starship’ companies as well as M1 A1s and Bradley. I intend to rationalise this part of my collection with a few extra purchases.

 

Also missing form these photos are any aircraft or helicopters. They are currently on the work bench and should be finished soon.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.