Feeling slightly "icky" - Volkssturm & JoJo Rabbit

I was looking for some support for my new VolksGrenadier and I noticed they had the option if fighting on home soil of taking a Volkssturm squad. Very thematic, why not? 

I searched for some miniatures and in the end found some 3d files that fit the bill (JustSomeMiniatures). These were printed and I've got them painted over the weekend. 

To give me some inspiration I watched Jojo Rabbit. I love that film, its funny, poignant, shocking and all over brilliant. It even proves that Taika Waititi can actually direct a film without losing his thread, can do action scenes very well and his portrayal as Hitler is certainly different. The final battle scenes are superb and the historical look and feel is excellent - if seen through the eyes of a ten and a half year old boy.

AND that sort of hits the nail on the head. I've painted up my Volkssturm and they look great I think. Great that is if you think old men and children should be fighting a war. For the record the actual age of Volkssturm was supposed to be from 16-60 years of age, but in the end 10 and 12 year olds were involved. 

I'm not the most cerebral man when it comes to my wargaming. I have no problem building, painting and playing Germans (or Japanese) in WW2 games because I think we need to recognise and acknowledge the historical bit in historical games, though I don't "do" SS. I also don't shy away from the symbols, the German Swastika appears where it historically would because I think we should not shy away from that sort of thing. Let's face it, every soldier who fought for it was either killed, captured or surrendered so it represents nothing but abject failure and defeat. If it stands for anything it should be  reminder of a divided world uniting against tyranny, but at that point I'm rambling into some long and quite political grass.  Context is for Kings. Having said all that this squad has had me thinking.

Anyway what do people think? Should we represent things like Volkssturm in our games or is it a bit too far, and if not, what is?  

Also if you haven't already seen it, watch JoJo Rabbit!

Update on Ze Germans

In an earlier post I mentioned I had "picked up" a German Late War army for Bolt Action from Warlord Games, with the intention of using it for Chain of Command (why not?)

It took a while to get the painting started, but a bit of perseverance and I'm almost there.

For Chain of Command I decided I would go with VolksGrenadiers in late1944 \ spring 45. The organisation is as follows:

Senior Leader (the boss)

Grenadier Team - 3 Rifle-grenadiers

2 Assault squads - 8 StG44s

1 LMG Squad 8 troops with 2 MG42s formed into two LMG Teams

Not too much - only 28 miniatures as base. I decided to go with a pair of Panzerschreck teams as supports, as a glance at the ORBAT said "how many!!??", a tripod mounted MMG, a sniper, medic and Forward Observer. I am also going for a Hetzer (cos Hetzers gotta Hetz) and a Panther on the off chance I get a maximum support point game. No towed guns etc - I don't like painting horses and that's what the VolksGrenadiers get as transport in real life.

The army box didn't contain the Panzerschrecks, sniper or Hetzer but I was fairly confident I could source them elsewhere, or in the case of the Hetzer I already had a printed one. I thought I would 3d print some Panzerschreck tubes and add them to Warlord figures to fill that gap. 

So a month or so later and I'm almost there. My Panther still needs painting, as do the Medic and Sniper, but they're not going to be a big issue. My main problem is the MMG team, which for Bolt Action is only three guys but for CoC I'm going to need another two crew \ ammo bearers. I managed to banjax my original plan by simply using up all the kneeling bodies in the army box on the infantry squads (Doh!) so I'm scouting around. Other than that, I think I'm done.   

So what about using this in Bolt Action - is it possible? 

Yup - well, pretty much. I ran it through Easy Army , an online list builder, and with some jiggling it fits. I can run the same three squad organisation, though to get a pair of MG42s in the MG Squad I would have to split it in to two small squads and add an extra man to each - no problem as the three rifle grenadiers are not represented in Bolt Action so I can sub them as plain riflemen. The MMG is also a bit vexing in that under version 3 of Bolt Action they are bought as a Heavy Weapon Platoon with a minimum of two weapons - so I need either another MG42 on tripod or I can paint up the 8cm mortar team that doesn't appear in Chain of Command. I gave another option - drag my "Stalingrad" era MG42 into the game I suppose - will look a bit out of place due to the different bases but otherwise should be ok for now til I make a more long term decision. If I'm running with an armoured "platoon" I can take the Hetzer and Panther together. All that comes to easily 1200 pts plus in Bolt Action v3.

Do I need some more "stuff" for these? Reading CoC2 there are some missions where light armour is an advantage. I think a Sdkfz 250 would fit the bill, either a vanilla 250/1 or maybe a 250/9 with a 20mm?? 

So that's Ze Germans done for now. Not 100% sure what will be next but we will see

Cheers

Ze Germans are Coming - Chain of Command 2

I've realised I sort of repeated myself with the last post, so this is something of a correction, or at least something with actual content.

I decided on VolksGrenadiers, thinking spring 1945 as I didn't want to have snow on the bases.  I did a trawl and realised Warlord were the only real source for suitable figures with enough StG44s to make up the platoon. I also worked out I would need an extra sprue or two to make the full platoon as a box of 30 wasn't quite enough. 

So I shopped around and decided that getting the Warlord Bolt Action Winter Starter Army was probably the best \ most comprehensive option. I don't really play BA but the box is great for CoC or any WW2 set of rules. There are some bits in there I wont need - ie the mortar team, but the rest is great.

So here is the box and it's contents. 

Metal bits - Command, MMG and Mortar etc

Open the box and its chock full of "stuff"

Lots of VolksGrenadiers

Opel Blitz \ Maultier

Instructions etc

Panzer IV H

Bases etc

So there's "enough" there. I don't really need the mortar team and I probably would have preferred a Hetzer or STuG to the Pz IV and Blitz, but they will always come in useful. It cost £78 from Zatu including postage.  Ok that's more than the £30 a box of Winter Germans would cost, but there's a lot of added value in there so I'm happy.

Now to get on with it and start glueing and painting. Wish me luck!

Bloody Rivet Counting - Finnish Tank dilemma

In Bruges last year with some old friends it was explained to me by a guy with initials after his name that one of the reasons our disparate group of Mid Life Crisis men that constitutes the group get on so well is that we all subconsciously recognise we are all a bit "wierd" or "on the spectrum". Other than that we really have very little in common but our friendship has lasted decades. I think he may have, in layman's terms, been referring to the general "shediness" of our group - we all either have sheds or suitable substitutions for them (I have a loft) even though we use them for vastly different reasons.

My particular problem is my mind gets a bit churned by rivet counting and all that. Here is the latest example. 

In earlier posts I mentioned my Finnish WW2 project. This has been a long term thing and they're yet to see the table. I seem to come back to them now and then and add something. Some of the adventures can be read here if you are at all interested:

Here     , Finnish StuGs Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3

So my current dilemma is about tank support for the Winter War. At the time the Finns only really operated the Vickers 6 Ton tank. 

Here is an actual Finnish Vickers at the Parola Museum in Finland

They also used quite a lot of abandoned Soviet equipment - the Russian habit for leaving perfectly serviceable tanks around to be towed away by farmers turns out to date rater further back than the 2020s. 

Soooooooo...... my cunning plan was to print a T26 and use that. The T26 was a Soviet "copy" of the Vickers and used and abandoned in large numbers in Finland during the Winter War. This has the advantage that I already own the file and use one in my Soviet force. I was further cheered when looking back at the file to discover it contained a Finnish turret option. So I happily printed it - here it is 

Yay - job done. I quick paint job, maybe some clever paint to show the old Soviet markings hastily overpainted. Will look cute as well..........

Except for my rivet counting brain. As I was going to sleep last night - I kid you not, I realised there was a problem. That turret, the "Finnish" turret, is taken from the Soviet flamethrower version of the T26 - the OT 134. The Finns captured them and rearmed them with guns rather than flamethrowers. Which means I cant use this in the Winter War because the rearming means they dragged them away back to the depot rather than just turned them around. 

Ah well

Fin(n)ishing a project - a decade late

Ten years ago, back in 2013 (I had to check) I had my first "bad" Kickstarter experience. These were the days of innocence when Kickstarter was used to fund projects not as a sort of pre order system. Baker Company (UK not US) announced their Kickstarter and wanted to raise £3000 to fund a matched pair of Winter War armies in 28mm . Sixty quid (£60) was going to get you an infantry platoon plus a shedload of stretch goals. Seemed like a good deal so I chucked some ££££ at it to get a Finnish infantry platoon.

As you can see - quite a lot of "stuff"

The problem was, so did everyone else. £57021.00 was actually pledged. Baker Company were in trouble because their Kickstarter was so popular - they had factored in about fifty orders to fulfil, and in fact ended up with 428 backers. They didn't have the capacity to do it all. The project was a disaster that killed off Baker Company. They struggled to fill those orders, missed schedules and it all went pear shaped. The original plan to ship in one lot was replaced by shipping in smaller parcels to try and give everyone something, meaning the shipping cost calculation went south. Pressure from backers "where's my stuff" etc meant they rushed the production and at least from the models I received they were wearing the moulds out and including models with terrible mould lines and miss casts that should not have made it past Quality Control. I made a decision to collect from a show - can't remember which, which turned out to be a wise decision given the whole thing collapsed, taking the company with it. I got some, or most, but not all of what I was expecting, but quite a lot of is was so badly cast as to be almost unusable. Many backers didn't even get that. With hindsight I don't blame the creator, or rather I don't think for one moment this was deliberate, just a guy with what looked like a good idea getting overwhelmed and not being able to deliver.  

As I said, quite a lot of the "stuff" I got was not great. The figures were ok when cast reasonably, detail was "soft" but shrug, snowsuits. There was way too much flash on some and some mould slipping. This was particularly the case with the metal parts on vehicles. The Field Kitchen was the worse, but quite a lot of infantry was "not great" . I marked this up as a "lesson learned". I painted up a dozen or so but the whole project was tainted for me and I stuck it in a drawer. 

To be fair some of the bigger models did look the business - this is the Aerosan. It was a bit of a pain to assemble, and I think I got two left skis which didn't help, but like I said, I think it looks good. 

On and off I added some extra bits - a T34 from Warlord with a turret swap option, and a StuGIIIG from Rubicon. I posted my progress on the StuG 

here https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2017/05/stug-life-part-1.html 

and here https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2017/05/stug-life-part-2-when-is-stug-not-stug.html 

and here https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2017/05/stug-life-part-3-winter-is-coming.html

Ten years later and I was surfing the web and found Parkfield Miniatures Winter War range. These looked suspiciously familiar and at first I though this was Baker Company reborn (apparently it's not). The Winter War range was however clearly designed (or coincidentally) to match the Baker Co models. I banged a test order in and was happy with the resulting figures. They're well cast, detailed and animated, and match my old Baker Co figures (almost) perfectly.

All Baker Co

Baker, Baker, Parkfield, Parkfield

P- B

P - P - B

So that's why I'm currently up to my eyeballs in white paint and am studying Chain of Command lists. Between the better Baker Co figures and Parkfield I think I can get a good CoC force out of it. If I finally get to play with them this could possibly be the longest \ most drawn out wargaming project from start to table I have ever done. 

Cheers!

  

Stalingrad Redux Part 2 - The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated!

This has turned into a bit of a Covid19 Project. I already have some German Pioneers so I decided to try and do some opposition. The obvious option would be Soviet infantry but there are already plenty of those. Second choice was Naval Infantry, but in a moment of confusion \ inspiration I decided to do Workers Militia.

(The History Bit)
Depending on how you look at it the period before the battle of Stalingrad was either a skillful Soviet retreat or a sort of coordinated rout. Either by skill, luck or judgement the Soviet troops facing the 1942 German summer offensive (Fall Blau \ Case Blue) didn't get caught by the repeated encirclement attempts as they had the year before. Rather, they fell back in a series of local retreats that left the Germans clutching at thin air. This really stumped the Germans as their strategic plan, in fact the whole concept of Blitzkrieg, was to encircle opponents armies in the field. It could be argued that the Red Army was just doing the traditional "trade ground for time" thing that had worked time and time again (I'm looking at you Napoleon). The problem was this was rapidly turning into a habit and the Soviet people were starting to get a bit worried. By the summer of 1942 the Germans were in control of a rather large portion of the Soviet Union - sure, there was plenty of it out East, but the main population centres were all either under German control or under threat. If the Red Army kept falling back as it was in Summer 1942 there was a very real risk that there would be nothing left worth defending. Enter Stalin and his infamous Order 277 "Not One Step Back" . Order 277 is probably one of the most misunderstood orders of the war and has been used repeatedly to paint the Soviet Union and the Red Army in negative terms. There isn't enough time to fully discuss this here, but the overall effect was to make it clear that it was no longer acceptable to keep falling back. From 28th July 1942, it was time for the Soviets to stand and fight.

Back to the Militia. The withdrawals of the summer were almost instinctive rather than planned. That meant the Red Army in the area of Stalingrad were in no shape to hold the city. They needed time to reorganise. Luckily there was a pool of manpower available - the Workers Militia Battalions, mainly based around the factories. These local forces formed the first line of defence at Stalingrad, along with the AA batteries, and they suffered heavily when the Germans arrived, being almost wiped out. What they achieved however was to give the Stalingrad Front the time it needed. The rest is history.

As a gaming force the Workers Militia is interesting. There is an official Bolt Action army list, but nothing for Chain of Command. The Bolt Action list is pretty basic - in fact the platoon has no SMGs or LMGs - just rifles - and has the option for unarmed squad members - "the one with the rifle shoots" etc. How realistic or historical this is overall I don't know. Maybe for the winter of 1941? but by the summer of 1942 the Soviets had recovered and their armaments industry was churning weapons out in impressive quantities. The photographic and documentary record is clear that at least in Stalingrad the Militia were equipped with both SMGs and LMGs. After that the support weapons available are probably going to be the same as line infantry, and once the regular army arrives will be regulars too. In Chain of Command there is no "Official" list, however there is a Partisan list that fits the bill for the main body well enough, and I can write a reasonable support list.

So here we are - Workers and Peasants united against the Fascist invader

I wasn't too keen on the Bolt Action Soviet Partizans -partly due to the lockdown making availability questionable at the time, so I went a bit "off the reservation"and mixed and matched, which I think is perfectly acceptable given the subject matter. Most of the rifle armed figures are Bolshevik Militia from the Copplestones Castings "Back of Beyond" range. Ok they're a couple of decades out on date but are otherwise fine as armed Soviet civilian types, and I'm sure Grandpa Ivan would be out manning the barricades anyway. The SMG and LMG armed figures are from Artizan Designs. As I was casting around the net for more suitable figures I stumbled across the Eureka 28mm Workers Militia. This is a very small range and a bit more expensive than the Copplestones, but are spot on for the job in boiler suits. If I had known about these at the start I would probably have just used them. My Commissar is Warlord plastic, as are the ATR and some of the support weapon crews. The support weapons are mixed, with PSC providing the 45mm ATG and crews, and a 3d print of the 76mm M1927 and Ampulomets. The PSC 45mm ATG set is fantastic value and although still available it looks like the link is not working if you try and find it through the website menu - but if you search for it directly you can order it. You get 2 guns and crews and you can assemble the guns as either of the 45mm ATG variants or as a 76mm Infantry Gun - sadly this is the version that entered service in 1943 so isn't available at Stalingrad. The medics are PSC and 3d prints. Lastly the Commander is none other than Warlord's Johnny "Red" Redburn who is taking a couple of days off from commanding Falcon Squadron to do some fighting on the ground. He probably had to ditch due to engine failure and decided to help out.

Eureka Workers Militia Squad

Support weapons

Commissar, Johnny Red (out of focus) and the nurses

All the militia were painted with this new fangled Citadel Contrast paints - and I have to say it works quite well.

I need to add a sniper or two - these just arrived from Bad Squiddo Games and the pose and details are stunning. I also have some tank hunter teams to paint, a couple of guys with Molotov Cocktails or AT grenades. After that all I will need are a tank, and some barricades. And Jump Off Points, and Patrol Markers, and...............

Stalingrad Redux

A while ago we decided to do a Chain of Command Stalingrad Campaign. It went really quite well but broke down when our platoons were "non combat effective" (as Holly said, They're dead Dave). In some ways this was a very successful campaign with a historically accurate result. Battles in urban areas were ridiculously bloody, (They're all dead Dave) and we burned through the reserves and reinforcements in a couple of games. The result was that after a while our units became more and more static - we could reasonably expect to hold our positions but had no chance of expanding them. Those that were still breathing that is. It was an interesting lesson.

We had decided to do it again - but this time with some changes to learn the lessons from our previous experience - and then the lock down began (!)

Anyway I thought I would share our cunning plan, just in case anyone else feels the need. We will be using the campaign rules from "The Sharp End" campaign system from Two Fat Lardies . This is really, really the best buy you can get for a tenner, even if you don't play Chain of Command. Seriously, if you play any WW2 set of rules, Bolt Action, Disposable Heroes whatever, just pick them up here from Two Fat Lardies store. They're full of great ideas that will easily transfer to your favourite system. Do yourself a favour - buy them.

Ours will be a ladder campaign, based on a vaguely historical series of locations \ events rearranged in a more Hollywood sequence, with the results of each battle dictating when and where the next game will happen. If the attackers win they will push through to the next "rung" on the ladder, and if they lose they can be pushed back. The campaign will end with either the Germans capturing the banks of the Volga or being thrown back past the city outskirts. Or everyone dying. My money is on the latter tbh.....

Anyway - Stalingrad 5 step ladder campaign – thoughts & suggestions

Campaign Zones as follows – each would be a different scenario\play style

1. Outskirts (Soviet Campaign Objective- campaign start)
2. Train yards and factory
3. Fallen Heroes Square inc railway station
4. Workers Housing \ Pavlov's House
5. Oil tanks and the Volga bank (German Campaign Objective)

Suggested Terrain. We've raided our terrain boxes and also the local club and we are planning the following:

1. Outskirts – Mostly wooden buildings \ burned out small houses with fences etc. Looking at photos these are arranged in fenced off blocks so table should have 4 – 6 blocks each of a couple of houses plus sheds etc. Paul has printed some burned down shacks with only the chimney remaining. We have about a dozen, plus a sawmill and similar, so we can cover a table with suitable bits.

2. Train Yards and Factory area. Large industrial buildings separated by large open areas with lots of blocking terrain.

3. Fallen Heroes Square. A public square surrounded by ruined buildings with a central open area. The square can contain wrecks, fountains, statues etc for cover. I have a 1:48 He111 that I built and chopped up - details here: crashed He 111 . Paul has also printed the railway station building - it's a burned out shell, but fits our requirements perfectly. This will be our neutral table - the mid point of the campaign.

4. Workers Housing – Larger ruins of workers housing with wide streets between them. Paul has a rather ambitious plan to print Pavlov's House, which will fill the centre of a 6x4 quite easily. Looking at the photos and the maps (Island of Fire by Jason D Mark has some amazing maps) there is an awful lot of space around the individual blocks so this could be a bit "interesting" with lots of trenches around the table edges.

5. The Volga Banks. Oil tanks, pump houses and pipes, plus some smaller industrial \ warehouse style buildings. Of the Germans can take this area they will have reached the Volga and cut off the Soviets in the city. The oil tanks are now going to be my Covid terrain project. I've been watching The World at War episode on Stalingrad and in addition to some film of an Ampulomet in action, there's also some pics of troops moving around the collapsed oil tanks - I think I can build them using some plastic paint buckets and chop them down. These have several terrain opportunities as they cover a fair chunk of the table at minimal cost. Possibly. Watch this space.

All areas should have plenty of appropriate scatter terrain – whatever we can grab as available but lots of shell holes, barricades etc.

Forces. To avoid the premature end of the campaign (They're all dead Dave) we're going to give each player 2 platoons, and allow them to swap them around on a scenario by scenario basis. Progression up and down the ladder will be based on aggregate results. To give the Germans an advantage initially, to get them into the city, the Soviets will have to keep the same platoon in the front line 'til the third game. Soviets will only get reinforcements once the game gets past the middle of the campaign, Germans will only get them up to that point.

I'll go into the lists we're using next time........

The Rotterdam Project Part 2

Update on the Dutch Marines for Chain of Command

ok so this took more than 5 days but the main platoon is now done (!) with plenty of time left before the Germans are due in May :-)

The platoon is a bit strange. It has a fairly standard three squad platoon, but then goes "a bit wrong". The Dutch never took an active part in WW1 so they never had a chance to learn first hand some of the low level lessons. One of these was the need to make the infantry squads more flexible. The Dutch don't have the ability to split a squad into teams, and instead operate as a single eleven man squad.

This has some advantages. It will take a lot more to pin a large squad than a small three or four man team, but it does impose a bit of a tactical straight jacket. Then again the lack of flexibility will be "interesting". The squads do have an LMG, but it is the distinctly WW1 issue Lewis gun, with a rather dodgy big drum mag that is prone to stoppages and cant fire on the move. Rather worryingly no anti tank rifle, indeed no integral support weapons at all. I suppose this is in part because the Marines were organised and equipped to act as landing parties and the like in far flung territories where tanks are not likely. Then again the Regular army dont have an ATR either. Or tanks for that matter. Oh and the officer has a sword - something of a first for my WW2 armies!

Next time - some supports
 

Soft vs Hard

I suspect this is going to cause some comments. I should say from the outset I'm not attempting to cast any doubt on the bravery of anyone. That being said, on to the main part....

I'm busy painting up some Germans for Chain of Command to use in the rather excellent Blitzkrieg 1940 campaign supplement from Two Fat Lardies. Actually my "cunning plan" is to add to the stuff I already have for Stalingrad, as the infantry are pretty much interchangeable so all I need is some new (earlier) vehicles. This is turning out to be predictably more complicated than first envisaged, but that is something for a later post.  All that got me thinking about how we wargamers value hard stats, and tend to disregard the soft ones.

I'm going to use two examples to explain this. The Char B, and the Douglas TBD Devastator. 

The Char B is well regarded by history and wargamers. On the table top it is an absolute beast, with an excellent 47mm gun in the turret to engage armour, and a short barrelled 75mm howitzer in the hull to shoot softer targets. The 75 is rather strange in that it is fixed - you aim the gun by aiming the tank - actually the driver aims and fires the 75mm using a complex but quite responsive steering system. The Char B also has very heavy armour, particularly on the front. When we read about it, and French tanks in general, the usual comments are that the tanks are excellent but the French deployed them in "penny packets" which meant the Germans could concentrate their tanks and beat the French monsters piecemeal.  You can't read about the Char B without getting the story of  Captain Pierre Billotte and his attack at the village of Stonne, where his tank Char B1 "Eure" on it's own managed to break through the German positions and destroyed thirteen Panzers which he caught in a line on the main street, which seems to support the "good tank" theory. Bilotte said he ordered his hull gun to engage the last panzer while he used the turret gun on the lead one, and then having blocked both ends of the street with wrecks proceeded to work his way down the column, apparently taking 140 hits that bounced off his thick armour in the process, before calmly heading back to his start point. 

This is a preserved Char B, actually in Stonne as a memorial to the battle.

Stirring stuff. The problem is, that really seems to be it. I've been reading through German reports and after a week or so of frustration, it seems pretty much that Billotte and his rampage is almost unique, and when we look at French tanks fighting German ones, even the mighty Char B, they are totally useless. Germans do lose lots of tanks, but not to French tanks. The French anti tank gunners and artillery both perform very well, but the tanks do almost nothing.  So what about the penny packets? I really can't see any evidence this is the case. Billotte may have carried out his devastating lone ride on his own, but he started with a company of 7 tanks and managed to lose the other 6. In fact he is a good example of what went wrong as he was the Company Commander yet he got separated from the rest of his unit and due to the poor communications and some sort of brain fade he ends up on his own. Company Commanders really shouldn't do this. It is true that French tanks were often outnumbered, but even when they were not, they don't seem to have performed very well against other tanks.

The thing about the Char B however is that although the "hard" stats look good, gun, armour etc the soft stats, the things we don't really represent well in wargames, are awful. Really awful. These problems are twofold. Firstly visibility. All tanks have visibility problems, French tanks are probably the worse of the bunch because unlike everyone else the French didn't believe in turret hatches and instead fitted their tanks with a domed cupola. The Commander couldn't stick his head up to look around. Instead the French had doors in the back of the turret that the TC would have to squirm through to see outside. How bad this feature is cannot be over stressed. German accounts speak of Panzers simply driving past French tanks at ranges of 80-100 meters and the French apparently not even seeing them.  If he did see something he then would have to get back in the turret to communicate with the crew, and that's when the real (second) problem starts. 

This pic above shows a Char B being loaded onto a tank transporter at Saumur tank museum. You can clearly see the commanders rear turret "door \ seat". 

The second problem is that the Commander isn't just the commander, he is also the gunner for the 47mm AND co ax MG. He also loads them. He is also supposed to command the tank, instruct the rest of the crew and if he is a platoon or Company Commander, direct the other tanks too. He doesn't have a seat in the turret either, unless he has the rear turret hatch open and he sits on the outside.

So let's talk through an engagement scenario.  The commander is sat outside, protected a little from fire directly to his front by the bulk of the turret, but against shell splinters or anything approaching him from any other angle he is totally exposed. His B1 is advancing slowly - it's not a fast tank, and anyway unlike most tanks the driver cant get instructions about where to drive very well because the commander, on his turret door seat, can't see forward where the tank is driving. This may help explain the number of pictures of Char Bs abandoned in roadside ditches. How he communicates with the rest of the tank crew from that position is something of a mystery anyway. Hopefully he sees his target - so he quickly shimmies back into the turret - losing his view of the target in the process, and remember his tank is moving, and he has no seat, so he is getting thrown around inside a metal box banging his head on the walls no doubt. Now he has a choice - he can either rotate the turret - and at least here the APX turret is electrically powered, then lay the gun on target, or load the gun. On this last one he does have some help - there is a radio operator below him in the hull who can at least pass him the shells for his 47mm, and the gun is primarily an anti tank gun so choice of ammo is not that much of a problem. So he loads the 47mm AP the radio man  has passed up to him - and then where is the target? He has three options. He can jump back out onto his turret door \ seat to get a fairly clear view, or he can use the rotating cupola and try to locate the target through the very narrow slits in it, or he can use the gunners sight. The best view is of course from the rear turret door, but there is a war going on out there. The view from the cupola is very limited, and the gunners sight is basically a telescope that has excellent focus but almost zero field of view. If he uses the cupola once he has located the target he must move out of that position into the gunner's position - losing the target again, but hopefully if he has got the turret lined up and both the target and his tank haven't moved far he can use the gunners sight and take the shot. If he misses, or more likely  momentarily loses sight of the target when the gun goes off six inches from his ear, he has to reload, then re-acquire, aim then.....

You can see where this is going. In this light the German stories of French tanks just stopping in the middle of a field and apparently allowing the panzers to just drive around at their leisure and shoot them in the rear starts to make sense. In comparison a PzIII has a three man turret. The Commander has a split hatch with rotating cupola. Even in combat he can drop the bulk of his body through the hatch and fight the tank "head up" to maintain visibility and situational awareness. He has internal communication with his crew via headsets and a throat mike. His job is to command his tank, and coordinate with the others in the platoon, nothing more. The gunner has nothing to do other than follow his commander's instructions til he locates the target, and then shoot. After each shot he can keep the target in his sights because the loader will load the gun for him. My money is on the panzer - every time. So what happened at Stonne?

To put this in context, Stonne was a very intense fight. The village changed hands 17 times in three days. French sources compared the close and vicious infantry fighting that took place there to Verdun in the First World War, and some Germans compared it to Stalingrad. 

According to reports Billotte approached down the road and suddenly came face to face with this column of panzers at 30 meter range. Now at this point the story starts to sound a bit strange. I can believe he didn't see the panzers, given the problems with his tanks visibility, but it seems a stretch that they didn't see him in his rather large tank. It also seems strange that he could order his driver to do the "shoot the rear tank" trick and shoot a tank thirteen tanks down a column when at the same time the panzers cant just turn around and drive away? Are they really parked nose to tail in the middle of a battle? If they are - how do you shoot the thirteenth - surely the line of fire s blocked by all those parked panzers?? Remember, the Char B cant fire the 75mm on the move............. It just seems strange. I also can't find any German reports that directly corroborate this event, though they do note the loss of 25 tanks in the three day battle. This map claims to show the route taken by Billotte, and if it's accurate, his gunner could not see the other end of the column.

Here is the village today on Google Earth - the road layout remarkably unchanged from 1940 though many of the buildings that lined the road have now gone.

Maybe not all the tanks claimed were killed on the day, maybe some are victims of the earlier battles and get included in the total anyway? Then again, if the Germans do sit it out and try and shoot the Char B in the face their chance of success isn't that high. I also wonder how much the Bonny Tyler factor kicked in. At the end of WW2 France was very much a country riven by internal division and self doubt. After the disaster of 1940 there was a great deal of finger pointing and scapegoating. In some ways this is still happening today, with various explanations being offered for the French collapse in 1940. This is understandable, and a nation in such a position, as Bonnie famously said "Needs a Hero". Billotte is a great candidate, a dashing tank commander who also happened to be the son of a high ranking general (sorry I forgot to mention that). 

My second example is a plane that all wargamers know is a pile of crap - the Douglas TBD Devastator, a byword for mediocrity.

In two major engagements in 1942 the Devastator Squadrons achieved almost precisely zero (pun intended) and lost the vast majority of their planes in doing so - losses at Midway topped 90%. Actually that's a bit unfair as the TBDs did manage to cripple the light carrier Shoho at Coral Sea, but.....

The problem is when you look at the hard stats the TBD isn't that bad. OK it is certainly slow, particularly in comparison to Japanese aircraft or land based planes, but this can also be compared with the British Fairy Swordfish, an antiquated biplane that still managed to give useful service through WW2 and accounted for damaging \ sinking several battleships and 20 odd submarines, and the Swordfish makes the Devastator look decidedly sprightly. Why did it do so badly?

The answer is, really, it didnt. At Midway there were six new TBF Avengers based on the island. The Avenger is acclaimed as one of the better torpedo planes of WW2. but they lost 5 out of 6 trying to attack the Japanese fleet, and achieved no hits. This pattern is repeated regularly with torpedo bombers throughout the war - against any sort of fighter opposition they simply fail to perform, to the extent that in the USN retired most torpedo squadrons or converted them to bombing units. To some extent the Japanese are the exception, their superbly trained crews pushed their Kates through to point blank range before dropping, but also suffered crippling losses in the process so they simply could not do it again.

I think the Devastator's bad rep is therefore not really to do with a measurable deficiency in equipment or capability, the "hard" stats, but more about the environment and circumstances they were deployed in, the "soft" factors we find hard to represent in our games. Char Bs have good "hard" stats but lousy "soft" ones, so do much better in games than their real performance would justify, Devastators are seen as a disaster without recognising that any plane that has to fly low, slow and in a straight line to make an attack will get mauled by an even vaguely capable defence 

So there you go, some musings on hard and soft stats and factors that maybe we should be more aware of. There are many other examples, equipment that has a bad reputation with gamers (Sherman) but were loved by their crews because they were easy to live and work in.

All of which wont help when that bloody Char B rolls down the road, but at least I can say in "real life" it would probably just have been abandoned in the nearest ditch.

Cheers

Is 20mm the unloved ginger child of WW2 Wargaming?

This is for Mark really, but I think it may be interesting to see what others think.

I started wargaming in 20mm. I think that is true for most of us who grew up in the 70s and early 80s in the UK. It is almost impossible to explain just how limited your options were as a wargamer in those days. Initially it was just one word. Airfix

I know there were other manufacturers out there making metal models, but if you were like me a young lad the chance of ever discovering them was slim, and even if you were aware you still needed to write and send a self addressed envelope (and possibly a postal order) to get a typed and un-illustrated catalogue. Luckily we had Airfix, and it was available in just about every newsagent and toy shop in the country.

Airfix were the main supporter of my wargaming from the start. That meant for most "periods" their soft plastic 20mm (1:76) figures or polystyrene kits, supported by their rule books initially loaned from the library and illicitly photocopied.

WW2 was the big interest for me. After all the war ended only 30 years before and we all had family members who had taken part. It was possible to play other periods of course, and the idea of fighting Agincourt using just the figures available in the two "Robin Hood" boxes must have occurred,  but the main arena was WW2. Choice was, well, limited. Airfix had a vast breadth of range, but it did lack depth. Germans could happily fill their order of battle with Panzer IVs, Panthers and Tigers, and the ubiquitous German Recce set provided a Kubel and 222, but that was about it. Similarly the Brits could get their hands on a Churchill, Sherman, Crusader and Matilda. This made for exciting times if you were so inclined, trying to convert a passable Cromwell out of plasticard and the wheels from a Crusader etc. Later, Matchbox joined the fray, adding such much needed kits as a Panzer II and III, and a Sherman Firefly. All of this was in what we now call 20mm, and as a WW2 wargamer there was nothing to compete.

But today 20mm is rapidly shrinking into the shadows. Initially 15mm, then more recently 28mm have dominated WW2 gaming. 20mm still survives, but it is no longer the first choice for me and many others, so why is that?

Firstly I should say in many ways it IS the logical scale of choice for some games. Availability of cheap plastic kits in an amazing variety, some, such as those by Dragon are available painted to a standard most of us could only dream of. Figures have also come a long way, and figures by companies such as AB are frankly streets ahead of most of their 28mm rivals in terms of detail and animation. Range is also very comprehensive. In 28mm I only know of one manufacturer makes Belgian infantry, not so in 20mm. Try finding a Sdkfz 132 Marder II in 28mm, no problem in 20mm. Price is also VERY alluring - 20mm kits being equivalently priced to 15mm ones, and usually a fraction of a 28mm one.

The problem is the tyranny of the masses. 15mm has blossomed with popular rules like Flames of War rapidly dominating the market at the "Company" level of gaming. 28mm has followed suit at "Platoon" level even if Bolt Action has a very suspect concept of what a Platoon actually was. What that means is that if you want to play a WW2 game, those scales are where you will have the best chance of finding an opponent. And that, sadly, is a fairly huge factor. OK if your club or group want to either stick with 20mm or start afresh, but once you are in, you are committing to a very fixed group, and if, as often happens, you fall out or move on, then you may end up trying to play solo.

I would also add I like 28mm as a scale to paint. As I grow older I can no longer conceive of painting some of the smaller scales to a standard I would be happy with. That may not include 20mm yet, but it is getting there. And then there is the spectacle. a Tiger in 28mm is quite a lump of eye candy in a way 20mm cant quite manage.

And of course, once you commit to 28mm, it makes little sense to play other scales for similar projects. I'm excited at the soon to be released Chain of Command Fall of France expansion. If I were starting from scratch I may conciser 20mm, (edit - I originally typed 28mm instead of 20mm) but I'm not. I already have quite a bit of 28mm kit that will port over, and a group who prefer to play in 28mm (and another local group who would look puzzled at the thought of playing in 20mm).

So that is why, with some sadness, I wont be starting 20mm again. Sorry Mark, it just does not make sense to me, but I understand why you make the suggestion.

Comments please - let's try and discuss

Medic!! A quick support option in Chain of Command

Pretty self explanatory really. Medics are used in Chain of Command to get your wounded leaders back in the fight - no-one cares about the other guys apparently. They are List 1 options so cost only 1 support point, and are damned useful to have around. Bolt Action also has a Medic option for your Platoon Command so its useful thing to have for both games.

The problem is finding suitable figures. That's not to say there are none, because there are quite a few available, but they tend to be full stretcher teams and the like, or available as part of a bigger pack with other figures I don't have much use for. What I wanted was just one guy.

Fortunately making \ converting a Medic for my Germans at Stalingrad is not a massive challenge. The German combat medic had a couple of easy identification points - mainly a white tabard and arm bands with red crosses and a bag to haul around his wares.

The tabard is beyond me - but then again was not always worn, particularly on the Ost Front where shooting at Medics was something of a sport. They also wore helmets either in white with different styles of red cross, or a standard helmet with more discrete markings - again because wearing a white helmet with a red cross on it is probably asking for trouble on some battlefields.

I put together a kneeling figure from the spare bits from my Warlord plastic Pioneers \ Early War infantry. The satchel came from the bits box - I think it was in the old Wargames Factory Zombie Hunters set, with a sling made from paper soaked in pva, the armbands are the same.

Painting was in my now standard quick and dirty early \ mid war scheme I have used for all my Stalingrad figures. I couldn't resist the white helmet option as it makes him stand out on the table a bit, which is nice for me visually but probably a bit of an issue for him - ah well, if the Russian snipers are shooting at him, they're not shooting at the Leaders I suppose.

I need to do a bit of touching up and dirty up the base to match the rest of the platoon, but I quite like him.

Scatter Terrain for Stalingrad part 1 Thinking Big

Our Stalingrad Chain of Command campaign is about ready to go, but we still need some terrain. Actually that's not 100% true - we need some nice terrain. So each of us in our own way are working on that. Paul is building a railway siding, Andy is building some more ruins, Mark is, well typically he's got distracted so he's probably working on something Napoleonic Vietnamese in 12mm but he will be back on the program soon, and me?

I'm working on some scatter terrain. Stuff to leave around rather than specific buildings. I've already finished a couple of shot up Opel Blitz trucks - and have just finished something a bit more err ambitious...

Inspiration for this is a bit mixed. I had toyed with the idea of getting a shot down Me109 to use as terrain in the desert, but could not find any suitably cheap kits. Then I went to Vapnartak a few months ago and saw what the Spectre Miniatures Black Ops guys had done with a crashed C130 Hercules and I realised I needed to think bigger. Much searching of ebay finally resulted in a 1:48 scale He 111 from Monogram which I picked up for about £35 - pretty much the top end of the budget on this.

When it arrived I was a bit stunned - there's a lot of it and it has quite a bit of internal detail. After being put off a few times I finally decided enough was enough, and grabbed a razor saw. It was a strange project, trying to work out what to cut, and whether it was best to assemble it first or do the surgery on the components. In the end I did a bit of both, chopping the model into three parts - tail, wing and "the rest". I then blanked off some areas where the razor saw had been at work - the tail was easy as there is a convenient bulkhead half way down the real thing that houses the battery compartment, so that made a convenient place and a plasticard bulkhead was cut to fill the gaping gap. Similarly the now exposed wing root was filled with "bits", Everything got a first coat of paint, based and - and then I stalled. 

This was because I don't have any experience painting anything this big, and it put me off, however after putting it aside the opportunity offered by the Bank Holiday weekend was just too much, so I screwed myself up and decided to get it done. I resisted the temptation to go too daft and didnt try breaking any of the glazing, and anyway this was going to be a "done and dusted" project. 

And here's the result - being climbed over by some wary Pioneers

I have to say I'm quite happy with it. It covers a lot of space on a table, and looks the part. It can also be used in bits if needed. The only real issue is storage and transport - I should have thought a bit more about that :-)

StuG Life Part 3 - Winter is Coming!

After all the messing about painting Bubi was pretty straightforward. I've only just started painting winter camo so I took some advice from the lads at Asgard Wargames, who pointed me at some possible techniques. After a few attempts here is the (almost) finished article. Still some minor work needed, and a Commander, but not bad for a first effort I think,

StuG Life Part 2 When is a StuG not a StuG? When it's a Sturmi

So having got the kit ready I decided to get the assembly done. And it was at this point where things started to get complicated. This is NOTHING to do with the Rubicon kit - which is a thing of beauty. What I soon discovered is that the Finns were keen to upgrade their StuGs. This is probably the result of the early encounters with the Red Army when the Finns were still unsure of their new equipment, but they quickly instigated a series of modifications to better suit their needs.

Firstly the Schurtzen side skirts went. I'm not sure if this happened even before combat. I suspect so,  but whatever the reason the Finns disliked them and removed them. They then introduced a number of changes, some minor, some less so. They moved the stowage arrangements around so they were more to their liking, initially moving the spare wheels from the engine deck to the sides of the superstructure. Then they added a new armoured cover to the drivers position, and extra armour to the hull sides, plus some bullet deflectors on the sides of the main gun mount. I find this fascinating because these are clearly the result of the early combat experiences with Soviet Anti Tank Rifles, whose teams were taught to shoot such weak spots, but this is exactly the reason the Germans introduced the Schurtzen side skirts in the first place. I wonder if the Finns misunderstood the reasons for the skirts when they were first delivered? In addition, after further experience in the summer of 1944 the Finns adopted log armour on the superstructure sides, and added a thick concrete to the front of the fighting compartment, giving the Finnish StuG - or "Sturmi" as they called them, a rather distinctive look.

So I got stuck in, and pretty soon had the first stage complete - here she is looking fairly similar to what she looks like now at Parola, with side mounted spare wheels, rearranged track stowage and new scratch built starting handle.

The observant may notice the MG shield is not fitted - funny story that - I managed to fit the wrong roof - oh how I laughed when I realised!

That was also the point when I finally thought through the project and realised I was in trouble. The problem is that the "real" Bubi at Parola is presented as she was when she saw action in the summer of 1944. The problem was  the word "summer". All my other Finnish stuff is in winter camouflage, so to model Bubi in winter would mean adding all the extra bits such as concrete and logs fitted after the battles of summer 1944. On the plus side it meant I could at least swap out the fighting compartment roof.

So after another session I added concrete armour from Green Stuff, and built a new drivers visor to match the one fitted in Autumn 44, plus bullet deflectors etc. The embarrassing roof issue was resolved at that time too. The MG shield had its embrasure opened to allow the fitting of the Soviet DT LMG the Finns used rather than the original MG34, and some log armour added based on some pictures taken in the late summer of 44 I found on line.

Lastly I added the stowage frame which was late German issue but very similar to one the Finns fitted.

No hatch yet as I'm hoping to find a suitable Commander figure.

StuG Life Part 1

I’ve had another one of those projects that went a bit too far. A couple of years ago I backed a Kickstarter by Baker Company run by Gav Tyler. Maybe I’ll go into the details another time but let’s for the moment say it was not a great project. On the other hand I ended up with a large amount of Finnish infantry in winter clothing, which in the nature of things ended up in the “to paint” pile with no particular priority.

Then a couple of months ago I got invited to a Bolt Action campaign. I don’t particularly like BA – I think it compares poorly to Chain of Command, but I thought, if I paint some of those Finns I will be able to use them for both – so I started.

One of the available support options is a StuG. The Finns didn’t have the capacity to build their own tanks, instead relying on captured Soviet tanks, plus a limited supply of StuG III Gs bought from Germany. I did a bit of research on-line (if Google can count as research) and I discovered the excellent Finnish Armour in WW2  website. This has some great photos and details, including individual histories of some of the StuGs. I’m a sucker for this sort of thing, so rather than just having a generic StuG, why not have a model of a real one? Logically it seems a good idea, so I chose Ps 531-10 " Bubi  "– which also happens to be the top scoring Finnish StuG with eleven kills. Bubi still exists at the Finnish Armour School at Parola, and there are plenty of pics so how hard can it be?

This seemed like a good idea at the time, so with eyes wide shut I launched myself. Memo to self – think it through next time!

There are a number of StuG III models available in 28mm, but in the end I chose the Rubicon Models version because it seemed to offer plenty of options. 

I have to say this is a superb kit that covers just about everything I needed - at least at first glance.