Kursk - Part Five - Moving Picture Show

Tigers burning in the fields outside Ponyri

I'm working all the hours that God sends at the moment and frankly I've been neglecting the blog.  In the vain hope that I can distract the public with gimcrack gimmicks and moving picture shows, I offer this footage. 

Michael Bay better watch out, I think you'll agree. 

An overview of Prokorhovka - the final game in the campaign. 

And for those of you that made it this far - Kittens!

Advances in framing...

...though as Doctor O'Connor pointed out, 

that's hopefully personally rather than professionally. 

I've been meaning to get motoring on framing for quite a while now and to be honest, I faffed around for far too long because I was afraid to make any mistakes. This is not the first frame I have put together and it's certainly not perfect, but it is getting there. My cuts are good, but my mitre box is a little loose and that's making it difficult to make a completely flat surface.  

I'm going to try again with a chop saw and see if that works. But once again, it's been proven that the best way to learn how to do something is to do it. 

What's in the box? 

Also a very pleasant surprise arrived yesterday, the result of a trade with David Crook. 

Trucks

These are Lledo "Days gone by" brand trucks which will be useful for my Very British Civil War and Operation Sea Lion games.  There's a very interesting assortment, though the scale seemed to wander a bit.  Most of the vehicles seem to match up with 1/72 figures or at least don't look unreasonable.  The largest appear to be about 1/50, so I could use them for 40K Rogue Trader games. I envision my version of 40K being a TV series shot by Granada in the 1970s, which is why all the battles take place near a ruined Gothic abbey and the bad guy always has his base in a country house or an industrial estate.  The extras always wear the same uniforms too. Makes perfect sense to me. 

Kursk - Part Four - The Battle of Ponyri

German infantry moving past a knocked out KV 

The battle of Ponyri was our second game of the day.  It was different from the Assault of Cherasskoye in that the deployment was set from the beginning.  The players got to determine where their reinforcements went, but beyond that they were pretty much stuck with the scenario as written. 

But, to go back to Ponyri for a moment.  This battle was like the first taking place in the northern axis of attack, the Germans had advanced deep into the Soviet positions, but kept running into yet more lines of defences. Ponyri or more particularly Ponyri station was a vital rail link between Kursk and Orel. The XLI Panzer Corps was tasked with taking the town, while the Soviet 307th Infantry Division heavily supported with artillery and other assets, had to hold it.  The fighting was fierce and the town changed hands over a dozen times.  The fighting was compared to Stalingrad in intensity. 

Combat Pioneers advance

The German advance in the centre was spearheaded by four units of Combat Pioneers armed with flamethrowers, demolition charges and harsh language. The seven hexes of the town were a majority medal objective for the Germans, if they could control more of the town than the Soviets they would gain two medals.

Meanwhile on the right...

...the Panzers are revving their engines. This was a different kettle of fish from the last game.  While the attackers would have to advance into the teeth of the Soviet defences hidden in the fields and woods around the town, this time the Soviets would have a mobile reserve of armour to counter any breakthroughs.

On the German left, the advance was led by two units of Tigers.

I was not looking forward to this one little bit as unlike Sydney on our left, I didn't have an armoured reserve.  All I could do was hang tough and try and outlast the Germans, doing as much damage as I could before they ground me into powder. As it happened, I managed to nail one of the big cats with a lucky shot in the first turn, much to Krisztians dismay.

But his retaliation was savage and emptied some of my forward defences.

The Red Air Force gets it's act together

After it's poor showing in the first scenario, the Red Air Force pulled its collective socks up and set to laying about the German armoured reserves in fine style, hitting them before they could get into the fight. This weakened the German armoured thrust on the German right and made it difficult to convert their superiority in armour into a decisive advantage.

Dakka dakka dakka 

Not to be outdone, the Luftwaffe attempted to return the favour, but poor dice rolling and a canny Soviet dispersal of their armoured reserves prevented the Germans from causing too much damage. 

General Von Kerrigan moves forward in the centre

The Germans pushed hard in the centre, while the Soviets held back, letting the Germans spend their momentum while they shelled them with mortars and artillery. The Germans bought ground, but at terrible cost and the casualty list was rising in the Soviets favour.

General Von Kerrigan pushes forward, just before the Germans make a fatal mistake

General Von Kerrigan took the town of Ponyri, albeit at great cost. Unfortunately, his success was undone by a breach in operational security.  General Von Kerrigan had quite rightly divined that the Soviet players had no idea that the German objective was the town and had been remaining very tight lipped about it.  While the Soviet players had some inkling, one of the German generals who shall remain nameless, blurted out the German objective.  This led to an immediate and concentrated Soviet counterattack, which not only cost the Germans badly in casualties, but also lost them their extra victory points.

The German advance stalls

On the Soviet right, with no reserves and a seemingly unstoppable tidal wave of German armour coming at me, I had battened down the hatches and determined that my lads would sell their lives as dearly as possible.  Curiously enough, with some luck as the Panzers tried to penetrate my minefields, I was able to hold them at bay.

Here comes the Red Army

With the German advance on the Soviet right stalled - the Soviet counter punch on the left started. It had just started going wrong for the Germans at this point - but this was really where the wheels began to come off the wagon. Comrade Sydney, never the most offensively minded of generals, confounded expectations, by just putting his head down and going bald headed for the enemy. 

General Von Kerrigan views the ruins of his plans and his panzers

In the fields the Panzers are burning. 

The battle on the Soviet left raged for several turns, but the Germans were unable to recapture their previous momentum and were reduced to tried to contain the Soviet counter attack.  Even though the Soviet infantry wasn't able to get into the fight, they prevented the German armour outflanking the main position. Meanwhile the artillery kept firing and that made all the difference. 

The final German push

In the centre, General Von Kerrigan attempted to wrest possession of the town from the Soviets in a last gasp attempt to wrestle victory from the jaws of defeat.  Von Kerrigan pushed his Ferdinands forward supported by the remainder of his infantry, but it was too little too late.  The defenders concentrated their fire on the infantry, stripping the armour of its support, and then a swift counter attack did the rest. 

This was a tough game and hard fought. The Germans did so much lose as the Soviets won it.  We improved our play, bringing combined arms to bear, relying more on our artillery and making much more inteligent use of our airpower. The tighter Soviet play meant that the Germans had far fewer weaknesses to exploit and that and a little bad luck ultimately cost them the game.  

Modified Overlord Rules

A Company, 2nd Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles, 

inland from Queen Red, Sword Beach, Normandy 1944. 

(image nicked from royalulsterrifles.com) 

As I mentioned over on Bob Cordery's blog the other day, we play Memoir '44 Overlord often and greatly enjoy it. However, after ten years of play, we have taken to using a slightly modified version of the rules that we think works a bit better than the Overlord rules as written.  They certainly suit our group better. The tweaks are small, but significant. 

Capability Savage on his holidays

Capability Savage ran us up a playsheet while he was in Parkhurst for Sodomy, Fraud, Impersonating a Clergyman of the Church of England and Misprision of a Felony, though I'm told it was reduced on appeal to Community Service and a Ten Shilling fine. 

OverlordPlaySheet.pdf


I hope you find this useful.  We've found this playsheet invaluable for keeping new players onboard. Most can abandon it after a game or two, but it certainly helps at conventions.

Harriers

A flight of four Airfix Harrier GR 3s 

These are being used for my "Bombers over Sulphur River" game at the end of the month.  I will have to get a wriggle on and get some paint on them though. 

The last thing a Mig pilot ever sees

Each plane has had a five cent join glued to the bottom, which serves as a point of attachment for the rare earth magnets mounted on the Corsec Engineering flight stands. These are really something and allow the plane to be manipulated in any way you like. Very, very impressed with these. 

Action shot!

"Bombers over Sulphur River" is an old Games Workshop game that we used to play in school. Best described as Space Orks meets the Dambusters, it's good fun and I've adapted it for the Cold War. Harriers will be standing in for the Ork Fighter Bommaz. 

Whoosh!

I intend to get some crocodile clips to allow me to attach black puffs of flak to the flight stand. That will allow me to mark hits without damaging the model. This is an unusual game in that I haven't had to play test it at all - the game itself is rock solid, I'm just changing the set dressing. 

(click to embiggen)

And lest you think that I've forgotten the horse and musket completely, the Crimea came to mind again on Sunday. I was wandering through the Cathedral after service when I came across this fellow.  One rarely thinks of logisticians, but they also serve. 

It still remains a fact though that I've yet to be entirely satisfied with the portrayal of logistics in a toy soldier game. Someday perhaps. 

Catching up

First of all, thank you to all of you who took the time to send best wishes to Mrs. Kinch.  She is on the mend and should be back in action within the week.  I've mainly been running around after her (though to be fair that mainly consists of running around her at present) for the last few days, though it must be said she is bearing this extremely frustrating illness with her usual stoicism. 

In the meantime, as I have a game at the end of the month, I have gotten motoring on my Harriers. These are Airfix GR 3 kits, two of the old tooling and two of new.  I seem to be doing a lot of work on planes at the moment.   There's something nice about painting them, the instructions are always pretty simple, multiple coats of paint are required and there are a lot of flat surfaces.  They are a lot less nerve wracking than painting the human form. It's like painting a wall - it's quite restful. 

These fellows are still with us and you see them here in an uncharacteristically relaxed pose.  They are getting big and bold and thunder around the room like a herd of elephants.  Trying to teach them not to use claws is an ongoing project and not a battle I'm entirely sure we're winning. 

Traditions are important.  

Mrs. Kinch wasn't able to attend to this particular tradition this year, so I took up the task. For some explanation as to what the hell I was doing in the Pheonix Park last Monday, you will have to take a look at a previous Joy & Forgetfulness post. 

Have a good weekend. 

On the mend

Mrs. Kinch at present (artist's rendering) 

We had a spot of drama in the Kinch household over the last few days.  Poor old Mrs Kinch had a bit of a turn in the front room a couple of days ago and we ended up taking a trip to Accident & Emergency.  Fortunately, while there were a lot of awful things that it could have been - meningitis being the most obvious - it turned out to be a complication from a previous illness.  Fortunately, it emerged that on this occasion, while Mrs Kinch has a spinal fluid leak there is no exterior wound to provide an avenue for infection. The result is a condition which is very unpleasant and painful, but not lethal.  She'll be laid up for a few days and the forecast for the weekend is medium cranky with a boredom front rising, but all things considered it could have been a lot worse. 

I am very grateful to the extremely patient and hard working staff who looked after her while we were in A&E.   It was a long old stint, but their kindness and good humour made a trying situation more bearable. God bless them all. 

Don't they look dashing

The last few days have not left much time for anything really, but one of the things that is happening at the moment is that Tim Gow is working on a set of rules called "Very Little Cold Wars", a Cold War turned hot version of HG Wells "Little Wars". I'm quite excited by this as I think it will allow me to play garden games with my 20mm Cold War stuff, which I think is probably the only way to play a convincing game involving modern tanks.

You'll find a battle report on Tim's blog here. He's also started a yahoo group to discuss the rules and the period, which you'll find here.