Retaking Veirville AAR - BKCII

Here I use Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit, S1 as a template for a Blitzkrieg Commander II game. This one didn't turn out so good. US seemed way over powered. Being a first scenario for ASLSK, I believe it's supposed to be somewhat like a nice encounter battle.

This has me thinking how closely I should translate these scenarios. My first one played well as is. This one however, needs to be abstracted and used more as a guide.

Clash at Borisovka AAR - BKCII

This is an all armor battle from the Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit. I think this one turned out pretty well.

Blitzkrieg Commander II IABSM Scn 3 Game End

Blitzkrieg Commander II IABSM Scn 3 Turn 8

Blitzkrieg Commander II IABSM Scn 3 Turn 7

Blitzkrieg Commander II IABSM Scn 3 Turn 6

Keith's Early War BKCII AAR

From Keith's Blog - Love it!!!

Keith's Wargaming Blog posted a very cool scenario, I believe of his own creation from the invasion of Poland, 1939.  He used Blitzkrieg Commander rules and it looks very cool. A friend, Dave, was asking how BKCII would play in a  large game.  This is a pretty big one and it doesn't quite get finished.

Anyway, an air assault with planes is cool - check out the picture with the Junkers on final for the airfield - soooo cool!

Go to Keith's Wargaming Blog to read the scenario details and the AAR - lots of pics and a cool hand drawn map.

Welcome to new followers - Thomo_the_Lost, Carl, Attilla13, and Nicholas Skinner (aka LordLegion72 on YouTube - check out his channel.).  Click on these avatars at the top of the blog and see what these peoples are doing on the web.

1941 East Front WWII Blitzkrieg Commander AAR

Redtroop, on his Kampfgruppe blog writes up a great AAR of a recent East Front battle that he and his friends fought.

I like this because it seems like a nice, simple battle, with a nice looking table fought between friends. Keep 'em coming Redtroop.

BKCII FWC CWC Games are now available as PDFs

From Blitzkrieg-commander.com site

Peter Jones of Specialist Military Publishing has made his series of games, including the original Blitzkrieg Commander, as pdfs! Nice. The BKCII has some of the errata and updates in it as well.

I like this development because having an electronic copy is a nice option. Also, you can buy access to the online battlegroup/army builder on the same page.


I also saw on his forum (a great one by the way) that he is working on CWCII. He's begun the process of asking the forum users for their input - which is another reason to support his company.

KV-1 Wow Barbarossa 1941

Amazon

I'm reading this book, Panzer Operations (The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941-1945), by Erhard Raus (compiled and translated by Steven H Newton)  I'm reading it to get more of a feel of the Eastern Front because I'm considering gaming it in 15mm.

I ran across a couple of fascinating stories about the KV1 tank. These two stories come from the first couple of days of Barbarossa. He is part of 6th Panzer Division as Kampfgruppe Raus(HQ, Motorized Brigade 6) on the first day of Barbarossa

timstanks.blogspot.com KV-1

Colonel Erhard Raus

Panzer Regiment 11

I/Motorized Infantry Regiment 4

II/Artillery Regiment 76

one company, Panzer Engineer Battalion 57

one company, Panzerjaeger Battlion 41

one battery, II/Flak Regiment 411

Motorcycle Battalion 6

He is in the north and these stories come from the resistance they encountered in the town of Raseinai:

Page 23

Wikipedia PZ 35

 "Nearer and nearer rolled the giant tanks, echeloned in width and depth. One of the them encountered a marshy pool in which a PzKw 35t had become mired. Without hesitating, the black monster rolled over the helpless panzer.  The same fate befell a German 150mm howitzer, which had not been able to escape in time.  When the KV-1s approached, the howitzer fired at them over open sights without causing any damage at all. One of the tanks drove straight for the howitzer, which now delivered a direct hit to its frontal armor. A glare of fire and simultaneously a thunderclap of the bursting shell followed, and the tank stopped as if hit by lightning. "That's the end of that," the gunners thought as they took a collective deep breath. "Yes, that fellow's had enough," observed the section chief. Abruptly, their faces dropped in disbelief when someone exclaimed, "It's moving again!" Indeed, the tank advanced again, chains rattling loudly, and crashed into the heavy gun as if it were nothing more than a toy, pressing it into the ground and crushing it with ease as if this were an everyday affair. The heavy howitzer was finished, though the crew fortuitously escaped without harm."

Wikipedia -150mm

Pages 26-34 discuss how one tank, parked at the unit's bridgehead was blocking a main supply route for the division. The tank gave them fits for over 48 hours. Their first attempt was to send a battery (4 guns) of their newly equipped 50mm anti-tank guns. One gun set up front, the others manhandled the guns through hollows and trees on either side of the tank. The began firing from about 600 meters and closer.

"In no time the armor-piercing shell had covered the intervening 600 meters. A glare of fire appeared, followed by the sound of a violent impact. A direct hit! A second and then a third shot followed.

"The tank did not move until it had been pelted by at least eight direct hits. Then it's turret rotated, it took careful aim, and methodically silenced our antitank battery with a few 80mm shells. Two of our 50mm guns were shot to pieces, and the remaining two seriously damaged."

Wikipedia - 50mm

They then brought in an 88mm flak gun to the rear of the tank. As the crew was setting up and almost ready to shoot, the KV-1 rotated it's turret and began firing before the 88 could. The gun was knocked back into a ditch and then began firing its machine guns to take out the gunners.

Their next attempt - they sent in 12 engineers with explosives. Which they did on some of the tracks and side armor. The explosives went off and basically did nothing. The engineers escaped. However, one was lost. He returned later saying that he'd got lost when they scattered. However, he returned and put explosives in the barrel. That went off. And again, little damage.

The next attempt - PzKW 38ts from Panzer Battalion 65 would shoot the KV-1 from the front and two sides. While this was going on a second 88mm flak gun would be brought in to shoot it again from the rear. While the tanks attacked, the 88 set up and got 3 shots and hits.  Even after the tank appeared to be dead, the 88 shot 4 more shots into the tank. (A WWII version of the Zombieland double-tap.)

timstanks.blogspot.com KV-1

The gun rose into the air and it seemed to be dead. The troops and tankers moved forward and begain climbing on it, trying to get it open, to no avail. As they climbed around the gun barrel began moving again! The engineers thought quickly and threw grenades into one of the holes made by the shooting at the based of the turret. The grenades exploded and the hatch flew open. The crew and tank were officially dead.

Upon investigation: only 2 of the 7 88 shots had pierced and gone through the armor. The other 5 had made large dents. There were 8 blue spots created by the new 50mm guns. There was slight damage to the caterpillar track and a small dent in the gun barrel resulting from the engineer attack. No traces of hits could be found from the 37mm guns of the PzKw 38ts.

I find this story and others like it so amazing in light of war gaming. If this were to be gamed, at any level, in a wargame there would be cries of how unrealistic the results were. Yes, this is a rarity, but still these things happen all the time in recollections of war. And when they happen in games they're great fun.

Wikipedia - 88mm

Unusual events like this are one reason I like games like Combat Commander, IABSM, and BKCII. Sure, it's frustrating when you can't do something in a turn, but if you remember that may of these are simulating a period of time. Yes, we do everything in steps, but it's actually modeling a fluid amount of time.

I rolled some dice just to see what is was like for the KV-1 v 150mm and KV-1 v 50mm encounters. I tried both the BKCII and IABSM models.  It was tough to do based on turn structure etc. However, this result was possible - again though it would have to be a crazy stretch and most likely wouldn't happen.  But it could and that's cool.

Zvezda Pz 38 thewarstore.com

One thing interesting is that the KV-1 in BKCII has restricted visibility and can only fire at a 45 degree arc in front of it. I suppose this is done because it was a slow turret. But all tanks in the game can only fire 180 degrees to the front. I suppose you could home rule something if you were playing that each model represents one tank and not a platoon.






Let me give proper credit to the pics -
thewarstore.com for their image of the Zvezda Pz 38t - go buy one to support the cause...thewarstore.com 's profits.

Wikipedia for the images

Amazon for the book cover - go buy a copy and support the cause - Bezos' profits

timstanks.blogspot.com for the KV-1 pics. Again, I've done this without permission, so may be eating crow later and pulling them off. However, I've been taken with Tim's site for the following reasons:

• He gives detailed write-ups on how the models come together. A great help if I begin assembling them. (Hey how hard/easy were the Plastic Soldier Company figures to assemble?)
• He seems to be a gamer after my own heart - he's pursuing 15mm and trying to find the least expensive/best looking kit he can find
• I really like he makes these cheap, I mean, inexpensive models look when he's complete. - Nice work
• And his description, could almost be mine - "My favourite rules are Warmaster and all it's derivatives (i.e. BKC, CWC, FWC, Black Powder etc).....mainly because the WM mechanism is simple for someone my age to remember! I'm also a keen amateur military historian. Researching my family's activities in times of war and visiting the sites where it all took place."

Go follow him, like him, whatever, so he doesn't send the police after me for stealing his photos. 

Hobbytime Progress 6mm WWII and Fields

Listened to Ben Curry? Interviewed on Point Hammered (explicit warning). He's from The Bad Dice Podcast in England. He spoke about getting at least 15 minutes in a day on your hobby to make progress.

Glued and assembled more halftracks to round out my 56th AIB. In addition made 3 105mm Priests as 3 batteries of battalion support. (each one represents 6 M7s!). Finally, made 3 105mm M4s to round out support of Armored Battalion.

Also cut more fields for the Schijndel scenario. I think the table is done. One of the pics below shows the soldiers eye view of the "church" in the distance. Shows that it has a grey field of view. In BkCII troops in that building's 2nd floor can see over linear obstacles. Need to firm up my understanding of the CdTob rules.

He also spoke about people tweeting #hobbytime to show the world your progress. Fun way to keep yourself going.

And, a pic of just part of the complete rainbow I saw going to work this morning.

How I Label My Troops-WWII-6MM

New subscriber, Alan, asked how I mark my troops:
The first picture is of the German Pz Grens (Yellow background, black writing) Marked with the Company number: in this case, 2nd. And then a dot to say which platoon/unit. In this case you can see that 3rd platoon, 2nd CO is flanking from the tanks right. The 1st platoon, 2nd Company is attacking the front. And, Weapons platoon (4 dots) flanking from the left. 

This second photo is similar. Except, I use letters because the US used letters to designate the companies. The unit at the top and by the tanks is an engineer platoon (gray with black writing).

BKCII A Tale of Two Prisoners

I finally finished playing through the scenario my 9yr designed for his map mentioned in earlier posts. He came up with the situation and forces - with minor guidance from me. The OOB was getting crazy as it was.

The situation: Both sides, US and German have each captured a very important prisoner and are holding them in town, in the case of the Germans. And, the US is holding their prisoner in a makeshift fort with barbed wire and a trench. In that trench is a 76mm Sherman that can't move out - so essentially it's like a pillbox. I can imagine coming up with some fun backstory for these prisoners and why they were both so important - any ideas?

The objectives: US must travel the length of the board to rescue their prisoner. In addition, they must clear the only good bridge of Germans and barbed wire.
The Germans must rescue their prisoner and get them back to their table edge.

The forces
US
CO (9)
3 HQ (8)
Recce M8
Recce Stuart
5 Airborne Paras w Bazookas
Engineer w Flamethrower
2 MG
1 57mm AT gun
2 81mm Mortars
2 M5 Stuarts
2 Sherman 75mm
2 Sherman 76mm
1 M8 Scott
2 Priests (105mm) Off-Board (as I'm typing this, I just realized that I had two of these to use - blast)
1 155mm Off-Board arty
6 Half Tracks
1 Jeep

German
CO (9)
2 HQ (8)
FAO (7)
3 stands of Volkstrum
3 stands of Panzer Grenadiers with Shreks
2 MG 34/42
1 Tiger II
3 French R35
4 251
1 88mm
1 Off-board 105MM

I'm going to try just hit the highlights (Side note - US is on attack and moves first in the turns.)
Both sides had planned arty and smoke. However, much of it, especially for the Germans was pushed back and cancelled because the enemy wasn't where it was supposed to be. However, at least those registered targets were still available for future arty calls.

The plan:
US - Send the Shermans, Paras, on the left with the Engineer to clear the bridge and 88. Then, if time allowed support the assault on the town with the prisoner, guarded by a Tiger II in an AFV pit. (Hit on 6s and save on 2+...what do you think happened to this King Tiger...yeah, not much.

Send the Stuarts and M8 with Tank riders to get the prisoner. Leave the 57, MG, and Mortar behind to guard the trench fort.

Germans - Send the Pz Grens on the left to get the prisoner. R35, 88, King Tiger, and Volkstrum guard the right flank and bridge.

Turn 1

End of Turn 1

Germans move the R35s to flank and ambush the Americans who've parked behind a hill. Unfortunately for them, they get in position flanking the HTs ready to fire into their flanks...when they fail a command roll.

Turn 2
Another unfortunate thing for the Germans, they stalled within initiative distance of the paras. This allowed them all to unload without opportunity fire. And then, in the turn, after two commands for the paras and a command with the Shermans, all 3 R35 were gone.

End of Turn 2

Turn 3
US lose HT and 76mm Sherman to 88 fire. 1 of the German platoons guarding the bridge is pushed back.

Turn 4
Pz Gren Platoon lost  in the woods.

88 Sees 76mm in the distance, fires...

On the US left, arty suppresses all Germans guarding the bridge, except the platoon in entrenched. However, the commands aren't there to bring on a close assault by the US. Also, US command is hesitant to CA the platoon in the trench that isn't suppressed.

US right is planning to go around the fields, in protection of the fields and hedges, and approach the town from the back.

King Tiger, however, doesn't have any problem with command, getting 3 in a row and takes out, on the hill, the M8 Scott M8 Greyhound, and a Stuart. Earning that Iron Cross.

And Gone!

Turn 5
During US initiative, they finally suppress the platoon in the trench, Close assault and take them out. In addition, some good Sherman shooting takes out the 88.

Tiger, trying to repeat their last performance, rolls 9 dice at a Stuart on the hill. They hit on a 4+. Except Tiger rolls 8 2 and 1s! And (1) 6. A hit. Stuart saves on a 6. Roll and... a 6! Stuart crew cleans their shorts!

(3) KOs for King Tiger in Turn 4

Turn 6
German 3 Co is wiped out.

US Engineers make to bridge, next to barbed wire but takes 3 hits from the Tiger.

A US mortar is taken out during initiative on the German left as they approach the trench prison.
The Tiger, with much celebration by the US, fails command rolls and is silent for a turn. Germans attempt to go in for the Close Assault on the prison after laying down smoke. Again, command falls short.

The Germans are working their way through the trenches at the fort and have taken out the MG. Next up a CA of the Sherman.

End of Turn 4

Turn 7
During Initiative and two snake eye command rolls in a row(!), two Shermans attack the Tiger from the flank. After rolling30 dice, they get several 6es, but most are saved, except 1. They roll a 6 to hit. The Tiger rolls a 1 to fail a save. And then, MIRACLE, rolls a 6 to suppress!!!

They Engineers successfully clear the bridge.

The US gets into town, destroys the German CO, and rescues their prisoner!

Over on the other side of the map, the Germans close assault, like crazy, the Sherman. He suppresses many of the them, but they go in anyway because of the overwhelming numbers and the support - Blam! They take it out.

Germans facing CA by the US, and...

The prisoner loads up on one of the transports to see if they can make it back. They get one more command to go 25cm. They fail a command.

Turn 8
US has accomplished their missions and now stay out of the way of the Tiger who can only react fire and opp fire. In addition, with the Grens obviously rushing back down the side of the table, the Stuarts take up positions to shoot and block them.

US finally clears out the bridge of Germans.

However, that won't be necessary because the Grens fail their command roll!

Game over. 
Also, the Germans had hit their breakpoint, but right at it, so they only needed to get a 9 or lower, they passed on turns 7 and 8.

Seemed like game started with both sides getting lots of failed or 1 time command rolls. However, there were several multiple commands. 1 blunder that caused a German MG to blunder into a CA with a HT. unfortunately, the HT had tons of support. I had two bonus rolls (rolling (2) ones on the command roll) in a row! Just at the opportune time for the US.

Pretty fun - crazy lists but lots of good CA practice, clearing wire, and arty practice.

Finally, after 30 dice - 1 hit and Suppression!

Germans CA the Sherman to get their prisoner.

They rush off...and stay there.

End of Game Map - US Victory

Fwd: BKC II Game & Geekway

Took a break from the Drydock to play this table my 9yr old setup. Will provide a more detailed AAR when it's finished. I'm through two turns and the US has already destroyed a German reclaimed R35 platoon.

The Germans had "surprised" the US platoon that was going to attack from behind a hill. However, failed command rolls left the R35s in the open.

The next turn saw a rain of bazooka and Sherman fire take em down. The Co had to command them because both platoons had failed their initial command rolls.

after turn 1

After turn 2

My other hobby stuff was my work on getting the volunteers/potentials lined up for Geekway 2012. This will take up a bit more time as we move deeper into April and May.

BMHGA is asking for GMs for Barracks Battles at Die-Con. I would love to, but don't know, w Geekway stuff if I can make that happen.

Another take BKCII Bulge Scenario

Back in June, 2011, I played the BKCII Scenario, "If You Go Down to The Woods Today," and did this blog post about the game.

Big Dave, one of the bloggers I follow replayed it with a different set of troops and vehicles. Interesting to see how it plays out with different stuff, different players' perspective, etc. His blog post on the Bulge  BKCII scenario replay is here.

Big

Blitzkrieg Commander II Walk-through Video

I've been wanting to do this for some time: a walk-through/tutorial of Blitzkrieg Commander II. This long video takes you through the initiative phase and one command roll of a command phase.

It's amazing how long this sort of thing takes to make. And how much work it would take to make it really good. Transitions, titles, words to help guide someone through the things I'm saying, etc.

I look forward to comments and hope it encourages someone to either: buy the rules or try the rules that they bought a long time ago and just haven't got round to playing.

I filmed it on my iphone and ran out of disk space. In fact, I ran out of room on my macbook as well. I couldn't even back up my phone. So, after a lot of deleting, shuffling, etc, I was able to upload it. Now, I can clean off my phone and take a picture of the table my 9 year laid out for me. He's wanted to do this for some time.

Future post material.

Blitzkrieg Commander II Video Overview

I created this quick video overview of Blitzkrieg Commander II for those looking at getting this ruleset.

It jumps around a bit, but I hope it conveys a general feel of the game and the way the rules are presented. Really I wanted it to be as though someone were in the store flipping through the book deciding if they wanted to buy it or not. However, I didn't want to to stay on the pages too long to break any copyright for Peter Andrew Jones. (I hope he approves of this message.)