Pictures Found and a Good Giveaway

Russians defend burning Smolensk, 1812

I have just found photos from games played last year. I'll be posting some AAR's in the near future. Smolensk and Novi with Volley and Bayonet; the Christmas Day Attack, a Command Decision game.

Also, Ian over at The Blog With No Name is having a great series of giveaways. Hop over and have a look.

US Artillery battery defends Bastogne

Command Decision; Guest AAR

 My friend, Richard sent this AAR of our game yesterday. The pictures are mine.


We had a really good game Sunday with the Americans schooling the Germans in the art of war.  American commanders were Mike and Jim, German commanders were Jeff, Richard, Brady and Jonathon.  The game got off to a late start (around 12:30 or so) and we had to end around 4:30, so we barely got into the beginning of Turn 4 before having to pack it up.  I've drawn up a sketch map of each turn - more or less, and only very generally - which is attached as a PDF to go along with this:
After Action Report: Operation Franz (U.S. Operation Springtime), as told by Feldwebel Schultz, KG Fraz HQ motorcycle recon
“Yes, Herr Generalleutnant, the Americans have broken through on our left flank despite Oberst Burnett’s best efforts.

At the outset of the battle, a veteran American infantry battalion assaulted and rapidly overran the surviving members of a Volksgrenadiers battalion of company plus strength initially suppressed by U.S.interdiction and harassment artillery fire.The impetuous American assault drove the Volksgrenadiers out of their foxholes and back toward the destroyed town.  That unfortunate VG battalion’s StuG.assault guns were unable to assist, and the American infantry – supported by a fast-charging armored reconnaissance force of M5A1 Stuart light tanks and Greyhound armored cars - rushed toward the rubble and an open door into our rear.  Our reconnaissance forces – SdFfZ 250/1’s and 250/9’s as well as a heavy reconnaissance armored infantry company were probing from the left of our “at start” positions, but reacted to the surprise attack quickly.

However, the racing American light armor ran into our advancing PzKw IV’s and a quick but brutal firefight ensued outside the town on our right while the American infantry advanced into the rubble of the town, finishing off the surviving Volksgrenadiers. Three Stuarts and a PzKw IV brewed up as the StuG’s and our reconnaissance troops maneuvered to get into the fight. The Panzergrenadiers accompanying the PzKIV’s also rushed to assist, maneuvering around blocking forests. The American infantry battalion had nothing between it and a breakthrough but the rubble of the town and our kampfgruppe HQ troops while the light armor tied up our Panzers.

Perhaps too late, our Panthers and their two Panzergrenadier companies arrived at the left of the rubbled town, slowing the American infantry assault and destroying the American armored cars that had swung over to engage and delay them.  The reconnaissance 250/9’s plunged into the American positions supporting the infantry attack as the Panzergrenadiers and StuG’s maneuvered to support them and take the Americans in the rear.  Suddenly, our far left flank was seriously threatened by the rapid advance of American Sherman tanks and accompanying armored infantry up the road.  The Americans had successfully drawn our attention and the bulk of our forces to the fight around the rubbled town on our right.  Weakly guarded by PAK 40 ATG and the heavy reconnaissance armored infantry company, our left was open.

Despite the American infantry’s ineffective attack on our HQ troops behind the rubbleof the town, our Panzergrenadiers’ gun halftracks and infantry counterattacking also had little effect.  Our Panther company and one PzKw IV company advanced to support the StuG company now turning to face the new American threat on our left.  Our SdKfz 250/9’s managed to silence the American 57 mm ATG with their concentrated 20mm fire, but all hope was lost when a second American combat group with nine Sherman 76’s and an armored infantry company advanced into the battle, reinforcing the American push at our weak left flank.

Seeing that there was little to no hope of stopping an American breakthrough (for even if we could stop the American infantry battalion pushing past the rubbled town, we had no hope of stopping all of the American armor and infantry at the far left of our line), Oberst Burnett sent me to you with warning, these dispatches and his sketch map of the battle.”

Advance of the Stuarts and Greyhounds

zInitial infantry positions; Germans dug in on left, US just out of picture to the right.

Results of the fire fight between Stuarts and Pz IV's

Rolling to victory

Shermans press the German right flank

German flame thrower attacks; and misses

 


 

Command Decision AAR, Meeting Engagement

My friend, Richard, has been assembling 15mm German and US forces for Command Decision. At the last meeting of the IU Conflict Simulations Club we played a meeting engagement game.

Both sides moved on, deploying recon elements. The US plan was to attack on the left with armor and hold the right with an infantry battalion. The Germans moved their armor on and advanced across the table. Both sides settled in at extreme range and started rolling for ones.

By the end of the game the Germans had advanced further across the board so we called it a marginal victory for them.

A good game; most of our group understand the rules and our next game will be CD with the Americans attacking.

Vyazma, Nov. 3, 1812, AAR

Our last Napoleonics game was Vyazma. This battle occurred as the French retreated from Moscow. The French army was strung out and the Russians attempted to cut off Davout's Corps, the rear guard. Two days after this battle, the first snow fell. This was the last time the French army would fight as an army.

The French starting positions. There are stands of French stragglers on the road. Davout's Corps is near the top of the photo.

 

Gary, commanding Eugene's IV Corps, advanced boldly to link up with Davout. By the second turn Davout was heavily engaged by the Russian main force and Russian Cossacks and Cuirassier had appeared on the French left flank. Also by turn 2 Eugene had linked up with Davout and the rest of the French forces were moving to support Eugene.

The attacks on Davout wiped out 2/3 of his force. The Russian Heavy Cav was exhausted by French musketry. The Cossacks shot through a gap in the French line and threatened Vyazma before attacking the French right.

By the end of the game the French were able to withdraw what was left of their army, but it was battered.

Cossacks!

Russian Heavy Cavalry

Uniformology Review

My daughter gave my The Westphalian Army of the Napoleonic Wars, Uniformology Book No. 40, for Christmas. I am very pleased with it. It is a very valuable painting guide. There are very good descriptions of all infantry and cavalry uniforms with a basic history of the army as well. This booklet is 45 pages and includes 12 plates.
My friend, Jerry, and I are building the Westphalian Corps for 1809 and 1812 and this will make the task easier.
I have quite a few Osprey's and I can honestly say that the Uniformology product is now my preference when looking for a painting guide.
And they are currently on sale!

AAR. Eat Hitler a Nazi Taste Treat

I downloaded these rules from Wargamers Vault after reading about them on The Miniatures Page. The premise is that Hitler has a secret time machine and attempts to go back to 1933 to try again. He winds up in the Jurassic Age. The players control dinosaurs and who ever eats the most Nazi's is the winner.

We played two games with five players in each game. In the first, I started the carnivores too far away and the herbivores did most of the killing by walking over the Nazi's. I managed to snatch half a Nazi out of the mouth of an allosaurus for a tie.
In the second game the carnivores were among the Nazi's quicker. One of the Nazi's put a rifle shot into a herbivore which fell on him and crushed him.
Great fun, I highly recommend it!

I Remember, Veteran's Day, 2012

Below is one of my favorite articles by Ernie Pyle. It is very appropriate for Veteran' Day.

The Death of Capt. Waskow

By Ernie Pyle

AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, Jan 10 (1944) (by Wireless) — In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Tex.
Capt. Waskow was a company commander in the 36th Division. He had been in this company since long before he left the states. He was very young, only is his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him.
“After my own father, he comes next,” a sergeant told me.
“He always looked after us,” a solder said. “He’d go to bat for us every time.”
* * *
I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Capt. Waskow down. The moon was nearly full and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley. Soldiers made shadows as they walked.
Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules. They came belly down across the wooden backsaddle, their heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked.
The Italian mule skinners were afraid to walk beside dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies, when they got to the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself and ask others to help.
The first one came early in the morning. They slid him down from the mule, and stood him on his feet for a moment. In the half light he might have been merely a sick man standing there leaning on the other. Then they laid him on the ground in the shadow of the stone wall alongside the road.
I don’t know who that first one was. You feel small in the presence of dead men, and you don’t ask silly questions . . .
We left him there beside the road, that first one, and we all went back into the cowshed and sat on watercans or lay on the straw, waiting for the next batch of mules.
Somebody said the dead soldier had been dead for four days, and then nobody said anything more about him. We talked for an hour or more; the dead man lay all alone, outside in the shadow of the wall.
Then a soldier came into the cowshed and said there were some more bodies outside. We went out into the road. Four mules stood there in the moonlight in the road where the trail came down off the mountain. The soldiers who led them stood there waiting.
“This one is Capt. Waskow,” one of them said quickly.
Two men unlashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid it in the shadow beside the stone wall. Other men took the other bodies off. Finally, there were five lying end to end in a long row. You don’t cover up dead men in combat zones. They just lie there in the shadows until somebody else comes after them.
The uncertain mules moved off to their olive groves. The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave. They stood around, and gradually I could sense them moving, one by one, close to Capt. Waskow’s body. Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality to him and to themselves. I stood close by and I could hear.
One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud:
“God damn it!”
Another one came, and he said, “God damn it to hell anyway!” He looked down for a few last moments and then turned and left.
Another man came. I think it was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the dim light, for everybody was grimy and dirty. The man looked down into the dead captain’s face and then spoke directly to him, as tho he were alive:
“I’m sorry, old man.”
Then a solder came and stood beside the officer and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tender, and he said:
“I sure am sorry, sir.”
Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the Captain’s hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face. And he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there.
Finally he put the hand down. He reached up and gently straightened the points of the Captain’s shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound, and then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight, all alone.
The rest of us went back into the cowshed, leaving the dead men lying in a line, end to end, in the shadow of the low stone wall. We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep.

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