1/2 a BKCII Game

I managed to get in half of an 8 turn BKCII early Russian Front game this evening, unfortunately I lost about an hour setting the table up but I had to sort stuff out to make space for my small 4' x 3' table (which incidentally must be getting on a bit now as my Dad built it for me some 20+ years ago).

The game itself went well although it was probably a little on the slow side simply because I kept looking things up (it is only my 2nd game after all and playing solo doesn't help either but wargamers are few and far between in Lancashire). The Russians deployed a full tank regiment from the 2nd Tank Division, 3rd Mechanised Corps; the Germans deployed Panzer Regiment 1, 1st Panzer Division. The first two turns consisted of a burst of movement followed by an almost complete failure on my part to roll well and activate anything. On top of all that the Russian CO blundered on his 1st activation and promptly left the table!

During turns 3 and 4 both sides continued to advance and commenced firing at each other. Another blunder saw a BT-7 destroyed by the blunder outcome (it ended up taking 12 hits!). The Germans managed to take out a KV-2 but it was hard work as the KV tanks have a 4+ save and the Germans suffered losses in return. I halted the game at this point as I'd run out of time.

I jotted down a few things to learn from this game, these are:

1. It may well be better to have a HQ per company (it would only be able to command it's own company though) for the Germans just to give them the opportunity to out manoeuvre the Russians. This would obviously need to be balanced out by the number of Russian units fielded. A rough ratio of 1 German battalion to 1 Russian regiment might be right if the Germans have a lot of HQ's though at the end of the day things are rarely fair and balanced in war.
2. The Germans should be fielded with a mix of troops to get the combined arms effects that they were so skilled at - hitting the advancing Russians with artillery and airstrikes would of been very helpful to the Germans.
3. I really need to base my CO's/HQ's on either different sized or different shaped bases, there were times when I accidentally moved a HQ because I couldn't easily tell them apart from the normal stands.

Romanian Cavalry MkIII - Decisions

I've made the decision to go with 1:4 rather than 1 stand = 1 platoon as I felt that was a better way to do organise things. So that now means the TO&E I posted last time is slightly different as each cavalry squadron now has 2 infantry stands rather than 3. I also decided to drop the battalion HQ's as because of the small size of the squadron the regiment really ought to be the manoeuvre unit, this now gives the Brigade 3 main manoeuvre units each of which can be strengthened by attaching out the brigade level support squadrons.

I have also completed BKCII lists for most of the rest of the units that made up the Romanian 3rd Army which has made for quite an interesting research project, I just have the Infantry Division list to do and that's everything for the 3rd Army. Unfortunately the Cavalry Corps had no Corps level support units so is rather a week formation really (and in reality is really only a division in size).

As for actual models I have completed 2 cavalry regiments (which admittedly were already painted) but would have to spend some hard earned cash with Heroics and Ros to enable me to complete the rest of the brigade. I suspect that if I do complete the brigade I would add 2 more cavalry regiments - 1 motorised, 1 as horsed cavalry - to enable me to field a semi-motorised or a horsed cavalry brigade. The only difference in the brigade support squadrons appears to be the number of "tanks" in the Mechanised Recon Squadron (4 real tanks for the horsed cavalry and 6 for the semi-motorised cavalry which I would do as 1 and 2 models respectively just to make the differences in the two units more apparent on the table top), other than that there are no other differences.

I have another solo BKCII game involving a June 1941 clash between the Russian 3rd Tank Regiment (2nd Tank Division, 12th Mechanised Corps) and Panzer Regiment 1 (1st Panzer Division) scheduled in for Wednesday evening. This is a semi-historical encounter as the Panzer Regiment was in reality the 11th equipped with Pzkpfw 35(t)'s rather than the 1st equipped with Pzkpfw IIIG's but it was in the same area at that time. How well the Germans will deal with the 4 KV-1's and 2 KV-2's the Russians will field I don't know, but they will definitely fare better than a unit equipped with Pzkpfw 35(t)'s! The 1st Panzer was one of the few units with 50mm armed Pzkpfw III's so is somewhat better off than the 37mm armed Pzkpfw 35(t)'s fielded by Panzer Regiment 11. Report to follow later in the week.

Romanian Cavalry MkII

I've done quite a bit more research on the Romanian cavalry formations and have amended the organisation of my BKCII Romanians as follows:


Romanian 1st, 7th and 9th Cavalry Brigades June-July 1941

Brigade Headquarters:
HQ: 1x CO (CV8) (Mounted)

3 Horse Cavalry Regiments, each with:
Regimental HQ:
1x HQ (CV7) (Mounted)
1 Cavalry Battalion:
Battalion HQ:
1x HQ (CV7) (Mounted)
2 Mounted Squadrons, each with:
3x Infantry Units (Regulars*), 3x Transport Units (Horses, Cavalry)
1 Cavalry Battalion:
Battalion HQ:
1x HQ (CV7) (Mounted)
1 Mounted Squadron:
3x Infantry Units (Regulars*), 3x Transport Units (Horses, Cavalry)
1 Mounted LMG Squadron:
3x Infantry Units (Regulars), 3x Transport Units (Horses, Cavalry)

1 Horse Artillery Regiment:
2 Horse Artillery Battalions, each with:
2 Batteries, each with:
1x Artillery Unit (75-76mm)

1 Mortar Squadron:
2x Support Units (Mortar, 81mm), 2x Transport Units (Trucks)

1 Anti-Tank/AA Squadron:
3x Support Units (ATG, 37mm), 3x Air Defence Units (13.2mm), 6x Transport Units (Trucks)

1 MMG Squadron:
4x Support Units (MG, ZB-53), 4x Transport Units (Trucks)

1 Pioneer Squadron:
3x Engineer Units (Pioneers), 3x Transport Units (Trucks)

1 Mechanised Recon Squadron:
1x Recce Unit (R-1), 1x Recce Unit (Infantry), 1x Transport Unit (Truck), 1x Recce Unit (Infantry), 1x Transport Unit (Motorcycles)

Notes:

1. One of the cavalry regiments was to have been motorised but the outbreak of war in 1941 prevented this.
2. Infantry Units (Regulars*) - these infantry units have half the number of LMG's per squadron (12 instead of 24), reduce AP attacks to 2/30.
3. Horse artillery guns are 75mm Krupp Model 1904/1912 Field Guns. Guns are available as scheduled assets only.
4. Brigade support squadrons are to be attached out to the cavalry battalions.

To field one of the Semi-Motorised Brigades (5th, 6th and 8th Brigades) I would need to swap one of the cavalry regiments for:


1 Motorised Cavalry Regiment:
Regimental HQ:
1x HQ (CV7) (in truck)
1 Motorised Cavalry Battalion:
Battalion HQ:
1x HQ (CV7) (in truck)
2 Motorised Squadrons, each with:
3x Infantry Units (Regulars), 3x Transport Units (Trucks)
1 Motorised Cavalry Battalion:
Battalion HQ:
1x HQ (CV7) (in truck)
1 Motorised Squadron:
3x Infantry Units (Regulars), 3x Transport Units (Trucks)
1 Motorised Heavy Weapons Squadron:
2x Support Units (MG, ZB-53), 1x Air Defence Unit (13.2mm), 1x Support Unit (ATG, 37mm), 4x Transport Units (Trucks)

An extra Recce Unit (R-1) should be added to the Mechanised Recon Squadron as the Motorised Brigades had more of these "tanks" than the normal Cavalry Brigades.

I'm still debating whether to keep to 1 stand = 1 platoon or to scale the vehicles at 1:4 and the infantry/cavalry at 1:40. This would create smaller units but I could have more off them.

First BKCII Unit

Having discovered 28 spare cavalry bases this afternoon I decided, as they were already painted as WW2 era Romanians, that I would make them the first unit I'd put together for BKCII. In BKC terms the unit consists of the following (I haven't had chance to upload any pictures yet):

1st Cavalry Brigade 1941:

1st Rosiori Regiment General Corp de Armata Alexandru Averescu:

1x CO (CV8)
Engineer Troop: 3x Engineer Unit (Pioneers), 3x Transport Unit (Horses, Cavalry)
MG Troop: 3x Support Unit (MG, ZB53), 3x Transport Unit (Horses, Cavalry)
1st Squadron: 
1x HQ (CV7)
1st Troop: 3x Infantry Units (Regulars), 3x Transport Unit (Horses, Cavalry)
2nd Troop: 3x Infantry Units (Regulars), 3x Transport Unit (Horses, Cavalry)
2nd Squadron: 
1x HQ (CV7)
3rd Troop: 3x Infantry Units (Regulars), 3x Transport Unit (Horses, Cavalry)
4th Troop: 3x Infantry Units (Regulars), 3x Transport Unit (Horses, Cavalry)

Each command unit consists of 2 mounted figures, each MMG consists of 1 cavalryman and 2 pack horses carrying the MMG's, and each infantry and engineer stand consists of 3 cavalrymen. All figures are mounted on 30mm square bases and are from Heroics and Ros (pack SR4 Soviet Cavalry).

The Brigade has 3 of these regiments, an Artillery Regiment and an assortment of motorised supporting Squadrons (Anti-tank, Recon, Mortar, Pioneer and MMG). This Brigade fought on the Eastern Front in 1941 taking part in the Battle of Odessa as part of the Romanian 5th Corps (15th Infantry Divison and 1st Armoured Division). 

Blitzkrieg Commander II

I decided to try a solo test game of Blitzkrieg Commander II (BKCII) the other night as the local wargames club in Chorley uses this for its WWII games and I thought it would be a good idea to see how it works before going along. 

I went for a 6mm game set in 1941 using a Russian motorised regiment from a Tank or Mechanised Division vs a Schutzen (Panzer Grenadier) Battalion. Both units were represented at 1 stand = 1 platoon/battery. True to form I managed to blunder on the very first Russian activation roll! Strangely the Russians activated far more than I'd of expected with a Command Value (or CV) of 7, it may have been something to do with the +1 CV for all doing the same thing rule given to armies classed as having Rigid Doctrine?

Rather stupidly I deployed the Schutzen Battalion over too wide a frontage and had trouble activating all of it in one go. Then on top of that  it failed to activate when I was planning to dismount the infantry from their trucks and then proceeded to lose two platoons to Russian fire when their trucks blew up!  

Unfortunately I didn't get time to finish the test game but thankfully I did get far enough in to the game to get the leading two Russian Battalions in to firing range of the Schutzen companies so I did get a couple of turns using the shooting rules. Both sides ended up losing quite a few platoons of infantry once I realised that it was far better to concentrate your fire on one target than hit multiple targets and then have the hits taken off at the end of the turn.

Overall the game played well and was easy to remember though taking the hits off is a little strange (there is an optional rules to leave them on at the end of the turn). I felt that there had been quite a bit of thought behind the mechanisms so that although they are easy to use (and remember) you still appeared to get a similar result to more complex rules sets. Also I felt that BKCII (and Cold War Commander) is very well supported via the online forums.

Having tried out the rules it got me thinking that this style of system might be adaptable to the Zulu War and possibly to the Ironclad era (1860-1885) - both are periods I have miniatures for but haven't yet found rules I'm happy with. I found with the Ironclads that most sets of rules are far too focused on the detail and can't be used for fleet actions without causing me headaches or RSI from throwing hundreds of dice to represent each and every gun firing!   

WW2 Wargame

This past weekend we played an early war Eastern Front clash between elements of the German 1^st Panzer Division and the 5^th Tank Regiment of the Russian 3^rd Tank Division of the 1^st Mechanised Corps. I based the scenario on an actual clash between the 6^th Panzer and the same Russia Division, details of which can be found here http://rkka.ru/drig/identif/Ostrov/ostrov_01.htm along with plenty of pictures of the knocked out Russian tanks (you will need to translate the page).

We used Marks Microrules set, he controlled the Germans and I tried to lead my newly painted Russians. Apart from the planes (not shown) all models are from my own collection. All models are Heroics and Ros.

The German Advance in Centre - having suffered multiple double 6 blunders they have multiple breakdowns!

German defensively deployed right flank complete with infantry Guns, 37mm PAK 35/36 and a platoon of Panzer IIIG (short 50mm)

BT-7 tanks advancing on my left flank, the leading platoon has just lost the 2nd tank in from the left and it's neighbour has just had it's tracks shot off! Unfortunately these tanks were trying to advance against a battery of infantry guns one of which mounted a 150mm howitzer (SIG 33/Pz I). 

The Russian advance in the centre, my infantry have just begun to occupy the village with my flame tanks (converted double turreted T-26A's) moving round in support, though some of them are already in flames!

The Russian gun line and right flank (more BT-7's). These 152mm howitzers did a good job of protecting my centre from the German left hook.

Another view of the centre and of the bridge which was the primary objective for both sides. 

The German right flank again, this time showing the results of an ammunition reload blunder (double 6 on 2D6 when attempting to activate)!!

The aftermath! Loads of burning, knocked out or abandoned vehicles plus a few of the German and Russian survivors (including the remnants of my T-28/KV-1/2 heavy battalion). Rather surprisingly I actually won this game simply because the Germans didn't complete the destruction of the various Russian units.

A second view of the centre

A third view - in the distance you can see the two German 10.5cm howitzers that kept hitting my tanks with HE throughout the game