Yesterday played in a fun game at Deaf Ear Records in LaCrosse with the LaCrosse crew. Eric from the Rochester gaming group also drove over making for 5 people around the table playing Flames of War. Eric, Bill and I played Germans/Hungarian with 1500 pts each and then Collin and Chuck played Russian/American with their respective hoard.
Kind of a silly game as of course this kind of action never historically happened and from a Flames of War perspective you’re effectively spanning books which can make things potentially dubious. For instance, at one point Collin playing with his American noted he was using Time on Target. Well of course the Americans didn’t do that until 1944 and this being a midwar game, that was out of place.
We set up a double sized game board, and the Russian/Americans decided that they wanted to defend. With our side on the attack and the direction of both the attack and the defense, we started to deploy our forces. No reserves and everything on table, we started to deploy.
Eric fielded a Panzer company with platoons of Panthers and STuG Gs and Pz IV Hs as his company HQ. Alas 1500 pts goes fast!
In my case I fielded a Panzer company as well tho going for lighter fair so that I could have some support hardware. I was really really tempted to field Tigers but given the point budget it wouldn’t have allowed for much. I picked a couple of III Js as my company HQ, platoons of IV F2s, and IIIMs as the core. Then I added a 2 gun battery of 105s, 3 Marders, a pioneer platoon and some quad 2cm AA guns.
Bill with his Hungarians looked to have fielded an infantry formation with 4 105s, pioneers, 2 platoons of straight legs, some motorized AA and 4 Antitank guns which I think were 50L60s.
We decided that the nature of our attack was to go down the left side. There was a cliff in the center of the table so this created two channels. We figured if we went strong on the one side, given the cover we could approach the attack more on our own terms. With just 2 Panthers we had use them carefully. If they both were lost, that’d be it for us.
A view from the Russian/American side. Chuck had a company of KV85s to square up against the Panthers. I was looking forward to this part of the action in particular. Between the Russian T34s, KV85s, and SU85s it created our own Tanksgiving.
Collin as the Americans had a 6 gun battery of Priests I think and then platoons of Shermans, Lees, tank destroyers that would later pop up (M10s I think) and Stuarts.
Chuck started by pushing his recon forward, 3 BA scout cars. Fearless buggers they were too, going down to the road with Panthers in sight and would later pester us with their antitank rifles.
With Turn 1 away we proceeded down the road, Panthers, STuGs, Pz IV Hs in the lead. I took the center backed by Bill’s Hungarian pioneers. On the far right Bill kept to the far side of the river. Hard to advance against armor with just AT guns.
The Russian recon gave way. Eric pressed forward with his Panthers in the lead blowing a T34 up with ease. I was charged with going after the Russian recon while Eric worried more about the copious Russian armor out there. I was able to knock out one recon car but the rest were able to disengage.
You can not quite see one of our objectives on the otherside of the hill in the top left of the picture.
In the center of the table I moved up my IIIMs as far as I dared. I figured they would be easily outclassed by the American Shermans. With us overloading on the left flank I figured I just needed to hold in the center. Bill faced a choice of hold or move forward on the right. A hard choice to be sure given what was on the other side of the river!
Bill decided to press forward and kudos for the courage to do so! He smoked the Shermans I was worried about in the center and pressed ahead. Unfortunately this caused him to be the recipient of Collins artillery. Pretty deadly stuff which forced Bill back.
Meanwhile on the left flank the STuGs tangled with T34s in the woods, brewing them up. Chuck’s dice were really cold the whole day. Collin brought up his Stuarts which I fired away at with my Pz IV F2s and Marders. I took out 3 in pretty short order. Unfortunately I misjudged the cliff and as a result one of my Marders wandered into the line of fire of one of the Shermans and was easily taken out before the smoke came down.
Collin seeing he could press his advantage rolled forward with his Shermans which precipitated a collective Axis “O shit.” I would have to move over my remaining Marders as well as Pz IV F2s to add to the Pz IIIMs in hope that it would be enough. Up in the top left you can see that array of tanks about to be thrown at Bill. Yowch.
Meanwhile on the other side, the KV85 & SU85 vs Panther battle was in earnest. To me this was the highlight of the day. Could but two Panthers and STuGs be enough to deal? Little did we know Chuck’s dice seemed to be more on our side this his side. Between bog checks, bail outs and well lots of other rolls things just wouldn’t go his way add to that what I call typical Saterdalen luck.
Here the first KV85 has gone up and the STuGs are on the line with the German pioneer platoon coming up on the road ready to head past the action to hopefully get to what looks to be an undefended objective.
Meanwhile in the center the American/German/Russian/Hungarian battle is starting to ensue with the first Sherman going up.
A better picture. Collin would press forward and the battle would eb and flow back and forth. My shooting started out great bailing and taking out a number of Shermans, but Collin would come back and basically blow away my Marders, Pz IV F2s and most of my Pz IIIMs. Sigh.
Yup lots of smoking hulks. So in the final turns before we called it a game off in the distance Bill had some great shooting bailing a number of the T34s as well as dropping 105s to effectively take out a lot of the strength of the attack.
In the middle I was down to one bailed IIIM and one functional IIIM where Collin had 2 functional Lees and then 2 Shermans.
On the left Eric had very effectively dealt with the KV85s and was making good progress against the SU85s. One of the Panthers was taken out by American artillery. One thing about Flames of War, the top armor ratings of especially the better heavier tanks seems … wrong. A top armor rating of 1 for a Panther vs the bombardment of antitank of a 4 seems overly generous. In Command Decision terms (a well researched set of rules FWIW) you’d have a 1 in 10 change of touching a Panther with 105s).
Anyway, at this point the M10s appeared next to the SU85s and in overwatch of the objective on the left flank. I was able to get my pioneer platoon in the area but again American artillery rained down spoiling the day and reducing my platoon down to a single stand. Near to a victory but not quite enough without taking out the over watch.
On the right flank Collin would have to rush through the lines with his armor to get near his objective. Given Bill’s antitank guns, my 105s and Bills 105s as well as unsupported tanks vs Infantry seemed like a tall order to be able to get onto the objective.
We called it at this point. I had to get back as I was due on stage at 6:30pm for the show I’m in. Would have been great to play another turn or two and get a conclusion out of it. We did get 8 turns in.
Oddly neither the Hungarian air nor the American air really accomplished much. We were able to turn away two American air attacks with AA as well as with fighter intercept. The Americans did get one air attack successfully against Bill that did take out a gun, but otherwise notta.