26 May 2010

Book Review: Team Yankee – A Novel of World War Three

Well its been a long time since I’ve done something like this – probably something like 1986 at university, which is ironic since Team Yankee was first published in 1988. Now 28 years later I’m writing a book review on it, instead of painting tonight….

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First up – I’ve got to say I fall pretty clearly into the “I love Team Yankee” faction. The reason I love this book is because it’s one of the few books out there that I can still remember how I felt as I read the book all those years ago. And what’s more I can still feel a little of that each time I read it, and I’ve probably read it 7 or 8 times over the years.

On the cover Tom Clancy is quoted as saying “This book is so real, you can smell the smoke.” And that’s how I felt as I read it for the first time. I felt like I was getting a little taste of what it might have been like.

Now I’ve never served in the military, although I have worked for the Defence Department, a heart condition leading to a transplant, totally ruled me out. The reason I’m saying this is that I want to make it clear I’m no veteran, have no experience and am not an expert – far from all that actually.

So for a total outsider like me was given a glimpse at the pointy end of the stick in a Cold War turned hot.

THE STORY

The story contained in the book is set within the scenario set out by General Sir John Hackett in his two books “The Third World War” and “The Third World War: The Untold Story”. This postulates, amongst other things, a Warsaw Pact invasion of North West Europe in 1984. As with most NATO thought of the time (as I understand it) the scenario sees the WARPAC forces doing particularly well in the NORTHAG area of NATO, well CENTAG basically holds the attacks in their sector before going on the counterattack.

This is not a slag on NORTHAG, merely acknowledgement that the CENTAG sector, dominated by the Americans, was the most defensible sector of West Germany. The North German Plain which made up a lot of the NORTHAG area was considered to be “tank country” and much less defensible.

Harold Coyle, the author, as an American armour officer, and to me this provides the book with a sense of authenticity. Team Yankee is the name of a fictitious tank heavy combat team stationed in West Germany.

The beginning of the book sees Team Yankee dug in waiting to see if the war is going to kick off. Once it does the Team goes through a series of battles, which are generally described in great detail. Basic maps are provided throughout the book to give people like me a better understanding of the positioning of the platoons, the direction of attacks, etc. The action is therefore, very easy to follow.

In some ways I feel that the book is written almost with a wargame in mind or as a kind of a training manual. The first battle is purely defensive, with no manoeuvring necessary by the Team. The second battle on the same day introduces infantry into the mix. As the missions change and the battles progress, artillery is introduced, Team Yankee goes on a company attack, we get single tanks in action against numerous Soviet tanks. A fight takes place a night, from multiple directions, ambushes take place, infantry take on infantry. We then get into a battalion attack, introduce US and Soviet helicopters and then airpower. Last but not least, combat engineers, tank ditches, scatterable mines and DPICM artillery enter the book.

When Games Designer Workshop designed the Team Yankee game, it was able to replicate what I have outlined above, with the players able to get into the game almost straight away with different stages in the game introducing more advanced rules.

As a training manual it has some interesting points on Leadership, some practical pointers (like why you should listen in boring lectures to advice you might need some day on how to get your stuck tank off an tree trunk).

The characters, which are perhaps a little wooden, develop somewhat as the book progresses. The happy-go-lucky Team XO turns into a cold-eyed killing machine, while the hopeless First Lieutenant of the 3rd Platoon finds, once the shooting starts, that it all becomes clear and turns into a good soldier. The replacements, just like in World War Two, pretty much get ignored by everyone until they die, when the characters spend a couple of seconds wondering what their names were.

ORDERS OF BATTLE & SCENARIOS

Another of the great things about this book is that as you read it, if you’re a wargamer, you are constantly thinking “I’d like to play this!”

Coyle explains very well, how Team Yankee fits into the mechanised infantry battalion it has been assigned to. He details, not in a boring way, the Order of Battle of the Team and the Battalion it fits into. He also provides cursory OOB on the Soviet and Polish units it faces.

Through the majority of the book Team Yankee consists of two platoons of M1 Abrams tanks, a Mechanised Infantry platoon in M113 APCs and a command element of two more M1s. On occasion the Team is supported by a couple of M901 ITVs and a FIST team. Towards the end of the book another M1 platoon is added back into Team Yankee and some Bradleys are also attached.

The interesting thing here is that the M1s are original Abrams, armed with 105mm tank cannons, not the 120mm smoothbores which we know completely dominated the Soviet tanks in the Iraqi army in both Gulf Wars. It therefore takes 2 or 3 shots to cripple a T-72.

As I discussed above, each battle can be separated into wargaming scenario fairly simply. There are even non-Team Yankee missions that are obliquely discussed that could be made into a scenario. One I’ve always wanted to do is a Fighting Withdrawal similar to the Cavalry battle that takes place in front of Team Yankee’s positions at the start of the book. You don’t get much detail on it, but enough to fire up your imagination.

PROBLEMS

Some people in reviews I’ve read on Amazon, seem to have a problem with the main character Sean Bannon, Commander of Team Yankee. He can be a bit flippant at times, and has a bit of an attitude around his commanding officers on numerous occasions, and some seem to think that more than unlikely. Personally – I think this actually adds to his character. He admits he has a bit of an anger issue, particularly with things he thinks are wrong or stupid. He does seem to be a decent commander, not above reaming someone who deserves it, but he genuinely cares for his men. I like him.

The other problem many have pointed out with the book, and really the one thing that I felt slightly “unreal” in the book is the make-up and size of enemy forces fought by the Team. Sure, Team Yankee is a “lucky” unit – which means it doesn’t ever get totally stonked by Soviet artillery, or attacked by an overwhelming force. Most of the Russian officers are not quite portrayed as buffoons, but some are not to far from it – very stereotypical – but coming from a serving US Army officer, maybe this is not to surprising.

I was a bit disappointed in this aspect of the book. While things go wrong, Team Yankee makes it out of most of its battles relatively unharmed. I don’t want to make to much of this actually – as it would have made for a less than interesting book if most of the Team had been destroyed in the first artillery barrage. Much of Team Yankee’s battalion does get pretty hammered by the Soviets, but they are only typically in M113s or their derivatives. Certainly, some M1s do get knocked out.

Basically I think this stops Team Yankee from being an absolutely fantastic book. However, like I said at the start – I still love it, and if ever I want to get into a Cold War Hot frame of mind, I turn to it and have enjoyed it again and again.

I would recommend this book to anyone.

Have fun

Richard

18 May 2010

RAF Ground Crew Part 2

As I said earlier, at some point in the scenario, probably around the time they start getting shot at, the RAF ground crew will drop their spanners and pointy things and try and find their weapons and helmets.

The Airfix NATO Ground Crew set has a nice selection of figures in NBC suits with SLRs and helmets. These fit nicely. It also means that when I get some Liberation British figures for the RAF Regiment there will be a clear differentiation between armed ground crew and actual trained airfield defenders. Make sense?

So here are the armed ground crew:

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My favourite figures in the set

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Kneeling and firing

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Running towards the enemy with gay abandon.

Finally - here are the two pilots - the heroes of the hour (just ask them)

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That's it for now. I have still to finish the Squadron Leader and Quarter Master - but so far I don't like the RAF Uniform colour I made up so I'll have to come up with something different before I can finish them off.

Have fun

Richard

RAF Ground Crew Part 1

Well this post finally brings me my blog totally up to date. I'm not sure necessarily if that is a good thing on not - as now I have nothing in storage to write about next week. But hey - as a log of my progress, at least it will now reflect the reality of 'now' rather than something I did three weeks ago.

As I may have indicated earlier there have been a few things driving mt blog. First of all, a chance to finish a new project, of which I've had a hankering to do for years, from go to woe, in the space of about a year. Second, and this is more of a motivator, is the Guild "Big Game" in August - which I will not be attending (it's in Ireland) - but will be trying to run a Sydney based alternative.

Thirdly, and this one has been pushing the direction of what miniatures and vehicles I've been buying/collecting/painting has been some writing I have done for Ambush Alley Games - in the form of some scenarios set in a "Third World War" kind of setting.

One of the scenarios involves a Spetsnaz raid on a RAF Harrier GR.3 hide - an attempt to eliminate some pilots and aircraft that have been providing effective close air support to NATO by bleeding the WARPAC forces as they advance to the FEBA.

For this mission (well the NATO side anyway) I needed a couple of Harriers and their pilots, four sets of RAF Ground Crew (1 set for each Harrier hide) and a similar number of figures that could be used as the Ground Crew who have now armed themselves with SLRs and donned helmets and are ready to defend their "base".

Lucky for me all there figures are readily available from the Airfix NATO Ground Crew set - which looks like this
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A good review of the set can be found here at the Plastic Soldier Review

Eventually I'll also need some RAF Regiment types, some Land Rovers, a Sultan, a Saracen and a Scorpion - but they are for later down the track (as Leigh owns all that type of stuff so I can borrow it to play the mission).

The Spetsnaz team are already covered by the figures I've shown earlier - I'll be primarily using Liberation VDV troops and some others (all in Cam jumpsuits). The Spetsnaz chaps are all finished.

PAINTING

There is nothing special about the way I painted these. Simply a black undercoat, Tamiya Olive Drab spray, a Citadel Babab Black wash, and then drybrushed with Vallejo Reflective Green. (I’m sure any green would do!)

I did however come up with a cunning plan as to how I would approach this. Normally I paint about 12 figures at once. But as these were all pretty simple I decided that I would try and paint as many as I could at once. I had a spray painting stick to which I decided to stick a long piece of double sided tape. I would then place the figures on the tape – spray them and then paint them whilst all nice and securely stuck to the stick. I would then easily pop them off and have a bucket load of painted figures.

Here a pick of the painting stick on my desk:
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The first flaw in my cunning plan was when I discovered that the stick really was too unwieldy, and was a bugger to manoeuvre around on my painting desk. After slapping on the wash, drybrushing the figures and painting the bases on the stick, I gave up and decided to go back to my more traditional method of painting.

Here the second flaw in my plan was revealed when I couldn’t get them off what now appeared to be my super effective double sided tape. NASA could use this stuff to stick tiles onto the Space Shuttle! In the end I had to lever each figure off with my Leatherman. It was extremely annoying and I ended up with bits of tape stuck to the underside of each base.

On to the next plan…

When I arranged these for the photographs I put them in batches of several of the same figures – so I could show front, back and facing all at the same time. In the views expressed by some, this turned out looking like some kind of choreographed Michael Jackson music video. All pretty amusing actually. I was in a fairly light hearted mood when I placed them up on the AAG forum and on the Guild – so I’ll replicate that here.

So here they are

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RAF men looking like they want to grab something

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One of them found something to grab

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RAF men waving spanners

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"Look what I found," he said, waving his favourite spanner

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RAF men with pokey things

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One of them poking a tractor

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RAF men in a different pose with pokey things

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One of them poking the tractor differently

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RAF men pointing at something on the ground with a pointy thing

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"What happens if I point at this bomb trolley?"

That's enough Ground Crew in Noddy suits!

The tractor and bomb trolleys come from the Hasegawa "U.S. Aircraft Weapon Loading Set"

On to Part 2

Richard

13 May 2010

Bundeswehr Test Figures

Just a quick update.

I've now got around to painting some of my Elhiem Bundeswehr figures - just a couple to be used as a test case to see how the colours worked out. Any feedback is welcomed.

Base colour (the one I was most worried about) was 60:40 Vallejo German Field Grey and Vallejo Green Grey.

Here are the test figures.

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Front View

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Rear View

General feedback on the Guild has been excellent so I'm proceeding on to paint up the rest of them as fast as I can.

Have fun

Richard

First After-Action-Report

I thought it was about time I posted up this AAR - considering the photos were taken about 3 weeks ago and have been on the Guild and The AAG forum since then.

So Leigh Neville and I got together for this game at EMIRS (the club we play at) and played "Baker's Corner" out of the FoF Rulebook. We made a few changes - the most obvous being we used British for the defenders instead of Americans.

As always when I play at the club, I can't find one of the things I was looking to take with me (in this case, hedges) so when I got there I dug through whatever I could find (its a hedge intensive mission) and in the end we had to use fences instead for some of the layout.

EMIRS is located in the basement of the Maroubra Junction Hotel so we are playing in the basement of a pub - therefore the lighting is not particularly good!

Here's a couple of shots of the table:

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Leigh set up first with a couple of Chieftains protecting the Soviet exit route:

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And two Warriors down the south end of the table:

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British infantry cowering like dogs in the buildings near the roads:

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British Command Post - had no role in the game, but Leigh wanted to put it on because it's so purrdy.

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The glorious Soviet Forces roles onto the battlefield (with the majority hiding behind the screen of trees...

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And get immediately smacked down by a the two Warriors

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Retribution is swift

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Especially when a Mi-24 shows up and dispenses some swift Soviet justice in the form of a Spandrel

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A Milan team who attempt to take out a T-72 is suppressed with MG fire but is then assisted by the Command Section

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(Okay I know its a GPMG team - we ran out of Milan teams)

The Soviets continue to advance (into what is now a battlefield drenched in heavy rain - a Fog of War card that came up after numerous reaction test rolls of '1' on my behalf)

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Resulting in...

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and the immoblisation of the remaining Chieftain

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Which survived 2 Sagger and 1 RPG attacks against its side armour, whilst managing to damage 2 T-72s and shot up the RPG fireteam.

The heavy rain meant that no Soviet vehicles got off the table within the turn limit, but they still gave the Brits a bloody 'Red' nose.

Have fun

Richard

07 May 2010

More SAS

Alrighty - this is a test more than anything else.

I spent much of today trying to add a router to my home PC so I could access the internet from my Laptop around the house. After a fairly frustrating few hours I am noe typing this in on my Laptop sitting on the lounge - so something must have worked. I know this is no big deal fro most of you - but for me this is a big deal!

So on with the show...

As I may have stated earlier, I've written three scenarios for Ambush Alley Games for a new product that will hopefully be coming out soon. One of the scenarios deals with the adventures of an SAS Stay=Behind-Team.

I needed to paint two more SAS troopers to have all the SAS figures I needed for the scenario. One of these was a sniper, the other his spotter, armed with an M16/M203. Unfortunately I didn't own a sniper. However, Leigh Neville = gentleman and scholar that he is - had a spare and gave one to me.

PAINTING

Not much to report here as most of it has already been talked about previously. I did change the colours slightly on the chap with the M16/M203 - so for his DPM I used the same base colour as the others, but used Vallejo Beige and Beige Brown as the swirly colours. I think I like this one better, but it still isn't quite there.

The Ghillie Suit was actually really fun to paint - very simple - Vallejo Reflective Green, Citadel Babab Black wash - a drybrush of the original colour, and then I picked out a few of the indivdual strands with a couple of differnt greens and khaki.

Lets have a look at the photos:

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Now just the sniper by himself:

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That's all for now - I might come back and add in some more Ghillie suit photos on Monday.

Have fun

Richard