Cold War Hot AAR - Part 3

WARPAC forces continued to steam roller up the table towards the FEBA


Mainly T-72s in this case


The first NATO reinforcements arrive and take up position near the bridge.


A convoy of Challengers creeps down the narrow streets


Soviet tanks continue to advance and through a couple of rounds of good shooting and some artillery strikes took out the Panzer-Grenadiers in the small village. The Motorised Rifle Troops who were coming up in their BMPs and dismounted to take on the Pzr-Gren, then had to get back in their BMPs - all for nothing.


T-80s take over the positions previously held by the Scimitars


British Infantry take up their forward positions - ready for the T-80s...


The main unit of T-72s is getting nearer to the bridge. One T-72 is successfully sniped by a Leopard on the other side of the river.

Behind the river a new menace arrives:


A air assault takes place - a Czech (don't ask) Hip lands.


The VDV assault troops take position around the edge of the Landing Zone, seizing one of the games objectives.


The second wave, whittled down by the Gepard, arrives and disgorges the BMDs


British Chieftains race towards the landing zone, backed up by infantry in FV432 in the distance.


A close up of the British Infantry mounted in FV432 drive through the small streets of the town




T-80s drive on the British troops clinging to the forward defensive line in an attempt to assault them out of their positions - but end up being driven off themselves through massed LAW-80 fire.



Eventually though, the situation turned and the infantry were pushed out and the Soviets claimed the FEBA objective.

Back at the LZ


Things were not looking so good for the VDV. The AT-5 missiles on the BMDs proved incapable of defeating the front Stillbrew armour of the Chieftains which had no problem knocking out 3 of the 4 BMDs.


Not impressed with the deaths of their mates, a couple of VDV RPG teams went a'huntin'. In one turn of massed RPG fire they took out the Gepard and most impressively, knocked out a Leopard 2 from behind - thus becoming Heroes of the Soviet Union.


The awards however would turn out to be posthumous when a number of Challengers turned up and machine-guned the VDV in the open


NATO tanks consolidate around the main bridge.

We decided to call the game about there. Basically the Soviets had taken the FEBA, and would shortly likely mow down the remaining British troops and Warriors there. However, on the other side of the river, the VDV were really up against it and, although they may have made life difficult for the NATO troops who were just arriving, its likely they would not have survived the encounter for very long.

The big NATO tanks would have made it near impossible for the Soviet tanks to cross the river, thus the game was deadlocked with victory - in our eyes going to NATO.

A small NATO force along with dense terrain, was able to hold up the Soviet assault long enough so that the air assault could not be supported and was doomed to failure. We had a very enjoyable day and I think everyone left feeling happy with the day's play.

Thanks for viewing. Have fun...

Richard

Cold War Hot AAR - Part 2

And so the game begins...

NATO Deployment


A troop of Scimitars (those Scorpions you see are actually Scimitars - OK?) deploy forward of the FEBA supported by a couple of Spartans. On the other flank,well out of picture, a small unit of Panzer-Grenadiers take residence on a couple of buildings, which hide their Marders.


A lone Gepard guards the bridge - which despite the German locations, looks remarkedly like Pegasus Bridge!

Deployment of the Soviets


On NATO's left flank and platoon of BRDMs from the Recon Company scout ahead.


In the centre is the Recon Company's CO in a BRM, which a support platoon in BMP-2s.


On NATO's right flank is the BRDM mounted AT Company.

A massive Soviet Preliminary bombardment comes down on the NATO forward positions, destroying both the Spartans (and the chaps inside) and also taking out both the Marders. The Panzer-Grenadiers have lost their transport, but grimly dig in to hold up the Soviet advance.


On the left, BRDMs lead the T-80 company forward.


Meanwhile, on the right the AT company advances down the road towards a small village as if on a Victory parade through Red Square.


The British troops on the other side of the river mount up and start to cross the pontoon bridge in their Warriors.


The T-72 company enters the table and start to advance through the dense terrain.


The happy-go-lucky AT Company continues into the village, obviously trusting that Milans and Pzf-44s cannot dent their armour protection.


A close up of the tragedy that is about to unfold on the AT Company.


A successful round of shooting from the West German Pzr-Gren takes care of the Victory parade!

Across the other side of the table from the exploding AT Company - the Scimitars tried to see how their Rarden cannon went up against BRDM armour.


Not to badly actually!


So the T-80s take over



And in a couple of rounds of shooting take care of the majority of the Scimitars

Tomorrow night in Part 3 is the conclusion of the game...

Have fun

Richard

Cold War Hot AAR - Part 1

If you've been following this blog you'd be aware that I was hoping to have a decent sized force ready in time for a big Cold War Hot game similar (but a lot smaller) to the one held in Ireland by the Guild. Our hopes of holding the game on the same weekend as the Guild game were dashed by the Federal election - so we decided to hold the game in November.

This game me a bit more time to get stuff done and over the last week or so I was trying to knock over a fair amount of Soviet stuff. In the end I didn't do any more British kit, but knocked out 30 odd more Soviet Motor Rifle troops.

Weel, we finally had the Sydney Big Game on Saturday. Whilst we didn't end up with lots of players we did manage to get in a pretty reasonable game - with a fair amount of kit. Players were - WARPAC - Simon & NATO - Dean. I was the umpire and ended up helping Simon a little, while Patrick arrived late in the day and ended up helping Dean a little.

Here is the layout of the table:




2 views of the Soviet end of the table.




2 views of the centre of the table showing the river. In the lower picture you can see the NATO Foward Edge of Battle Area (FEBA) towards the top of the picture and NATO's second defensive line towards the bottom of the picture.




2 views of the NATO end of the table showing a large town with very narrow streets

Before the game began I attempted to quickly lay out the units in a sensible order. Here are the Soviet forces - minus most of the infantry:


This shows the tanks used in the game. T-62s and T-55s down the back, T-80s on the left and T-72s in the middle. Towards the rear is the HQ group and in front of them is the BMP1 company. In front of the BMPs is a small AT company and next to the BMPs is a VDV BMD company.


The BTR company plus 3 BMPs from the Recon Company.

Here are the vehicles in the NATO force:


The NATO (British) squadron of tanks, plus and HQ group, and Abbot and my personal favourite (green with envy of Simon) a Tracked Rapier.


NATO (British again) Warrior IFVs and FV432 APCs - and some of Simon's infantry


The West German contingent and some of my Liberation, Elhiem & Revell infantry

Part 2 tomorrow night will cover the opening moves of the game itself...

Have fun

Richard

Finished the Week Long Project

Well - there you go... I finally managed to finish my week long project. At first I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew - then I thought I'd finish with time to spare - and then it took until tonight to get it all done to a wargaming standard. I hadn't actually planned on doing any figures, but did manage to finish 18 of them - so I'm pretty happy with that.

After this weekend's big game I'll come back to these and weather the vehicles and base the figures properly.

Here's some pics of the whole lot (I need to fiddle with the settings on the camera - its eluding me at the moment...)







T-72's - The Tank Collection (repainted) on the left, Cromwell models on the right



ACE models BMP's



Liberation BMD-1s and BMD-2s (some older? some newer I guess)



MMS 2S1



Liberation Soviet figures - dipped





Moving on to some British stuff now - to be ready by Saturday morning!!!

Have fun

Richard

Days Two & Three

So its a couple of days later and the mini-project continues to progress. I'm actually quite pleased with what I've managed to get done.

I didn't take any Day 2 pictures - as I think the progress would not be very noticeable compared to tonight's pics.

All the armour (except for the lone BMP-2 which is now looking sadly neglected) has now been drybrushed with two highlights. The first is a basic green highlight which matches the original spray colour, and basically just cleans up a little the black-lining I did. The second drybrush is the original colour plus a little German Cam Beige added.







The highlights don't show up really well in the pictures (which were a bit rushed) but look OK. My next decision - and I have at least a day to think about it - is should I stop here or do 1 more highlight - I'm not sure right now...

If I don't do another drybrush it means I can jump straight into painting the details next...

Totally beyond the original scope for this week I've also managed to finish - well up to the point of them being dipped tonight - 18 odd Motor Rifle troops.



Again a crap photo... I just need to wait for the dip to dry overnight and then dullcote them - but the weather is so hot and humid here I might be waiting a while before I spray.

Probably a quiet night tomorrow as I have responsibilities that will take me away from the painting desk for most of the night so -

Have fun

Richard