Sunday, December 28, 2014

Tank Assault

The afternoon of Saturday 27th December saw me make god on promises to a couple of kids at the local primary school who missed out on the chance to play in my Kursk game at the recent Christmas Fare.  They were all within walking distance which was fortunate as the weather was like this:


The set up had the older two, Leo and Harry, attempting to capture a German trench line.  Each was equipped with three T-34/76s with four tank riders on each vehicle.


Jacob, the youngest, with my help, defended with a squad of infantry, an anti-tank rifle, a 37mm anti-tank gun and a 100mm Skoda mountain gun (as I didn't have a suitable infantry gun model).   Unbeknown to the Russian players, the Germans also had a two-man flamethrower team hiding in the house next to the cabbage field.

I didn't take too many photographs as we were busy playing the game.  But here are the few I did get:



One of Harry's T-34s is brewed up by fire from the infantry gun
Leo's force makes its way through the woods.  Next time he tries that I'll
make sure there are some enemy infantry hiding in there.

Leo's attack falters as his last tank is destroyed by a shot from the flamethrower.

Harry's last tank takes on the pillbox at point-blank range!
I'd told the various parents that we'd finish at about half-past-four. And we pretty much did with that time arriving as the battle reached a proper climax.

On the Russian right, Leo had lost all of his tanks but still had most of his tank-riders (albeit they were a long way from the action).  Harry, meanwhile managed to get up close and personal with the  main bunker and knocked out the infantry gun by firing through the fire slit!

Weirdly, on the same game turn a random event had the 37mm AT gun crew called back to Company HQ thus leaving the Germans with no effective AT defence (both flamethrower and AT rifle teams having been lost to enemy fire.

In the end I was persuaded to call it an honourable draw as the Russians had not yet captured the entrenchment but the Germans were in no fit state to defend it from any renewed attack.

2 comments:

Tales from Shed HQ said...

Well done Richard and friends sounds like a great game was had by all. Future wargamers in the making. Hope to see them at Crisis Point, although you might want to keep them away from Ian, you know what he is like when he is hungry!!!
Cheers
Richard P

Counterpane said...

Thanks, Richard. Yes, it's all about showing the kids that wargaming can be fun and is something they can do. It's also a learning experience for them. We covered some basic maths here. Which are odd and even numbers for example?