KG Klink, Poland, Game 14

[Just Jack]

All,

It’s 1400, 1 Sept 1939, and since this morning’s victory there have been several marches and counter-marches, with the German forces attempting to keep the Poles bottled up in the Kutno pocket. Orders come in from 4th Panzer Division headquarters via the wireless: “Achtung, Panzer,” the Poles are attempting a breakout, sending an armored spearhead south across the river and immediately turning west. KG Klink finds itself on the northern flank of this rupture, and is ordered to send all armor he can muster to contain it.

LtCol Klink personally leads a mixed force of armored cars and Panzer II, III, and IVs to meet the enemy tanks head on.

The opposing forces: The Germans, led by Col Klink, a Sdkfz 231 (Officer Cadet Distler), a Sdkfz 221 (Sgt Keck), two Pz Mk IVs (Officer Cadet Kleiber, Sgt Mangold), four Pz Mk IIIs (Company Commander 2nd Lt Loeb, Sgt Fahrmann, Sgt Grossman, and Sgt Friessler), and two Pz Mk IIs (Cpl Mayer, and Cpl Glucke).
The enemy force, with their CO, five medium tanks, two light tanks, one tankette, and two heavy armored cars.

Overview, north is up, Germans on the right (east), and Poles on the left (west). A straight up tank brawl. I hope it doesn’t aggravate you too much, but I did something a little different with this game. Usually I place a small puff of cotton to show where a gun or mortar fires, take my picture, then remove it. For this game (for some reason) I decided to leave each puff on the board. I kind of wanted a look at how many anti-tank shots it would take to have a tank fight. So, by the end, there’s a whole lot of cotton puffs on the board.

The tank battle in full swing.

KG Klink has held their sector of line, helping to keep two Polish armies trapped in the Kutno pocket. For the whole batrep, please visit the blog:
http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2015/02/kg-klink-poland-game-14.html

More to follow.

V/R,
Jack

[kyoteblue]

Good AAR. Tanks Tanks Tanks…..snort.

 

[War Panda]

Nice to see a straight forward armour battle for a change. Personally I wasn’t at all bothered by the cotton wool pieces; I actually thought for a armour battle it kind of added to the sense of firepower on the field 🙂

Would be nice to have a couple of close up shots.  I’ve seen close ups of the minis when you’ve painted them and they look good….

 

“The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.”

[Rod Robertson]

Just Jack:

A very linear battle with the strange overtones of an armoured Napoleonic conflict! Interesting report. I especially liked rapidly moving from pictures 7-9 which were so similar it gave the illusion of either shaky gun camera images or being slightly drunk. Hic. I am going to miss the Polish campaign as you switch to fighting those infamous “surrender monkeys” the French. Big tanks with little courage. Make sure you fight the battle of Bulson and the battle of the Connage crossroads. They are great battles which I love to fight and finally have enough FCM-36 Lt. tanks to fight properly. Oh, and Bulson will be a carpet rich environment so you better start cutting out more purple carpet.

Cheers and good gaming.

Rod Robertson.

[Just Jack]

Thanks Panda, and glad to hear the cotton wasn’t an aggravation/distraction.  I won’t be doing it again, but I just wanted to see what it looked like, and to get an idea of how many shots it would take to knock out a few tanks.  I’ll try and get more closeups in the future, but I’m not nearly the artist you are so my paintjobs aren’t generally too much to look at.  Plus I have a crappy camera that makes it hard to get non-fuzzy closeups.

Rod – Regarding Napoleonic lines, the more I read German tank commanders’ accounts the more basic stuff seems.  I’d always given them lots of credit with regards to battlefield tactics, but, from reading the Panzer Aces series (in particular), it seems the German edge was largely 1) being super aggressive, 2) keeping it simple, 3) great crew proficiency, and (later) 4) simply having better vehicles.  So, having read about countless accounts of “I got my tanks on line and we moved directly into contact with the enemy’s line, halting only to fire,” I had no problem playing it out like that.

My only complaint was that I probably had too many vehicles on the field; I’d like to reduce each side by three or four, and that’s probably what I’ll do in the future.

A carpet-rich environment, eh?  You’re killing me.  I wouldn’t worry too much about surrender monkeys; from my readings the French fought very well on the battlefield, they simply got circles run around them in the operational scheme of maneuver.  As I’m only relating what happened on the battlefield, it’s safe to anticipate another campaign of very tough fights.  And I’ll look into Bulson/Connage.

Thanks for looking and commenting guys, I appreciate it.

V/R,
Jack

[War Panda]

“Bulson will be a carpet rich environment so you better start cutting out more purple carpet.”

And here I thought the carpet in Jack’s “man” cave would be safe

“The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.”

[kyoteblue]

Just posted a pic for Just Jack and War Panda on my facebook page…Yall will know it when ya see it.

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