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All,
It’s 1630, 18 Sept 1939, and fighting for the Kutno pocket has reached a fever pitch. All day the Poles have waged desperate battles to break out of the Germans’ noose, but the armored counter-thrust by 4th Panzer Division (to include KG Klink) appears to have decisively slammed the door shut. Regarding the situation at hand, elements of KG Klink’s Reconnaissance Company, reinforced with an 80mm mortar, a 37mm anti-tank gun, and two squads of assault engineers, has discovered a Polish infantry force in the village of Piotrowicz (fictional), serving as a bridgehead to hold a ford open (to the north, off table), which is allowing a trickle of Polish troops to escape the pocket on foot (albeit, without their heavy weapons).
2nd Lt Wehner, the acting Reconnaissance Company commander, radioed his findings to KG headquarters, where Lt Col Klink uttered a single word: “Attack!”
The Germans: led by Recon Co commander, 2nd Lt Wehner (sporting a Wound Badge), 2nd Motorcycle Platoon (led by acting PC Sgt Behrendt, LCpl Wilhelm’s 1st Squad (filling in for Behrendt), Sgt Janke’s (holder of the Iron Cross 2nd Class) 2nd Squad, and Cpl Zuckert’s 3rd Squad), Officer Cadet Distler’s Sdkfz 231 armored car (leader of the Armored Reconnaissance Platoon), Cpl Vogel’s 80mm mortar team, Sgt Kallenbach’s anti-tank gun, and two squads from the attached Assault Engineer Platoon (Sgt Albrecht’s 3rd Squad and Sgt Klivens’ 4th Squad).
The Poles: a CO, six rifle squads, one Maxim .30 caliber MG, one light armored car (MG only), and one light tank (spoiler alert: he’s a real pain in my backside).
The enemy tank is on a tear: having destroyed the KG’s anti-tank gun and mortar, he turns the corner and sets his sights on overrunning the German CO and an engineer squad.To see how the whole report, please visit the blog at:
http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2015/02/kg-klink-poland-game-15.htmlGood grief, another ass-whooper of a fight. Fifteen games in (actually twenty, but fifteen in this campaign) and I still love the ebb and flow, back and forth, ups and downs these rules bring. One minute you’re grinning ear to ear, the next you’ve got tears in your eyes; I love it! This is friction without being reduced to a spectator.
Having said that, I am supremely peeved that this was the second time an enemy armored beast has savaged my poor infantry. It’s not that the tank was overly powerful, it’s just that I made a mistake in the initial deployment of my ATG, and never could fully recover from that. So the rules handle armor vs infantry just fine, I just need to handle it a bit better 😉 Tough lessons in the school of hard knocks…
V/R,
JackRod,
1. Regarding the enemy MG on the German far left flank, he was in a really great position to fire defilade on the German column coming up the road (which is not the best positioning of the enemy MG, you’d much rather be shooting straight down the length of the road, but this happens due to me using a system of real and dummy ‘blinds’ to place the enemy forces, which greatly aids solo play). However, he kind of got screwed out of that as the Germans’ first activation was a ‘scurry,’ meaning they were able to get everyone off the road. A ‘normal’ activation would have meant only three units got to move, so the other six or so would have still been sitting on the road for the MG to savage. Regarding LOS:
The MG was in the house at far left, but moved to its front right and now is next to the crater and bushes, and the bushes don’t block LOS. The German ATG is at top right, sitting right in the middle of the brown field, so there’s a clear LOS. What walls around the field are you talking about? The bombed out house at bottom right? That would block LOS to units behind it, but it’s not in the way.
2. I have absolutely zero Polish troops and equipment. The entire Poland campaign has been fought using Soviet troops and equipment (although I also used some British Matilda Is and Vickers light tanks, actually). Sorry, I had to proxy, I wasn’t about to go and buy, paint, and base a Polish force; I thought my Soviet troops looked close enough, my T-70s could play Tankettes, and my T-26s could play 7TPs.
3. I don’t know if the KG will be hitting the Belgium or Holland. I bought a Skirmish Campaigns book, so I plan on having the KG attached to Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division for the France campaign, but I haven’t read it yet so I don’t know if they started off in Belgium, Holland, or France.
I did some work yesterday, the Order of Battle is established for the France Campaign, and I’m kind of rearing to go, despite all the other stuff I want/need to get done…
Panda – Yeah, sorry man, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hopefully the wife got you some spiffy new threads from Baby Gap 😉
Regarding the ATG, if I hadn’t gotten that scurry I’d not have deployed the ATG so fast. I’d have pushed other forces forward to clear some space from enemy infantry, and I’d have worked to box the enemy tank in, then rush forward the ATG to deploy once the time was right. But I got too impatient, and the only shot the ATG took was an HE round at some enemy infantry in a building, no effect.Kyote – Yep, the Poles were tough, and I expect the French to be every bit as tough, if not more so with their damned Char B1s and Somuas. I’m going to have to break out my Stuka.
V/R,
JackRod – Here’s a photo of the whole table:
This is how I placed the enemy blinds. The white chips were infantry (the rifle squads and the 1 MG), and the black chips are vehicles (there are actually four, the fourth is not visible in this photo but is behind the building at top left). Both the white chips and the black chips have ‘dummies’ and chips that correlate to actual units. So, for example, there are four black chips: 1 for the light tank, one for the armored car, and two ‘dummy’ markers. What I’m getting at is, you can say putting the MG in the bottom left corner is a bad idea, but I didn’t ‘put’ it there. I’m a solo gamer, and the point of using the blinds is so I can surprise myself 😉Now, the field of fire isn’t as bad as you think. Yes, the walls to the north block LOS, as does the building and trees at the ‘Y’ intersection. The ruins at bottom center right provide cover to units in them; they don’t block LOS, but do penalize the firing unit. So, if the Germans hadn’t received a ‘scurry’ on the first activation, which allowed them to move every single unit, six of the German units would have been sitting in the positions in the photo above, and the MG likely would have shot the mounted motorcycle squads and units still mounted in trucks to pieces.
Having said that, while the initial scurry allowed me to get everyone through the MG’s field of fire, it also rushed me (or helped me rush myself) into deploying my ATG prematurely. I moved the truck forward to get out of the MG’s field of fire, but that put the truck close enough to enemy infantry that I couldn’t afford to leave the ATG mounted (it would have easily been knocked out in its unarmored truck).
Here is the photo you referenced:
This photo is looking from left to right (west to east, north is left in this phot0), with the MG in the bottom right corner. You can just see two German motorcycle squads at top right (they are still in their starting positions, same as the first photo, above); the MG’s field of fire is actually shooting up the right side of this photo, not at anything in this view. This picture was simply revealing what the enemy blinds revealed.I hope that clears it up man, please let me know if you have any other questions.
And I have a normal, German Stuka. And regarding the ‘pre-pirate days’: Panda is hoping I’ll travel to Canada to rape and pillage him 😉 Can’t help you with the subtitles; must be from Panda’s (peace be upon him) private collection.
Panda – You can kiss my butt about proxying. I’m in the midst of of re-fighting WWII:
Poland – 1 Sep-6 Oct 39
France – 10 May-22 Jun 40
N Africa – Mar 41-July 42
Stalingrad (W) – Oct – Dec 42
Kharkov (W) – 19 Feb- 15 Mar 43
Kursk – 5 Jul- 23 Aug 43
S Italy – 17 Sep – Dec 43
Ukraine (W) – Jan- Mar 44
Normandy – 25 Jun- Aug 44
Holland – 17 Sep – Oct 44
Hungary – Oct – Dec 44
Ardennes – Dec-Jan 45
Silesia/Pomerania – Feb- Mar 45I don’t have Polish forces, so I had to proxy them with Soviets. The only other stuff I’ll be proxy-ing, for the entirety of the rest of the war, is I’ll be using M-4 Shermans with 76mm guns to represent British Fireflies, and I’ll be using T-34/76s to stand in for T-34/85s at the end of the war. Also, I may end up using M4 Shermans instead of British Churchills in Normandy; not proxy-ing, but perhaps not using a particular unit’s actual TO/E. That’s never really bothered me though, as the M4 Sherman was the most numerous tank on the Western Front for the U.S., Brits, Canadians, Free French, and Free Poles.
But I’ve got everything else I need to fight through the war, so I think I’m doing okay 😉 Oh, and “My Cousing Vinny” is one of the greatest movies known to man.
Take care fellas.
V/R,
Jack“I’m a solo gamer, and the point of using the blinds is so I can surprise myself
”This is a point I’ve debated in the past. I usually deploy blinds or ghosts similar to what Jack’s described. But at times, especially when the blinds represented defending forces I thought there should be certain locations that were too tactically significant to rely on risk to deploy forces…do you ever have certain points that have fixed troops?
“The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.”
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