Monday, August 24, 2015

Things I've learnt today

Before Luke headed off we got in another Spearhead game. This time round it was 1944 British infantry division vs German panzer division using the scenario system. Luke knocked up a British lists based on my previous observations that Churchills are reasonably useful on the table, and you can't have too much artillery. I went for a second look to see if the Pz IVH is really as useless as the last time I tried them. I came up with 2 infantry battalions with 120mm mortars and 88mm flak support, a panzer battalion and a panzer grenadier battalion with cross attachments. 3 of the 4 were less than 12 stands so had only 6" command radius. This really didn't help matters.
I wanted the lower edge, so got the upper edge. Things went downhill from there.



I decided to advance the 2 infantry battalions down the left side of the board to take the 2 objectives on that side of the board. The panzer grenadier's advanced to the close objective in the center of the board. at this point I had a bit of a brain fart and decided that it would be a good idea to attack the tank battalion down the right side of the board along the roads to the furthest village.

The initial attack on the left went OK, but the infantry started to take losses from the massed British artillery. On the right the over ambitious attack foundered by trying to attack down a narrow road hemmed in by a river on one side.

"Looks like an FOW battle..."
The suppressed Pz Iv was the first of 3 on the road as due to some appalling dice rolling (which extended across the whole game) as I had to keep inserting tanks in front of the suppressed ones to prevent them being killed (by a 6pdr gun). Eventually this battalion was killed by my poor die rolling (Luke played a minor secondary role).

"Where have they all gone?"
The sad story was repeated on the other flank. Sufficed to say the German attack fell apart quite badly and the Bristish walked off with the win.

Things I learned.
1) Pz IV's re no match for Churchills (and 2 points more expensive to boot).
2) People who don't think that British artillery doesn't work well under Spearhead have not used enough of it. 25 pdr's might only have factors of 1/4, but with 18 of them eventually the odds just whittle you down. That and some jammy bastard at one point threw 4 '6's in a row.
3) Nothing kills an army quite as fast as poor dice throwing......

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15 comments:

  1. dylanAugust 24, 2015 at 9:18 PM

    I've never had any luck with PzIVH either, Rhys.

    How much are STUGs under the points system?

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    1. Luke Ueda-SarsonAugust 25, 2015 at 9:11 AM

      21 for the late model. So 3 points less than a Pz IV H, which is possibly about right given you can't move and fire and have a more limited fire arc. On the other hands, it is still more expensive than a Sherman, which can do both of those things (albeit with less efficacy).

      If a Sherman is 20 points, I'd think a Pz IV H should be 22, not 24, and a late StuG III should be 20 as well.

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  2. Robin SuttonAugust 24, 2015 at 9:33 PM

    R
    Classic encounter.. we find that PzIVs are usually pretty handy. We stick with them or StuGs in our games as they represent the vast majority of tanks at that stage in the war. Keith and I both prefer the 'norm' over the exception.
    Nice work.
    R

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    1. TWRAugust 25, 2015 at 9:27 AM

      Robin, there were reasonable numbers of Panthers in Normandy in the Panzer formations, if I recall generally even numbers. This was not the case on the Eastern Front at the time of Bargration where Stugs and PzIVs dominated what armour was available. As always wargames often focus on armour. Rhys being the exception of course :)

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    2. Robin SuttonAugust 25, 2015 at 4:33 PM

      Yep .. I recommended to you 'The Tank War' by Mark Urban.. it has a couple of chapters which offer a great look into the armoured battles of Normandy. Panthers certainly feature there from time to time, as do Tigers (and PzIVs and StuGs)
      R

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  3. RABAugust 24, 2015 at 10:00 PM

    The Panther is hardly an exception....

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  4. PrufrockAugust 25, 2015 at 2:15 AM

    Ha, Luke and massed, off-table artillery! I've been down that road before :D

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  5. TWRAugust 25, 2015 at 7:07 AM

    Nothing wrong with PzIVs and Stugs, they are just different.

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    1. Luke Ueda-SarsonAugust 25, 2015 at 9:05 AM

      Sure, there is nothing wrong with them, stat-wise; they are just too expensive under the current points system in comparison with many other items, so if you are going to use the points system, you are unnecessarily handicapping yourself using them.

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  6. TWRAugust 25, 2015 at 9:29 AM

    I must remember that. My PzIVs keep winning games.

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    1. Robin SuttonAugust 25, 2015 at 4:33 PM

      Yeah, what's that all about eh? Oh, you might be a better player? ooo darn
      R

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    2. TWRAugust 25, 2015 at 8:44 PM

      I doubt that! I do recall some very enjoyable games over the years though.

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  7. TWRAugust 25, 2015 at 10:06 AM

    Rhys, looking at your command arrows why did you not try and flank march? As an encounter scenario using the German advantage in working the flanks is reasonably critical.

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  8. RABAugust 26, 2015 at 7:58 PM

    We decided not to use flankmarches (though I may have been a bit premature).
    In my experience flank marches have always turned into complete dogs dinners, and its worse with opposed flank marches.

    Now, If I had taken my veteran paratroops....

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