The Guns of August... wow!!!

Well, after months of planning 'The Guns of August'  is over. Six guys, 24 Great War Spearhead divisions, over 3 days.... and that's the first battle of the Marne re-fought.

Play started last Friday, as we fought the preliminary meeting engagements of the battle. These actions then fed into the main event on day 2. The most important impacts were that the French were able to turn the German left, while the BEF successfully pushed back the German cavalry on the German right. 

The impact: the French started in an advantageous position on the German left, while the BEF was able to deploy straight onto their table at the start of the main battle. Over the two days, the German Guards corps was lost (gulp, honestly, it wasn't me who commanded them....).

There were few chances for the Germans to break through the allied lines, the best chance seemed to lie in an attack by the Guard corps against that part of the allied position held by the French cavalry.  Unfortunately the amount of artillery allocated in support of the cavalry was so great that the Guard was seriously under strength by the time they reached the French lines. Early successes were not sustained and the Guard fell back in disorder: many of their colleagues lay where they had fallen.

These photos show a view of the main table on days two and three, with the BEF nearest the camera. The players are, from left to right: Robin Sutton (that's me!!), Robert Dunlop (back row), Shawn Taylor, Stan Walker (back row), Jon Harding, and Nick Sutton. 

We had a fantastic three days of great gaming and fantastic company. 

Here's my chance to publicly thank the players (especially Robert who flew in from the UK, and Shawn who flew in from Canada), also the organisers of the New Zealand Natcon who put on the event (the Christchurch Cavaliers Club): thanks guys.

Thanks are also due to the product sponsors of the event:

Eureka Miniatures

HaT Miniatures

Irregular Miniatures

Leva Prodductions

LKM

Magister Militum

Miniature World maker

Osprey Publishing

Pendraken Miniatures

These companies gave us fantastic support.... with fantastic products - thank you very much.

The HotT obsession

The HotT obsession (Hordes of the Things, that is) has bitten. I have found myself planning and scheming the creation of HotT armies. In particular I have become obsessed with the creation of great looking and highly fanciful HotT armies using some of the huge array of cheap plastic toys that we can buy in stores locally.

I started to plan a 'Lost Worlds' army, with dinosaurs (nice behemoths, flyers and beasts) supporting some ancient looking humans (warbands and hordes). I was browsing in a local K-Mart amongst the dinosaurs, when I stumbled upon this wonderful looking beast. Now here was King Kong if ever I saw him. 

But of course I wasn't seeing a large ape, but a God (in HotT terms, you understand!!). I had flashbacks to tribes worshipping the great ape, and battling amongst and with ancient dinosaurs. Of course they would have large fanciful 'idols' in their stronghold in the jungles, so a small aquarium piece, along with some aquarium plastic plants looked  be just the thing.

A tyrannosaurus (well this actually a velociraptor) for a behemoth .....

A couple of small dinosaurs for an element of 'beasts', and a couple of flyers and .....

Then there will just be a couple of bases of primeval humans and, with a Shaman to complete this tasty family, there's a 'King Kong' lost worlds army.

I am hoping some of the boys that I take in the Saturday 'gaming group at Christ's College will read this, and be inspired to try to create their own HotT fantasy armies. In the meantime, I'll post some more pictures when these fellows have been based and are ready to go!!

Of course right now I really should get back to the 6mm WW1 Armies for The Guns of August'.....so many projects, so little time!!! This HotT obsession ..........

"Why the allies won" ...

I have just finished reading this book by University of Exeter academic Richard Overy (Pimlico 2006). It is quite frankly the most outstanding analysis I have read of the causes of the allied victory in 1945, and I decided to blog on the book to affirm my own understanding of the book, and to share this powerful analysis with others.

Overy begins by making  the point that an allied victory was never a certainty, and asks the question why the fundamental change in allied fortunes form the dark days of 1941, when allied defeat looked to be a serious possibility, to allied invasion in western Europe in 1944, and prolonged Russian offensive on the eastern front.

His basic thesis is that the allied victory was the result of eight factors.

1. Victory in the battle of the Atlantic, finally won by the projection of allied air power into the 'Atlantic gap' with the use of long range aircraft (Liberators in particular) re-equipped for anti submarine warfare.
   
2. "Deep war" (Overy's words): the ability of the Soviet economy and military forces to absorb the shock of the German attacks of 1941 and 1942, and most importantly to force Russian victories at the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk.
   
3. The western allied bombing offensive that most importantly drew increasing German air assets to the defence of the Reich. ".. the facts show that German air power declined steadily on the eastern front during 1943 and 1944, when over two thirds of German fighters were sucked into the contest with the bombers. By the end of 1943 there were 55,000 anti aircraft guns to combat the air offensive - inclding 75% of the famous 88 millimetre gun, which had doubled with such success as an anti tank wweapon on the eastern front."
   
4. The invasion of France, the success of which he attributes significantly But not solely of course) to the incredibly successful allied deception plans that results in Hitler's decision to retain XV Army in the Pas de Calais.
   
5. The abilities of the allied economies to win the mass production war. In the midst of an insightful analysis of the wartime economies of the four major protagonists, the following statistics are telling: "By 1944 the balance of weapons did swing massively in the allies' favour. But this widening gap was not a result simply of the possession of greater quantities of manpower and raw materials. In the Soviet case 8 million tons of steel and 90 million tons of coal in 1943 translated into 48000 heavy artillery pieces and 24,000 tanks. Germany in the same year turned 30 million tons of steel and 140 million tons of coal into 27,000 heavy guns and 17000 tanks." So productivity was significantly lower in Germany.
   
6. The development of robust functional and highly effective technologies, in particular focussing on a few variants of particular key technologies for example.
   
7. Leadership styles of the leaders. While Stalin was a dictator much like Hitler, and just as ruthless, there the similarity in leadership styles ends. As the war progressed Stalin showed the ability to take a step back, and allow those with the expertise to determine key strategy. His appointment of Zhukov as Deputy CinC was  a telling step, and as the war progressed Stalin gradually ]stepped back from the running of the war. Churchill showed a similar pattern of behaviour, and as the war progressed the Chiefs of Staff ran the war. Hitler on the other hand, "believing his own press" (my phrase) based on early success achieved against weak opponents, took increasingly more control of the day to day operations of the war. He was simply not up to it.
   
8. The moral superiority of the allies compared with the axis. The outstanding achievement of the Allies must be the management of the tension between the democratic west and the communist east, maintaining the integrity of the allied war effort until Germany as defeated. This was aided by the ability of the west to generate support for their war effort domestically on the basis that they were the aggrieved, the victims of attack. A similar rationale was not available to the axis nations.
   

Overy puts together a compelling argument, in a very readable style. His last paragraph is telling:

"The allies won the second world war because they turned their economic strength into effective fighting power, and turned the moral energies of their people into an effective will to win. The mobilisation of national resources into this broad sense never worked perfectly by any means, but worked well enough to prevail. Materially rich, but divided, demoralised, and poorly led, the allied coalition would have lost the war, however exaggerated Axis ambitions, however flawed their moral outlook.  The war made exceptional demands on the Allied peoples. Half a century later the level of cruelty, destruction and sacrifice that is engendered is hard to comprehend, let alone recapture. Sixty years of relative security and prosperity have opened up a gulf between the present age and the age of crisis and violence that propelled the world into war. Though from today's perspective allied victory might seem somehow inevitable, the conflict was poised on a knife edge in the middle ears of the war. This period must surely rank as the most significant turning point in the history of the modern world." 

This is a must-read for any person who really considers themselves a scholar of this period of human history.

Damn.. the excited buzz of another project

Sometimes I want to share my enthusiasm for a new project, and any war gamer reading this will know what that feels like. How many of you have been part way through a project only to find your attention taken away in the excited buzz of some new period or rules set? Come on , own up.. I know that's probably almost all of you!!!!

So I wrote in my first blog on this blog site, thinking that any new project would be a long way off for me.

Then this little fellow happened along:

A cute little wingless Chinese dragon, on sale in a large book store. You see, for quite some time I have harbored secret desires to try some fantasy war games, and for that purpose I'd bought a copy of the HotT (Hordes of the Things) rules.

A few days after the "dragon incident" I happened to be in a pet shop wandering amongst the aquarium accessories while my wife went about her business of buying two budgies for her aviary - notice how I claimed the moral high ground there, just in case Lorraine reads this). Now this looked to me like a very nice Stronghold.


Damn.... here am I up to my eyeballs in 6mm figures for 'The Guns of August', not to mention 6mm buildings, trees and hills, when.... yup, you guessed it.. this new project is now taking shape in my head.

Well actually a little more than that, there's this dragon and a stronghold, now joined by a box of the Caesar Ch'in Chinese and some Assyrian heavy chariots (easy conversions to Chinese chariots.. Knights under the HotT rules).

Oh, and there's this other dragon, you see.. it just popped into my hand in a "$2 Shop" .. magnificent wings, just needing an inspiring paint job, poor little guy (and no, I don't have a thing for dragons, they appear to be pretty unreliable under the HotT rules, but hey.. who could turn their backs on such a cute little guy).

Isn't this the wargamer's lot? It doesn't matter how many figures and armies we have, there's always another project that captures the imagination.

Damn.. the excited buzz of another project.

Diversity - a day at our war games club

I don't get down to our war games club very often (well actually we have several, but this is the one that I tend to frequent - might have something to do with the fact that I helped found it 37 years ago, but that's another (and not very interesting) story). What's more, most of my on line ramblings tend to focus on Great War Spearhead, but I play a number of other periods and rules sets as well.

So my son and I agreed to meet up at the club and play some DBA games. (I used to play DBM, but frankly sickened of the attitudes that I seemed to meet all too often, and life's too short to spend my hobby time with that nonsense). These days I play the Spearhead family of games, Volley and Bayonet (my all time favourite rules set), a little Warhammer 40K, and some games using DBA and Armati rules. I am also very attracted to the HoTT rules, and recently proposed a Winter HoTT tournament in mid July (yes that's when we have winter here in the southern hemisphere). You see, I bought this really wonderful looking Chinese wingless dragon very cheaply in a sale, and thought "I know exactly what this would be good for". I might post some more on this later though.

However we war gamers are an incredibly diverse group of people, and a jolly good job it is to. I was impressed with the range of games in progress at the club, so thought I'd just pop some random shots I took onto this blog. The commentary is all at the start: I really haven't got my head around this blogging software yet, and my text and images have jumbled up . I need  a training course, with no tea breaks (otherwise I'll need to retrain again!!).

First up was a colonial game played in 15mm using an adaptation of Volley and Bayonet. The adaptations were written by Adrian Powell, whose figures you see here. The river gunboat really is as good as it looks here.. superb stuff. Seen here also are a Warhammer fantasy game (I really love the paint jobs these guys produce.. inspiring stuff)

There was a DBR game (DBR is undergoing a resurgence here in Christchurch, as a result of Keith McNelly's enthusiasm, and requests or a few games. Well done Keith!!!)

Keith himself was playing a DBMM trial game. 

There was a WW1 naval game using the newest edition of General Quarters (I remember re-fighting Jutland in 1987, in 1/3000th scale, using the original GQ rules... eee, by gum .. those were the days!!!, but you try telling young people o't today that!!)

There were a few Warhammer 40K games (here Necrons are fighting Space Marines), and of course, my reason for being there, our DBA games. 

The last two photos show my son's newly completed Persians (these are HaT and Zvezda 20mm plastics) fighting against Macedonians. I've clearly taught him  too well.. he makes my own painting look somewhat pedestrian... his figures look great!!! By the way, the four horse chariot really didn't do too well in either game we played.. expendable indeed!!!.. but I think it is so emblematic of Persians, I'm please he decided to use it on the table.. it really did look the part.

Now I have no idea if this is typical of the gaming diversity that this club sees regularly (I generally manage to get down there a mere 3 or 4 times a year), but I thought what I saw was pretty cool, maintaining interest and enthusiasm... healthy indeed for the hobby. Yes, diversity is a wonderful thing.

!

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Action on the eastern front: 1914 style.

I have just finished fighting yet another WW1 game generated with the Scenario Generation System. The game was set on the eastern front in 1914, with a German Corp attacking a seriously under strength Russian Corp. The table and terrain can be seen below, with the German attack coming from the right hand side of the table. The German attack arrows are shown in red, while the Russian regimental defence areas are shown in blue. The Russian reserve entry point is shown with the blue dot at the centre of the left edge of the board. As I haven't yet completed painting the Russian units, my BEF and ANZAC troops stood in as proxies.


Here the Russian right can be seen waiting for the onslaught. This infantry regiment had a regiment of 76mm guns attached, but each fighting as an independent stand. It was taken with random morale but turned out to be green when it finally came under attack.


The Russian left was more securely held, with troops dug in on the gray contour at the top of the picture. These were also more solid regular troops. The Arab -looking stand was another proxy, standing in for the Corp command stand.


The Russian centre included an outpost of stands waiting in the wooded area through which a German advance was expected. The three companies forming the outpost are seen here expecting to hold up in the face of two entire German regiments ... ouch!!! I wasn't expecting quite such a large force here.. hmm.. that was stupid!! I should remember.. my son always concentrates his attacks well.

The German advance is seen here from behind the Russian left centre. The forest defended with the outposts can be seen at the top right of the photo. Suppression markers can already be seen on both the defending Russian troops, and the advancing German infantry.


The Russian left flank came under extreme pressure as a flank march hit, but the Russian deployment had suspected flank marches on both flanks, and the troops were deployed accordingly. Fortunately the Russian artillery also responded at this time (it had been notably silent up until now!!.. curses from Robin who was commanding the Russians), and the flank marching German regiment was hit by artillery fire from an on board regiment of 76mm guns, and an off table regiment of 122mm guns.. that hurt!!



The Russian centre begins to falter... there is one remaining company resisting in the forest, but the troops are suppressed.. and who could blame them!! There was some fearsome fire coming their way!!

The forward defence in the Russian centre is gone... troops in their secondary supporting position await the onslaught, seen here dug in on the small contour behind the forest position that their outposts had struggled to hold. What's more, at the same time the stands dug in on the heights were forced of the heights by a barrage of small arms and artillery fire. Things were looking very dodgy now.


The game ended with the Russian positions still firm, having driven off both flank attacks. The green infantry regiment on the Russian right had only just managed to hold on, surviving its first morale check. The Russian reserves had been committed and were moving forward to reinforce the Russian centre and right flank.

However the Russian strategy had meant that he had ceded three terrain objectives, in order to keep a tight supportive defence, hoping to inflict sufficient casualties on the attacker to gain victory points through morale checks. The play almost succeeded, but not quite, as he only held one undisputed objective, the other (the bridge) was disputed at the end of the game.

The final result: a marginal victory to the Germans with 7 victory points to the Russian 6.
However, it was another exciting, nail-biting game.. but they always are with the scenario system.

Views over the artillery park

A brief update on the 6mm project with a view from the German artillery park.... as the 6mm armies slowly amass in preparation for the Marne.

Two batteries of German 77mm field guns.

Two batteries of German 105mm in action.

Finally, German 210mm heavies...ouch, they sure hurt when you are under them, although I'm not sure how often these will ever appear on the table top.

Still can't quite get the photo quality I do when photographing the 20mm figures. I maximised the image size, but the results are not too flash. 

I had to throw in a photo of a German 105mm from my 20 collection.. just to re-assure my eyes, you understand.