Monthly Archives: November 2024

Weissenfels 1813 in GDA2

Games & rules, News
Situation after Turn 1. The French are attacking from the left and have just got their cavalry across the stream at the far end of the table

This game was a bit of a landmark for me. It was my fourth game played with Général d’Armée 2, and the third at my club. We played it to completion (we had started the 13th move out of a possible 14 when we decided the French had won), giving not much more than 20 minutes a turn. This is the sort of fluency I have conspicuously failed to achieve so far. It was also the first game I have played based in 1813, rather than 1815. The system is now firmly established as my favourite for Napoleonic games, and I’m still happy to play it virtually without modification.

I have been taking GDA2 games from the published scenario books (though these are designed for GDA1). These may be a bit questionable historically, but they have been designed as playable scenarios. Having played the Gilly scenario from the 1815 book twice, and not ready for the much bigger St Armand or Planchenoit, I thought I’d look at the 1813 book – the other period when I can field my late war Prussians against the French. The first scenario in the book, and the obvious place to start, was the one for Weissenfels. This encounter, just before the Battle of Lützen, is described as a “skirmish” by Nafziger, and historically it is noted for two things. First, it featured the death of longstanding French Marshal Bessières. Second it showed the fresh French Marie-Louises standing up capably to swarms of French cavalry. According to Nafziger the battle was largely about the French infantry beating off swarms of Russian cavalry – with only a single Russian jager regiment present as infantry.

The GDA scenario is very different. Russians have seven battalions of infantry (three of Line jagers, four of Reservist line infantry), two brigades of cavalry (four units) and one of Cossacks (three units). The cavalry looks faithful to the historical order of battle, though not quite as overwhelming as those historical (and doubtlessly French) accounts suggest. The French order of battle is closer to history: Souham’s 8th Division, with 15 battalions of infantry (historically two brigades; four for games purposes) supported by a brigade of cavalry that was stronger than any of the Russian brigades. The Russians are defending the Rippach stream, and the French need to get to the village Rocken at the far side of the table by Turn 14. This is a very interesting scenario, with the defenders deployed much further forward than typical, and so more ground to play with, but without enough forces to mount a full defence of the stream. The French have plenty of troops but are constrained by the stream, and half the troops they have are Recruits.

The first problem is that I don’t have any Russians. I could simply have substituted the units for Prussians of the same quality, turning my Landwehr cavalry into Cossacks. But I wanted to field historical formations, and since this wasn’t really a historical battle I saw now reason not to use Prussian troops from the Lützen scenario. I took two brigades of infantry from that source, but dropped the grenadier battalions. That gave me seven battalions of infantry (two of Reservist quality, the rest Line). I gave them two brigades of cavalry from the Lützen scenario, plus another brigade that was at the battle but not in the scenario; I also topped up the dragoon brigade (consisting of one cavalry unit and one battery of horse artillery) with an extra small unit of dragoons. Each of the Prussian cavalry brigades consisted of a standard-sized unit and a small unit, reflecting the Prussian use of four squadrons of one regiment in their brigades, and two from another. This makes the Prussians slightly stronger than the Russians in the scenario, but with one fewer units of cavalry (but no Cossacks) and a weaker horse artillery battery. I also let them have the horse artillery from the start, rather than it turning up later.

The French forces in this scenario feature in the Lützen scenario too – though some have been upgraded in quality, and I used them unchanged. The advantage of this is that I can print out a full set of labels for Lützen, with a few extras. That means I will be set up for the Lützen, if and when we get to play it. I sampled a video from a GDA2 veteran, Scott Driscoll (Check Your Leader TV) who played Reisswitz. He made the village on the Russian side of the stream, Göhren, a Tactical Objective, which would certainly affect the character of the game. However this isn’t in the main scenario – and I don’t think it was really appropriate for a delaying action like this.

It’s worth talking about the rules. GDA2 is often criticised for the way it is written – the book is 112 pages long (or 99 plus appendices on army choice and the index). It sometimes quite hard to find the rule you want to look up – we spent a lot time doing just that in our October game. It would be wrong to say that it is badly written. I found them to be always clear, and although rules are often repeated in different parts of the book, these are (almost always) consistent. I can’t think of any typos or obvious mistakes. It has an index. All this is a wonder by the standards of modern rule-writing. Still, I much prefer a more compact style. I decided to write my own summarised version (I actually do this quite often). I left out the preliminaries of the battle (up to scouting and deployment), and the procedures and tables summarised in the four-page quick reference sheet. This came to ten pages of fairly compact script. I did use it a few times in the game, but I had missed a couple of things, and often I wanted to assure myself with the original. Its main value was that it helped me thoroughly familiarise myself with the rules. I knew my way round the rulebook much better, especially since I had discovered the index! For copyright reasons though, I don’t think I can publish it here.

And so to the game. I took on the French, with Rod, my usual opponent at the club, taking on the Prussians. My scouting was good enough to show that he had placed one brigade of Infantry to cover the crossing on my right, while the left looked thinly covered. I had rather assumed he would might cover the right primarily with cavalry, so I adjusted accordingly. My plan was to seize the crossing on the extreme left with my cavalry brigade, and follow it with the smaller of my two more experienced infantry brigades, so try and sneak around his flank and on to the objective. The other more experienced brigade I put on the right with its artillery on the hill. The two brigades of Marie-Louises were to come on in Turn 2.

Rod had two brigades of infantry, but three crossings to cover. He covered the one on my right, and Göhren and its associated crossing on my centre-left. He possibly could have tried to cover both bridges with his right-hand brigade. Anyway he decided to leave it open. I had the initiative in Turn 1, gave may cavalry Forwards tasking, and got across the bridge, with the infantry following. Meanwhile the other brigade engaged in bombardment and skirmishing at the other crossing. the photo above shows the game at this point. In Turn 2 I moved the two brigades of Marie-Louises in, one to advance on Göhren on my left, and the other to support my right.

On my left I pushed the cavalry forward and it encountered a Prussian brigade sent to meet it – and decisively beat it after two rounds of combat (it was quite a bit stronger); it got a Falter result and eventually dispersed entirely. Meanwhile I tried wearing down the nearest Prussian infantry unit with canister from the horse battery – which was much slower going than I expected. However disaster befell the Marie-Louise brigade in Göhren. The first unit got a toe-hold in round one, in spite of coming in with a two dice disadvantage, and brought in a second battalion as reinforcement. But the tables turned, and the Prussian won in spite of the advantage having turned against them (they had a three or four dice disadvantage – I hadn’t remembered the rule about a two to one advantage in dice, though it may not have applied). Both French units retreated, putting their brigade onto Falter, and then it broke as it failed its Falter test. It required my CinC to intervene (Stand with Me!) to stop the remaining two units being lost.

Lunchtime. The Prussian cavalry and French Marie-Louises have both been forced to retreat after two-round combats, causing their brigades to Falter. Both failed their Falter tests next move.

On my right my infantry brigade tried forcing the crossing, but only being able to push across one unit at a time, and without especially good luck, I made little headway. The Marie-Louise brigade could only contribute its skirmishers, though these did manage to destroy the Prussian screen, rashly not withdrawn, and cause a Falter – which forced the CinC to intervene. My battery eventually destroyed the horse artillery battery (which had mauled one of my infantry units), causing another Falter on the dragoon brigade, which eventually recovered.

Meanwhile Rod started to move over his remaining cavalry brigade help shore up his right. My cavalry was on the edge of being worn down, so might have been vulnerable, and as time was moving on, I decided that this was the moment for a decisive move. My two battalions of my left infantry advanced towards Rocken. They then went onto a Forwards Tasking while my cavalry charged the Prussian cavalry to keep it diverted. This was enough for the leading French unit to reach Rocken. It was now Turn 13 and there was no way the Prussians were going to retrieve the situation. My plan had actually worked. They rarely survive contact with Rod’s deployments.

At the end, with added coffee mug for authenticity. The French have reached Rocken at the back, while the Prussians have held on on their left, and even still hold Göhren, just.

This game was a major success. Going forwards it leaves me to deal with a few things. I need more troops. With 24 figures in a standard unit of infantry (though only 8 cavalry), these games use a lot of infantry figures. Of course that gives them a satisfactory visual appearance. The last two games stretched my French collection. I had to bring in two units of Young Guard to stand in for line infantry for the Gilly game, and both those units and a unit of Middle Guard for this one. I need to put together a brigade or so late period French infantry to bolster the numbers. The Prussians are looking a bit stretched too. I could do with some more regular line infantry.

Also my terrain needs work. I have bases and buildings for two “villages” – I needed four this time, and the result was a bit threadbare. My homemade cardboard river pieces need an upgrade too. I think I might have to buy in some latex ones, though there is a bit too much regularity in their shapes. And while the table mat is OK, I could do with more fields and things to add a bit of visual interest.

The Lützen scenario is a way off at the moment. The French army is the much the same as for Weissenfels, if we go for the smaller game (some of the troops get upgraded). But the Prussians, now on the attack, need more than double the infantry (though less cavalry). And the game is 20 turns. This is a much bigger game and it would have to be played more quickly if it is to be completed in a day – a maximum of five hours playing time. More players would doubtless be a help. But it is something to aim at. There are three other Prussian-French scenarios in the two books – Mockern in 1813, and St Armand and Planchenoit for 1815. These battles are even bigger, though the 1815 games are 18 and 16 moves respectively. Something to aspire to! It’s a pity there are not more smaller scenarios like Gilly and Weissenfels.

German infantry for 1943 Tunisia

Miniatures, News, WW2

After the German vehicles, I will describe the accompanying infantry. I need two battalions for the Rapid Fire style game I am planning for the battle of Medenine. Exactly how many figures this is I haven’t finally determined – but the starting point is 24 (three groups of 8) plus supporting weapons. I had enough already to cover one battalion-plus, but needed more.

Until now I have been using AB Figures’ standard Germans for further north, and simply painted the uniforms in tropical colours. It’s not too far off. But Medenine is one of the last desert battles, and features the Afrika Korps (DAK). I noticed that the AB range for the DAK did not feature troops in shorts – really not appropriate for the winter battles in Tunisia – so I thought I would give them a try. I bought three packs of infantry (ten in each), one of tripod-mounted machine-guns (two models) and one of officers (6 figures). All of the infantry are in helmets (good from my point of view), though there are caps for some of the others. Some of the infantry have sand goggles (which you don’t see in Sicily or Italy) and some are wearing gaiters, a feature of the German tropical uniform that you tend to see in pictures of earlier in the campaign – but also in the occasional one from Tunisia. These are fine for Medenine, and acceptable for the later 1943 campaigns.

I painted up all of the infantry (two groups of “advancing” and one of “prone”) and the machine-guns, along with most of the command group, along with figures I already had in stock, especially to provide the radios. I painted four command groups of two figures, three with radios. This will serve either as command groups at battalion or more senior level, or as artillery observers.

A closer look at one of the advancing infantry groups:

And the other one:

And the prone section (I entered this in my club’s monthly painting competition – it was voted 3rd out of 3 in its category…):

The main uniform is olive, made from mixing black with Oxide Yellow and white, I attempted a little variation in the amount of white, but this is hardly visible. The helmets for two of the sections are in the Braun used for the vehicles, and the other one was the Grau. Vehicle paint was often used to paint the helmets, and there are surviving examples with both of these colours. I darkened down the skin tones to reflect sun tans – but the result is still a bit on the red side, suggesting a bit of sunburn.

Here are the two machine-guns:

My photography doesn’t bring out the weapons themselves. Normally for medium machine-guns (i.e. medium calibre mounted on sustained fire mounts) I put just two crew on the main base, with a third crew member available on a separate one (rule systems can require individual crew members to be accounted for) – but these AB figures were obviously designed to go on the same base, and separate bases would have made little sense. They are a bit strange, in that they aren’t actually engaged in combat, but rather waiting for the action to happen. They are rather nice, though.

Finally the officer groups:

After the initial paint job, I applied my wash/glaze (a bit thick for wash, but thin for a glaze…) of Liquitex airbrush matt varnish with a little acrylic black ink. I thought the black would work better with the olive colouring than brown, and the brown ink I had was a bit bright. I tried to use less ink than on the previous occasion (with my British) but the ink is so powerful that it didn’t really work. It made the figures too dark. I touched up the uniform high and middle lights with fresh paint, and also the faces, which I think is good enough. The ink brings out the AB mouldings beautifully, almost to the level of the cartoon-style appearance which used to be very fashionable (though often achieved with a black undercoat). But I’ll have to try something less dark next time.

The bases are steel washers or mount board. The latter isn’t ideal as it can warp, and sometimes fray if over-handled. Pendraken do excellent pre-cut MDF bases and I may move towards these in future. Initially (and before any painting) I cover with a mix of acrylic medium, sand and a white-raw umber mix, with the edges painted in the same paint mix – quite pale with the idea that this would act as countershading (but not with the lighting in the pictures…). After painting they are covered with a mix Woodland Scenic flocks and sand. This gives a sort of generic arid finish. I have learnt the hard way how easy it is to make bases too dark.

I’m nearly ready for Medenine so far as miniatures are concerned. I need a couple of 2-pdr antitank guns for the British, and I need to find a way of making my die-cast Dorchester command vehicle table ready. The bigger obstacle is that I’m still working on my hex-based rules. While I’m loosely basing my order of battle on Rapid Fire, I don’t find those rules very satisfactory. I love the tabletop look of Rapid Fire, but not the extreme bath-tubbing of the rules.

So far as painting projects go, I’m being pulled in two directions. Do I continue to build up my Napoleonics for club games – now that I am converted to the Général d’Armée 2 rules. Or do I resume my 10mm 1866 project? Some time ago I prepared a large batch of Prussian Napoleonic artillery. I don’t strictly need these (GDA2 scenarios are quite light on artillery), but I think I’ll do these next anyway. If nothing else I want to try out new techniques on the horses.

My latest Germans for Tunisia 1943 – the vehicles

Miniatures, News, WW2
The AFVs in this recently completed batch

I’ve been working on. my most recent project for quite a few months, interrupted by the usual series of things – including a focus on completing my Journey Through Colour series. Now they are battle-ready I can introduce them. These are the Germans I will need to enable me to play the Medenine scenario I have been planning. It includes 30 infantry, plus extra tripod-mounted machine-guns, and four bases that can used as leaders or artillery observers; topping up the motor transport with three medium trucks and three heavy cars; three Panzer IV tanks (though I will only need one this time); three self-propelled guns; and a command tank Panzer III, a light tank and an armoured car HQ vehicle. A lot of stuff, so not surprising it took a long time to complete.

Today I will look at the vehicles. First the Panzer IVs

:

I need eight tanks to form the main assault force for Medenine, the last major German attack of the desert war, representing a whole regiment. Following the Rapid Fire scenario, I’m splitting them 50/50 between Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs. I already have three Plastic Soldier company (PSC) Panzer IIIMs with the long 50mm gun (with schurzen on the turret only, as characteristic of tanks in Sicily and Italy), which are close enough to the IIILs actually in use (no schurzen), and a Pz IIIN, with the short 75mm gun, converted from one of my ancient 1970s models. The IIIN was certainly in use in Tunisia in 1943 (often associated with the Tiger units, apparently), and the Rapid Fire OB has two. For the Panzer IVs I have three of my old Airfix F2s, which are the right model (though not quite the right paint finish), leaving me one short. I wanted to have some later model Panzer IVs for Salerno, so I decided to assemble and paint up three of these from PSC, with the turret schurzen, and to use one of them for this scenario.

To be honest, these PSC models were a bit of a disappointment. They are early releases from that company’s range, and modelled on early versions of the Panzer IV, with gestures to the later ones(mainly the schurzen parts, included track ones that I didn’t use). The minor details, such as the vision slits (largely removed in later models as blocked by schurzen), aerial (moved to the back and changed to whip format) and hatch lid (becoming one-piece) are all for the earlier models, and there is no attempt to reflect the slightly longer gun barrel of the later version. These later versions were the G and H, but that is an altogether too tidy a representation of what happened. The changes were brought in piecemeal, and older models converted, and this transition is visible in 1943, with only early versions of the IVH making an appearance. For mine I cut off the surplus vision slits, and the old (retracted) aerial. On one of them I even created a one-piece hatch lid. The result is good enough for wargames, but if I want more I will try something different. In fact these traditional plastic kits are being phased out by PSC, replaced by 3D printed models. These may be more accurate – but they aren’t visible on the PSC website – which may be because of the great website disaster that has affected so many wargames suppliers. I fitted some stowage from stock, and tank commanders from AB Figures – so much nicer than the PSC ones.

Next the command and recce vehicles:

These consist of a Panzer III command tank and a Panzer IIF from Early War Miniatures (EWM), and a SdKfz 263 radio vehicle, an option on the PSC SdKfz 231 kit. The command tank, and the Panzer II (equipping the reconnaissance platoon) were lifted straight from the Rapid Fire OB; I also wanted a radio vehicle to add to the HQ, and opted for this armoured car. In fact the vehicle was used to act as the HQ for a reconnaissance unit – but it is an interesting vehicle and I thought it would work well enough here – improvisation was so often the name of the game in Africa.

The Panzer II was an incredibly disappointing model. It is a metal one from PSC, and the turret looks just wrong – it is too flat. Not only that it is moulded with a closed hatch, so I can’t put a commander in – it really should be open-hatch for a recce vehicle. I didn’t really need this tank – whose role in the scenario is surely peripheral – I could have used an armoured car. But I like the look of a Panzer II, and it was the only way I was going get one in my 1943 project. I’m so disappointed that I am on the lookout for a better model, though I probably will never get as far as actually replacing it.

The Panzer III is another model from EWM – a special Afrika Korps model with lots of stowage moulded in. The turret is also a little flat, but I can have the hatch open, and somebody in it – and the overall effect is tolerable. While I’m not bowled over with the model – and it is probably is more appropriate to 1941/42 – this will do. The most serious problem is that the moulded in stowage makes it impossible to put in the vertical struts of the aerial at the back, even though these are provided. Like the Panzer II it is a small model ( a small 1/76 compared to the large 1/72 from PSC – more on that later), but I’m going to have to tolerate these scale variations.

As for the armoured car, it’s a classic PSC job – a big brute and a bit clumsy in places, but a good wargames model. Unfortunately all the hatches are moulded closed. I have two more models in the box – one of which I think I will make up as a 75mm SP gun, and the other the conventional armoured car.

All these vehicles are finished in the Braun/Grau camouflage scheme in use in Africa at the time. Usually German vehicles are portrayed as being in a single colour (the Braun or the earlier Gelbbraun) – but the German policy up to this point was for the camouflage stripes/blotches to contrast in hue but not shade – so the patterns don’t pop out on black and white photos. My Grau is probably slightly dark but even so you can see what I mean from this:

And so to the self-propelled guns:

From left to right we have a Grille, an early Marder III and a captured M3 75mm GMC. The Rapid Fire OB only has one SP gun in it: a sIG33 150mm infantry gun. The Grille stands in for this; I don’t know if any Grilles were deployed in Tunisia, but they certainly featured at Salerno, and its characteristics will be the same as the more ad-hoc vehicles they did have (mounted on ex-French tank chassis, or perhaps Panzer II). But a German account of the battle I bumped into over the internet talked of a motley collection of self-propelled artillery being taken along for this attack, so instead of the towed weapons in the OB I decided to include some extras (though actually more powerful). This early variant of the Marder III was certainly in Tunisia, even if it wasn’t at this battle. And this battle was shortly after Kasserine, when the Germans acquired a lot of American equipment, so taking the 75mm M3 GMC was certainly plausible.

The Grille model came from EWM: though small it is a delightful. I didn’t think the crew provided really came up to scratch (though I did use them on the M3), but I found alternatives from my various PSC kits (even though these are made to a bigger scale…). It was painted in the later war Dunkelgelb, befitting the Italian campaign.

The Marder III was from PSC. As usual it was a bit of a monster (it has the same Pz 38t chassis as the Grille, so you can get an idea of the scale difference from the picture. But it’s nice enough model, which I painted in the Braun/Grau scheme.

The M3 GMC was an Italeri kit, at the smaller end of the scale range (it’s about the same size as my old Airfix halftracks). For some reason I always wanted a couple of these in my collection – I think they occupy a tactically interesting niche. They were used by the British in Italy – though I not sure that was before 1944. There were two models in the box, and I thought a captured German one would add a bit of variety. One did make an appearance at the battle of Hunt’s Gap, which I have in mind to do a scenario of. And the paint scheme I used was from that vehicle. The Olive Drab base colour was overpainted with Braun, to cover over the US markings, and create some rather crude crosses, along with a general mottling. The model is OK, except that the floor of the driving compartment is too high, which makes it impossible to put anybody in the driving seat (or passenger seat, come to that.

And so to the transport. The German infantry arrived on the battlefield in lorries, which came under artillery fire, forcing them to disembark rather further from the action than they had hoped. For two battalions of infantry I needed six medium trucks – and I only had three painted up. I did have three more PSC models in stock, though I had a vague plan to turn one of these into a mounted AA gun. The simplest thing was to commandeer them for this. In hindsight it would have been more interesting, and perfectly realistic, to do some captured US trucks, which would have given a very Tunisian flavour to proceedings. I made them up as standard tucks, two Mercedes and one Opel. Two were painted in Braun and one in Dunkelgelb.

And finally some lighter transport:

These are three Styr heavy cars (or light trucks if you prefer), from another PSC box. This is one of the more recent PSC offerings, before they went the 3D printing route. I needed them as transport for mortars, antitank guns and so on. And there’s a problem. They are massive, even by previous PSC experience. PSC’s scale creep has gone mad; there is no way they are 1/72 – though the crew figures are consistent with earlier models. To see what I mean look at the comparison here:

On the left is a Milicast Horch heavy car, which should be of comparable size, although admittedly in 1/76 scale. On the right is one of the Mercedes medium trucks, which should be heftier. The Styr overshadows the Horch and is getting towards the medium truck in size. The Styrs look OK in isolation, but start to be problem when mixing them with my other models. I will have to think about replacements. I could press into service one of my Airfix US halftracks, but I would still need a couple more. I don’t want to go down the Milicast route again: their models are expensive and very fiddly to assemble.

I have already said quite a bit about my painting and finishing technique in the Journey Through Colour series. After the paint and decals, I was quite sparing with my matt varnish black glaze/wash, given the rather over-heavy result on my infantry figures. I still needed to do a bit of light overpainting with my original paint mixes, which fortunately were still alive. Finally they got a heavy dusting in ground pastels. The result isn’t refined, but I have achieved a weathered campaign look that works on the wargames table.

Next time the infantry!

Postscript: I entered the Marder III for my club’s monthly painting competition and it won its category… out of three entrants.