Sea Lion: Operation Gigant

So what, I hear you ask, have I been slaving over recently?

The answer is above, Operation Gigant, the German second front in the invasion of Britain.

With new units, new factions and scenario ideas, the Germans move north, yay, unto the hallowed fields of Nottingham...and thereabouts.

Yours for a princely sum of £12.99; on preorder now at Warlord Games.

PS I nearly titled this "Woops! I did it again."

Dr Who, Bolt Action, VBCW - A Mitford Gal

One of the Mitford Gals shown with her BMW Sports (in patriotic Red, White and Black), her dog spot, and her current squeeze, Hauptmann Von Klot.

This is an out of production Revell 1:48 kit that is still widely available, from their aircraft accessories range. The Hauptmann is from their Luftwaffe ground crew accessory range.

Suitable for Dr Who or, at a pinch, Bolt Action or VBCW - very tall, the Mitford Gals.

They'll Always Be An England: Operation Sea Lion

"The year is 1940, and the German invasion of Britain has begun. With this new campaign book for Bolt Action, players can fight the battles of World War II's greatest 'what if' scenario. Defend the cliffs of Dover and the beaches of Kent from wave after wave of German landing craft. Parachute into the Home Counties in a surgical strike to capture Winston Churchill. Rally the Home Guard in a last, desperate attempt to keep England free of the Nazi invaders! Containing new rules, scenarios, and unit types covering all of the unique features of this alternate history campaign, it offers a chance for all Bolt Action players to truly rewrite the history of World War II."

The Campaign Sea Lion supplement for Bolt Action is finished and at the printers. It is on target for the May 18th release date: see link on sidebar.

I am very pleased with this one: it has new vehicles....

It has new armies.

As well as new rules for some much loved old ones.

In fact there are lots of new armies and rules. We have really let ourselves go. The VBCW crowd who use Bolt Action are going to find much useful 'stuff'' here.

Bolt Action as its never been before.

New scenarios, new types of scenarios, new types of vehicles, new characters................And lots of new models to grace your wargame tables.

Mighty Maus

Warlord Games have just released the Pz VIII Maus in 1:56 scale.

The Maus was one of those lunatic German obsessions with gargantuism that bedevilled their war effort.

Only two hulls for this 188 tonnes superheavy tank were built before the factory was overrun by the T34s of the Red Army. It had a 128mm main gun and a 75mm as secondary armament.


The Maus made no sense at all either as a battle tank for real or on the wargaming table but, you know, I am going to buy one anyway.

Just gotta be done.

Medway Club's VBCW Xmas Charity Game

Spode's Blackshort Legion (aka your humble scribe) have kidnapped father Xmas from Maidstone's John Lewis aqnd have him hostage at Little Wimpington as part of their demands of a British Bicycle for every British Worker and the railway gauge to be widened so sheep can stand sideways in the waggons.

Spode's WWI artillery piece, liberated from the Royal Engineers Museum, threatens a suspicious looking milk float who identifies himself as 'Ernie, the fastest milkman in the south'.

Unfortunately, the umpire ruled that Spode's air support has frozen up and is unserviceable - boo, hiss.

The Maidstone BUF block the road to Little Wimpington in support of The Blackshorts.

The Post Office Socialist Militia are tasked to storm Little Wimpington and rescue Father Xmas but they first have to hold a meeting to discuss terms and conditions.

Nazi Paratroops unexpectedly drop in to Little Wimpington to take Father Xmas into protective custody, sparking a firefight with Spode's chaps.

Then an armed unit of the Met Police Special Branch infiltrate the village and open fire on everybody.

Then it turns out that Father Xmas has magical allies from the North Pole who ride a self track laying train. This umpire is barmy!

Then up pop killer penguins and snowmen: this is getting tricky.

An armed squad of Kent Police arrive in Little Wimpington and start a jurisdiction dispute with the Met.

Apparently there's been an escape from the local Zoo.

A flying Anglian Mechanised Column.

The Nazi Stormtroopers capture Father Xmas and march him out of the village, protected by air support: Goering's breeding programme has obviously gone well.

Many thanks to Graham, fourth from left, and Mik, fifth from left, for such a memorable evening.

We raised more than £150 for the Royal British Legion.

Bolt Action Fight them On The Beaches - Sea Lion

Operation Sea Lion, as 'any phule kno', was the German code name for the invasion of Britain, September 1940.

This will be my next book for Warlord Games/Osprey and it is being pre-advertised on Amazon.

The book is finished except for the scenarios, and new models are in the pipeline.

There will be new scenarios, new army lists of various types, and lots of new units and vehicles, which may be of interest to those who play Very British Civil War using Bolt Action Rules as there are rules for improvised equipment.

This has been great fun to do.

Review Bolt Action Priest SPG

The 105 mm Howitzer Motor Carriage M7 was nicknamed Priest by the British Army because of the pulpit-like structure for the auxiliary machine gun.

The Warlord Games model comes in three beautifully shaped resin pieces, the hull and each track. There was very slight distortion of the tracks which were adequately straightened when they were superglued to the hull. Flash was absolutely minimal.

The guns, pulpit and a few other bits and pieces were metal: again flash was minimal and it all fitted together easily.

The model comes with three American crew: a loader, a commander leaning on the pulpit and a man with a walky-talky - that's showing my age!

As I wanted to use the SPG in my British Army I replaced the head of the loader, and the upper torso of the commander using a British armoured commander model.

The only issue I had is that the release-agent on the resin parts is rather fierce and I should have cleaned the model more thoroughly before undercoating.

In the Pacific, the Priest was preferred to the Sherman by US Marines as a direct fire bunker-buster because of the greater explosive power of the 105mm gun. The Japanese lacked effective anti-armour weapons, making such a tactic viable with such a lightly armoured vehicle.

A great model: highly recommended.

Bolt Action: German 105mm Howitzer

   I thought my loyal readers, there must be some, might like to see the German 105mm Howitzer that wreaked such havoc at Arras.

   In the early war years it was the 105, with the 88 Flak, that was the only defence against the heavy Allied armour like the Matilda, Char B or KV

   This is the Warlord Games model from their Bolt Action range. This is an awesome metal kit. You get the gun, five crew and two ammunition sets. The detail is quite amazing. Too much for me, if truth be told. A good modeller will find this kit fantastic but if you are Johnny Two-Thumbs like me it is a bit of a challenge. I never did get the shield quite right. Mind you the finished article is well good.

  I sourced the base from from Renadra plastics.

Sorry for the poor pics. Rotten weather here so had to use a flash.

Bolt Action: Refighting the Battle of Arras

Turn 1

    This is a scenario I devised to play a Bolt Action game based on the final phase of the Battle of Arras where Frankforce, the 4th & 7th Royal Tank Regiment and the 6th & 8th Durham Light infantry, attacked the SS Totenkopf and 7th Panzer. The attack was only halted finally by a gun line of 88m Flak guns and 105mm heavy howitzers.

   The attack shocked the German command who thought they had been attacked by five divisions rather than four understrength battalions.

   The layout above shows a T junction in France in 1940 looking south. Two weak platoons of Durham Light Infantry supported by RTR armour are attacking south across the open fields. The German gun line protected by two weak platoons of panzergrenadiers are strung out along the east-west road. German units are 'Hiding'.

   The Bolt Action Rulebook scenario Point Defense was used to play the game. The three objectives are shown as white blobs. I put the main axis of my attack as the British player in the centre where my slow armour could move up the road protected by flank attacks from infantry sections.

   The game starts with a massive British artillery stonk: the British get to throw each roll twice and take the best result. I didn't kill many troops but I did deal out suppression markers liberally keeping German heads down for the first turn.
 

Turn 2

   The battle really started on Turn 2. The German 105mm opened up at (1), the German left flank. The first shot of the game hit the Matilda II (2) in the flank, setting it on fire.

   That's right, I lost my best asset to the first German shot of the game. %$£&^*

   A Pak 37mm turned out to be concealed behind the farmhouse (3). It hit my armoured car, immobilising it.

   The infantry section (5) got confused and failed to move.

Turn 3

The German howitzer brewed up a bren-gun carrier (1). The third German heavy weapon, an MMG, turned out to be guarding the third objective. It raked my attacking infantry (3): Hitler's buzz saw, indeed.

Turn 4

   This turn I had disaster on the flanks. At (1) and (2) my infantry suffered horribly. On a better note the recalcitrant infantry section finally got moving (3) and I soaked the German unit guarding the centre objective (4) with suppression markers.

Turn 5

   Captured the central objective (1) and the Matilda I overran the Pak (3), its puny 37mm shells bouncing off the tanks thick armour. Blood on the tracks! Now the plan was to take the objective on my left flank with a pincer attack. Unfortunately my units on the flanks (2) took another clobbering.

Turn 6

   This was possibly the last turn of the game. My Matilda was brewed up by the 105mm howitzer (1) and my infantry assaulted to the left flank (2) but it was all too little too late. My hopes were raised when a seventh turn was rolled.

Turn 7: Centre Objective

I hold this one firmly. The objective is indicated by the red marker.Victory to the BEF!

Turn 7: Objective 2

   So near but yet so far. The Germans retain the objective.

   My forces had been wiped out on my right flank so I never had a sniff at this objective.

   A 7th Panzer victory then by two points to three over the BEF but it was a close thing. If I hadn't lost my Matilda II on the first shot...

   Congrats to Shaun.

For PanzerKaput: Bolt Action 2pdr.

This is the Warlord Games 28 ml Bolt Action 2pdr which I built for Panzerkaput so he can make sure those Panzers are, er, kaput. The 2pdr was a serious bit o'kit in 1940 capable of taking out any Axis armour. The rotatable base is a typical piece of peacetime over-engineering although it did make the weapon easy to mount on a lorry.

This is not an easy kit to assemble. You need to have a good look at pics of the completed model on the Warlord website and try fitting everything together before gluing. I found Kicker super-glue accelerator vital.

The end result is worth it though.

Bolt Action Sealion Scenario: Rescuing Hauptmann Prang

   Just inland from the seaside town of Walmington on Sea lies the ancient hamlet of Much Gazumping, famous as a mustering point for the Peasant's Revolt. Much Gazumping has seen better days being heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe when it was mistakenly identified as a key Fremlings beer production centre - part of Goering's revenge attacks on the brewery for naming an ale Spitfire.

   The local Home Guard observe a Bf109 crash land in the area of the hamlet and immediately two motorised sections with the platoon command board their transport, Jone's butcher's van, and head for the scene. They stop the van in a lane outside the village and proceed across the fields on foot.

   Unknown to their commander, Captain Mainwearing, the 109 pilot, one Hauptmann Prang, got off a Mayday message as he crash landed. Normally this wouldn't have mattered but he was Herman Goering's nephew. Accordingly 7th Panzer was detailed to send a mobile battle group to rescue Prang.

   The armoured thrust was detected by 1st Armoured who moved to intercept. The tanks outstripped their infantry as was usual for 1st Armoured but they had the good fortune (or something like that) to come across Dad's Army who volunteered to serve as their infantry support.

   The photo shows the AFVs of 1st Armoured (regular) and the Command and two rifle sections of Home Guard (inexperienced).

Advancing towards Much Gazumping across the fields on the other side are three German AFVs, a section of infantry and the command squad. Out of site, behind the trees, the sneaky Hun have a fast column of two 38(T)s and a mechanised infantry section.

   The British halt when the 38(T)s burst out of the ruins right next to the plane. The German infantry debuss and pile into cover.  Captain Mainwearing insists on moving through the woods to set up a command post on the hill overlooking the hamlet despite Sgt Wilson asking if it was wise to advance without the infantry sections which had become bogged down (bad rolls).

   Regrettably a stupid boy gets his scarf caught in the bushes and lets off a burst from his Thompson, killing several rooks and alerting the Hun who pour in the fire scattering the command section ('killed' and removed from play but don't worry - they will be back next week).

   The panzergrenadiers reverse the empty Hanomag up to the plane and Prang is hauled aboard. A 38(T) gives covering fire.

   The British player makes a last valiant effort to shoot up the Hanomag to prevent Prang escaping but alas every shot misses.

   Note the order dice by the units. These are a great help to play the game. The little blue plastic chips represent friction. When something is hit (not necessarily damaged) it takes a suppression marker which impedes its function until removed. It is well worth piling in fire even if the chance of a kill is low just to achieve suppression.

   All the light anti-tank rifles and light AT guns suddenly have value even against iron monsters as they can suppress the ogres.

   For a simple game, Bolt Action gives very realistic results and tactics.

   The British were really up against it, and that's my excuse for losing. Congratulations to Rommel, aka Shaun.