US M10 Platoon for Flames of War

The next batch of US forces are done.  This is a Tank Destroyer Platoon  of mid war.  This is the old Battlefront box set from 2004.  This box is great because it includes the security section whereas the current box does not.

These guys have already seen a couple of games already and I really like them.  This seems like a no brainer unit for mid-war US army.

El Guettar Turns 1 and 2

Tim and I have completed the first two battles of our El Guettar campaign.  Each battle represents one game turn.  The first battle was Hold the Line with the Germans defending.  Tim brought a Panzer Grenadier company with lots of dismounted grenadiers, some Pak40s, a couple 88s and some artillery.  He also brought some air support.  The US forces consisted of a Tank company with some Shermans, Lees, M3 TD and T19 artillery.  The US has sporatic air support.

The battle was close and a real nail-biter.  The US pushed hard for a single objective and lost a tank platoon right at the start.  Things quickly turned and the US pulled out a 5-2 win.

The battle was Breakthrough with the same forces.  The US was the attacker again.  This game was a first for me in that it was the first time that I used a smoke barrage and actually had it work.  The US would take this game also by a 5-2 score.

The US is off to a good start in the campaign, winner the first two games and capturing the first objective - Kasserine.  The cost was high.  Here is the scoring so far:

Victory Points
US - 10
German -4

Casualties
US - 20
Germans - 14

Vehicles lost
US - 20
Germans - 0

Guns lost
US - 0
Germans - 5

El Guettar - A Flames of War Campaign

Tim and I have been playing lots of games of Flames of War over the last year and a half.  These games have mostly been set in North Africa in the mid war period.  The games have been fun but we always talk about doing some sort of campaign.

After much talk and a little research we decided to do a FoW axis if attack campaign loosely based on the attacks of the US II Corps in the El Guettar area of Tunisia in 1943.  This is a neat area for a campaign as the forces involved are fairly limited but very interesting - German armor, Italian armor and US infantry and armor.  Since there is only two of us playing we have dropped the Italians for now.

The strategic situation is that the US has just suffered an humiliating defeat at Kasserine Pass but the Germans lack the strength to exploit their success.  The German forces begin a slow withdrawal to the southeast in order to better protect the route of the Afrika Korps into Tunisia.  The US II Corps new commander, Gen. Patton, is eager to press the Germans and cutoff the Afrika Korps route into Tunisia.  To do this the US must capture the town of Gabes before the DAK cam make their escape.  Patton also wants to prove that the first all US command of the war is able to take on tough opposition and defeat veteran Germans units.

The campaign rules are a modified version of the Noob Friendly Tunisia Campaign run by the WWPD guys a couple years ago.

The Rules

1. Mapped based axis of attack format (See the crappy map above) based on Patton's II Corps attack through El Guettar to cutoff the retreat of the Africa Corps.
2. Armies involved - US Armor and Infantry; German Armor and Panzer Grenadiers. Lists are to be created from the North Africa book and the Tunisia lists for US and Germans.
3. Battles will be randomly generated from the FoW rule book or by agreement of the players.  Battles will be scored per the normal VP scoring system.
4. The Allies have the strategic initiative.  The Axis forces cannot capture territories they can only try and slow the advance of the allies.  A territory is captured when the Allies achieve 6 VP for
battles fought in that territory.  This means it will take between one and six battles to capture a territory.  The Germans start the campaign controlling all territories.
5. The allies will have 12 campaign turns to capture the final objective - Gabes.  Each game represents one campaign turn.
6. Each player should pick a nationality to play for the entire campaign.  Players are free to change their army lists from game to game but should not switch nationalities.
7.  Progress in the campaign will be tracked several ways.  Number of territories held, Strategic objective, VP accumulated,  and Casualties suffered (each team lost in a battle counts as a casualty).  The strategic objective for the US is to capture Gabes and for the Germans it is to prevent the US from achieving their objective.


So those are the basic rules for the campaign.  Tim will be playing the Germans which is an army has is very familiar with.  I will be playing the Americans which is a new army for me.  It should prove interesting and hopefully I can put up a good enough fight to take it all the way to 12 games.  No matter how it turns out I can see us running this campaign a couple of times so we each have a chance to play both armies.

The first battle is tomorrow so here's hoping it goes well for the Allies!

Flames of War US Tank Company

I have been wanting to build a US Tank Company for a long time.  Last year I bought some Plastic Soldier Company M4A1 and M4A2 models from a friend that was getting out of the hobby.  I had already started collecting some PSC models before I purchased the collection.  After playing a few games with my friends old tanks I decided they just were not getting the job done, so I decided to build and paint my own collection.

Here are the first 10 tanks for my new army, along with a couple of extras.

First up are the commander and the 2iC.  The figures are Battlefront and the tanks are PSC.

 The first platoon is also PSC with a Battlefront commander.  These tanks have the M34 gun mantlet and some have the rounded hull.

The second platoon are PSC with an Old Glory commander.  These tanks have the M34A1 mantlet and all have the bolted hull fronts.

This is the classic Battlefront US objective marker.  It is a knocked out version of their M4A1 model.  I never really liked the BF version of this tank.  The slope of the front armor looks wrong to me.

Finally we have the M32 TRV from Battlefront.  I will actually be playing this as the M31 for the time being until I order the correct model from BF.  I really like the new plastic tracks that BF are doing.  They are much nicer than the old metal ones.

Not a bad start on a new army.  This is just under 1200 points.  I have an M10 TD platoon and an M7 artillery battery in process so they will be getting some reinforcements soon.