NATO pushes ahead

Stuart, Phil and I took the first draft of the Krefeld Salient game to the Maltby Club today. The forces used were those currently intended for the final game but the terrain was just what we could throw together.

Jim and Justin look happy enough as the Soviet rearguard commanders. Little do they know...

The NATO force included a couple of Jaguar strike aircraft. These provided lots of fun as they bombed both sides and (see below) empty German factory units.

The were no aircraft units in the Soviet line-up but when the British Forward Air Controller rolled a Command Blunder and was found to have been strafed from the air we couldn't resist deploying this MiG-27.

By the ned of the battle the Soviet forces had been seriously bloodied. The British Challengers were virtually unstoppable. Here we can see them sweeping round the woods and shooting up BMP-2s at close range.

The Soviets were focred beyond their breakpoint and by the end of game turn 5 they needed to roll zero or less on two six sided dice to keep fighting!

Playtest game today

Sorry about the size of the photos on the previous posting. I was trying a new approach of linking directly to the pics at Imageshack but something didn't go quite right. Unfortunately, the photos in question were stored on a laptop that has since died so I need to recover them before reposting properly. As things stand you can click on the images to see them properly.

I hoping today to get in a playtest of the Krefeld Salient scenario at the Maltby club. This should give an opportunity to take some more pictures.

Krefeld Salient NATO forces

I've taken some pics of the NATO base force for the SOTCW game at Caronnade in May.

The main force consists of a Challenger regiment and a battalion of mechanised infantry in FV432s.

The Challengers were painted by Phil Gray some time ago.  They are accompanied by a Scimitar recce platoon and a GW troop in FV438s.  The Challenger on a square base is the Unit's HQ.  I might well add a second HQ to the unit to help capture the superior flexibility of NATO doctrine.

The Infantry battalion (I'm calling them the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders) are in FV432s.  The Challie-432 mix is true to Hackett's The Third World war which is the source for our scenario.  As well as infantry there's an HQ, a machine gun platoon with GPMGs and three Milan teams.

Artillery support is in the form of three Abbots and an M110.  Actually, it might end up being six Abbots - we'll see how the points balance out.

A Cold War Commander army needs a Commanding Officer element.  In our case the British CO rides an FV439.  I made this element years ago - the tarpaulin at the rear is made from lead foil and stretched sprue. 
Air support for the Brits is in the form of a couple of Jaguars.

Among the planned reinforcements is a squadron of Chieftains from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (seemed appropriate as we're playing in Scotland).  The NATO forces are obviously scraping together forces for this operation.  Infantry support is in the form of elements of 1st Armoured Squadron RAF Regiment in Spartan APCs.

I had a damaged Skytrex Chieftain and decided to replace the missing barral with a piece of brass rod.  Rather than try to model the bore evacuator and thermal jacket I decided to depict some camouflage by gluing a pice of ragged-edged tissue paper over the barrel.  The resulting model forms the HQ element for the Dragoons.

In addition to the Brits we have an interloper from 1(Ne) Corps in the form of a Leopard 2 platoon.  I intend to build a few more Dutch elements to form a small reinforcing command.

Finally, here's a pic of the whole main force.

Carronade Game Terrain

Hi All

My first post for the game :)

Richard and Phil, have dimensions been finalised for the tablesize, what size are we looking at?

Other than the cratered ground, what other terrain features do we need? Autobahn, Forest, Town?

Am off to Vapnartak on Sunday, so its the ideal time to pick up supplies.

Stuart