an introduction to Jagdpanzer

There ;were five games being played at the south bay game club on May 5th.  Two naval games, the wooden soldier project, the battle of Puebla (Cimco de Mayo), and Jagdpanzer.   Due to restrictions on their release I cannot post any pictures of the wooden soldier game.  The game is designed for younger players and has some well painted handmade wooden soldiers.  The following are some pictures of one of the naval games and the start of the battle of Puebla.

one of the naval games

battle of Puebla

James Poli was running the Jagdpanzer game.  The forces involved were the Romanian guards and the Russians.   The Russians had 3 t28s 10 t26s four infantry platoons, a machine gun platoon, some anti-tank guns, some mortars, and  4 armored cars.   The Romanians had a similar sized force of infantry and tanks.   I commanded the Russians and James commanded the Romanians.  My objective was to secure the bridges across the river.  My forces started about the middle of the table.   After accessing the situation, I decided to set up a kill zone along the main road, secure the church on the hill with a couple of platoons of infantry, and use the rest of my force to sweep the right flank.

I set up the T28s on the road, moved three of the T26s up on the hill above the road, and placed the anti-tank guns supported by a platoon of infantry in the woods on the left side of the road.  As the Romanians advanced up the road my troops opened fire taking out a couple of their tanks.  Over the next few turns my forces along the road took out more of the Romanian tanks and forced them to withdraw.  I ended up losing one of the T28s.

On the hill my infantry secured the church and the woods, but came under bombardment from artillery.  Fortunately none of my forces were lost.  The Romanians had sent three tanks and a couple of platoons of infantry to capture the church and hill.  James had also placed his anti-tank guns in the field on the back side of the hill.  It had taken a few turns for the Romanians to get in position to assault the church.  Their tanks had been firing on my infantry in an attempt to kill or pin them.  At this point my artillery came down on the Romanian forces on the hill, landing with no deviation, and causing devastation to the Romanians.  One tank was lost along with four infantry.  The machine gun platoon also managed to kill another couple of stands of Romanian infantry.  The Romanians failed their morale and retreated.

On my right flank the remaining seven T26s and two platoons of infantry had advanced on the small village, which was held by a platoon of Romanian infantry.  The combined fire from the tanks and barrages by my mortars and light artillery killed one infantry stand and pinned the remainder.   James was sending his remaining armor to help on that flank.

At this point we had to call the game due to time restraints.  Due to unforeseen circumstance the game had started over two hours late.  The Russians were in position to capture the bridge on the main road, had control of the central hill, and had more forces available on their right flank than the Romanians had available to counter them.  Total Russian losses were one T28 and a couple of stands of infantry.  Romanian losses were seven stands of infantry and seven tanks.

I had been lucky with my artillery die rolls, getting most of it to land on target.   A post game analysis of the scenario indicated that the Russians should probably start the scenario arriving on the roads instead of starting at the middle of the table.  By starting near the middle, I had been able to gain a tactical advantage with the Russians.  The Russian armored cars were very slow, not being able to keep up with the infantry when moving cross country.

                                               Initial starting positions of the Russians

                                                view from the Romanian side of the table

                                              Kill zone established and first victems

                                             Russian artillery strikes on the central hill

                                          The advance on the Russian right against the village.     
                                   
                                           Remains of Romanian tanks caught in the kill zone.

Utah Beach Part Two

The second part of Utah beach was fought at Greg's house. The game had remained as it was at the end of turn 3 while Greg was traveling. Dan and I continued our assault on the German beach defenses. We concentrated our re-enforcements on the flanks and started rolling up the defenders.

 Additional re-enforcements were also arriving for the Germans. These were arriving in various locations on the table edge. The Germans sent most of the armored units around the eastern side of the battlefield. Four PzIV's took up a position guarding the eastern causeway, while Panzergrenadiers prepared to assault the eastern village. On the western side of the battle the fallschirmjaegers were having a difficult time making any progress against the 101st's defenses. On the southern edge the German panzer commander and the fallschirmjaeger weapons arrived. The infantry dug in and the panzers advanced. A bazooka team took out the commander's tank, but he was able to escape and take command of his second tank.

On the seventh turn our aircraft finally destroyed the last German 105 that had been bothering us all game long. We had been lucky on the first turn when our aircraft took out three of the four guns, but they were unable to do any further damage for the next five turns.

When the game ended I was ready to advance across the causeway with most of my armor. Dan had cleared the defenders on his side and took up a position to prevent the German PzIV's from interdicting my advance. The German defensive position at the other end of the causeway still suppressed and had been that way since the beginning of the game.

This game had been a very large one for Flames of War. The Americans had landed most of two infantry battalions and a tank battalion along with the battalion of paratroopers holding the villages. The Germans appeared to have about a company sized Kampfgruppe of panzers and panzergrenadiers and a company of fallschirmjaegers arriving as re-enforcements (maybe more) along with their initial defensive positions.

 I would estimate that the game would need about 10 turns at the minimum for the Americans to link up with the paratroops. We had some good luck initially with the aircraft and some bad luck with sinking tanks so the overall effect was about average for our side. The Germans also seemed to have average luck.

Although the beach defenses were stronger than they were historically, this was a fictional what-if scenario and overall the game was well balanced.

The Americans should land a combination of tanks and infantry along the whole beach on the first turn in order to avoid having too many units within the blast area of indirect fire. They should seek to take out the flanks of the German beach defenses so that they can gain a superiority of force and start rolling up the flanks of the defenses. The second turns landings may also need to be spread along the beach in order to avoid the German indirect fire. Depending on the situation from the third turn on the Americans may be able to concentrate their landings on the flanks.  Although Teddy Roosevelt Jr. provides a landing bonus bringing him in too early would expose him to German fire.

The Germans are somewhat limited as their beach defenders have few places to move to. Their re-enforcements arrive randomly and they will have to make the best of this. If there are enough experienced players then they should be able to get more turns in and take less time doing so than we did. Greg was an excellent umpire and had to do almost all the calculations for the die rolls as most of us had not played FOW before. The two sessions took about nine hours of game play to complete seven turns. At the end Greg determined that the Americans had a slight edge in the victory conditions.

Thanks to Greg for hosting and umpiring the game and thanks to all those who participated.

                                          western end of the beach

                                         eastern end of the beach

                                         German armored forces, southeast corner

                                         fallschirmjaeges and paratroops western edge

                                        beach defenses crumbling at end of game western edge

                                                      aircraft destroy last 105

                                                 Panzer commander's tank ambushed

                                          panzergrenadiers prepare to assault town

             Dan cleans out eastern beach defenses and takes up position to counter German panzers.