Tuesday 1 October 2013

Kampfgruppe Hartman

After the initial probing, Kampfgruppe Hartman launch an assault to take le Mesnil Crossroads. The same board set up as Mesnil First Contact.

Game two of the three game campaign starts with the variable attachment selection.

The Germans base force consists of:
One infantry section
One pioneer section with a SdKfz 251/1
A reinforced platoon HQ of  Lt. plus Sgt.  LMG team of two and two riflemen a French car and Kubelwagen.
A 20mm AA gun mounted on the back of a truck, junior leader, one gunner plus three crew.
One StuG III.

Added to this is the variable attachment which is diced for. The Germans earned 4 credits with a major victory in the first game. They roll 16 and are now able to add or subtract up to 4 to that roll, however they stick with 16 and save the 4 credits for the next scenario.
The 16 gives them a choice of either a Medium Machine Gun Team or a Pioneer Flamethrower Team. They choose the flamethrower team.
This is one powerful force and the Paras are going to struggle (  I never did like " even games " ).

The Para base force consists of:
HQ team of Maj. Dyer plus a Sgt. ( acting as Forward Observer with field telephone ) a piat team of two and a 2 inch mortar team of two.
One Para section.
One Para scout team of junior leader ( Hero ) a piat team of two and three riflemen.
3 inch Mortar support
Two mixed mine fields.
The Paras do have a supply of Gammon Bombs ( d4 +2 ) and Hawkins anti tank mines ( d4 +2) used for close assaulting armour.

The variable attachment roll improves the Paras to Elite status and one extra Mortar support mission.

As the Skirmish Campaign Series classifies force training and morale, I have translated their system into Chain of Command terms in line with others suggestions ( Tom Ballou & Malty666 on the Too Fat Lardies forum ). The CoC rules are extremely flexible and can be tweaked easily to accommodate all sorts of factors.

Training 
T1 = Elite ( as per CoC main rules )
T2 and T3 = Regular ( as per CoC main rules )
T4 = Green ( as per CoC main rules )
T5 = Green only 4 Command dice

Morale asses the dominant class.
A = +2 to the morale die roll
B = +1 to the morale die roll
C = Std. Roll
D = -1 to the morale die roll
E = -2 to the morale die roll

As for Senior or Junior leaders I make a judgement based on the number of full sections and the leadership values in the scenarios ( poor leadership = less leaders, good leadership more leaders or senior leaders ).

Measuring Skirmish Campaign turns is more problematic as CoC uses a flexible turn system.  I am still experimenting with that one.

The forces are ready and the table set ready to game it at the weekend, after action report next week ( hopefully ).