The Sword and the Flame in North Africa

Hi Kids,  The local lads got a collective wild hair and decided to have a game!  I think this is about the third this year.  I'm telling ya, 2014 has been a really non-event as far as gaming is concerned. Here's hoping 2015 is a little more lively! We didn't know what we were going to do for this battle; FoW, Disposable Heroes, Naval, the possibilities were endless...
Since we decided not to bother building armies with point values and spreadsheets the natural choice was The Sword and The Flame, and what could be easier than French Foreign Legion vs. Arabs?

 Here we have the 25mm Old Glory & Falcon Arab forces deployed for battle.  There are more of them out of the shot.  Two units of riflemen, about eight for Melee, and two cavalry. We snuck in a machine gun at the last minute. Against all expectations I decided to play the Arabs.

 The French look a little thinner, but have huge amounts of firepower, complete with two machine guns! The Frog players were crying for the other 5 crew serverd weapons too, but there's a limit to just how many bullets/shells we wanted coming our way. Most were Foundry and Falcon.

 The French move up. Those dudes with the red hats were Zouves.

 Headlong rush! The Arabs start moving in.

 The French start blasting away!

 At the end of every charge was a Frog infantry unit forming square! It would have been nice if the movement cards had some compassion, or the Frogs could have failed one of those activation roles, but (literally) no dice!

By the end of the game it was looking really bad for the Arabs; 90% dead or routed off the map, the Frogs lost a few guys but not more than 10%.  Maybe next time we'll go back to hidden set up and movement for the native forces.  I think the high point of the game was my Arab cavalry charging the French MG team from the rear and failing morale to close.  Nice. That's the MG on top of the hill on the left of the picture.

 

All crying aside, we had an astounding turnout; Steve, John, Patrick and Tom all showed up to play, and Bryan (aka "Super B") snuck in at the last minute too!  Even W stopped by to use the bathroom.* He's a gamer, so it still counts!

 

After the game everyone seemed to think we need to game more. Always a good thing, if we can just get our schedules figured out and make it happen!

 

*Ok, I wrote that cause it's funny, in addition to true.  In W's defense, he lives 100 miles away and was halfway someplace on a roadtrip.

 

Flames of War Early War team battle

Early War Flames of War at the Basement of Heaped Miniatures, this time allied French and Soviet against the Germans at 3000 point. I teamed with Chuckaroobob whom fielded the French and I fielded Soviets against Krovars Germans.

The combined French and Soviet line. We played the meeting engagement scenario so half of our forces started off board.

The German armored advance.

French at guns score three firepower tests

German artillery hits Soviet machine gunners and French at guns.

End game. The Soviet Machine gunners were decimated by machine guns and the French at guns failed to recover from the pin. It was a quick game. Two early war infantry lists against a Armored German list is just a bad match up. We deployed to cover both objectives and that left up unable to keep the one rushed by the armor. Like I said the other day I need to invest in some early war armor.

ColKG

GDW's "Citadel" The Battle of Dien Bien Phu

 Hi Kids,  So I know what you've been wondering....  "What are those hardcore gaming lads over in the next county up to lately?"  They've finished Marshal Enterprises' "Leipzig" and breezed through the Gamers'  "Ardenne," next up is GDW's "Citadel," Dien Bien Phu!  No doubt they are celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Battle!  Or maybe they just got lucky with the timing....

 Here's the valley of Dien Bien Phu, looking north.  The Commie Viet Minh are the red counters (how appropriate) in the green areas of jungle hills, while the glorious French Union forces are in the center and south.  Naturally, any game with the French Foreign Legion is worth owning!  And playing if you get the chance!  This is the set-up.

A close up of the north chunk of the map, you can see Strongpoints Beatrice and Gabrielle, along with the airstrip and central base.  Turn one has just started with overcast skies here over the battlefield as well as over the Red River Delta.  Time for new dice!



DBP is an olde fav of mine, possibly due to the FFL connection.  All sorts of interesting stuff....
A fortress in the jungle, supplied only by air, CIA pilots, including the legendary "Earthquake McGoon," commies using American 105mm arty captured during the Korean War, including fresh ammo misdropped by the supply flights, entire units of Red Chinese manning anti-aircraft guns, human wave assaults, arty firing in self defense over open sights, huge tunneled mines just like in WW1, the "Paratroop Mafia," some units had so much surplus elan they actually went into combat singing!  Volunteers were still parachuting in the night before the fortress fell.  The night before Camerone Day one legion unit executed an assault just to capture some vinogel (wine concentrate) which had landed in no-mans-land.  Near the very end, when the Viet Minh were closing in, one Legionnaire came out of his bunker wearing his Kepi Blanc, saying, "I want them to know, they're facing the Legion." There was even a plan for the US Air Force to send in B-29's!  (Possibly with nukes!)
To learn more, here are a few books you could check out:
Martin Windrow "The Last Valley"
Jules Roy "The Battle of Dien Bien Phu"
Ted Morgan "Valley of Death"
Bernard Fall "Hell in a Very Small Place"
John Prados "Operation Vulture"
and just recently there's a new one out, JC Bourg "The Man Who Walked Out of Isabelle."
The 1992 movie "Dien Bien Phu" is definitely worth watching, its about as far from a Hollywood action/ war movie as you can get.  It was directed by a participant/witness of the battle,  Pierre Schoendoerffer.

The Last Valley by Martin Windrow book review

Hi Kids, Some of you might know that one of my favorite units of all time is the French Foreign Legion, and I tend to buy most of the books in English regarding them.  (Well, if I can afford them!) Martin Windrow has written quite a few of those books, and naturally the battle of Dien Bien Phu crops up every once and awhile.  "The Last Valley" is about that battle, and it is an absolute masterpiece!  It has replaced Jules Roy's "The Battle of DienBienPhu" as my favorite, and that's saying a lot.  If I had to have just one book about the French in Indochina, this would be the one.  Even if you have no particular interest in the battle, some of the descriptions of the military action are worth reading. It's been out in paperback for awhile now, so you kids should rush right out and pick one up!  I bet www.abebooks.com has 'em cheap!  If John Keegan digs it, its got to be good!

7th Panzer / 4th North African Smackdown: Disposable Heroes in 1940 France

 Hi Kids,  I'm reading Alistair Horne's "To Lose a Battle," the story of the 1940 French campaign and it dynamited me out of my rut and into the mood to do some gaming!  So what would be more natural than an encounter from northern France?  The situation is 14 May 1940, Rommel's 7th Panzer Division has crossed the Meuse River and is pushing outward from its bridgehead, running into the crack 4th North African Division, the best division in the French 9th Army.  It's one of the few encounters the Germans had where the French put up a determined fight.  Here we have some shots of the opposing sides:  The German infantry; I think these guys are 25mm Battle Honors, but its been so long I can't be sure.  They are backed up by some Westwind AA guns; 2 Quad 20mm and 2 37mm.

 The Hun armor; 2 Westwind Pz4, one Company B Sdkfz 231, and 3 Army Group North Pz 38T's.  Yeah, I painted the 38T's way on back when I thought that dark german grey was all the rage.

 And facing them, some Artizan FFL with some Brigade Games WW1 Sikhs to bulk up the numbers.  Providing heavy weapon support are the recently painted Crusader ATG's, HMG's, and mortars.

 The French 1:56 armor; 2 Company B P16 halftracks and 3 Army Group North R35 tanks.  I spent the extra points for the long 37mm gun, hopefully it'll be enough to deal with the panzers!

 The French set-up, I used a scenario out of  "Go Forward Together," the British book for Disposable Heroes.  There is a roadblock near the dice pile. The Germans must capture either the roadblock or two buildings in the village; the church and the far building. The forests on the left foreground are on top of a large hill which would provide cover for the Germans as they approach.

 The Huns deploy, massing the armor and infantry on the north end of the table.  The flak guns are set up covering the wide area on the south side of the tree-lined road.

 At the end of turn one the French are starting to take some hits, especially their 25mm AT Guns are a high priority target. The French armor move into position to resist.

 The Huns approach through the fields, stopping under the cover of a hedgerow.

The Huns move into the lee of the hill, while the armor trades shots with the French. The small beads are acquisition markers.

 The first of many, a P16 brews up!

 A Pz 38T runs out of luck, while the others provide cover for the infantry.  The 25mm ATG is more dangerous than it looks!  But then again, this is 1940.

 The Pz 4's creep out of cover to get better fields of fire.

 Holy Cow, the French are getting crushed by the fire superiority of the Hun hordes approaching!  The 25mm ATG, an HMG, and two LMG teams have all be killed, while an 8 man rifle element is reduced to 4 men!  The second P16 has approached the road block while the third R35 uses the wall for cover.  The French armor demonstrated the mysterous ability to roll minimum damage to all German targets; bouncing shots off tracks, license plates, and sideview mirrors with chilling regularity!  I think one 37mm shell ricocheted off an armor driver's gold tooth.

 The end is near, the second P16 brews up and the churchyard has been cleared of French!

 One squad of Germans crests the hill to see two 81mm mortars, a rifle squad and an R35 in cornfields. The R35 in the background cornfield has an awe-inspiring collection of acquisition markers, most of them unfriendly.

The French are looking mighty thin as the Pz4's close the distance.

 The R35 at the corner of the churchyard finally scores a deadly hit on the nearest Pz38T! The Pz4's shift for better angles while the remaining Pz38T discovers he can't provide cover for all the swarms of Hun infantry by himself. It's a crying shame there are so few French to shoot back!

  The R35 on the other side of the wall has been destroyed.  The sole remaining French tank desperately tries to slow down the Hun juggernaut!  The French infantry has been shifting towards this side of the battlefield for practically the entire game, but are not arriving fast enough to replace loses.

The final moments!  The Huns advance to claim the roadblock, winning the game.  Very few French are left to tell the tale, the largest French unit still alive is a 4 man mortar team!  About 15 French elements were killed.  Not much happened on the southern half of the table, the only German units to advance were held off by the French without too much trouble, although it did take the majority of the game to kill off all the Flak guns and HMG team.

So I'm thinking of running this one for the Catawba Gamers' Feb game.  I think the situation needs some changes to give the French a better chance.  I'm considering making the hill smaller, letting the French set-up further onto the table, letting some of them set-up hidden, and giving field phones to the officers and mortars so the mortars actually can hit something.  The entire game only one mortar hit its target, although it did kill about 4 guys when it did!  I might also alter the tree-lined road so it does not block line-of-sight, that way the other half of the French defenders might not have to spend most of the game running to the other side! Or maybe I can just paint up more French!  I still have about 20 Artizan Gourmers!  Although I should paint them anyway just to replace the Sikhs.

Camerone Day Memorial Boardgame

The lads at The Basement of Heaped Miniatures met up and played a game of Larry Brom's The French Foreign Legion Board game.

Here is the game in all its glory. For some reason I cannot get it to revert to the original image.

The First Native attack.

The French shoot up the attackers.

The Tribesmen get their grappling hooks on the walls.



The Tribesmen gain the wall as the French scramble to counter it.



The Sheik has entered the Fort, and was promptly killed.

End game. The French have turtled up and shot down most of the Tribesmen. It was a fun game even though I was on the losing tribesmen side. The game was characterized by the French rolling ones to fight and the Tribesmen rolling sixes. I look forward to the next refight.

ColKG

Camerone Day

Captain Danjou's Hand

Every year on April 30th the French Foreign Legion celebrates Camerone Day. This celebrates an engagement between 62 soldiers and 3 officers of the the Legion and over 2000 Mexican soldiers at the Hacienda Cameron in Veracruz, Mexico on 30 April 1863. The Mexican forces surrounded the Legionaires and asked for their surrender. Their Commander Capt. Danjou refused and then he and the men swore an oath to fight to the death.
The battle raged, but the legionaires refused to surrender. As the evening approached , out of ammunition, only five legionaries and the last officer, Lt. Maudet, survived. These last men refused to surrender, so they fixed bayonets and charged out at the Mexican soldiers. Most of the Legionaires were shot down but the Mexican commander stopped his men from killing the last two.They still refused to surrender, they demanded the Mexican soldiers allow them safe passage home, to keep their arms and to escort the body of Captain Danjou. To that the Mexican commander commented "What can I refuse to such men? No, these are not, men they are devils!", and out of respect, agreed to their terms.
The most sacred relic of the French Foreign Legion is the wooden prosthetic hand of Captain Danjou. On April 30th the hand is taken out  for display and presented in special ceremonies.

Vive La Legion

ColKG