Return to the Russian Civil War

It has been a while since I had the RCW on the table but it makes the ideal setup for an entertaining battle with George coming to the dungeon this week. He has already posted the battle here http://musingswargameslife.blogspot.com/  so I won’t repeat stuff unnecessarily. As a one off battle I wanted to give some challenges and options in the scenario whilst keeping it fairly simple.

Somewhere in southern Russian ……..circa 1920

The basic scenario is an assault to capture two of the three objectives, the two bridges and the cross roads. The Reds are dug in and the Whites with a more mobile force will attack from the left. The river is only crossable beyond the wooden bridge. I deliberately made the two halves of the table different to give the attacker choices around where and how to attack. Would they surge across the open ground or use the cover around the village ?

The Reds are mainly infantry based but have two machine guns and a light howitzer.

Half of their force is set up at the start, the attackers had an effective pre assault barrage distributing a number of pins on the defenders which then needed to be rallied off

The Whites have a french Nieuport biplane which can harry the enemy with machine gun fire

….and a Whippet and cavalry !

The White infantry choose to assault the village supported by the Austin armoured car

So the reds throw much of their infantry into the defence in that area

Separate units are sent to hold the bridges

The Reds push forward their Howitzer but it proves very ineffective and is badly placed, the biplane continues to pin down the defenders

The reds put up a stout defence of the village, forcing at least one of the units to pull back, they will no doubt be harshly treated after the battle !

And despite early loses hold onto the wooden bridge

Eventually though the combination of the Whippet and the cavalry push the defenders away from the stone bridge.

Some tough fighting in the village including a couple of hand to hand combats, here the remnants of the sailor unit form the Baltic fleet are wiped out in the trees

But the stone bridge is lost, with nothing to hold back the cavalry

The Reds are still holding the wooden bridge where they are holding their own

But ‘Whites’ are starting to outflank them from the left

….and the village is lost, with the Officers Corps clearing out the buildings.

So a win for the Whites this time, the scenario worked pretty well and felt balanced. The answer to the whippet is the Howitzer but it was set up in the wrong place. The battle of course makes me think about the figures I have in the lead pile for this collection 🤔 and getting some more cavalry done.

On a separate note whilst I paint the next Napoleonics I made these little terrain additions for Sicily. To match in with my walls and giving me some options for gateways etc.

That’s all for now, thanks for popping by

Matt 😀