Eastern Front 1943 (Big Game)

Partly as preparation for our demo game next week at Dumfries but also as a chance to get lots of kit on the table we played a large Eastern Front Battle at the weekend. There was no real historical context to this but as you will see it is the largest bolt action game we have played. Broadly based in Autumn 1943 the Germans are attempting a counter-offensive against the onslaught of the RED STEAMROLLER. Not surprisingly I took too many photos but they tell the story better than words.

The overview of the battlefield, Germans enter from the two roads on the right and the Russians to two roads on the left, the main objective for the battle is to control the road junctions in the middle

German left flank mobile infantry in  251’s and trucks, supported by heavy infantry support armour and anti tank capability

A period shot of the german advance towards the farm complex

The Russian right flank infantry a SU 76 with several lend lease tanks !

The Russian left flank is armour heavy with 2 KV’s and a T34

Facing them on the far side is a company of Fallschirmjager supported by a lone Tiger tank and an outdated Panzer II

A Russian Howitzer and a sniper team take up residence in the burned out building

Unsure of the advance of the enemy the drivers of the Russian BA6  and the Lee have a heated discussion

The Germans have now deployed with commendable speed

The Fallschirmjager have started to advance towards the small Russian Chapel

A heavy weight battle as the Tiger takes on the Russian Heavy armour

A cautiou advance to the Chapel

Well you wouldn’t be able to see the sniper , but the German sniper in the farm gets the first hit knocking out the anti tank rifle, only to suffer the same fate himself 

Finally the tiger tastes first blood the Russians on this flank are very nervous

On the german left flank they are advancing in the face of the enemy with a view to knocking them back immediately 

, the Panzer IV and STug advance through the long grass

But the Lee and BA6 have somehow made it to the uproar junction, they come under tremendous fire but somehow survive, 4 pins on the Lee force it to remain stationary for several turns

The Russians also have a lend lease Sherman this is now pushed forward

Dug in in the ploughed field the infantry can’t make any headway

Around the Chapel things are still fairly quiet

...but somehow with time the Germans start to lose more and more equipment, the Panzer Jäger takes a direct hit

The Panzer IV has flanked the advance but is fire is too ineffective and the Russians simply take cover

Sherman to the rescue !

The Fallschirmjager now with confidence high start to advance to take on the Russian infantry hand to hand

The Tiger having already weathered a number of hits has managed to put out the fire. Luckily with only one pin marker it should soon be back in action 

You have got to be joking !!!!!!! A blunder and the Tiger apparently wounded or suffering shock or simply manned by cowards chooses to turn tail and flee the battle.......german commander at this point put his head in his hands !

Anyway all is not lost quite yet the Stug is also advancing and a reserve unit of infantry is about to charge forward, but the Sherman is now pushing right into the german lines in the farm area.

Russian infantry have broken cover and are running to attack the farm

The PzII knocked out much earlier on can be seen in the background whilst the BA6 uses its machine guns to knock out the Pak 36 crew.

The Pz 35(t) still holds the road but it is under pressure from the Lee , whose crew have been rallied

Killer blow the Russians finally advance their newly designed and up gunned T34/85

The Fallschirmjager who had through a random event been sent running into the chapel looking for vodka trade shots with the infantry who have now dismounted from their tanks, later in the battle they make a heroic but desperate charge forward but infantry against tanks is never good.

With the gap left by the Tiger in the distance the rest of the Fallschirmjager are isolated and the Russian infantry charge forward with machine guns

In a moment of pure german desperation the Russian commissar gets too close to the german flame thrower.......not good but War is very brutal on occasions. 

The german infantry have now disembarked and are able to cut the Russians in the open down but their lines have been broken

This is the point pretty much where the Germans chose to pull back what remained of their forces the Russians have clearly captured both road junctions and broken the german lines

The german commander is already looking to pull back 

Russian infantry approaching the junction flags waving with the two T34’s advancing unhindered

A final period shot of the Chapel now back in the hand of the Russians but empty of vodka as the Germans have had it all 😀

Well it was pretty epic, tremendous fun and great to get so much stuff on the table. For those interested we had 24 units each sides and each turn of the game took about and hour to play. The table is roughly 8x4 with the 4 foot L extension. The beautiful Russians are all Steve’s. The best thing is we have more stuff only I am not sure how big a table we can go to and we will need some special rules to cope with the scale. The game lasted about 7 hours....it flew by and the Germans will be back.