German armoured cars and beutepanzers

As I mentioned in my earlier post about recent additions to my British armour, I have also been putting paint on a number of German vehicles that have been waiting in the queue. The recent publication of a Chain of Command campaign featuring Panzer Lehr was all the inspiration I needed to fill a few gaps in the collection, most notably the very distinctive German eight wheeled armoured cars.

These are all variants of the Sdkfz234 series, of which the Puma is probably the best known and certainly the most commonly seen on the wargames table. As it happens, I do have one of those already, the old plastic kit from Hasegawa. 

I knew Hasegawa had produced a number of the Sdkfz234 variants so I began trying to track them down, in particular the 234/1 and the 234/3 stummel. I wasn't having a lot of luck, but did come across some very cheap versions of the Puma and 234/3 stummel while looking through Aliexpress. 

They didn't look great, but they didn't look that bad either. If nothing else, they were ridiculously cheap (AU$6, about £3) and worth a try.

I was pleasantly surprised when they arrived and hoped a good lick of paint would make them presentable. The Puma had a rather strange muzzle break on the barrel and so I removed that and replaced it with one from the spare box, otherwise this is as it comes out of the box. Below, the Aliexpress kit is on the left and the Hasegawa kit on the right.

Here the Hasegawa kit is on the left. Overall the two are a reasonable match in size and appearance.

The Stummels both benefited from a paint job and the addition of a couple of crew figures. In this case, spares from one of the Plastic Soldier Company sets.

As it happens the Sdkfz234/3 Stummel is the only variant of the 234 series that I've seen up close, in this case at the Tank Museum at Bovington. Surviving examples seem to be fairly rare.

In the meantime I'd given up hope of sourcing the Hasegawa 234/1. Instead I settled for a 3D print from Dark Castle Terrain. This one was a bit disappointing, with rather basic detail for the anti-grenade mesh and no interior for the turret at all. Then, out of the blue, I came across the Hasegawa kit on FaceBook marketplace. I wasn't sure if I needed two, but given how underwhelmed I was with the 3D print I decided to buy it anyway.

The Hasegawa kit is on the left and the Dark Castle Terrain 3D print on the right. The most noticeable difference is on the mesh.

Here you can see the much more basic mesh on the 3D print from Dark Castle Terrain.

There is much finer detail on the Hasegawa plastic kit.

In both cases I used a very dark wash to bring out the detail. That was followed with a dry brush in dunkelgelb to highlight the mesh itself. I think it's worked reasonably well, although it bears no comparison with brass photo etch, which comes with the ICM Sdkfz222 kit and replicates the mesh perfectly. I guess you can't beat the real thing.

I've been reading quite a bit about Arnhem, inspired in part by the forthcoming release of the Chain of Command Market Garden supplement. I have a lot of equipment for this campaign already in my collection. That said, the rushed nature of the German defence and the ad hoc way in which disparate units were cobbled together into kampfgruppe means there's also a few rare or unusual additions to be made. One of those are captured French Char B1 tanks. Some were converted into flammpanzers, while others continued to mount their original guns.

I liked the idea of painting these in the German tri-tonal camouflage scheme and picked up a couple of 3D prints, once again from Dark Castle Terrain. These are the French version and so technically not correct as Beutepanzers. In most, but not all cases, the most distinctive difference was the addition of new cupolas for the commander. The flamethrower version isn't correct either (the 75mm bow gun was replaced with a shorter flamethrower nozzle). None of those dramatically changes the appearance of the tanks, so I will live with these.

I don't have a collection for the French for the Second World War but many years ago I did put together the old Matchbox 1/76 Char B purely for the pleasure of making the model.

And, unlike the Sdkfz234 variants, I've managed to see a couple of Char Bs up close. One at Bovington and the one below at the Musee des Blindes at Saumur.

Hail of Fire - company level rules for the Second World War

The Wargame Library, is a site set up by the people at Little Wars TV and the premise is simple - it's a repository of a curated collection of free, downloadable wargame rules. Free is always welcome, but it's the curated aspect of the collections that appeals to me, after all, how much time do we all have to trial myriad sets of new rules, regardless of how little they might cost?

I downloaded a copy of Hail of Fire, a set of company level Second World War rules written by Brandon Fraley from Retroboom games. What had grabbed my attention was their innovative approach to resolving fire attacks and the way it introduced a good deal of uncertainty and fog of war.

In short, when an infantry unit takes fire it may result in a number of Received Fire Points (RFPs). These are recorded somewhere near the unit and, as the name suggests, indicate the unit has received fire. What it doesn't indicate is how effective that fire has been....if at all. That remains unknown to both players and discovered only when the controlling player attempts to issue the unit with an order. It's at that moment both players discover the outcome. It's a simple, but very elegant idea. 

Armour is treated slightly differently in that it's possible to know immediately if the hit has been enough to destroy the vehicle outright. Otherwise it receives RFPs like an infantry unit. In most cases you are checking to determine the state of the crew, rather than the vehicle itself. 

In our 20mm game pictured below, the American bazooka team have scored a hit on the StuG. It's not enough to destroy the vehicle outright, but it is enough to have it marked with a single RFP. In effect what this means is that the bazooka crew have no clear indication of the damage they might have inflicted. As it hasn't shown any obvious signs of destruction, neither side knows the true status of the tank, or more importantly its crew - are they all killed? temporarily out of action? unscathed?

It's easy to place this sort of mechanic in a plausible narrative framework. I know the enemy is lining the hedgerow opposite and so I've ordered my units to engage them with fire. The target is partly concealed and in the general fog of war I'm not certain how much damage has been inflicted, should I risk an assault, or will I find the enemy in good shape and ready to receive me? If nothing else it reminds me of the sort of tension I feel when playing Crossfire.

The core rules cover only ten pages and are easy to follow. The game is set at company level and the smallest unit is a team, with two teams making up an infantry squad and so six teams making up a platoon. The platoon leader is based separately and is a key driver of the actions in the game. 

The rules use a D6 system with 4+ the target for successful checks. A few simple modifiers can affect the outcome. When firing, a unit is in terrain that offers concealment, or it’s not. It’s either within normal range or at long range. The checks for RFPs are modified if in hard cover….or not. With these sorts of factors abstracted, much like they are in Crossfire, it means the games flow easily with few references to the rules (which do include a handy two page quick reference sheet).

Activation of units is via orders, with each side having a limited number each turn, subject to a dice roll based on the number of platoon commanders in play. In short, one order will activate a single team, but if that 'team' is the platoon leader, he may activate any or all units under his command who are within line of sight. With six teams in most infantry platoons it's easy to see what a command multiplier the platoon leader becomes when in line of sight of his subordinates. 

Beyond this basic issuing of orders the platoon commanders have a few additional abilities which continues the emphasis the rules place on leadership. There's a rather nice mechanic where the platoon commander can move ahead of his men and give one of the teams an additional 3" of movement to 'move up'. It's one of three 'free' special abilities the commander can use in the course of an activation.

Once a side's orders are used up, the turn flips to the other player. However, there is also a second pool of available orders, which the rules refer to as Hero Points. These are determined by a die roll kept secret from your opponent. These points can be banked and kept for use in any turn. Essentially they allow additional orders. These include such things as a second activation for a unit that has already activated or the activation of a unit during the enemy's turn. Timely use of these can have a great influence on the action. In our game the American bazooka team made use of one to fire off a second shot at the StuG. 

Movement is variable, except when carried out completely out of line of sight of the enemy. I rather liked that as a mechanism. Infantry move 2D6" in the face of the enemy, but may move the full 12" without the need to roll dice when they can't be seen.  

In our game, the American bazooka team wanted to ensure the StuG was permanently out of action. They tried to make a dash across open ground to find a position from where they could fire into its side armour.  As they didn't know the status of the AFV they had to roll for the distance moved. They failed to go far enough. To their horror, in the German phase, they discovered the tank crew were not only back in action but driving straight at them. A cinematic and entertaining moment (well, for the German player at least!).

As the number of dice rolled to determine the orders is based on the number of platoon leaders in play the rules scale up and down. We have played a platoon level action in 20mm and a larger two company attack with armour in 12mm. Both worked well without any issues. 

Victory in games is determined by forcing your opponent to reach their 'break point' - much like the Force Morale mechanism in Chain of Command and this is determined by the number of losses and/or the capture of key objectives on the table.

Orders of battle can be found at the Retroboom website but in most cases simply reflect actual historical structures. As such there is no points building in the traditional sense, but the website allows you to match up historical structures and suggests mechanism to account for any imbalance. This is not necessarily more units, more often than not it suggests more Hero Points or a lower/higher break point or adjusting the number of objectives.

Below is the table set up at the club for a company attack supported by two platoons of armour played in 12mm.

This is the scale I've been using to play O Group. The only real issue we have had with those rules is that the scenarios take too long to complete in an evening and are better suited to a full day of gaming. In that sense Hail of Fire looks like it might fill a gap for those looking for something at company or larger level using their 10-15mm collections. I'd say the rules were probably written with Flames of War players in mind, particularly those no longer using those rules and wondering what to do with the forces they have amassed.

If you have figures based for Flames of War, Crossfire or O Group then you probably have what you need to play Hail of Fire. As a free set of rules, with a fairly easy learning curve and a few innovative mechanics, they are certainly worth exploring. The Retroboom website has a useful army builder and a Discord channel with a forum (I posted a few questions and they were answered by the rules writer within a matter of hours).

More Second World War British vehicles

When it comes to using my airbrush I tend to work in batches. Invariably that means I have a queue of unpainted models. It also means, every now and then, I'll have a fair bit of finished work to show in a short period. Over the last month or so this has undoubtedly been the case. 

It started with the US armoured infantry platoon transport and an accompanying M4A3E8. Not British, I know, but bear with me.

Those halftracks were inspired by the new rules in Chain of Command v2 for armoured assaults and the use of APCs. Of course, that means I've also looked at what I can do in a similar vein for my British. 

When we embarked on the Road to Bremen campaign for Chain of Command back in 2018 I picked up a set of the Italeri Priest self propelled guns. That set includes an option to create Kangaroo APC.   

While the campaign itself calls for Ram Kangaroos I made do with what I had, but I've always wanted to add the Ram version to the collection. These were based on the Canadian Ram tank chassis and they saw much use by the commonwealth forces in the later stages of the war in Europe. The tank museum in Bovington has an example of the Ram tank and one of the Kangaroo conversions.

However, I've not been aware of these being available in plastic kit form. These new additions are 3D prints from Dark Castle Terrain and very nice models they are too. For now, they await crews and passengers, but those will come in due course (hello AB Figures, once again).

With the addition of these armoured personnel carriers and the new rules for assault deployment I'd be very keen to replay the Road to Bremen campaign. I suspect we would play it very differently (the campaign also has tremendous replay value in its own right). I'm sorely tempted.

I have a good stash of Plastic Soldier Company universal carriers and so with the addition of crews from AB Figures I've put together a carrier section for the British.

It's not that I didn't have any carriers, but with so many in the stash and these rather lovely figures from AB it only seemed right to go for an upgrade.

That adds a few options for infantry transport.

Moving away from transport another recent addition is this Challenger A30 tank, a 3D print from Dark Castle Terrain.

This rather ungainly looking variant of the Cromwell had an extended chassis and new turret to house the 17 pounder anti-tank gun. It was a somewhat hurried expedient to fit as many 17 pounders into tanks as possible for Normandy. It might not be the most attractive of tanks, but served its purpose.

To be honest, I was quite disappointed with this print. The level of detail is well below what I've come to expect from Dark Castle Terrain. The road wheels are the most obvious examples. I couldn't do much about those, but I've added camouflage netting to the turret and upper chassis to cover some of the lack of detail and add some embellishment of my own.

The Challenger is a tank that often sails under the radar. While only 72 were made, they had a life well beyond Normandy. In the initial phase they were assigned to the armoured recce regiments of the armoured divisions, where they formed the fourth tank in a troop of Cromwells, performing a similar overwatch role to that of the Sherman Firefly. 

They continued to serve in this role during Market Garden with units like the 15th/19th Kings Royal Hussars. They were later transferred to 7th Armoured Division, which had been operating Cromwell tanks as their main battle tank and served with their armoured regiments until the end of the war. You can spot at least two of them in the picture below at the Berlin victory parade.

While the turret makes the tank look like it might be excessively high, it comes no higher than the Sherman Firefly.

And is not much taller than the Comet.

While I was applying the camouflage netting to the Challenger I took the opportunity to add more to a few other British tanks including these Shermans. I think it's a very effective way to blend the rest of the stowage in with the tank.

As I mentioned earlier, I often use the airbrush for batches of models and while this post has focused on the British I've also been painting up a few vehicles for the Germans. So there will be more to come shortly in a future post.