A Bit of Weekend Fun

Over the weekend I did not manage to get some work done. First, I found a new hobby shop that is half way between my house and my son's school. It was a standard hobby shop that was mostly model kits, rail road supplies and radio control planes and cars. I did find a single 1/100th scale Zveda kit for a Kht-26. Well it just so happened that I need one of these. It was quickly purchased.

On Saturday morning, I took a look at the kit. Having purchased one of the Ba-10 kits from the same company, I was a little nervous. Well this kit was very straight forward.

With the help of my son, we quickly had it put together. It is a nice little kit. It still needs some paint as it is just a shiny plastic right now.

Also on Saturday, I took my son to the local train shop so he could see their display. They have a huge display room with multiple tracks. My family must have spent over a half hour watching the trains run. When we went through the shop I found a few things. The first was a conveyor kit that I have been wanting for my Eastern Front terrain. At $16.00, I picked it up. Then I found another one that I put on my Christmas wish list.

When we got home, my son begged me to "play miniatures." What else could I do but give in. Recently, my wife had picked up a table for my son's play room from Ikea. It is a nice little folding table that is some 5' by 3' in size. So its a bit smaller than the kitchen table but it was perfect for us.

We set up a quick game of Chain of Command "lite" and my son proceeded to roll more sixes that I have ever seen. His first turn lasted four phases. He wanted to play with the new tank that he made. So we each had a platoon of tanks. Joshua had 3 T-26s and the Kht-26 and I had a platoon of three Panzer IIs and my new Pz II Flamm. We also had a squad of infantry each. His T-26s proceeded to destroy the two Panzer IIs that I managed to deploy and he got his Kht-26 to hose down my infantry squad and broke them. At this point, my morale broke and the game was over. My son's victory came at the cost of 2 infantry and some shock on one of his tank.

Well, it was a fun day all the way around.

Prep Work

I was able to reclaim the dining room table for my own to run through my Chain of Command scenario for tomorrow.

Here is the table. I am borrowing Mark's winter trees for tomorrows game so it won't look quite as odd. I began the patrol phase with the Italians entering from the left hand side of the table and the Soviets from the right. My first mistake was forcing the Soviets to use the ford with their patrol markers. This funneled them through a narrow gap that left them poor starting positions. The Soviet end of the board was horribly open. This placed all of their jump off points on the table edge. The Italians had much more options with thier jump off points.

This is one of the jump off points I made after I ran out of imagination.

The Italians were quick to enter the farm and took one of the farm houses to use as a strong point. They brought the Russians under fire as they crossed the river. My dice rolling was odd. The first squad to cross the stream took 4 casualties before getting to cover. The second squad was absolutely mauled. Taking very little shock the squad was killed nearly to a man. Only one soldier, the squad leader and the platoon leader were left. They were pinned just on the Italian side of the stream. The third squad with the cart was stacked up waiting for its turn across the stream.

I will replay again later today using the patrol markers correctly. We will see how big a difference that makes.

Back on Target - Fun things you learn by reading

Well, I went back to working on my IABSM scenario pack for the CSIR in 1941. A great reference is Patrick Cloutier's Regio EsercitoL The Italian Royal Army in Mussolini's Wars 1935-1943.

I was reading on the Pasubio Division supporting the German Advance on Petrikova. It seems on September 18th, 1941, while crossing the Vorskla River on a pontoon bridge, the Russians opened fire on the pontoon boats and damaged the bridge. So far, this seems rather ordinary. Now for the fun part. The unit firing on the Italians was a concealed and noise suppressed tank in a hull down position. The spotting for the tank was being conducted by shepherds who moved their sheep around until they spelled out letters to a circling Soviet aircraft overhead who radioed the information to the tank. Once the Italians figured out what the shepherd was up to, he was captured, the tank spotted and dealt with through an air strike.

So what I want to know is, did the Soviets indeed have "silencers" for their tanks? What tanks would/could have such a device? How on earth do you make a scenario using shepherds and their flocks as a forward observer (for any rules)?

Anyway, I was amused by this small tidbit and wanted to pass it along.