 |
| Enough here for 9 Rifle Divisions, plus the infantry of a Mechanised Brigade. |
Turns out I had enough Rifle/SMG/LMG, plus ATR and MMG stands to make three more Rifle Divisions. Only the regimental mortars were wanting. OK: under-equipped Divisions. Gotta be another Army here! So was brought into existence 71st Army - as fictitious as 6th Shock. During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet Army serials got as high as 70, plus a separate, apparently unnumbered Crimean army.
 |
| There are several SMG stands over for tank desantski, HQ protection and assault engineers. |
71st Army: General-Leytenant Semyon Ossipovitch Boroshchenko
97th Rifle Corps:*
- 39th Guards Rifle Division,
- 2nd Rifle Division
- Corps Artillery etc
115th Rifle Corps:
- 77th Rifle Division
- 161st Rifle Division
- Corps Artillery etc
43rd Tank Brigade:
- Lend Lease: 3 x M4 Shermans (early on M3 Grants and M3 Stuarts) plus 3 SMG stands
609th Tank Destroyer Brigade:
- 918th Destroyer Battalion (1 x Su76)
- 1019th Destroyer Battalion (1 x Su85)
- 72nd Destroyer Battalion (1 x ISU152)
- IS2 (2 AFVs)
Army Troops:
- 377th Anti-Tank Artillery
- 582nd Anti-Air Artillery
- 137th Guards Mortar Battalion (BM13)
- 149th Gun Artillery Brigade
- 4th Sniper Battalion (one stand)
- Army Engineers (2 stands, 2 wagons)
The above picture is 39th Guards Division. The empty stand will accommodate the Division HQ. Below are the AFVs of the 609th Tank Destroyer Brigade. A unit of AAMG seems to have attached itself. This formation will also include a SMG battalion (1 stand) for protection.
OK, now: 6th Shock and 71st Armies: enough for a Front, do you suppose? A small one...?
Should I call it the воображаемый фронт - Voobrazhayemii (Imaginary) Front?
Or maybe the призрак фронт - Prizrak (Ghost) Front?
What do you reckon?
I think perhaps the megalomania is beginning to take hold......☺
ReplyDeleteIt often does with operational rules; says the man who suddenly realised he could do not only every unit of the IDF but also the whole Jordanian army, the Egyptian army in Sinai and Syrian army of the Golan heights in 1967.........
Neil
Neil -
DeleteSomehow my first response vanished into the cybervoid. We'll try again. The thing about building every unit of the IDF is that you would really HAVE to reciprocate with at least one of the OPFOR armies. And just as campaigns are more narratively satisfying than battles, so wars have that extra dimension over campaigns.
The amount of German kit I have - enough for 4 Panzer Divisions using Panthers and PzIVs alone - even the 'Ghost Front' wouldn't have a prayer...
I'm rationalising, amn't I?
Cheers,
Ion
No more than every other wargamer I know.....
Delete"I really *need* to add just one more (insert unit of choice) to finish off this army. But then of course I need to do that for the other armies. If I'm doing that I may as well add......" ☺
Neil
... and that is WITHOUT an 'arms race'! Mind you, I no longer have a 'Ferdinand' nor a 'Bishop'. On the other hand, I gave away the two or three Tiger Is I had several few years ago, and now I discover I have six. No, wait: seven! Four of those featured in my 'Surprise Party' action just over 5 years ago:
Deletehttp://archdukepiccolo.blogspot.com/2018/09/surprise-party.html
Cheers,
Ion
My vote is for Ghost Front. That meme has all sorts of potential. Perhaps the Front was assembled quickly and in secret from assets from all over the theater for a special operation, maybe a quick breakthrough in an unexpected sector.
ReplyDeleteMark -
DeleteI can see the potential for some special operation as you suggest, for example a possible prequel to Operation Bagration to sort out a sector that might prove a nuisance come the main event. I must study up the East Front from 1 January 1942 - or possibly even a couple of months earlier: Operation Venus, say, to coincide with the other planetary Operations, Uranus and Mars.
Cheers,
Ion
Perhaps operation Pluto? It was still a planet then and is named after a god of the underworld. Looking forward to seeing where you go with this.
DeleteMark -
DeleteFor some reason I didn't think of Pluto. Good idea! I briefly thought of Jupiter, but just as Saturn was the follow-up operation after Uranus; Jupiter was to be the follow-up after Mars.
Before embarking on the campaign, I'll have to sort out the rule set. It will owe a great deal to Hexblitz/Megablitz/NQM systems, but I think it will differ in some details from all of them. I suspect I'll have to add a level of complexity in tank/anti-tank combat in order to satisfy certain features I want in the games. I'll dilate upon such matters in due course.
Cheers,
Ion
Thus proves that more is better than less. Yeah, Ghost Front.
ReplyDeletepancerni -
Delete2 votes for 'Prizrak front', then! I agree: less might be more, but more is more or less more than more...
Cheers,
Ion
I love how well the Airfix and Esci MMG figures work together with the Esci MMG - I had often wondered about that as a mix, and now I've seen it, I may end up copying it:)
ReplyDeleteFrom a purely 'it has a nicer vibe' point of view "призрак фронт" has the right look to me - regardless of the translation:)
Cheers, Brian -
DeleteHaven't heard from you for a while -
Yes, I wasn't quite satisfied with 'Imaginary', so looked at 'Ghost'. I think the Russian has a ring to it.
I still use my Airfix MMGs, but discover that two of them have shields and guns missing. Never mind: I still have 4 of them, plus several ESCI and some metal ones (with metal crews). Enough to equip all 25 6-stand rifle brigades with 1 MMG stand.
Pretty flush on the PTRD/PTRS front as well - many of those adapted from prone or advancing riflemen.
I like the ESCI Maksims, but really like the Airfix trigger man behind the gun. Pity they didn't do the same for their Vickers MMG.
Regards,
Ion
Your Soviet collection puts mine to shame! Sadly, I have often noticed megalomania takes place with operational games, as it is so tempting to add just one more Corps.... and then the really fun stuff like super heavy artillery.
ReplyDeleteMartin -
DeleteApart from the single ISU-122 - a cast piece I bought a couple of weeks ago - I have pretty much drawn a line under my Red Army inventory. It is a bit deficient in the particular of light tanks - one T70 and a couple of T-26s - and, for the purposes of this project, rather heavy on the IS2s. I have 6 of them, which is how 71st gets a 2-tank regiment. Or, earlier on, they might get a regiment of KVs (KV1 or KV85) and maybe a battalion of KV2s ( I have 4 KV1s and 2 KV2s, 5 of them Fujimi, for which I have 5 gun turrets to adapt them as KV85s. The ESCI one can't be so adapted) .
That also explains why Prizrak Front gets a lot of Lend Lease stuff: I have just 14 T34s. But I also have 5 ROCO M4A4 Shermans, all of which I allocated to the Red Army (My Brits have 10 Airfix Shermans and 3 Matchbox Fireflies), and 5 more diecast Shermans that can complete the 21 required by the 5 Tank Brigades and 3 medium tank regiments that make up the Front. Of course, in late 1942, early '43, some units might be equipped with Grants, Honeys, Matildas or Churchills instead.
At 1 tank representing 20, Prizrak Front carries into battle 420 medium tanks, and up to 80 heavies. Drool.
My artillery is limited to the 152mm bad boys - no 203s (let alone 305s), nor the heavy mortars either. I'll just stay with the 120s there. I haven't many of those. Until I got some Plastic Soldier figures, the best source of mortars had been the Airfix ones. I think they were meant to be 120mm, but I just used them as 82mm. To be honest, I've been a bit cavalier about the mortar equipments for my brigades, not worrying over their calibre, 50mm or 82mm. My 39th Guards mortars are actually not-very-good home made lights, made to equip a Machine-Gun company for 'Panzer Marsch!' battles.
Mind you, I am a little concerned about the number of artillery units my Red Army has. Seems to me a tad on the skinny side... Something to think about, maybe...
Cheers,
Ion
Cheers,
Ion
Definitely 'Ghost' Division for me as not only does it sound pretty cool, but it of course echoes Rommel's one too:)! Nice to see all the background work you've done too, which motivates me to create my own versions for both sides for when I do get around to some Eatern Front gaming, hopefully before Xmas....
ReplyDeleteI'll be looking forward to seeing something of that, Steve. Speaking of which, I am hoping with Paul to reprise Operation Uranus against 3rd Romanian Army, but with the scaled up organisation I was using then. I've made some changes to the OOBs and the Romanian front line...
DeleteIf you've not seen it before, here begins an account of the one we played 6 years ago come December...
http://archdukepiccolo.blogspot.com/2017/12/operation-uranus-assault-against-third.html
The next two postings complete the narrative.
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo,
ReplyDeleteI don’t know how I missed this blog post when it appeared but I am most impressed with the Soviet armies you have put together. Back when mine were organised for battles using MEGABLITZ, I had the 66th Army, which was very infantry heavy. My Soviets had single base rifle regiments that were grouped into groups of three to form rifle divisions. Each rifle division had a mortar or light artillery regiment for direct fire support.
Like you, I had plenty of kit left over, and could easily have put together at least another Soviet army. To counter them I had a German panzer division, a couple of German infantry divisions, a Luftwaffe Field division, enough Hungarians to form three Light divisions, plus some Spaniards!
I’m currently renovating my 20mm WW2 collection, and keep finding bits and saying to myself ‘I could use that to create another couple of (insert type) units’. My most recent ‘discovery’ is six Caterpillar tractors (ex-toy bulldozers with the blades removed) and sufficient Airfix 5.5” gun parts to make Soviet 155mm howitzers. The question is, do I need them all?
Of course I do!
All the best,
Bob
Bob -
DeleteI think you have had other things on your mind. In many respects your 66th Army (I still read Hexblitz from time to time) has been something of an inspiration for my armies, though I have made changes better to accommodate my inventories.
Feeling a bit uneasy about deficiencies in artillery I have decided to scratchbuild some more (2 or 4) 76.2mm field guns, possibly a couple of 122mm mediums, and a couple of 57mm AT guns. They should suffice to set my mind at rest, I think.
I like the idea of Hungarians and the Spanish 'Blue' Division, but all my Germans are Germans. I used to have a swodge of paratroopers, but in the end sold them off unpainted - probably not up there in smart country, but I really do have a LOT of Germans.
I reckon the Airfix 5.5" makes a very fine Soviet howitzer. You might recall this on I made a fair while back... Looking back, I find I already had some ideas along the lines expressed in this posting. At any rate, towards the end of this 'Under Lockdown' posting is a pic featuring my kitbash of the Airfix 5.5" with a 'sharkfin' muzzle brake 152mm howitzer.
Tractors! Very desirable items, they are!
Cheers,
Ion
You have so much stuff Ion that it’s almost impossible to know where to start when you try to organise.
ReplyDelete“Yes, but if I do xxxx then that means I can have yyyy but of course that means I’d need a few more zzzz’s. Now, instead, if I did aaaa instead then I could have bbbb and still have some cccc’s to allow me to dddd”. So many choices and options. I always like to go with either toys I like the look of or troop types/vehicles/weapons that appeal to me. I really like the Vickers mark VIB light tank, but it’s not often a “game winner”.
Cheers,
Geoff
Geoff -
DeleteWhen I began WW2 - nearer 50 years ago than 40 - I had in mind a German battlegroup built around a Panzer battalion of 4 Panthers and 6 PzIVs. I probably had in mind a couple of panzergrenadier battalions, various recon, AT, AA and arty elements, to make up a balanced force.
The first OPFOR was to be the Red Army, comprising T34s and KV1s, with a side order of KV2s. The rifles, SMGs and MMGs were top come from the 6 Airfix boxes I bought.
I really should have stuck with that very sensible programme, but at the time the Quarrie Airfix WW2 rule set was pretty popular, one tended to play 2-player games (I was less 'into' solo games back then), and a peculiarity of the tank combats were such as to lead to an arms race culminating in Tiger IIs and IS3s. I compromised on Jagdpanthers - AFVs that looked cool anyway - but even they weren't competitive...
Command Decision was a find, but that led to building more ambitious formations... Now I'm trying to shoehorn a fair amount of kit into something playable within a modest space. Portable Wargames and Megablitz came very much to the rescue there!
I think we all have our favourites: mine are Jagdpanther, KV2, and the Crusader tank and Daimler II armoured car. Three of these are pretty vehicles, the other one just looks imposing. I also like the look of the British 25pr gun/howitzer, my favourite WW2 artillery piece. My British army is fairly well supplied with these...
Cheers,
Ion
Cheers,
Ion.
"Almost a division over." ...Only in operational wargaming! :-D
ReplyDeleteYou think everything is complete, then you find more stragglers and before you know it a new corps is being raised.
Regards, Chris.
Chris -
DeleteYou're right about the stragglers - hence the creation of 71st Rifle Div. But there are heaps more, and apart from a surfeit of home made anti-tank riflemen, I am in the process (I like to pretend) of finding jobs for them. The extra SMG stands might go to recon battalions or HQ protection, for instance.
I ought to mention the air assets mostly fighters but with a couple of ground attack aircraft... Maybe next time!
Cheers,
Ion