1973 Flames of War: The Yom Kippur War

I'm blowed if I can get Blogger to upload word documents, but i wanted a link on this blog to the Yom Kippur War Rules. So the solution is to copy the page on my old blog, NDCblog at Wordpress and repost it here. Let's hope it works.

With the blessing of the author of these lists, Owen Heather, this page is a resource for any wargamers who would like to use the Flames of War rules for more Modern conflicts. In this particular case the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 – 1973, and with a focus on the Yom Kippur conflict/October War/Ramadan War.

Two caveats.

One is that these rules were written for second edition and thus points costs have not yet been adjusted for third edition. Neihter Owen nor myself has yet taken them through their paces for third edition.

The second is that Owen has put quite a bit of work into these lists and you are free to download them to your heart’s content.  All documents are in word so you can play around with them, but please respect where they have come from and let us know if you come up with good ideas in your playtesting through the comments section on this blog.

Thanks, and I hope that they allow you many hours of enjoyable gaming.

Modern_Flames_rules_for_1967_to_73

Israeli_Orbat_1973

Egyptian_Company_1973

Syrian_Company_1973

Jordanian_Orbat_1973 (1)

Nate and Owen

Battle south of Bayeux

Our latest battle in the Normandy campaign took place last night with the totally possible if highly unlikely confrontation of the SS Das Reich Division against the British 7th Royal Tank Regiment south of Bayeux. There are two reasons for this. The first is that on the campaign map not much is happening around Molay-Le Vittry. The second is that I want to play my army and John wants to play his - so here we are - a kampfgruppe of Das Reich armour and Fallshirmjager infantry support wandering off to swipe the obviously lost Brits in the flank.
Forces were:
British 7 RTR
HQ - 2 x Churchill
1st pln - 3 x Churchill
2nd platoon - 3 x Churchill
3rd platoon - M10 Tank Destroyers
4th platoon - rifle platoon
5th platoon - rifle platoon
6th platoon - 3 x carriers
6th platoon - 4 x 25 pdrs with AOP
Limited Air Support - Typhoons

German Das Reich
HQ - Panther A
1st pln - 3 x Panther A
2nd pln - 3 x Pz IV
3rd pln - 2 x SdKfz 7/2
4th pln - 3 x Panzerwerfer
5th pln - full strength Fallshirmjager platoon

The mission rolled up was a Cauldron with the Germans as the attackers.
(John had to use his Early Brit infantry and guns as his late war infantry are still under the brush and painted figures are so much prettier.)

The table. Lighter bocage country this time - Hallelujah! The random deployment had the Panther platoon at bottom right and the AA at bottom left with the HQ deployed alongside them. John chose to deploy 3 x Churchills and his infantry and 25pdrs on the objectives.

Skulking behind the bocage - the HQ and the AA.

John's infantry and guns hold the objectives behind the town.

Panthers know that the allies have some major firepower, so spread out.

First turn and the Churchills advance towards the enemy, but predictably their weapons just scratch the paint work on the Germans.

Sensing an easy kill a Panther storms over a (non-bocage) hedge... wait, I said storms over. What do you mean he bogs down?!!!

The HQ Panther crosses the bocage to go Churchill hunting while the AA also bogs down. Good work - I thought you guys were meant to be veterans?!

Turn 2 - the HQ unit scores the first kill of the game. Side shot on a concealed target - Ka Boom. The Germans are feeling pretty confident now.

Turn 3. Still stuck on this hedge... Oh look - a pretty plane... Oh sh**!

Turn 4. Thank goodness the Pz IV reserves have arrived. The Panther HQ has also made sure that there are no nasty tanks in the way either.

The reinforcements close in on the objective - only a Sherman observer tank and a few 25pdrs in the way really.

Turn 4. Panzerwerfers arrive.

Turn 5. Brit reinforcements arrive in numbers. First up - a rifle platoon.

Then a Churchill platoon and the M10s and... the HQ? (Um... John he should have been deployed with the first lot of troops). Now it is a race - can they move far enough forward to contest the objective before the start of Turn 6? Can the Brit artillery hold on?

Never mind. A combination of assaults, Machine guns and a good side shot on the Sherman have cleared the objective for the Germans.

Close up of the newly arrived Fallshirmjager in Turn 5. I had to take this picture to prove that I've finished painting them!

The Panzerwerfers get into action and knock out the last of the 25 pounders.

Turn 6. Churchills need to take out the Pz IVs - M10s need to kill the Panther. Then it will be game won at the start of Turn 7!

The Brit M10s manage to bail the HQ Panther. But the Churchills can't take out the Pz IVs from over 40cm and concealed (need 6s to hit). German Turn 6 begins and an objective securely held. German victory! 

The British lost 3 platoons, the Germans one. A 5-2 victory to the Reich.

First SAGA unit

Sometimes you just shouldn't fight the urge to pick up a brush and paint something out of project order. I've been dying to get paint onto these Black Tree Anglo-Danes, and have finally done so. This is my first unit of Hearthguard - the Huscarls with axes.

From the front showing the shields on the figures that have them in their hands.

Black Tree figures are really nice and welcome paint. The hardest thing to paint was the eyes due to them being so close to the edges of helmets or mail.

From the rear wit hthe figures who have their shields slung on their backs.

And another shot giving a clear view of the two figures holding their shields before them.

I think I'll move onto a unit of Fyrd as soon as I've finished off my 15mm German vehicles.

Nate

First Infinity figure

Just to take a break from painting World War Two (a Fallshirmjager company in a fortnight using spare time only is a bit of overload), I painted up my first Infinity figure.

Here he is, a Bagh Mari for my Pan-Oceania Acontecimento Sectorial force. Jungle Warfare colours of brown and green with some grey in there as well.

He was a quite nice to paint, although I wish I was a better painter so I could really do justice to him. The flash really reflected off his blade, which is quite a cool effect. A non-flash pic looks like this:

It does mean that he is quite obscured by shadow though.

Nate

Pimping Big Lee's giveaway

In a truly impressive feat of arms Lee over at Big Lee's Miniature Adventures has hit one million views! An incredible achievement, and one to which I am a consistent contributor, I must say. Together with the other Postie's Rejects such as Fran and Ray I find Lee to be the heart and soul of wargaming bloggery, and with over 500 followers I'm not surprise that this milestone has been reached.
Anyway. the rules of the giveaway state that if you pimp the giveaway in your own blog you get an extra five entries in the draw. Well, I already link to his blog on my site, so I might as well go the whole hog and not feel like I sold out too much ;)
For those who would prefer not to use the Blogroll, here is a link:
http://www.blmablog.com/?view=classic
So having now sold my soul for a chance to win goodies, I will leave you until I return to the next battle report for Operation Overlord.

Nate

Hitting Sword Beach

This was the other game played in the weekend, pitting 4 Commando against troops of 736 Regiment in a 'Hit the Beach' scenario. I wasn't involved in this little affray, just leaving my game to take photos now and then and talking about what was happening, so this report is a little light on detail I'm afraid.

The preliminary bombardment knocked out two teams and 3 landing craft arrived with one delayed. Almost immediately the German AT guns opened up on the Churchill tanks.

Aerial photo of the beach where the Commandos landed.

Storming ashore. Note some teams in 'night' camouflage...

The trenches and bunkers were well manned.

The British have a smoke-screen - made out of their burning tanks!This was  by the end of turn two! Things not going to plan for the Brits. The next wave of boats didn't arrive until turn three.

Getting pinned down on the beach. Didn't I see this in a movie somewhere?

The German defenders in their trenches.

A machine gun team dug in and contributing a tough day at the office for the Commandos.

Moving along a trench, German reinforcements begin to arrive.

The bane of the Allies in this game. German Anti-tank. These would not be dealt with until turn 6.

Now the Priests are under all sorts of pressure too.

Commandos pinned by the wire. they would get through in turn 6 and take out a Heer platoon with an assault.  By that time too many Allied platoons had been destroyed and German StuGs had arrived.

German forces cheers as the remnants of 4 Commando are evacuated from the beach!

German victory 4-3.

This was a murderous battle for the British forces. They just couldn't get off the beach, and most of it was due to the Churchills landing directly opposite the German's AT. Another wave of troops is about to land though, and that battle report will be up as soon as the game is finished (it has about two turns left to play out). Reports are that it is going much more in favour of the Allies.

Nate

A bit further from Carentan AAR

Last night we played out the next battle in the Normandy campaign pitching the 6th Fallshirmjager Regiment against the US 101st Airborne.

Armies were the same as the previous game at 1500 points, but this time the players were myself and John (who has been playing Commandos up until now). 

The bocage for this game was heavy and the 101st were attacking in an encounter mission once more.

Aerial photograph of the table after deployment.There were hills at either end of the table with bocage surrounding a small hamlet in the middle. Germans on the left, US on the right.

German HMG advances to take up position next to the bocage.

The LG40s deploy near the objective.

The 101st HQ group and a platoon of Shermans from the 2nd Armored.

The Shermans advance down the narrow lanes

One platoon of airborne line a row of bocage alongside the lanes.

Fallshirmjager platoon advance to line up opposite (but out of view) of their enemy.

'Get over that hedge boys!'

The first blood to the LG40s - one burning Sherman blocks a narrow lane and convinces John to back off.

The first reserves appear in the centre of the US position.

An HMG team takes up residence in a building opposite which the US HQ unit is stationed.

Another reserve unit for the Americans arrives. This time the LMGs on the hill to the left of the US position.

The rival paras sit behind opposite hedgerows completely oblivious to each other...

The first German reserve unit appears and it's the Panthers*!
*The Panther tanks are sitting at John's house, so these half painted Panzer IVs are the proxies. 

After far too long not staring at each other across the road (because bocage blocks line of sight) the Fallshirmjager storm forward preparing to assault.

The last thing that John needs is to roll poor dice and fail to pin the enemy from defensive fire. But it is the first thing that happens before the Green Devils roll a host of high dice and wipe out his platoon.

The Reserve Fallshirmjager arrive and move up into the battle-line. They assault the US HQ unit and wipe it out.

The US artillery takes revenge by rolling sixes and taking out the German HQ unit.

The first German reaches the enemy objective, but doesn't claim it before the 101st fail their company command roll.

OK so I forgot to take photos of the happenings on the other flank where the Panthers machine gunned and wiped out the US Sherman platoon, AT gun unit and the mortars (I wasn't keen about taking photos of proxies - even extremely effective ones). The death of these three platoons plus the assaulted platoon led to the Company Morale check which John no longer had an HQ to take. But it was a close run thing. The Germans had also lost their HQ and nearly had both infantry platoons wiped out. Final result was 5-2 to the Fallshirmjager - their second victory in our campaign.

I am now looking forward to shipping them elsewhere, because I HATE bocage! This 1500 point battle took three and a half hours and 12 turns to play out. With high morale/skill infantry heavy armies it was like a drawn out game of chess. In the end my bold assault on the right flank was the result of boredom and impatience - but it paid off!

Tomorrow night I'll try and post the landing of Commandos vs the 716 Div on Sword Beach that was played out on Sunday. Again - not a great one for the Allies.

Nate