A Fist Full of Tows 3 - what next

I enjoyed the test game I played last weekend and it has reignited my interest in 'the war that never was'. I have placed an order for the rules via Lulu and as I have never used Lulu or any other print on demand service before that will be interesting in it's own right. I also placed a second order to Magister Militum to expand my troop range to include the support arms along with a couple of (read that as four) different Warsaw Pact tank types. I have added some T-55s for third tier formations, and some T-64s and T-80Us for first line formations plus T-72As. I have air support Recon, AA and AT plus more infantry and transport. Let’s just say it wasn’t a small order!

An additional 75 Russian tanks are only part of the order!

 I'm still getting my head around where the T-72 fits in.  Most sources term it a mobilisation model which was intended to be mass produced when war was imminent but at the same time it appears to have equipped existing formations in the second echelon.  I read an interesting (read that as depressing) quote from someone who served in Germany at the time, they believed that if they came up against T-72s the war would have been almost over. Either the Russians were winning and we were about to go nuclear, or they were loosing and they were about to go nuclear!

I think the 1980's is the obvious period to set scenarios for NATO v WarPac as the electronic and cyber aspects of warfare have not become an overpowering factor yet and active counter measures to anti tank munitions are only just appearing.  In a lot of ways it is akin to late World War Two with better equipment (and nerve gas and nuclear weapons!).  It's also the period where the Soviet doctrine had moved away from massive use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield so there is something to play out other then just dousing the playing table in petrol and applying a match!  It's also probably the latest period where we know a good deal about the capabilities of the equipment and can be reasonably comfortable that it is accurate(ish).  Plus in doing the research its interesting to compare what we thought we knew at the time and what turns out to be the truth.

So the date is summer 1982 the Falkland conflict never happened as we re-enforced the islands rather than going ahead with the removal of HMS Endurance (The FCO were furious).  This deterred Argentina, but required the maintaining of a strengthened garrison and RAF presence.  That weakened our presence in Germany slightly.  Meanwhile the Russians are concerned about the rise of pro democracy movements in Poland and are seeking a means of diverting attention from the poor results in Afghanistan.  Brezhnev is dying and no longer able to control the hardliners in the Politburo and many of the foreign policy decisions are being made by his ultimate successor Yuri Andropov.  This coupled with US President Reagan's anti Communist rhetoric sows the seeds for military action to reunify Germany by force.  The final straw is the forthcoming deployment of Pershing and land based cruise missiles into West Germany by the US.  Russian military planners consider that these weapons, especially the precision guided missiles, would be as effective as tactical nuclear weapons at disrupting command and control nets but without the long term wide ranging collateral damage.  If a war is to be waged and won without a need to use tactical nuclear weapons on a massive scale there is a narrow window of opportunity and summer 1982 is that window.

I have set up a 'campaign' map divided into oblongs each of which is equivalent to the area of my standard game table.  The initial map area covers about 30 miles north to south and 40 miles East to West, sufficient for the first day's fighting if WarPac rates of advance are as NATO expected in the early stages.  Just waiting for the rules to arrive now which should be in the next couple of days.

The Soviet Tank Force has made it to the painting table

Defending Bad Heredaisse - A Fistfull of Tows 3 play test

1982, somewhere close to the inner German border. In a final attempt to cripple the West and bolster their position at home the Politbureau authorise an invasion of West Germany. At some point in the last hour Warsaw Pact formations breached the internal German border.   As part of the attack a Soviet battlegroup from a Motorised Rifle Regiment is approaching the small town of Bad Heredaisse probing forward trying to identify the main areas of defence of the BAOR.   Its objective is to take and occupy the important road nexus within the town. If they can exit the west side of the table with a company sized formation they will score a decisive victory. 

The Soviet force consists of three T-62 companies and two Infantry companies mounted in BTR-70s. Facing them is a Squadron of Chieftain mk5s and a company of Infantry mounted in FV432s. The infantry are already dismounted and in makeshift positions when the advancing Red Army formation is spotted. Two Chieftain troops and a company of infantry on the reverse slope of Hill 1 supported by a third Chieftain troop luring in the dead ground behind Wood B. A company of infantry dismounted in the flooded quarry area another on Hill 3 and the last in the rough ground west of Bad Heredaisse. No troops in the town as it was expected to be an artillery target.

The Soviets are attempting to use three axis's of advance towards the town. a company of T-62s spearheading the advance down each road from the east table edge each with a company of BTR-70s following up and a third tank company to the North flank. The Table is 6 feet by four feet so there is a lot of ground for the Russians to cover.

Rules are the free version of a Fistful of Tows 3 but with the 'average' modern vehicles replaced with period specific ones from the excel data sheet on the game website.  The game scale is one model represents a troop/platoon and one inch is 100 yards on the table.

1. The Table.  East is at the Top.

The schematic of the table above shows the key features the oblong and triangle areas are rough ground.  All other fields and hedges are there for the look of things but don't have any effect.  Black rectangles represent built up areas they are difficult ground but most are small enough to work around.

2. The table from the BAoR end

Turn one. 

The Soviets move first as the attacker and push forward with their three companies of T-62s backed up by the BTR 70s as the second echelon. As they break into the open ground to the east of their objective British Chieftain main battle tanks move forward from their hidden defensive positions and open fire at long range.  All four chieftain troops engage and each destroys a T-62 platoon.  This doesn't look as though it's going to be a good day for the Red Army. 

3. Initial NATO positions on Hill 1

4. The Soviet's initial set up

5.  The first shots from long range find their mark.  Scratch four T-62 Platoons

Turn two.

In response the Soviet commander calls down a major barrage of artillery on and around Hill 1 but it is singularly ineffective. Only one Chieftain troop is suppressed all of the other strikes are ineffective. The surviving T-62s rush the forward British defensive position on the Hill closing to within 400 yards before engaging.  The sheer volume of fire destroyed two of the forward Chieftain troops.  However the push to close the range brings them within reach of the infantry on the hill.   They are on overwatch and take out one of the attacking T-62s with their Charlie G (MAW in game terms). After which they evacuate their position and retire towards town covered by a troop of Chieftains.

6.  Soviet Infantry and Tanks on Hill 1 while tanks burn all around.

 

A second round of long-range anti-tank fire is laid down by the two surviving Chieftain troops. Again the impact of the 120 mm guns is devastating and the northernmost and southern Soviet tank companies are reduced to one platoon each they fail the resulting quality test and are rendered combat ineffective.

Turn three. 

Soviet artillery so far has been remarkably ineffective so far so the Soviet commander calls in a pre-planned interdiction barrage to the west of the objective hoping to dissuade the British from moving troops forward into the town.  One BTR company occupies Hill 1 while elements of the second push into the town and debus.  Not all of these make it as a Chieftain on overwatch destroys one of the APC platoons.  The infantry onboard survive but now reduced to moving on foot are not going to play any real role in the rest of proceedings.  The Soviet tanks are now concentrated on the west slopes of Hill 1 and destroy both the retreating FV432 platoon and it's mounted infantry as well as the Chieftain troop covering them.  

The BAoR force is now reduced to one troop of Tanks and three companies of Infantry all of who are in positions around the town.  The Soviets are down to one platoon of T-62s and one full company of Infantry and one which has lost a platoon transport.

6. Russian infantry deploy into defensive positions in town

End Game

I called the game at this point.  Unsupported Russian Infantry were not going to get away with an APC charge for the end of the table and two of three tank companies had failed quality tests so only one tank platoon was still in action.  Despite threats from the political officer the commander decided to hold what they had and let the second wave pass through them to take the next objective.  

British forces stayed on the hills overlooking the town and in the quarries to the North but would struggle to push the dismounted Red Army infantry out of Bad Heredaisse.  I'm agreeing with the political officer here and calling this a victory for the progressive forces of the People's Red Army as they took the initial objective.  In military circles it is said that the Soviet commander commented that with a few more such stunning victories they could loose the war.

End game.  Soviet Infantry hold the town  The east is littered with burning armour.

The rules

The introductory set play very fast and are bloody.  If a tank is in range they have a very good chance of killing an enemy tank.  The Chieftain even at long range is pretty much guaranteed a kill against a T-62.  That may in part be due to the simplified game mechanics.  The Russians really have to weather the storm and close to normal or even short range but when they do they too are in the "if I can see it I can kill it" zone.  That said I'm not certain that this is wrong and if it is there are simple tweaks that can be made to reduce the efficiency of tank direct fire.  The game does mirror the long held view of western superiority in technology as the balance to Warsaw Pact numbers.  My only issue is that in the introductory rules at least the "I shoot, I score" issue removes some of the supposed Western superiority.  I suspect things like gun stabilisation and engaging multiple targets each turn would swing things back the other way in the full rules.  Despite these slight reservations I will be buying a set of the full rules based on this play test.  The reasoning is simple one set of rules mechanisms to cover everything from World War One to  ultra Modern conflicts makes life really straight forwards. 

Last but very much not least, the 3mm toys looked really good on the table.  Small enough to avoid the hub to hub deployments from other games which is forced by the discrepancy in figure to ground scale but big enough to be clearly seen as models not counters.  Vehicles and infantry are Oddizial Osmy buildings a mix of Brigade models and scratch built.

PS Bad Heredaisse....bad hair days,  get it?  Oh come on it wasn't that bad!

Painting the T-62 Fleet

Soviet paint schemes in the early 1980's seem to have been a single shade of green rather than the multi colour camo schemes which came into use later in the decade. Should be an easy paint job then, right? But no, it isn't that easy. We live on a green world and as a result the human eye is particularly good at distinguishing between shades of green, so it needs to be the right shade. Which begs the question what is the right shade of green for Soviet vehicles. They seem to have used a dark gloss green for parades but a lighter shade in combat environments. Colour photos of early 1980s Soviet vehicles show a range of greens but part of the difference may be the film used, plus the processing of the negatives could impact on the depiction of colour as well! Even the colour settings of my monitor could be having an impact. On top of which with 1/600th models I need to use paint as a fast way of determining which side is which so it can't be the same shade I used for the BAOR vehicles.


In general the photographs show a green similar to a medium olive green but sometimes with a hint of blue in the shade. It's a warmer hue that NATO Olive drab schemes from the 1960s so that helped give me some inspiration.

A BTR-70 showing the final choice of green used

 Eventually I have settled on an undercoat of white with a slightly thinned Vallejo Medium Olive Green over that.  By thinning it the high spots on the castings show some of the white through so kind of pre-highlighting occurs.  I then hit the casting with a coat of satin varnish and firstly ink wash with good old GW Agrax Earthshade then dry brush with Vallejo Bonewhite to which I have added a little olive Green to create a very light green highlight.  It's not exactly the Soviet colour scheme but it is close I'm happy with the results although the KGB political officer may order me to repaint in a more socialist shade at some point.  Oh and in case JBM pops around I didn't paint in the red stars or the turret numbers although I did do the tracks in German grey front and rear!

A T-62 complete with commander manning the Turret MG

So Ivan now has a Company of T-62s at 1:1 ratio and a company of BTR-70s and dismounted infantry will follow very shortly.  For rules like FFOT3 where a single model represents a platoon that is the core of a Motor Rifle Battalion.  An order of T-64s and BMP 1s will give the start of a Tank Battalion from a tank regiment and I probably will not be able to resist some T-72s and T-80s.  Then it's onto support arms.  I have decided that artillery will be an 'off board' asset but some anti tank and anti aircraft vehicles plus close air support will be modelled as on board assets so I need to decide what I want to use for those items.

The assembled ranks of Soviet Armour

Lastly the astute observers will have noticed that the opening paragraphs of  a couple of earlier posts have formatted as centre aligned.  It seems to be something to do with placing an image and centre aligning it and I couldn't for the life of me seem to make it go back to what I actually wanted.  The same thing happened with this post but I solved the issue.  Highlighting the affected paragraphs and using the clear formatting icon seems to break the link to the image formatting and hey presto everything is back as I want it.  I can't claim any credit for this solution as I followed the age old primate methodology of pushing all the buttons until one did something.  Fortunately there were no big red ones marked do not push!

Team Yankee - The Novel

 In between painting the O8 1/600th tanks and actually doing the work that I get paid for I have just read the 1987 Book 'Team Yankee' which (I assume) was the inspiration for the game system of the same name.  The last World War Three story I read was The Third World War by General Sir John Hackett.  Team Yankee is a much easier read.

The story focusses on a re-enforced M1 Abrams Tank Company based in the Central Sector and follows their involvement in the initial defence and ultimate counter offensive.  The book ends with the Soviets having captured most of Northern Germany and parts of Holland but struggling to stay resupplied.  At this point I realised that the story is set in the same world as Hackett's tale as the Soviets drop a single nuclear weapon on Birmingham and are then subjected to a return equivalent counter strike on Minsk.  This leads to a change of regime in Moscow and a cease fire.  Exactly as happens in Hackett's version of WW3.  I double checked this against Wikipedia and the article there comes to the same conclusion this is the same war from a different perspective.

It's not a heavy read and focusses on small unit combat which from a wargamer's perspective is a sweet spot for on table action.  American forces are no more than battalion level with assets from Brigade in support while the Warsaw Pact forces are Battalion to Regiment sized.  The only thing which seemed odd was the lack of T-80s in the Soviet forces the most modern tanks described are T-72s but that may reflect the lack of clear information on Russian Tank Forces when the book was being written.

Reading it has given me some further insight into Soviet tactics (or lack of them at times) and spurred me on with my painting of the Russian troops sat on the painting table.  Its worth a read for an insight into how a serving US officer thought the Soviet forces would be handled.

T-62 tank order has arrived

For the last week I have been waiting for the last bit of my Magister Militum order to arrive a pack of 15 T-62s.  They had to reorder from O8 in Poland.  Waiting for Soviet tanks from the east, it sort of sums up NATO's position in a sentence.

T-62s - nice castings aren't they

Like the other Oddzial Osmy castings these are flash free and beautifully crisp.  It really is remarkable what the sculptor has achieved in a 1/600th scale casting.  I'm using these to depict a tank company in a Motorised Rifle Regiment which consisted of three platoons of 4 tanks each plus one HQ tank, I'm leaving out the soft skin truck for the admin crew as these normally stayed at battalion HQ during an attack.

This means that I have a British Tank Squadron with Chieftain Mk5 (14 tanks) paired with a mechanised Infantry Company mounted in FV432s to mix and match and a the same for the Soviets but with T-62s and BTR-70s.  That should give me the basics to try the free version of FFOT3 rules out.  I have already painted and based the Chieftains and one Platoon of infantry for the British so its on to the Soviets next.

It is noticeable that the T-62 is a smaller tank than the Chieftain even at 3mm size.  Painting should be easy enough as early 80's Russian kit was mainly in plain green.  I just need to get the right shade sorted out as I'm not totally convinced by the shade I trialled on the first BTR-70.  Not to worry though as I will come up with something.

BTR-70 this is not the green I'm looking for, but it can pass

3mm tanks - second try at basing.

 After yesterday's horrible basing mess, I thought to try a different approach so I over painted the horrid green with a more muted tone and added some of my bock paving sand and flock from my 6mm basing supplies.  It's not in the least realistic but it does work a lot better than the olive green.

I'm not ashamed of the basing now!

I also hit the painted tanks with a light wash of my old favourite Agrax Earthshade which reduced the contract between the green and the black in the cammo scheme.  As I have mentioned before it also matts down the finish which is a bonus.

The base is a UK 1p coin 20mm diameter

The painting took almost no time at all under coat in white, top coat of Russian Uniform, the black pattern is German Grey with a tiny bit of Sky Grey mixed in to lighten it the thermal wrap on the gun barrel is Khaki and the dry brush was Bone White (which is actually a nice buff colour) all Vallejo acrylics.  I'm very happy with the results.

One thing I have learned is that getting a good picture of the painted tanks is tricky.  Finding someplace with a good light source is key.  Even daylight on a dull day (as it is today) doesn't create the candle power required!  Then getting my phone's auto focus to target the right point took several goes.  I really need a light box and to get my digital camera out.

Cold War going Hot - Oddzial Osmy models and thoughts on a Fistful of Tows

It’s a new project!  You know me I can resist anything except temptation.  In my defence it's the war I would have had to take part in if it had happened.  I was in the TA in the early 1980s and  if the balloon had gone up the infantry battalion my unit formed part of would have been off to join NORTHAG.  Our task would have been guarding supply depots and supply lines but I always expected that we would have been in the shooting war very quickly. So I have more than a passing acquaintance with the kit and sat through hours of AFV recognition sessions (those Airfix modelling days paid dividends there).  So I thought it might be nice to get some early 80's forces together.

Of course I went small for this project.  Small and cheap, O8 1/600th via Magister Militum Miniatures.  15 Chieftain Mk5 (that's a full squadron plus one spare) for £4.00 that will do nicely thanks.  Of course to spread the postage cost I bought a few other bits so 15 FV432 Infantry Fighting vehicles, 12 BTR-70s and 15 T-64s plus a pack of Warpac infantry.  Or I will have when the T-64s arrive.  I ordered T-62s but they are out of stock so I changed the order!  To be fair the T-64 is probably the more common Soviet tank in the initial attack echelons anyway.

A troop of Chieftains

The Oddzial Osmy casts are simply stunning; no flash a tiny amount of sprue and air channel to cut off job done.  I'm thinking of a Fistful of Tows 3 for the rules but haven't settled on basing, as the I don't have the rules yet.  The rules are aimed at 6mm with one model tank being a group of 3-5 vehicles.  I wanted to save space so went 3mm but I haven't decided if I want to base in groups or as single vehicles as I intend to fight a 1:1 model to vehicle ratio.  3mm makes that affordable and I can just change inches to cm and the scale issue is pretty much dealt with, or I could stick with the original and getting bigger fields of fire.  For now I'm going to trial the rules with the free introductory set as the full rules are not cheap.  They look fairly straight forward and should play OK solo.

I had a go at painting three Chieftains (That's a Troop) and they are fairly easy to paint although I need to play with the technique a little.  Dry brushing for contrast is a must and I'm thinking a pin wash in black before the highlight might be needed.  The bases in this first batch are just horrible  That olive drab is too bright I want contrasts between vehicle and base but that's not it!  I'm still not sure about basing on coins either.

I hate the basing but the tanks came out OK.

I have the makings for a Squadron of Chieftains and a Rifle Platoon (without it's supports) for the plucky Brits and a Tank Company plus a Motorised Infantry Platoon (also without support elements) for the Ruski's all for a spit over £20.00  that's about 26p a vehicle.  A second order will be going in for re-enforcements in the not too distant future.

Edited 18/03/21 to correct errors in the title of the post and a couple of spellings