Argie bargie on the A41

Worked through my 1926 game today using rules that were designed for single model skirmish stuff using playing cards instead of dice. It’s fair to say that it went at a right old clip (done and dusted in an hour) so here’s the report - in glorious Broom battle picture library format.

The Birmingham Corporation Airforce’s only plane - met up with the ammunition convoy from Liverpool and proceeded to scout out the road ahead. 

The convoy wends its way south. The vehicles with grey bases are unable to travel cross country without the a real chance of serious damage or becoming bogged.

The DH4 spots movement at the road junction below. Inspector Knacker’s lads from ‘K’ Division saw the red tail band and they let fly with their new rifles. In a departure from Lambshead’s rules I determined the actual damage caused to machinery by using my acme damage dice (in yellow). The rozzers scored one hit and the damage dice revealed a piston icon, meaning an engine hit. The DH4 began to smoke but remained flyable…for now.

Engine trouble! A second hit on the engine will bring the DH4 down. But I can’t fly it off the board without counting it as a loss - which will affect morale. (The plane was a mixed blessing. The use of planes is not really covered in Lambshead’s rules so I freestlyed a bit. While it can move a long distance in a single turn (24inches) it is vulnerable to ground fire and obviously can’t just hover in place so needs at least one precious action point per turn to keep it moving forward in the air). 

The forces of reaction were not slow in responding. Spurred on by the overflight and the sound of approaching vehicles, the Fascist blue shirts fired up Carlotta the armored car (donated by Mussolini) and raced across the field flanking the main road. As they emerged from the edge of a copse they saw the Liverpudlian convoy stretched out along the road to their left. A quick burst of fire at the lead armoured car raked it from stem to stern, two shield icons showed hits against the Austin’s baked bean tin armour. 

…followed by a hit on one of the vehicles turrets that disabled its port side machine gun.

The convoy was forced to a halt as the twin turreted vehicle swerved off the road and crashed into a tree.

The convoy ground to a halt. Alarmed by the armoured cars sudden appearance and the destruction it had wrought, the drivers of the ammunition truck and the lorry behind it veered off the road in order to find cover - risking the possibility of immobilising themselves in the process. Two squads of Workers Factory Defence volunteers debussed from their…erm…busses…and raced towards the hedge line while at the tail end of the convoy the Lanchester armoured car hared off across the field and the ex soldiers travelling in the military truck prepared to take the fight to the fascists.

Exploiting a change in initiative the squad of Workers Defence Force soldiers rush the Ernhardt armoured car and hurl a bunch of grenades at it. The car survives intact but the Vickers machine gun barrel is badly damaged and it is unable to fire back.

The reds remaining car (a Lanchester) heads across the fields with a view to flanking the blocking forces position. Unseen, but in the background, the Liverpool militia sneak along the hedge line with a similar intention.

Unable to fire and in danger of being overwhelmed the crew of Carlotta get the hell out of Dodge.

The DH4 limps around for another pass and manages to drop one of its cooper bombs in the dug out occupied by a squad of the Rotary Club Fencibles. They are marked as “downed” for now (a mixture of killed, wounded or just taking cover) rendering them useless until their actual combat status is reassessed at the end of a turn. 

The plucky aviators are on the receiving end of another fusillade from the ‘K’ Division coppers and the observer slumps over his bomb rack, badly wounded. 

 

Alerted by the bombs explosion the Liverpudlian flanking forces close in.

The red militia swarm over the defences and defeat the squad of downed fencibles in close combat. (The civilian militia squads only sport the odd handgun or shotgun - their close range offensive potential mostly being an array of blunt instruments). Unfortunately a second group, unaffected  by the dropped bomb, are waiting for them.

The fencibles fire…and miss as the angry dockers storm the second redoubt. Rushing over in support a squadra of British Fascisti blue shirts get there just in time...

…to see the redoubt defenders fall under the iron bar wielding scousers. The blue shirts are armed with rifles AND a Lewis gun and they let rip without sparing their ammo. Even as the Liverpool lads fell under this fusillade their second squad, who’d been following close behind, stormed out from behind the parked lorry. The blue shirt Corporal traversed swiftly and caught the newcomers before they could get to grips with his squadra. Then a joker was drawn which ended the turn. (All turns are of unknowable length in these rules - being triggered by the draw of that card from either players pack). During the brief admin phase that followed both sides just scraped through their morale checks - the reds hampered by their repudiation of all officers (and thereby failing to receive any morale boost from one).

One of the only bits of useful advice my father ever gave me is hereby shown to be true. “Never charge a light machine gun armed only with a pipe wrench”, he once cautioned. Thanks Dad. Wise words indeed. There were no survivors from the two red militia squads. The Lanchester armoured car drove forward and while trying to keep a respectable distance they hosed the truck and the blue shirts with their Vickers. The blue shirts hit the dirt…

Stuck in their mobile biscuit tin, the crew of the Lanchester were so focussed on the British Fascisti that they failed to notice the heroes of ‘K’ Division sneaking up on their left. When the vehicle commander popped his head up from the turret hatch to see what damage they’d done, he got coshed on the noggin by PC 289.
The driver ignored the cries of “your nicked sunshine” and backed the Lanchester out of harms way at full speed

The retreat of the Lanchester gave the following rifle armed ex squaddies a clear field of fire. As the DH4 swooped overhead and the soldiers fired at the rozzers another joker was drawn and in the admin phase that followed it was the remaining Fascisti and the coppers that broke and ran. After “persuading” the traction engine driver to move his mobile road block the way was cleared for the ammunition convoy to continue into Brum. 

So a victory for the revolutionaries on this occasion and a salutary lesson that the government shouldn’t place all its of its faith in small irregular forces. From here on in the few remaining loyal army units were going to be needed to enforce order. 

Taken a little out of context the rules worked well, and produced a pretty satisfying narrative.

I’ll try another one of these sometime soon I think.

Toodleooh.

1926 and all that.

Look; this blogging and solo gaming thing…it’s just not working out. I’m sorry…I really am…but over the last few weeks I’ve been… I’ve been…seeing other people. 

Yes that’s right I’ve gone from Mr Billy No Mates solo wargamer to international gamer de jour. You name a continent or a time period and I’ve been there, pushing lead around like nobodies business. (Well okay just North America…but it is a big place so I’m sort of counting it as at least two).

The AWI painting has slowed a bit because of these commitments but the enthusiasm is still there and progress is still being made on my second batch of Continentals. Slowly slowly catch a monkey and all that.

What I did end up doing, despite my giddy social whirl, was set up another of my 1926 General Strike games on the premise of trying them with Mr Lambshead’s skirmish rules rather than Norm’s excellent Tigers at Minsk ones. The rules are entirely playing card driven and if you consider swapping one individual soldier (as per the rules) for a base of soldiers it sort of works. 

The scenario:

The general strike has now been on for five weeks and the wheels are beginning to come off of HM Governments response to it. With the majority of the armed forces proving unreliable the Prime Minister has begun to rely more and more on that other army of concerned citizens - the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supply - and their proto fascist militant wing.

With pressure increasing on the strikers in Birmingham the armed militants in the Free City of Liverpool have begun sending small conveys of arms and ammunition to aid their midland comrades.

One such convey is heading down the A41 towards Wolverhampton when it is intercepted by the OMS.

The workers revolutionary defence force will achieve a victory if they get their lorry full of ammo off the southern road edge. The forces of repression (sorry the OMS) will achieve a victory by capturing or destroying the self same truck.

The forces of repression: From left to right - A Squadra of blue shirts, Carlotta the armoured car donated by Il Duce, two squads of OMS armed volunteers (The Rotary Club Fencibles - as they are derisively known) and a squad of Inspector Knacker’s K Division coppers with Edgar the traction engine.

And here’s the opposition.

A nice bunch of lads having a jolly day out. Two squads of Workers Revolutionary Militia with their “transports”, a twin turreted Austin armoured car and a natty little motorcycle combo. They’re the only thing that stands between the OMS and…

….a Fryco lorry stuffed full of explosives. Behind it is an ex army truck carrying a squad of former British Army soldiers (now wearing the red armband of the Workers Defence Force) and at the rear of the column is a Lanchester armoured car. 

Fortunately for the reds they also have eyes in the sky!

“B1” An Airco DH4 of the Birmingham Corporation Air Force, toting 4 x 20Ib cooper bombs and a bad attitude. 

These days I can leave the whole thing set up, so although I’ve run out of time today I can hopefully get the game played and an AAR posted here next week.

Toodleooh for now!

The Bagley Field heist - Part 2

I ran the game today and was very pleased with the way TaM worked, though it’s definitely designed for more units on the board …and a different era of warfare!

The background fluff for this game was laid out in the previous post, so if you want to go back and look at that I’ll wait.

Up to speed now?

Okay then, the whole shebang took 7 turns and about an hour to play but there were enough potential alternative outcomes that I’ll probably run it again (off blog) at some point. 

Here’s a few piccies of the action.

Turn 1. The workers « assault » busses rattle their way up the track to the Nissen huts on the aérodrome, one of which is chock full of guns and ammo. Major Clanger (left of picture) had his lucky hat on, but he still rolled a 1 which meant that his chaps couldn’t arrive in his allotted portion of the turn. I had previously established it would take thirty minutes for the local coppers to respond to the alarm being raised by the caretaker. Worryingly for both parties the game clock advanced nine minutes on this, the very first turn. Ooh err. Better get my skates on!

T2. My workers leap out of the busses, pause to light a fag, then remember they’re meant to be searching for the weapons cache. One section heads to my ordered target the other lot wander up the lane towards the northernmost Nissen hut. In the background Major Clanger is grinding his teeth. In his portion of the turn he rolled high enough to bring his lorries onto the board, but the hex they occupy failed an activation die roll so they just had to sit there and watch as the blue collar types finished their snouts. As a bye the bye I rolled for which one of the Nissen huts the good Major was going to send his men to search and found that it wasn’t the one nearest to me, which was a relief. The end turn admin phase die roll saw another 8 minutes of the available raiding time disappear so my lads were clearly enjoying their fag break. That’s 17 minutes out of the 30 before the rozzers are destined to turn up by the way.

T3. The workers on the left of the picture burst into the Nissen hut and the busses move around a bit to prevent them becoming a lucrative single hex target. All of the hexes containing my units activated as required. In a normal TaM game at least one and sometimes two hexes (depending on troop type and command capabilities) will always be assured of an activation. I restricted it in this game because none of the men involved are professional soldiers and command and control would be almost nonexistent. Of course on the workers side the whole « command » thing is a bit of a sticky subject in itself…! Seems they’ve become a bit averse to having a boss telling them what to do. Clanger’s trucks inch forward down the track, perhaps spooked by the unexpected presence of an opposing force. Worried about the safety of his transports the pink one orders his men to get out and make for the nearest hut. No one knows at this point which hut contains the goodies of course but in the later admin phase a die roll determines that they are actually in mine. Woo hoo! Sadly I can’t type what Clanger said at this point. Alarmingly the game clock is advanced by another 9 minutes leaving only four minutes before the peelers of K division show up.

By the way if you get really close to the picture and listen carefully you might just pick up the feint jangling bells of speeding police cars.

Tell me you didn’t just do that.

T4. The driver of the bus and his mate begin frantically stowing wooden crates containing rifles and ammo. The workers leave them to it (due to job delineation concerns) and head out to confront the approaching middle class mob.  I didn’t tell Clanger that I’d found the weapons cache - so his men continued on towards his target hut. At the end of turn 4 the game clock only advanced by two minutes when a double 1 was rolled. Phew. For anyone still counting there are only two minutes left before the rozzers arrive.

T5. The good news was that Eric the bus driver managed to get the last crate on board, the engine started, and a hex worth of progress down the track to the south. The bad news was that none of the other hexes containing my chaps managed to activate. (I’m assuming they’d stopped short in order to shout ribald comments at the oncoming capitalist lackeys. We’ll probably never know). Meanwhile Colonel Bagshaw (retd) - one of the leading lights of the aforementioned capitalist lackeys, had brought along his shotgun, a cartridge for it, and a face puce with rage. The Colonel wasted no time leading his shopkeeper and clerk cohort into a round of fisticuffs with the communist oiks. Harsh words were traded and manly uppercuts attempted. At some point the shotgun went off with a bang, scaring everyone witless. The OMS pulled back… shaken. Clanger had entered into close combat rather than fire with little hope of success from an adjacent hex - but it had all gone wrong. (It really wasn’t his day) Taking a hit in the melee his section had been forced to pull back and become pinned. In the end admin phase there was more bad news. The game clock had advanced past 30 minutes and the fuzz had now shown up. Originally I’d intended that this would end the game but I’d got a truck full of goodies and a clear road to get off the board. Maybe I should continue (I thought) and see which road hex the coppers would turn up on; north or south? I rolled a dice.

T6. Bugger it. A bloody great idea that turned out to be!  “Allo allo allo, what’s goin’ on ‘ere then?” The skull crackers of K division had spread out across the south road, blocking the busses exit. Dammit. There was only one hex that activated for my side but thankfully it was the bus hex. Eric gunned the engine and released the handbrake. 

T7. At a blistering 10mph Eric smashed through the police cordon and set course for freedom. There were unsurprisingly no TaM rules for this eventuality but I reasoned that even at that crazy speed some of the coppers might just have managed to jump out of the way in time.

T7. Contd. “You’ll never take me alive copper” shouted Eric, but unfortunately he was wrong for Inspector Knacker had taken the precaution of arming his bobbies with rifles. Despite the speed of the passing vehicle the guardians of law and order had time to discharge their magazines, reload and then have another couple of goes. Some of them got so excited they kept on firing even after the busses tyres blew out and the engine caught fire. Braving the flames inspector Knacker did a bit of unnecessary trunchening on poor old Eric’s noggin before shouting the traditional K division victory cry of “Your nicked sunshine.”

The outcome: Well it was a draw I suppose, since nobody got what they came for. On the wife’s insistence I diced for the possibility of the busses cargo exploding (she was passing by at the time) but it didn’t… and she also asked why none of the protagonists had used the dinky little machine guns on the back of the parked up plane. 

Bloody women. 

After arresting Eric and securing the munitions the police swept the site. Inspector Knacker was surprised to see the number of « workmen » apparently digging holes and a party of the better sort seemingly practising their golf swings behind the hangers. 

Conclusions:

The TaM rules worked really well, though with more units it will really come into its own. Playing with a game clock is a first for me (for some reason) but it added a definite frisson of tension to proceedings and will be included where possible in other games I play. 

It was a practise game of little consequence but I thoroughly enjoyed it and as usual found I could construct enough of a narrative to keep myself amused. 

Hope you liked it…there’ll be more of it coming soon enough.

Toodleooh.

The Bagley Field heist - Part 1

Dateline: 8th May 1926

The General Strike is in its fourth day and the situation has begun to spiral out of control. Reluctant to involve the Army, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin has so far relied on the “concerned citizens” of the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supply to keep essential services running; with the Police, somewhere in the middle, attempting to keep order. Fights between the OMS and those on strike have caused numerous injuries, two deaths and (worst of all to the Daily Mail readers) some damage to property. 

Without any centralised orders to do so, small groups of the protagonists have begun to arm themselves with whatever they can find.

Word reaches the ears of the Stoke OMS leadership that guns and ammunition have been secretly moved by the Government into storage at nearby Bagley Field aérodrome. * Apart from a single caretaker the cache will be unguarded. Plans are laid to seize the stash so they can finally overawe the local strikers. At a late night Lodge meeting, two Army trucks are proffered to carry away the haul.  

Unfortunately for the OMS, a spy gets word of their plans to the Stoke Workers Defence Committee and the comrades resolve to seize the haul for themselves instead. Overnight a couple of busses are stolen from the local corporation depot and prepared for a dawn raid.

The mission:

I’ll be taking on the (none hierarchical) command of a small Workers Defence Committee strike force, tasked with seizing the cache of weapons from the airfield. At the end of the landing strip are two Nissen huts, one of which contains our prize. Overnight sabotage of the OMS transport means they have been slightly delayed in setting off. The key to success will be getting there the fastest with the mostest, however the busses I’ll  be using to carry away the goodies have no cross country capability and will become immobilised if they leave a road hex (they have a grey base as a reminder).

Notes: 

All miniatures are Pendraken 10mm and the game will be played against my old nemesis, (Major Clanger) using Norm’s Tigers at Minsk rules (in a period they were never intended for, so soz Norm).

My chaps will enter on the southern board edge road on turn 1 and the OMS will enter from the north board edge when a 1D6 die roll of 3,4,5 or 6 allows.

The first Nissen hut to be entered will be tested to see if it contains the weapon cache with the same die roll as above. The weapons cache will always be in one of them. 

A vehicle must be within an adjacent hex to the hut for the driver and his mate to load it on board. It takes a full single turn to load and the vehicle may perform no other action.

Any single transport is capable of carrying two infantry sections.

A single transport vehicle is required to move the haul to safety - loss of either sides available transport is an automatic mission fail. 

TaM amendments for the period and scenario:

Due to the amateur nature of both sides there is no nomination of a hex that is automatically « in command » all potential hexes in which activity is required in a turn have to be diced for.

Game clock. The attack takes place at 6 o’clock in the morning but after thirty minutes the local police will arrive in strength.

Both sides have a moral rating of two. Lorries don’t usually count towards the force / morale total in TaM, but they are essential to complete the mission and the men involved would be more easily spooked by the loss of them than regulars in a bigger conflict.

Both factions are employing men armed with a mixture of short range civilian firearms. They have a range of 1 hex and a close combat die roll of 1D6. (Very limited in TaM terms).

Neither faction has the ability to make smoke and neither has any anti armour fire capability.

This game is an attempt to work through the basic TaM rules and sequence of play with just a few units per side. Although it will count as the first campaign mission none of the losses incurred will count against the faction force pools on this occasion.

Bagley field aérodrome. Dawn, 8th May 1926. Workers assault transports entering from the south. 

Force pool:

The Workers: 2 x sections of angry workers. 2 x corporation busses.

The O.M.S. 2 x sections of concerned citizens. 2 x « cough » civilian lorries.

My plan: 

I’m going to load all my workers into the leading bus and stop at the first Nissan hut. Keeping the vulnerable transports out of shotgun range I’ll search the first hut for the weapons with one section and send the other to either search the second or disrupt any arriving OMS. My primary target will be the OMS transports.

Major Clangers plan: 

No idea! I’ll dice for the hut he’s heading for when his forces arrive on the board.

This has to be the smallest game (with the fewest units) that I’ve ever attempted. 

And finally:

…a cry for help. If anyone knows where I might get some info on Elizabethan infantry or cavalry flags please drop me a line. I’m after the 1588 plus period but I can’t find anything on the inter web to speak of.

*totally made up place - naturally

Strike

I’ve decided not to follow a formal campaign structure for my forthcoming strike project but will instead run games taken from scenarios in Neil Thomas’ One Hour Wargames book. The first faction (Government or Strikers) to win 3 consecutive games will be deemed to have won the whole campaign. 

The factions will start with the initial force pools listed below from which six units must be selected to become their at start order of battle. New units may be drawn from the force pools to replace losses between games, but the winner of a game will also be able to draw down any one unit from the independent / unaligned forces to add to their own. 

Strikers Forces

Armoured carrier & 6pdr gun

FT17 tank

Austin armoured car

Lanchester armoured car

2 x civilian busses

1 x command group

1 x mortar

1 x Vickers HMG

2 x Factory defence militia

3 x Workers Defence Force infantry

1 x 4.5 inch howitzer

Indépendant Forces

Whippet tank

Civilian lorry

Traction engine

Seabrook armoured lorry

Thornycroft AA truck

Model T flat bed

Motorbike & sidecar

1 x Cavalry

2 x Police (K division)

2 x Naval shore party

2 x Scottish infantry

HM Gov Forces

Tank MKV

Tank MK II

Birch gun

Fascist Earnhardt armoured car - “Carlotta”

Rolls Royce armoured car

2 x Military trucks

Staff car

1 x command group

1 x mortar

1 x Vickers HMG

1 x Fascist infantry 

2 x OMS militia

3 x Regular Army infantry

1 x 4.5 inch howitzer

The units pictured below are included in the lists above and are the last ones required for this project. I’ve a few cardboard buildings to make up and some resin bits and bobs to paint but I expect the next post to be a battle report.

Model T flatbed for the workers defence force command group and a staff car for the officers of the regular army.

A Rolls Royce armoured car of Major General George Lindsay’s experimental mobile force.

A Lanchester armoured car, less glamorous than the Rolls but equally capable. This one was being refurbished at a Birmingham company for onward sale to China when it was seized by the Factory’s  Defence Militia.

Part of a shipment to Russia this Austin armoured car was liberated by a Liverpool dockers collective and quickly pressed into service.

A traction engined road roller…because…erm…it’s cute? I suppose it’d make a decent road block or artillery tractor.

Give ´em a taste of the birch!

No, not an instruction to thrash difficult teenagers, or even an endorsement of an S&M lifestyle. The post title actually refers to the fella immediately below. 

The Birch Gun was the first practical British self propelled gun, built at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich in 1925.

Despite proving itself a practical proposition the Birch Gun was never highly regarded by the British High Command, apparently not for any particular defect or lack of capability but an entrenched belief that such an innovation was unprecedented and so at best unwelcome and at worst an expensive and unnecessary indulgence.

Named after General Sir Noel Birch who was Master General of Ordnance at the time, the Birch gun comprised a Vickers Medium MKII tank chassis originally fitted with a QF 18pdr (83.8 mm) gun. This remained the armament in all the models, although the latest version, usually called the Mk III, had limited elevation. Birch Guns were used in the Experimental Mechanized Force manoeuvres of 1928 but by 1931 they had been removed from service and political pressure was applied to prevent any plans to complete the third version of this weapon.

It would be a decade before the British Army returned to the concept of tracked artillery, in the middle years of a war for national survival where speed and mobility on the battlefield were not optional and eleven years before it would once again be equipped with a similarly effective weapon.

And here are a few more weird and wonderful 1920´s war machines that’ll be appearing in my upcoming games. All models are Pendraken 10mm.

MKV Hermaphrodite. Still the classic WW1 tank shape but longer lower and wider. Armed with MG’s on one side and a 6pdr on the other (in case it encountered other tanks). The British governments constant penny pinching meant this beast soldiered on until the late 20´s. Cramped, uncomfortable, and due to inadequate ventilation more likely to incapacitate the crew through carbon monoxide poisoning than enemy action.

Gun Carrier Mark I. The gun carrier was designed to transport a 6 inch howitzer or a 60 pounder gun forward soon after an attack to support infantry in advanced positions. The carriers moved guns and equipment but were used for the rest of the war mainly for carrying equipment and supplies through areas under fire, where porters in the open would have suffered many casualties. The 6-inch howitzer could be fired while mounted, making the Gun Carrier Mark I the first modern self propelled gun, a weapon capable of independent action and having tactical mobility on the battlefield.

Generic late 20´s lorry. Transport for non government forces. The nasty mould lines didn’t really become apparent until after painting so I tried to cover them with the signage. Hopefully they’ll not be too obvious at gaming distance.

Vickers Médium MKII. Designed to replace the MKV (back up the page) it was first produced in 1925. Production stopped in 1934 but it wasn’t fully phased out of service until 1939. The Mark II was equipped with a 47mm 3 pdr gun and four machine guns. Top speed was 13mph and the armour (when it wasn’t forming perfect shot traps) was so thin you’d have been better off going to war in a baked bean tin.

 Thorneycroft 4 ton trucks. Transport for the Government forces.

Told you there’d be another one along in a minute. Couldn’t resist adding a bit of colour to the collection.  These vehicles have been requisitioned by the workers militia.

Another Thorneycroft truck but this time with a 13pdr AA gun mounted on the back. I suspect this would make a pretty potent anti tank gun despite its lack of armour.

I still have a couple of armoured cars a steam powered road roller and some nice buildings to make before I can get gaming with this lot…but I’m nearly there.

Toodleooh.