The Commander Series Forum

Yes folks ... to run in conjunction with the Cold War Commanders annual 6mm/1:300th scale 'mega-game' up in Grimsby, this year we are holding a companion event down in the UK West Country at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire over the weekend of Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th October 2019.

The venue is The Tudor Arms public house - great beer and food, and also good accommodation. Plus it also has a campsite and caravan park and is not far from the Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust.

The Tudor Arms, Shepherd's Patch, Slimbridge GL2 7BP
Phone: 01453 890306

Our intention is to try and set up on the evening of Friday 11th - access to the skittle alley permitting - and then play a series of 1:1 conjoined scenario games to feed into the big games up at Grimsby.

Watch this space and the Grimsby thread for more details, but this is a Central Front based game - so a chance to bring out your French, Americans, Soviets and West Germans.

Pledge your allegiance to one game or another and one side or the other here on this thread.

All welcome - old CWC veterans or newbies or escapees from that Battlefront Cold War game that I refuse to name so as not to give it the air of publicity!

Any questions ... just mail me

Mark (F)

6/ Dug-In
No - not unless the aerial unit is an on-table aerial recce unit or helicopter.

The reason being that unless the aircraft is specifically tasked with ground reconnaissance, it will be focused on its attack mission whilst over the table (battlefield) and will want to get on with just that, whilst flying at optimum speed to avoid being shot down.

Also, whilst it might be able to generally indicate that a certain section of the battlefield has enemy troops in prepared positions on it - identifying specific units and types is highly unlikely.

Does that help?

NB: in CWCII I have a plan to allow armies to buy aerial reconnaissance flights as Assets. I need to work up how this might work - as it will need to include possible attacks on the unit based on Air Superiority

Also, unless an aircraft is specifically on the same comms net as the friendly ground forcs below them (such as a US Warthog unit linked to a US Armoured force on the ground - for example) it will take time for any messages to make their way back to the ground forces command units.

Hi,

Just going back to the wire question. Is it not a bit overkill to reduce the length from 200mm to only 30mm? Almost makes it pointless having wire and yet its a relatively cheap and quick method of creating an obstacle.

Having done a bit of digging around online over the weekend, I found evidence to suggest that a platoon is expected to lay 300 metres of wire fencing in 1 hour; 2 hours if you want a triple layer concertina wire obstacle. If our scale is 1mm = 1m, then we could conceivably have more wire, but the amount of time available to create defences is important to know too.

When you consider that in CWC a dummy minefield is 200mm x 100mm, costs 10 points and is also a linear obstacle, 5 points for a single run 200mm long isn't too bad.

What about restricting the amount of wire available by scenario/per 1000pts/?

(I hope this makes sense, it's been written over 3 consecutive days as time allows!)

Yes - that makes sense - I will review

. ..ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS, WARNING ORDER FOLLOWS....
112245 OCT
ELEMENTS 4 CMBG AND 43 MECH BDE
TO DENY ACCESS BEYOND PHASE LINE
ORANGE MAPLE FOR AT LEAST 36 HRS
COMMENCING FIRST LIGHT 12 OCT
BREAK
NO MOVE BEFORE 0000 HRS
O GRP GRSO740035 120830 OCT
ACK..........


See you in the morning fellas!

Should read - ADDRESS GROUPS - not ALL UNITS

GET IT RIGHT !

Whatever would we do without you Ian....

I suppose one of us should point out that Nick wrote "all stations" , not "all units".

GET IT RIGHT IAN!

That aside, how goes the Southern Front game down at Slimbridge? Up here in the frozen north the Soviet advance has been stalled by a series of poor command rolls, while on the NATO right flank we've been having a right tear up, with the West Germans just about on top, thanks to a couple of devastating air strikes. By Alphajets and Starfighters of all things.

Day 1:
7th Guard Army made outstanding progress, advancing behind a creeping barrage of smoke giving NATO only a limited opportunity to use their longer range tank guns and ATGWs.
The NATO forces - Canadians, Dutch and West Germans put up a spirited defense, but Soviet T64As with mine-rollers started to cut paths through the minefields, and as the town of Gelden-Kappellen, astride the main road to Venlo, with its Canadian infantry defenders was encircled by elements of tank and motor rifle battalions of the 55th Tank Regiment, NATO took the opportunity to withdraw to pre-prepared positions on a line of low wooded hills [called Fleuthkuhlen] between the outskirts of the city of Gelden (on the NATO left flank) and the town of Issum (on their right) as night fell.
There had been no air interventions in Day 1 as the airspace above the battle had been heavily Contested. Soviet Hind gunships roamed the central battle area but heavy NATO AA kept them from causing any serious casualties.

Day 2:
Having heavily shelled Geldern-Kappellan overnight to remove any remaining Canadian defenders, Soviet engineers spent the night locating and clearing NATO mine-fields and wire. This was to make way for a rapid advance in the early hours of the morning.

The 40th MRR was left to occupy the village of Hamb and the woods to the left of the Industrial area, facing off against the Canadians. The Soviets then redeployed elements of the 56th Tank Regiment, from the far left flank of their front (where they had faced the Dutch) to reinforce the 55th Tank, in the centre, as it pressed home its attack down the A58 road towards the northern suburbs of Geldern defended by the West German armour and a mixed formations of redeployed Dutch Armour, dismounted ATGW teams (with TOW) and Dutch Leopard 1AVs.

The German Roland ATGW opened up on the leading elements of the 57th Tank Battalion but came under heavy fire from the T64Bs own AT-8 Songster ATGWs. But without their smoke screens and despite the Glorious Soviet airforce having driven off the NATO air cover - the 57th and 55th were struggling to make progress down the main road. A lone NATO Phantom pilot made 2 successful strikes on closed packed Soviet armour - braving close Soviet AA support. But Soviet attack helicopter strikes were driven off by Dutch Stinger teams.

However, as the West Germans were occupied to their front, the 3rd Tank Regiment of the 7th Guard - the 79th - had worked its way down the A9 highway and ended up on the right flank of the West Germans. This brought down some serious NATO artillery fire (MRLs), which was lucky enough to kill two of the Soviet Tank commanders, leaving the remaining tank units in total disarray.
A close order tank battle then took place, between the dug-in German Leopards and the 79th T64s but with combined NATO artillery and ATGW attacks, and the 55th and 56th being too far away to support their beleaguered colleagues, the flanking attack ran out of steam and was destroyed.

At this point we called it a day (and a weekend). A really good couple of days play. We tested the House Rules to their extremes and generally they were found to generally work well.

We didn't quite manage to get a full 3:1 Soviet superiority on-table but we were not far off. However, what it did prove is that the Soviets really need to utilize their artillery much better (than we managed it anyway). Using proper Soviet ORBATS we had 9 on-table 122mm SP artillery guns per Regiment (which we've not done previously) and discovered that they need some serious adjustment to make them work, as on-table elements, as they should have done. But that is something we can work on as part of the CWCII changes.

Without the Smoke assets on Day 1 I doubt the Soviets would have made the progress they did. As the dug-in Leopards and TOW/Milan teams are just so very deadly. Especially using the new dedicated ATGW unit rules.

Lots of learnings and great fun.We had 8 players on Day 1 and 6 on Day 2. And are planning another CWC big weekend game for March. All welcome to join us.

Cheers
Mark

Great stuff Mark F, Grimsby saw the Soviet hordes breakthrough on both flanks, one against the US and the other against the West Germans. The British held strong in the centre but were forced to fallback to avoid being surrounded and cut off. I'll post a lot more in the next few days.

Cheers

Richard P

Great stuff Richard - I would love feedback on the new House Rules from any of the players both at Grimsby and Slimbridge.

Thanks
Mark

Gutted I could not make Slimbridge, I was mid job change so had no transport however I am hopeful I can make it in March and hope my Russians can continue the offensive to breakthrough the Nato line.

I will keep you posted on this very forum and the Pendraken CWC forum. Once March dates are confirmed I will publish, but I think we are looking at Oct 3rd & 4th 2020 for the repeat event (alongside Grimsby) when we will be crossing into Denmark again.

I may have other plans for you Slimbridge chaps (insert evil laugh )

Cheers

Richard P