Abridged too far....

[fastolfrus]

Well, we are almost at that stage of "School out for summer", so our school club have decided to finish off with a two-day mini tournament WWII game.

The chosen scenario : Market Garden.

Not just Arnhem Bridge, but the whole thing, Eindhoven, Nijmegen, Graves, Son, and XXXth Corps trundling up the road to relieve it all.

We're now on D-14 and still painting terrain, especially river sections and houses.

Notionally 15mm (although some players use 20mm plastics, but that's fine for club games if they're not in the same army), we hope to have 5 players per side (1st Airborne, Poles, 101st US, 82nd US, Irish Guards vs 5 assorted German commands), using PBI rules (so each force limited to strong company level) on a series of roughly interlinked tables - 10 tables each 4 feet square. XXXth start on square one, Arnhem Bridge on square 10.
Each player plays minimum of 4 games, 2 per day.

If it works out (!) even moderatley ok we'll post a report and photos after the event.

Good luck chaps, tally-ho !

[answer_is_42]

Sounds like great fun. Eagerly awaiting photographs...

[aircav]

Blimey thats some undertaking   

[Doomhippie]

Good luck! I wish I could do something like that in my school. Have fun and do post any photos you might take.

[fastolfrus]

Now at D-6 and still painting terrain.

Ran out of gloss varnish for the river sections and had to get more for a second coat - we have four sections that are four feet long and 4˝ inches wide (Eindhoven, Son etc) and two sections four feet long but 10 inches wide for Arnhem & Oosterbeck.

Stacks of houses, 5 churches, some factory buildings, a railway station, and all those bridges.....

Next problem to face tonight, gluing trees onto bases. 120 of them.
Mrs F has offered use of her crafting hot glue gun, whilst I try and work on the raised roadway for Arnhem bridge.

[Helen]

Good luck with this adventure. 

Helen

[fastolfrus]

End of day one.

Two teams of four today, each player got through two full games, so 8 games in total.

Brief summary of the action.

British Paras marched confidently into Oosterbeck (table 9) on game 1.
They didn't fight their way through to Arnhem itself until the closing stage of game 2, bayonet charging almost anything in their path to get through (including a 20mm quad flak emplacement)

Meanwhile, down on Hell's Highway US 82nd gallantly attacked bridges at Nijmegen (table 6), twice getting mauled by counterattacking Kampfgruppe. US losses totalled almost two full companies for negligible gain.
101st found that it wasn't so easy for their company on the outskirts of Eindhoven (table 3).
Game 1 saw them capture a bridge only to be repulsed on the counterattack, Game 2 they finally captured 2 bridges just as the game drew to a close (and picked up the high score for the day too)

British 30th Corps got bogged down on table 1 in their first game as a furious panzergrenadier company counterattacked. There was a hail of fire, but fairly low casualties on either side. The main effect was a terrible delay for 30th's tanks (who didn't do anything - to stick to timetable they needed to drive across table 2 in this first game). Game two for 30th started better as they moved halfway across table 2, until the panthers arrived. The village of Aalst (in the middle of the table)  provided a troublesome road block that was soon littered with blazing Shermans, but 30th eventually cleared the way, and tomorrow will drive into Eindhoven, just 2 games late.....

[fastolfrus]

Long view of the table(s) :




Another long view :


Mid-morning break time :


Oosterbeck (in front) with Arnhem behind :


Table 2 Aalst:


Table 3 Eindhoven :


Table 9 Oosterbeck:

[Captain Blood]

By heck. That's quite an undertaking. 
Well done Fastolfrus.
And in the school drama studio by the look of things?  A perfect setting
We should play more wargames in theatres...

[Doomhippie]

That sounds like a lot of tragedy the allied forces suffered. Well, as long as the kids have fun playing with and against each other does it really matter in a game? Nice project. I'm afraid soemthing like this is not really something for German schools. people tend to be a little touchy if it comes to palying war.

[fastolfrus]

By heck. That's quite an undertaking. 
Well done Fastolfrus.
And in the school drama studio by the look of things?  A perfect setting
We should play more wargames in theatres...

Thank you, yes it is in the school drama studio (posters on one wall advertise "Moonlight and Magnolias" - if you ever get a chance to see it it's a great play, and on another advertise "Pirates of Penzance" a modern revision with pirates as US gangsters, Reservoir Dogs style, very funny when we saw it last week)

It was a very tight sqeeze getting all the tables in, we ran out of tables and resorted to stage blocks at the end (slightly taller than the tables), but let's see what tomorrow brings.

We've got an international school exchange in the class next door too....

[fastolfrus]

That sounds like a lot of tragedy the allied forces suffered. Well, as long as the kids have fun playing with and against each other does it really matter in a game? Nice project. I'm afraid soemthing like this is not really something for German schools. people tend to be a little touchy if it comes to palying war.

It's panning out quite historically at present, the allies did have a lot of trouble with the operation, and our allied players are equally having problems.

Communications were difficult on the day - with a table layout this big our teams can't even sit alongside their team-mates and swap hints.

Tactics (and plans) are being constantly revised.
All the airborne players keep muttering "Where are the tanks" - the British player in Oosterbeck can't actually see them from his table yet.

Most of the school don't understand the club, but the boys are cheerful and polite, and games like this help with their history studies, and gain some respect from the staff room : doing something like this needs research and is educational.

They've already started looking towards next year ....

At the end of each game all players shake hands with their opponents, and then start looking to see how they could improve their force for the next game.

[fastolfrus]

Day two, two more games for each player.

Frost's garrison in Arnhem was counterattacked (as expected) by a scratch Kampfgruppe, who recklessly drove across the road bridge at full speed, well the first two hanomags did anyway, under covering fire from mortars lobbing smoke in all directions. The next vehicle onto the bridge, a panther, soon realised the smoke wasn't just caused by the mortars, but the blazing hanomags were pushed out of the way as the panther ploughed on unsupported. It's fate is shrouded in smoke.
The German commander decided the bridge was too risky so had engineers take his two remaining platoons of infantry across in deflatable boats.... deflatable ? They are when brens open up on them.

US 82nd Airborne continued their see-saw action at Nijmegen with even more casualties, still for no apparent gain, the bridge stubbornly remaining in German control. Meanwhile on table 5, glider-borne infantry attacked the Church at Grave and the River Maas bridge against fierce resistance from an SS company refuelling en-route to Arnhem.
30th Corps, finally sensing the open road, moved on from Eindhoven to attack the Zuid Willems Canal bridge at St Oedenrode, only to find that the area was heavily occupied by German infantry with supporting armour, another panther and what appeared to be a jagdpanther.  Bizarrely, the entrenched Germans abandoned their sandbagged positions and rushed headlong at the Irish Guards, the panther trundling unscathed through a storm of 6pdr shot, until momentarily stopped by a dense smokescreen laid by British mortars. Probably suspecting hidden teams of PIATs the German armour stopped, just in time to see a column of reckless Shermans drive past and into a storm of panzerfausts in St Oedenrode itself.
The 30th Corps game was the longest of the tournament, running at about 3˝ hours, so most of the other players were on with their 4th game as the St Oedenrode game ended.

The final four games of the day saw the glider troops digging in around Grave fighting off a tough, but largely uncoordinated, counter-attack led by a Tiger II. In the confusing close quarter fight that followed, most of the (unsupported) German armour was destroyed by infantry close assault, the Americans having found that this was the best method rather than trying to rely on bazookas against the heavy tanks. With the road held open, 30th Corps could move on.
On the next table, US 82nd were digging in on the flanks of Nijmegen bridge as a German counter attack, led by self propelled guns, surprisingly flanked their position over the rail bridge. In a very close, but hard fought game, the 82nd held their positions long enough for the first troop of Shermans from 30th Corps to arrive (and watched as a lone panzerfaust promptly knocked out the leading tank as it drove into town).

Across on table 9, the final remnants of the second airlift tried to fight through to Arnhem from their beleaguered position in Oosterbeck, but numbers prevailed against them and they ended the game around the Hartstein Hotel.
The SS from Grave appeared on the outskirts of Arnhem, and in a fast but furious assault they overwhelmed Frost’s outnumbered garrison to stop any British claim on the bridge too far.

[fastolfrus]

Just finished adding up the scorecards, PBI rules that we use allot victory points to each game so you can clearly see who has won not just try to guess from the number of casualties.

Overall result from the two days tournament ?

German team 9 wins, Allies 7

German total score 905 points
Allied total score 835 points

Historically quite close really.

The Paras were finally overwhelmed in Arnhem, whilst 30th Corps were just over a table away.
With one more game they might have just made it.
Or perhaps it was just one bridge too many….

Let's see what ideas the club come up with for next year.....

[fastolfrus]

Wonderful effort by all!

Thank you.

The boys did very well - two quite intense days of gaming for young players (the youngest still only 11 ?).