Author Topic: Fangs of the Wolf - Game Six - Part Three (Read 734 times)

7dot62mm · « **on:** July 12, 2023, 09:46:34 PM »

Gemigabok presents...
Winter of No Surrender

Campaign Eleven – Fangs of the Wolf
Game Six – Part Three

Winter of No Surrender (WoNS) is a series of Winter War campaigns for Chain of Command and other game systems. This is our playthrough of the eleventh WoNS campaign – Fangs of the Wolf. The campaign is currently in playtest and will be released... later.

We're using Chain of Command rules with the At the Sharp End supplement, loads of special campaign rules, and 20mm figures on an 8x5 ft table.

We're continuing the battle from last time. John is not available, so his Red Army platoon is played by our new guy Sampo. Bill is also not with us this time so Tom and Don play the rest of the Soviets. Mikko and Jarkko are in charge of the Finns, as is usual.

THE FINNS, in Blue
O: Jump-off point

1st Company, 1st Platoon (Jarkko):
2: 2nd LMG section

1st Company, 2nd Platoon (Mikko):
7: 7th SMG section

THE RUSSIANS, in Red:
O: Jump-off point

2nd Rifle Company, 4th platoon (John):
1: 1st section
2: 2nd section (Bill)
3: 3rd section (Bill)
4: 4th section
C: MMG section from MMG Company, 10th Platoon (John)
M: Chief of Staff Captain Rodin (John)

2nd Rifle Company, 5th platoon (Tom):
5: 5th section
6: 6th section
7: 7th section
8: 8th section
D: Platoon leader
F: MMG section from 2nd Rifle Company MG Platoon (Tom)
K: Regimental Politruk Podhomutov (Tom)
R: Engineer Commander (Tom)
V: Regimental Band and Band Leader (Tom)
W: AAA truck from AA MG Section (Tom)

Battalion MG Company, 11th Platoon (Don):
9: MMG Section
10: MMG Section
13: Remnants of 2nd Company, 6th Platoon (Don)
14: MMG Section of MG Company 4th Platoon (Don)
G: Platoon leader
Y: Scouts and Forward Observers from Battalion Machinegun Company HQ Platoon (Bill)

8 is mislabled as R, it is the southern R

As you may remember from our previous report, the Soviets may have surprised the Finns with a ferocious counter-attack intended to enable the HQ of Combat Group Sharov to break out of the encirclement. The table is simply crawling with Russian troops...

Suomussalmi is one of the few battlefields of the Winter War which is still on the Finnish side of the border. Jarkko lives up north and often drives by Table F...

Just inside the regular woods, Don's machinegunners are in fact leading the advance, skirting the edge of the struggling woods.

In this game we've often seen MMG units moving very quickly despite their heavy weapons...

In the struggling woods, which provide light cover but do not restrict line of sight, Tom's men are likewise proceeding towards Jarkko's troops...

Tom's 5th section have run over the road and are now in a defilade position from Jarkko's men whose positions are just visible in the picture above.

If they will proceed towards the north from here, they'll be in good situation and could possibly charge the Finns from the flank...

Jarkko's LMG section is still suffering from the effects of the pre-game barrage which caused them some shock and one dead.

...but two of the men are equipped with warbooty scoped rifles, obtained in the fighting before the beginning of the campaign.

This does not make them snipers, but enables them to hit as if the targets were at close range even when they are at effective range.

At the southern edge of the table, Tom has arranged his base of fire as per the field regulations... one section and the anti-aircraft MG truck are on overwatch, providing about 30 firepower worth of threat against any enemies willing to open fire on the advancing troops.

At the moment they are unable to see any enemies, but that could change with the use of illumination devices.

Not a single shot has been fire thus far, but the Russians are coming closer with every phase...

Meanwhile, Sampo is moving John's forces clockwise around the frozen pond...

While maintaining a calm appeareance towards the enemy, Jarkko and Mikko are already secretly debating on their private channel about how long they want to continue this fight – not a single shot has been fired but they anticipate that once the bullets start flying, the Russians' considerable firepower advantage will make short shrift of Jarkko's troops.

Jarkko decides to deploy SMG section #1 into the previously undetected trench just next to the LMG gunners. But they too have suffered in the pre-game barracge and have three points of shock.

Jarkko's platoon leader fires a flare from his flare pistol (the yellow splash in the picture above)... it illuminates some of Tom's Russians in the struggling woods...

The SMG section (which despite its name has only one SMG, the rest of the men having rifles) opens fire, and causes some shock on the approaching Russians...

The AA truck fires back at the Finns' muzzle flashes but again to no effect.

As the shooting has started, Mikko deploys LMG section #6 onto the other (western) side of the road...

From here, they can target the AA truck if they want to, or the infantry who are within the are illuminated by the flare...

They too have suffered from the pre-game barrage by ten 76mm cannon. They have one pont of shock...

Mikko chooses to target the infantry... the section fires...

Tom's 5th platoon is mightily discouraged by all this fire... 6th section accumulates six points of shock and 7th section another five points... miraculously no one has been killed.

In practice this amount of shock stops dead these sections' attempts to approach the Finnish positions... as the maximum movement in a foot of snow is 2d6 and shock is subtracted from that.

Jarkko has rolled a Turn end...

We check for changes in the weather. The wind dies down but it is still dark and cloudy. The temperature continues at -15 degrees Centigrade (+5 Fahrenheit).

Jarkko's men fire again...

The second bout of LMG fire adds another two points of shock and actually kills one Russian of section #6... one more point of shock is also added to section #7.

In the east, Jarkko deploys one more section, this is LMG section #3. Like many of the other Finns, they too have suffered two points of shock in the pre-game barrage

Then it is the Red Army's phase...

Leading the assault, Don's machinegunner section #9 run down the hill and reach a spot in the struggling woods where they are actually within 24” of the enemy and can see them...

They are closely followed by MMG section #10...

And behind them is MMG section #14....

Tom decides to withdraw his men towards the south, into the thicker woods. The campaign's special rules allow moving away from the enemy without being slowed down by shock so the movement is quite quick...

6th section have lost another man in the Finnish gunfire.

Regimental politruk Podhomutov decides to take part in the fight. He walks closer to the anti-aircraft truck and shouts to its leader, ordering the vehicle forward.

The truck moves down the road and lines up facing towards Jarkko's entrenched troops.

Closer to Jarkko's men - in the struggling forest – Don's senior leader orders MMG section #10 to run down the hill to where the other MMG section already is...

Next, he shoots a flare with his flare gun (the yellow puff in the picture above)...

And finally, he has MMG section #9 shoot at Jarkko's LMG section #2...

A lucky hit takes out the alikersantti (Corporal) Junior Leader. Wounded, he falls to the bottom of the trench... Jarkko's Force Morale is reduced to six.

Behind these machineguns, a third one is approaching....

Soon Don will have three MMGs shooting at Jarkko's trench from close range... and then there's Tom's anti-aircraft truck down the road... will the Finns be able to withstand this much firepower?

And then it is the Finns' phase...

This is kind of a now or never situation for Jarkko. This is when he needs to damage the Russsian machinegunners, before they bring all of those PM1910 Maxims bear on his troops...

He also needs to act before Sampo is able to flank his position from the west using the platoon he's borrowing from John...

Over on the eastern flank, Bill's scouts are very close to the machinegunners...

Jarkko fires at the machinegunners, but not with too much success...

Over on the eastern flank, Mikko turns his southern team a bit so that they can be on overwatch towards Bill's two sections in the woods.

On the other side of the road, Mikko's LMG section is taking fire and the section leader has been wounded...

Meanwhile, Sampo is making good time moving his men in the forest on the western flank of the table...

Tom manages to move section #6 into the woods.

They're still not out of sight of the Finns if they fire a flare, but Tom calculates that Jarkko will have his hands full fighting Don's many MMGs.

These two sections are too shocked to be of much use in the rest of this game...

Don wastes no time directing all of his machineguns to fire at Jarkko's LMG section...

The outcome is again devastating and the LMG section is now pinned, having suffered nine points of shock and having only four men left... Only the presence of the platoon leader, Lieutenant Suhonen, keeps the men from bolting,

Tom starts moving his 5th rifle section north within the woods...

Here they cannot be engaged by the Finns but they threaten to eventually charge into close combat with the pinned LMG team... this development does not look promising for Jarkko...

7dot62mm · « **Reply #1 on:** July 12, 2023, 09:47:00 PM »

This underlines Jarkko's need to find a resolution to the Russian MMG problem. He shoots at them using all of his deployed forces, i.e. the pinned LMG section and the SMG section.

The fire is accurate but the results are disappointing, causing six points of shock to the two MMG sections, but no kills. Jarkko would desperately need some hits on a Russian leader or two.

The Finns discuss the situation amongst themselves...

With two sections against a total of seven medium machineguns (there are four on the AA truck), Jarkko cannot win this fight. He could deploy two more sections, but they would not be in entrenchments. All this open area just enables the Russians to concentrate huge amounts of fire on his few troops.

The decision is made – the Finns will withdraw.

The Red Army has taken Table F...

Sitting in the back of the politruk's field car, Colonel Sharov cannot hide his smile... his Opinion rises from -6 to -4. This is the second victory in the campaign and the first where the Russians actually take back territory taken by the Finns.

But there is no time to celebrate. The dark, menacing woods all around the assault force may well be crawling with white-clad, submachinegun-wielding Fascists. Sharov sticks his head out of the front window of the car, and shouts at Tom's 5th platoon: Поторапливаться! (get a move on!) The company starts marching north-east.

Tom's platoon has taken the only two casualties the Russians have suffered in this battle. But thanks to their higher Force Morale average at the and of the battle, one of these men is immediately returned to duty. As Tom's platoon began the campaign at full strength, 50 men, this loss is insignificant.

The Opinion of 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 662nd Regiment rises from 0 to 2.

That of the Regiment's Machinegun Company rises from -2 to 0.

When Lieutenant-Colonel Susitaival hears of this, his Opinion will drop by one to +3.

Two Finns are dead. Added to pre-campaign losses of two men, Jarkko's platoon is now down four men. While this does not sound disastrous, a Finnish rifle platoon has a book strength of only 38 men so they've already lost ten percent of their force.

Mikko's platoon is equally down four men from pre-campaign fighting.

Having lost more men than enemy, the men of 1st Company, 16th Independent Battalion find their Opinion dropping by two to -2.

Despite the loss in this battle, the platoon leaders are unfazed.

Ltn Suhonen, the leader of 1st platoon (Jarkko) is Happy, whereas the Gas Protection Officer – leading Mikko's 2nd platoon since the death of 2nd Ltn Nyholm in the pre-campaign period – is Content.

Sharov's victory on Table F gives him hope that he just might make it out of the encirclement... if he is able to leverage the chaos caused by his unexpected assault, the Finns will not have the time to reinforce their troops guarding the northern exit and perhaps, just perhaps his assault force will be able to take the five tables which remain.

But is that going to happen? We'll see about that on Table E.

Freddy · « **Reply #2 on:** July 14, 2023, 09:16:45 PM »

Great looking game again!

MaleGriffin · « **Reply #3 on:** July 18, 2023, 08:56:12 AM »

WOW! Impressive! Amazing collection! Awesome AAR!

6mmfan · « **Reply #4 on:** August 03, 2023, 04:05:42 AM »

Thats a fantastic battle report and campaign. Thanks for sharing!

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Author Topic: Fangs of the Wolf - Game Six - Part Three (Read 734 times)

7dot62mm

Fangs of the Wolf - Game Six - Part Three

7dot62mm

Re: Fangs of the Wolf - Game Six - Part Three

Freddy

Re: Fangs of the Wolf - Game Six - Part Three

MaleGriffin

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6mmfan

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