Flames of War at the Jersey Shore

600 Point After Action Reports (AARs)

Players: Travis Newman (Finnish Armor) vs. John Sorge(Russian Conscripts)
600 pt FFA

The Table: Taiga. Cool early summer morning, lots of trees covering lots of hills.

The Plan: Try desperately to stay away from the SU-152s while riddling the infantry with machine gun fire.

The Actual Battle: Could never quite be where I wanted to be vs the 152s. The infantry had a ton of terrain to its advantage so I couldn’t get in their with the MGs quite like I'd hoped. Probably should have gone more aggressive against the 152s with my KV-1s once it was a short ranged fight but I probably underestimated my Veteran and rate of fire 2 to his Conscript and ROF 1 advantage. Assaulting into woods is not a great move, but I felt it needed to be done; but I ended up bogging eventually.

Lessons Learned: Bring a chainsaw.

Players: Travis Newman (Finnish Armor) vs Allen Kaplan (Soviet Guard Infantry)
600 pt FFA

The Table: Woods on 3 of the 4 corners of the board. A Medium sized village in the center of the board off to one side. A river/stream that ran diagonal across the board and managed to split my objectives.

The Plan: Take advantage of the fact that he had no frontal answer to the KV armor, gun him down, then run him down.

The Actual Battle: Too many guys to shoot, they kept coming and coming and coming. Then they occupied the village, held long enough for his other troops to gain position on the other objective, than swarmed in with the whole lot of them. Once again, I let the woods be my final demise as I bogged a bunch when attempting to assault into the trees in a last ditch effort to get em.

Lessons Learned: Defend the area terrain around my objectives like it’s the objective itself. Otherwise, once the infantry starts running around in their, its gonna be a very difficult task getting them routed from their new found positions.

Players: Richard M.J. Jarosz (Guard Cossacks) vs.Travis Newman (Finnish Armor)
600 points in a Free for All (FFA)

The Table: Summer! A cool railway embankment with hill over looking it.

The Plan: Dig in with the Pioneers and hide the Cossacks behind the Railroad embankment and wait for the attack.. Make an end run with the Cossack Platoon to grab the objective quickly if possible.

The Actual Battle: Damn KVs took the top of the hill and did not cross the embankment. They just fired, fired, fired and fired some more. My Cossacks were making a lot of saves. So it looked like we may run up against the time limit but with enough MG fire from the KVs my cossacks could not make all the saves. I did try the end run when I started losing stands but that just ended the game quicker.

Lessons Learned: Patience, Patience and more Patience. Dig in an wait against tanks!!!!!

Players: Allen Kaplan (Soviet Guards Inf.) Attacker vs. John Sorge (Soviet Infantry Conscript) Defender
Free for All 600 points played 10/10/08

Terrain: The field had a trench and stream running west to east across the center section of the board. Both features were about 18"s long. There were a few intact buildings in the north and east sides of the boards. They were directly behind two hills in the south east side. A further wooded hill was on the south west side of the board.

The Plan: I set up my 2 platoons on both hills. The larger one on the wooded hill. My tanks were in the center. Allen set up his AT guns and 2 sappers on the objective. He massed his large platoon with the remaining sappers and flame thrower section in the building area.

The Reality: Allen was attacking and he used the built up area behind the hill as good cover. I moved to counter him and assault him. I should have moved my tanks up sooner. So as a result they played little into the end result. Had the dice rolls been a bit different things might have been a bit closer. But dice aside, my not moving up the armor really put me at a disadvantage, one that I didn’t recover from. (And one that even with average dice probably would have still put me on the loosing end.)

Lessons Learned: I have to look this up…but I don’t think Allen was allowed to split up his sappers. Since they were 1 platoon from the HQ they should have been deployed together. And I don’t believe they can do combat attachments as anything but a whole platoon. On my side I should use a HMG in the smaller platoon instead of the light mortars. It extra shots would have been useful. For some reason I abandoned my normal suicidal use of my Soviet armor. Had I been more aggressive I’m sure I would have given him a much tougher time and made Allen react to me. Having only played Soviet Infantry in large battles, it’s clear that your force make up has to be different in smaller battles. It seems that no matter which way you go with the 600 there’s something you’re not ready for. Hopefully these lessons at 600 can be applied at 1000.

Players: Bill Bartlett (German Grenediers) VS Rich's Guard Cosscks

Terrain: A small woods or two and the rest too open for my Cossack's tastes.

The Plan: If either side had one nobody shared it with us!

The Reality: Horses charged, Horsed Died! Any questions?

Lessons Learned: Goin' to need a bigger Boat! or more Horses or hid them better....

Players: John Tarchis (German Pioneers) vs. Richard M.J. Jarosz (Russian Cossacks)
600 points in a Free for All (FFA)

The Table: The German army attacking over open ground into marsh and a hill with forests in front of it.

The Plan: Same as last time move the Tiger up the middle and pioneers down the right flank.

The Battle: Cossacks moving at the double and a rookie tiger crew pretty much ensured my defeat.

Lessons Learned: The dice don’t always love you and big cats either go big or go home.

Players: Richard M.J. Jarosz (Guard Cossacks) vs.Travis Newman (Finnish Armor)
600 points in a Free for All (FFA)

The Table: Spring! A creek swollen up to a stream on the Russian left. A nice hill on the Finnish side and some standing crops on the Russains side.

The Plan: Dig in with the Pioneers and hide the larger Cossacks in the Standing Crops and wait for the attack.. Make an end run with the smaller Cossack Platoon to grab the objective quickly if possible.

The Actual Battle: The smaller group got shot up pieces but the Pioneers dug in. The Pioneers started to take a few hits but nothering major so the Finnish decided to move both KV-1s off the hill and they both bogged!!!! So the Cossack attacked! The moved out of cover to assault the tanks. Well they failed their Tank Terror test. The Company Commander was there so I re-rolled.... and yes he failed!!! The Finns got back into their tanks and raked the Cossacks with MG fire. Game over.

Lessons Learned: Bailed out tanks make a tempting targer but have a back up paln!!!!

Players: Richard M.J. Jarosz (Guard Cossacks) vs.John Tarchis (German Pioneers)
600 points in a Free for All (FFA)

The Table: Some woods on my left and a ridge half way up on the right. Some more woods and a village around the objectives I was defending.

The Plan: Dig in with the Pioneers defending the ovjectives and keeping the Cossacks out of harms way to wait for the attack.

The Actual Battle: The Cossack charged over the ridge to run down his MG platoon in the open. Did not happen!! They got pinned. So I sat there waiting for the Tiger to attack. The Pioneers jumped at the chance to assault the Tiger. They adavanced and wait for it... FAILED their Tank Terror to assault. Since the Kommisar can not re-roll this they sat ther and to mowed down by MG fire.

Lessons Learned: Single tanks make a tempting targer but have a back up paln!!!!

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