L3/33 & L3/35 Tankette Bovington Tank Museum Video

The Tank Museum has just posted a great video covering the wonderful Italian L3/35 tankette and its development and operational history. For fans of this classic tankette, such as I, this is a must watch video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRSA2tF0mkU

Watching the film clips was great, looking at the different camo schemes on show (if you know what you're looking for), as well as them 'in action' or just whizzing around knocking over balsa wood obstacles etc for 'Il Duce' and Co. Mind you when you some of the stuff they get up to, you do feel really sorry for the crew, as they must have been battered to bits!

I didn't know that they were used in Burma by the Chinese forces, nor that the Taliban appeared to have a running version that is shown in a still from them entering Kabul or somewhere similar. It would be very cool to see one in a modern setting! Oh, and they actually had plane to drop it from a plane and to hit the ground running...

Well, whether you get to see this post this year or next, who knows, but maybe, just maybe, it will be seen in time for Xmas...

TTFN.

Kaos At Kalpaki - Greco-Italian War 1940 - Campaign Turn 3

This is the third and final action of my mini-campaign set during the ill fated Italian invasion of Greece in 1940.

Background Fluff

1st November 1940. Continued communication and weather problems have hindered the Italian advance towards Kalpaki. However the weather finally improved and clear skies and an extra day to get organised meant that the Italians were ready to attack. For the Greeks the weather and stubborn resistance by their Border Forces had allowed them time to dig-in and prepare defences, as well as bring forward their main forces to face the Italians. 

Italian Sapienza Column OOB

Losses so far had forced a major re-deployment of troops in and around the Kalpaki area. The Sapienza Column, much weakened by losses, had reinforcements in the form of 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, Ferrara Division, as well as L3/35's from the 31st Tank Regiment, Centauro Division. However they were still short on Artillery support, which lagged to the rear due to the terrain and the weather. At least the clear skies promised the chance of some support from the Regia Aeronautica Italiana...

Greek 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, VIII Division

For the Greeks, they had a re-inforced Infantry Battalion, well dug-in and with an atin-tank ditch in front of Kalpaki. Extra Artillery and MG units had been provided to help add to their integral firepower. Rumours abounded that the RAF had arrived and were preparing to fly in close support missions to break up the Italian attacks...

Scenario Details

• One Italian Column and the L3/35's starts using Static Deployment, the other Column uses mobile Deployment.
• All Greek troops count as dug-in as if in Trenches. The BUA's confer a 4+ save due to the strong nature of the structures.
• All Greek troops count as Stubborn.  (-1 die when rolling for fall-back if in the open. No die roll for when dug-in).
• All Greek troops add +1 to the die roll when rolling for fall-back to reflect their poor morale.
• The Greek CO & HQ's all have a CV of 8, to reflect their determination to resist the Italians and also the time they have had to prepare the communications in and around Kalpaki.
• Italian HQ CV's are 7, to reflect the poor state of their C&C at this point in the campaign. The CO has a CV of 8.
• One Italian Air support will arrive on a roll of 11-12 on 2D6 at the start of the third Turn. If support arrives, roll a D6 and on a 1-2, it is a case of Blue-on-blue, to reflect the complete lack of co-ordination between the Army and the Air Force. On a roll of 1-3, it is a Ground Attack aircraft, on a 4-6 it is a Bomber unit.
• One RAF Air support will arrive from Turn 4 on a roll of 8-12 on 2D6. It will be a Blenheim bomber attack.
• Victory is simply who is in control of Kalpaki at the end of Turn 12, or if one side fails its Break Test.

The Game

As is the norm now, the captioned photos should give you an idea of how the game played.

An overview of the table, with Kalpaki to the right, the Italians to the left and the top edge.

The Greeks firmly dug-in in and around Kalpaki. The AT obstacles to their front represent AT ditches.

ATG and Artillery cover the approaches to Kalpaki.

Of course a game without Francois le Fermier is just not the same...

One Italian flank.

Elements of the Centauro Division.

The remaining Italian units.

The end of Turn 1. The Italians made a good start, pushing forward, but the L3/35's came under fire from the off, as did the Infantry.

The L3/35's are in action from the off.

The Italian Infantry in support struggle as they come under Mortar fire.

Devastating Artillery fire really stops the Italians in their tracks!

The end of Turn 2. The Italian advance stalls and they lose an Infantry Company to Artillery fire, with another one suppressed!

The Greek Artillery is simply stopping the Italians dead in their tracks!

The end of Turn 3. Again the Italians struggle to move forward in the face of effective and devastating Artillery fire. They lose two L3/35's to ATG shooting.

A reduced Company wisely stay hidden behind a hedgerow, as to move forward would more than likely lead to their demise.

The L3/35's brew up.

More Italian Infantry arrive and try to move forward, but are at least out of view of the enemy.

The start of Turn 4 and the RAF turns up, causing mayhem to the exposed Italian Infantry by the roadside.

The end of Turn 4. The Italians barely move, but take more heavy losses from combined arms.

Any advances forward from here without heavy support would be nigh on suicidal.

Another Italian Infantry Company is all but wiped out.

Some heavier weapons arrive but cannot find the space to deploy.

The end of Turn 5. A small glimmer of hope for the Italians as they KO the Greek ATG that had been causing them so much trouble, but not before another L3/35 brews up.

The high water mark for the Italian tankettes.

Losses continue to mount.

A view from the Greek positions, that have not been seriously threatened.

End of the Game

At this point the Italians were close to their break point and with no realistic ability to be able to threaten the Greeks positions in and around Kalpaki. So they wisely chose to retire in good order rather than being routed in due course.

The Italian Butcher's Bill, excluding the three L3/35's.

The lone Greek loss.

Post Game Thoughts

Very quickly this turned into a very one-sided affair, with the Italians taking heavy early losses, that meant they soon lost any realistic chance of taking Kalpaki. So some thoughts on this scenario in no particular order:

• Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I think the Italians could have benefited from having a couple of Recce units, to help spot the hidden Greek units. As it was, they could sit back and rely upon indirect fire to do most of the damage.
• The lack of any Italian meaningful Artillery support really hampered them.
• Ditto Air Support, but then this did accurately reflect the shocking historical state of Army and Airforce co-operation.
• Even though this was so one-sided, it did feel 'right' given the reading I'd done before hand on the attempts to take Kalpaki.
• Certainly this sort of action works best as a solo game, as for a FtF one, being the Italian player would have been no fun at all.

Post Campaign Thoughts

So, how did I think the campaign went now that it's over?

• Well I did enjoy it, especially the research before hand, alongside creating the scenarios.
• Playing the games did highlight how completely unprepared the Italians were for this campaign on so many levels.
• Rather like playing the BBB scenarios, you really do appreciate how and why certain battles and campaigns unfolded as they did. 
• Here the Greeks doing delaying actions early on, to the point where they allowed for the main troops to come up, just felt right and fitted in with the reading I'd done.
• You do realise that you need good combined arms to achieve your objectives, so if you are missing one arm, as the Italians did historically with limited Artillery support due to the terrain causing movement issues, you get to see the knock-on effects of this.
• Before I've tried a 5 game Campaign format, but have found this too long to be honest, with the 3 game format working perfectly. Keeping momentum is hard, to fewer games makes this easier.
• The narrative approach to the Campaign meant minimal book keeping on my part, which was great. Fine if you have the time and the energy for something more complex, but this just worked fine for me.
• Once again BKCII proved to be the perfect rules for this, as with my familiarity with them, allowed me to tweak the OOB, CV's, unit compositions etc. As mentioned before, having core rulesets really paid dividends here.

What Next?

I think some painting is in order, but more on that as and when stuff is finished. Games wise a different period for sure, but I'm in no hurry to get anything planned just yet. A break from sorting out games is in order I feel!

As always, thanks for reading (if Blogger lets you see this!) and any comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

Books, Buildings & Bases

A bit of a pot pourri post, covering a mix of things that has been going in the background, so without further ado.

Books

Having got a bit more storage in the games room, whilst shifting piles of books that had lain the floor, I realised I was starting to run out of new titles to read. Whilst I still have a few left, I knew I wanted to add to the mix so that I had a bit more variety of reading material to hand.

I know Max Hastings is not to everyones taste, but I read this book whilst on holiday and found it a great primer for a more detailed book by Stephen Fisher, that I will read at a later date. As with all of Hastings books, I found it an easy read, but one full of useful snippets for the wargamer, many of them revolving around C&C, which I personally really enjoy in my games. 

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as I'd not read anything by Al Murray before, but boy did this turn out to be a brilliant read. By concentrating on one 24 hour period in Arnhem, he really brings to life the sheer chaos that ensued during the battle and frankly how poor the allied planning was. As with Hasting's book above, full of really useful detail and information that I will certainly refer back to for when I finally get around to gaming this seminal campaign and action.

Whilst browsing for new reading material and ideas for games, I came across this book which looks to be a really good read. It is certainly a conflict that I, and suspect most other gamers, know very little about. Having another outlet for my Japanese forces is a bonus and I ordered some buildings from Pendraken that will, to my eyes at least, pass muster for use in China, but also Burma too. I'm certainly looking forward to reading this in due course.

Another War I only have passing knowledge of, but I thought it would be great to get more au fait with it, given my interest in the 18thC and the SYW in particular. I've just started reading it and am enjoying it so far. Some reviews found the language to be a bit stilted and academic, but not the case for me.

Buildings

I've gone a scale down for all of my games for more years than I can remember, with my first port of call being Battlescale and the Leven Miniatures range that Steve, brought on board a year or so ago. I have a mix of both, so tend to try and match with my existing buildings as much as possible.

An Italian church (Leven Miniatures) that is really nice and certainly impressive size wise compared to the other buildings I have, Primarily I wanted it to be the dominating point on the planned Italian hill town i would like to make and it certainly fits the bill as far as this is concerned.

Frischermont Chateau (Leven Miniatures) will form quite a few functions within my games, namely as a chateau for WWII, as a monastery for any period and finally as an impressive walled farm, inpired by those imposing ones I've seen in Austria. I'm not sure how i'm going to base this, but might leave it as seen, soe that I can play with the payout depending upon the period being played and what I want it to represent.

Whilst I have a windmill already, I wanted one that look more in keeping with my Italian buildings and terrain. This one is by Battlescale.

Bases

With the cooler weather and after my recent Belgium 1940 game, I was spurred on to paint some bases that have lain in the queue far too long, sadly a common theme with me!

British 2 pdr ATGs and a Bofors AA gun.

A German Flakvierling and an 88.

A German Pak 38 and Pak 40.

Italian 65mm infantry Guns.

It was nice not only to spend time painting, but also to finally get some of these much needed items finished and ready for the games table. Still more to do, but I'm not far off finishing the core British and German WWII Infantry forces, so that will be my focus hopefully in the coming weeks and months ahead.

Fingers crossed I can get the table set up for the final Greco-Italian War 1940 campaign game in the next few days, but no rush to do this as I know I wont get chance to play the game probalby until the weekend.

As always, thanks for reading and any comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

Colours 2026 Show Report

It's early September, it's the start of Autumn, so that must mean it's time for my annual trip to the Colours wargames show, held at Newbury racecourse. Even though the traffic was unusually busy for the time of day on the M4, I still arrived about 10 minutes before the doors opened. As always it was good to see a large queue of people waiting to get in, which is not only good for the show, the traders but of course for us gamers as it means the show is in rude health and likely to continue for many a year to come.

Once inside, I took my time to have a bit of a wander around all three floors, just to see what is on offer, alongside my normal stop at the book stands, but more on that later. But first I know most people simply want to see the games on show, so without further ado here they are. Apologies if I get anything wrong, as there were some no-shows and some of the games were not as per the floor plan. First world problems and all that!

The Lance & Longbow Society, with their skirmish rules, 'By Oath Sire'. Too much table clutter for my liking, but good to see the game actually being played!

Company of Makers, with a mix of Sci-Fi skirmish games.

Interesting to see this banner and the funding provided by HM government.

Standing Ready Games? with some 1930's action going on.

Bataille Empire and 'The Battle of Fuentes de Onoro'.

Liverpool Wargames Association and Spartan vs Greek City State, 15mm.

The Pike & Shot Society and some 28mm ECW. 

Lots of lovely figures on display.

I always like to see a fortified manor house, as I want to make one for my games one day.

An idea of how big the table was. 

INWTS Games & 1940 Norway naval battle. This seemed to be very popular.

The Society of Ancients, Guagemela, using Impetus 2 (that will make Jon Freitag happy😉!).

A lone Persian showing a certain 'sang froid'.

Oxford Wargames Club, Bloody Big Battles, The Wilderness 1864.

Figures from Pendraken (10mm).

Leggetts and the 'Siege of Maiden Hillfort'.

Shepway Wargames and War of the Roses. I didn't clock this was the WotR until editing these photos!

A lovely castle.

Ditto the figures.

Beaconsfield Wargames and Sharp Practice?

Nicely done cobbles, maybe with embossed wallpaper?

Lots of lovely terrain, which caught my eye for my planned Italian hill town.

Wargames Association of Reading, DBMM & Cunaxa 401 BC.

Deeprose Games & 15mm Peninsula War.

Too Fat Lardies & Vexillarius Ancients?

It would appear to be the Battle of Marathon.

Southbourne Table Top & Boardgamers, Club 1813 (clever title!).

Ecorcheurs & 'Will the Portcullis Fall at the Castle?' A nice game, but they were struggling to see and manouevre the miniatures when I took this photo.

Lots of great terrain once again.

Sorry, but no idea on this one.

Anschluss Wargames & 'A Small Town in Russia'. they always do a really nice small game to demo their rules.

Sadly no idea on this game.

Table Top Battles & 'The Battle of Schleswig' in 15mm, using grides for movement etc.

Grey Company & 'Amon Hen'. We used to play these rules a lot at the club many years ago.

Peter Pig and their 'Bloody Barons' WotR rules.

Rapid fire demo game, France 1944 by the look of it.

My 'loot'. I love these books and from a quick flick through, this looks to be all I hoped it would be. Another project looms...?

Thoughts on the Show

In the end I spent 3 1/2 hours at the show, much longer than I normally would do. I decided to take my time and just wander, rather than feel the need to whizz round and get back home, which I normally do. This made the day much more enjoyable, allowing me take it all in, chat with people etc. So in no particular order:

• Having had a wander, I sat down with Chris, Dave and Dr Mark Smith (General Lee) to play BBB and The Wilderness 1864. Even though I was comprehensively beaten by Mark, it was a great game and, as always with BBB, you get to appreciate how much terrain affects your actions. It was good to catch up with the chaps after the Waterloo game and to chew the cud as it were.
• My bright yellow hoodie did the trick and I was happy to meet David from Suffolk, for a brief, but very pleasant chat. It's rare you get the chance to meet fellow Bloggers FtF, but when you do, you realise why you follow their Blogs, because we seem to share similar views and thoughts on our wonderful hobby. Sadly I didn't get to meet him again, but there is always another show or online.
• The show has plenty of seating, which is we know, is not always the case at shows. The venue is bright and airy, so being able to take a break in pleasant surroundings is such a treat. Other shows take note!
• Books. Despite having been going to Colours for many years now, I'm always amazed at some of the pricing on show and the differences between the sellers. Some of the prices have to be seen to be believed, especially for many books that I know are cheaper online and come with free delivery. 
• This always seems to be a show for buyers, with the games coming in second place, compared to say Partizan which is the other way round. There was certainly a lot more Sci-Fi and 3D printing on show this year. Pendraken were noticeable by their absense, but will be back on the show circuit next year. I did notice that no-one was selling dice, tokens etc compared to other years, ditto rulebooks unless they came from some of the big boys. Maybe this simply reflects the online buying habits that are so common these days?
• The show did seem busy, after the usual scramble for products on the lower floors, as by lunchtime, the top floor was more busy than usual, which again is good to see. Even when I left at 1.30pm, some people were still arriving. Good to see the show doing well again after a few years when it was looking so good compared to others around the country.
• I think it was a good mix of games, with large and small on show, with those show stoppers and ones you could put on at home or at the club, with no trouble at all.
• This year I noticed a slightly younger demographic, possibly as the result of more Sci-Fi and Fantasy being on show, with families in attendance and the kids seeming to have a good time.

What Next?

Well I have the final scenario for the Greco-Italian War 1940 all fleshed out, so it just remains for me to get things set up so that I can play it. After that I need to see what takes my fancy, but September is looking busy on the Home Front, so I;m not sure how much time I'm going to have for anything gaming related, other than reading books.

Right, enough waffle from me. I hope you enjoyed this and as always, any comments greatly appreciated, assuming Blogger allows you to see this!

TTFN.