Combined arms - Battle over the Crimea Campaign Turn 11 - Part 2 of 3 Clear the Beach

 Laying mines south of the Kerch Peninsula the Kriegsmarine was preparing to defend against another thrust by the Soviet navy through the Black Sea. Air recon showed large scale boarding of Soviet troops onto transports only to discover the ships sail directly for the Peninsula rather than swinging south. All ships were immediately despatched to attack the convoy.

 This game we played scenario 7 'Invasion', modifying it slightly to double the points to 2000pts, doubling the number of transports as well as swapping the roles from Germany being the attacker to being the defender and the Soviets the attacker. Victory is achieved once one fleet loses half of it's ships or 4 of the transports land troops.

 The game began with both fleets closing, only the soviet Fugas minesweepers had guns that could hit across the board at this stage and both ship put shots into the Verpostenboote.

End of turn 1 the soviets had released torpedoes and began moving towards the beach.

Turn 2 the 4 soviet bombers came in and began strafing the Schnellboot's, the combined fire from the IL-2's and the Bronekators started to systematically destroy them.

The G-5's push forward and began laying down extensive smoke screens to protect the transports from the long range guns of the German Large ships.

By turn 4 the Germans lost 5 Sboats out of the 10 total ships in their fleet, the soviets had lost 1 G-5 Torpedo boat

End of the game I rolled to destroy the Germans fleets but rolled a 1 and 2 so they only retreated! 

Combined arms - Battle over the Crimea Campaign Turn 11 - Part 1 of 3 - Clear the skies

 

As the Campaign moves towards its close both armies now bring their full force to bear, Having successfully locked down the factory the Soviets once again attack the Fortifications - this time from the seaward side, the Soviet navy cordons off the Kerch strait with the Kriegsmarine sailing hard to engage, all the while waves of bombers and fighters clash above them. This  game the Soviets had a 3:2 advantage in points.

Turn 1 deployment

Turn 2 - the soviet bombers and escorts maintain a tight formation

Soviet High cover dives in

The Luftwaffe split their force to try and wedge the Soviet air force between the heavy firepower of the FW190A and JU88's and the Manoeuvrability of the BF109E, the soviet Ace and Veteran shepherded the IL-2's across the board forcing Luftwaffe planes to become disadvantaged and then lining up deadly dive attacks from the oncoming reinforcements.

The IL-2's turn away

Excellent dive and Shot from the Yak-7b

Downed by Flak

Game ended turn 5 with the Soviet air force getting a clean win against the Luftwaffe through an excellent dive and shoot and a Lucky shot from Flak downing a BF109E, rolling to destroy the planes on the Combined arms board the Soviets managed to cripple one squadron. Their bombing runs made little impact on the Heer Defending the Kerch Strait.

Combined arms - Battle over the Crimea Campaign Turn 10

  Turn 10 snow began to fall slowing down everyone's troops, whilst the Luftwaffe and Red Air force flew out to spar, their patrols didn't clash. The army units were too far from each other to engage one another but the Navies clashed over sea control of the Fortifications at the Kerch strait.

The scenario we rolled for was 'Control the sea' where players score VP each turn for being within 10cm of an objective as well as vps for destroyed and damaged ships.

Sea conditions this game are Stormy - Good luck getting those torpedoes out!

Turn 1 through 3 our fleets slowly crawled towards one, stormy weather conditions mean ships can only go slow.

Turn 3 the IL2 Flew in and heavily damaged an Schnell boat with rockets and cannon fire

Turn 4 the Fleets began to close on the objectives and the smaller vessels actually got the chance to shoot at one another.

The first of 2 Stuka dive bombers come in and attempt an attack on my Fugas, but missed all its shots.

Turn 5 the Fugas destroyed an Sboat before a Bronekater was lost to long range fire from the M40 Minesweeper.

Turn 6, an Sboat rushes the objective but ends up being to perfect cover for my own ships to get onto the objective before they blew up the Sboat.

German Fleet destroyed.

Combined arms - Battle over the Crimea Campaign Turn 8 and 9

  The Battle for Crimea continues with a Soviet victory at Frontove, pushing the Heer into the sea and destroying them, the now Hardened soviet infantry boarded transports and quickly crossed the Sea of Azov to sure up the failing defences at Mariupol.

VP scores
Germany: 5
Soviets: 3

The Both sides reinforced turn 8 and the soviets reinforced turn 9 leading to a massively reinforced Soviet army, the Luftwaffe launched air raids against the reinforced Tank unit, the Red airforce intercepted them leading to the following air battle.

 We rolled escort mission, so the Germans had to bring in their Stukas to try and strike the Soviet tank column. Turn 1 started with all the soviets disadvantaged through a combination of unlucky rolls and the Obsolete formations card Germany played.

German Veterans came straight at the mixed soviet pilots, the soviet Heavy flak presence card did the heavy lifting this game knocking down 2 JU87's.

Turn 3 the Soviets and Germans end up in a hairball at the table centre, a Soviet plane gets a good tailing position but fails to climb after the German player used his Great climb card.

Start of turn 4 the German high cover begins coming in, the two soviet planes in the cloud burn advantage and attack the JU87's downing 1 whilst the Heavy Flak Prescence card downed another breaking the Bomber formation and winning the game for the soviets.

Soviet High cover comes in from the flank and attempts to shoot down JU87's but no hits.

The JU87's by the end of the turn had accrued 4 boom chits on 3 planes and had to disengage, winning the game for the soviets.

Following the air raid the Panzers assaulted once again into the Factories of Mariupol hoping to storm the defences of the now Veteran red army Infantry.

Soviet plans were lost when a German fighter supporting the assault outside the strafed and killed a courier transporting the documents across the city, the two forces now rush to secure the documents.

This game we played the scenario 5: Top secret - a document has to be seized from the centre of the map by an infantry unit and evacuated off of the board. 

The Germans got a free forward air observer this game from a card played during the campaign.

Turn 1 Saw the Soviets and Germans pour into the centre, the German infantry were largely mounted on bicycles allowing the vets to quickly occupy the centre - Curiously they didn't pickup the objective.

Turn 2 Saw the Soviets pour shots into the Heer veterans in the centre with the KV plastering them MMG fire and using its cannon destroyed a Panzer 1.

The Airstike came in and the vets went down putting 2 pins on them.

Turn 3 the German Artillery barrage came down and wiped out the conscripts and put 3 more pins on the vets! The KV-1 tank shocked the German veterans in the centre and crashed into the church killing the forward air observer.

Turn 4 the KV-1 Turned on the Waffen SS veterans with twin LMG's and shot them the pieces, under fire from an LMG squad, and MMG and the KV-1 the veterans broke and ran!

Turn 4 the Germans moved forward to engage the KV-1 and Soviet infantry who had not ran off with the secret document.

The Soviet Veterans tried to charge the Heer infantry in point blank range but failed their charge twice losing a man to the Commissars wrath!

Turn 5 the Veterans finally stood up and charged the Heer infantry wiping them out 6 to 3 - their tough fighter came in clutch

The KV-1 turned around and plastered the SS veterans with MMG, the flamethrower then moved up and tried to burn them out but missed whilst the Heer LT moved in and after a broadside of SMG fire ended the Flamethrowers career.

The Game ended with the LMG team running off of the board with the Objective - the secret soviet plans were safe!

The board at the end of Turn 9 - The Panzer unit was destroyed in the city, the Soviet plans of a deadly ambush remained hidden and the Navies faced off near the Kerch strait!