Attack on the bug river at Dumfries wargames show 2013

On Saturday 9th March 2013, Solway Crafts & Miniatures Hosted the Albanich 2013 Wargames show in Dumfries (Scotland),
The wargames show I’ve been attending for the past few months decided to put a display game on for the show, and between a couple of guys they painted a massive amount of german and soviet early war ww2 in 28mm and put together a fantastic table.

The mission was a modified version of the “Attack on the Bug river”, A “brief” overview of the game is:

“The scenario is taken from the Rapid Fire, Third Supplement, Scenarios for the Russian Front 1941 – 1945, R Marsh.

It is the early hours of the 22nd June 1941 and the whermacht has unleashed operation Barbarrossa on the suspecting but underprepared Soviet forces defending the western frontier. The game is centered around the 18th Panzer division crossing the Bug River North West of Brest using some interesting tanks (Tauchpanzer III) and assault boats with an engineering section setting up a pontoon bridge.

The game is based on the events of that day and representative of a typical assault rather than specific to an actual action.”

We used the bolt action rules from Warlord Games to play the game, with a few house rules:

Orders Dice

Turn ends when the ‘dice of doom’ is picked.

Do not remove orders dice when a unit is destroyed, all dice return to the draw.

If there are two spare orders dice drawn without units to order, one dice is discarded and not returned to the bag at the end of the turn.

Unoccupied Transports

Unoccupied transports can move freely once per turn without the need of an orders dice, providing they do so before the ‘dice of doom’ is revealed.

Dug-in in prepared positions

Troops dug-in in prepared positions count as in hard cover and as if ‘down’ for the purposes of taking casualties from indirect fire (i.e. half the number of hits, going ‘down’ does not reduce this further).

Barbed Wire

Impassable to wheeled vehicles.

Tracked vehicles cross at advance rate -D6” and destroy a section of barbed wire on passing.

Infantry must pass a morale test to cross and treat as rough ground.

Engineers cross as rough ground without morale test and remove a section of barbed wire.

No assaults can be made over barbed wire (that was its actual purpose…).

Minefields

Exposed when troops come into contact. Roll 1 D6 (as per preparatory bombardment Pg118): 1 = no effect, 2,3 = +1 Pin marker, 4,5 = +2 Pin marker, 6 = +2 Pin marker and 1 hit at +3 penetration. Strikes bottom armour of armoured vehicles (+1 penetration).

Engineers roll at -1 modifier.

If the unit has RUN orders +1 modifier to roll.

Fully armoured vehicles count any penetrating hit as light damage only.

All movement stops at the edge of the minefield.

Minefield is impassable to all except engineers which clear the minefield on passing an orders test, no firing while clearing mines.

Single Figure Units

When a squad/section is reduced to a single figure it is removed. This does not apply to heavy weapons or other teams.

Close Combat

After combat the loosing side must pass a morale check or is destroyed. If the morale check is passed take pins equal to the number of casualties sustained in the assault and withdraw 12” directly away from the assault.

Indirect Artillery

Roll a six-sided scatter dice with 2 ‘hits’ and 4 ‘arrows’ + a dice marked ‘2,4,5,8,10, Misfire’ The distance and direction is for any scatter, use a small template.

On a misfire it is a no shoot, widely off target, dud round or other event that means there is no effect.

Here’s how the table looked as we were setting up.

The Table! 12′ x 5′ in total!

The order of Battle is Roughly as follows:

GERMAN

It feels like it has been a long time since France, it will be good to be mobile again and moving with purpose instead of all this skulking about. 18 Panzer Division has been slowly massing just far enough away from the Bug to hide the sound of engines but as night falls everyone is on the move…slowly…quietly to the jumping off positions ready for the assault over the Bug tomorrow. The pioneer company passed by earlier with their pontoon bridge, it will be good to cross the River without having to get into one of those flimsy rubber boats.

Makes a refreshing change to have something to do on a Sunday…

On Table All REGULAR (morale value =9) except where noted.

1st Infantry Platoon (Behind woods on Patulin side of Bug River)

PHQ 1 x 2nd Lt (+1 Command)

3 Sections of 1xSMG, 6xRifle, 1xLMG (8 figs)

1x Anti-tank Riflle

1x Light Mortar

1x MMG

1x Medium Mortar

Engineer Platoon (Behind woods on Patulin side of Bug River)

PHQ 1 x 2nd Lt (+1 Command)

1 Sections of ???xSMG/Rifle, 1x Flamethrower (VETERAN) (?? figs)

1 Sections of ???xSMG/Rifle, 1x Pontoon Bridge, 1x Truck (VETERAN) (?? figs)

Elements Panzer Regiment (Behind woods on Patulin side of Bug River)

2 x Panzer III Ausf C TauchPanzer (Light Tank, Light Anti-Tank -1 damage (37mm), Co-Ax MMG, bow MMG, Amphibious)

Elements Artillery Regiment (Dug-in Patulin side of Bug River)

1 x 150mm FH-18 (Heavy Howitzer, 5 Crew)

1 x Spotter

Company Transport Pool (Patulin side of Bug River, or brought on with any reinforcements)

1 x Truck

2 x Sdkfz 10 half-track

2 x Assault boats

Reinforcements

2nd Infantry Platoon (Patulin)

PHQ 1 x 2nd Lt (+1 Command)

3 Sections of 1xSMG, 6xRifle, 1xLMG (8 figs)

1x Anti-tank Riflle

1x Light Mortar

1x MMG

1x Medium Mortar

3rd Infantry Platoon (Patulin)

PHQ 1 x 2nd Lt (+1 Command)

3 Sections of 1xSMG, 6xRifle, 1xLMG (8 figs)

1x Anti-tank Riflle

1x Light Mortar

1x MMG

1x Medium Mortar

Elements Panzer Regiment (Patulin)

CHQ 1 x Panzer II Ausf C (Light Tank, Light Auto-Cannon, Co-Ax MMG, Command Tank (+1))

2 x Panzer III Ausf E/F (Light Tank, Light Anti-Tank (short 50mm), Co-Ax MMG, bow MMG)

2x Panzer IV Ausf D (Medium Tank, Light Howitzer (short 75mm), Co-Ax MMG, bow MMG)

Company HQ (Patulin)

CHQ 1 x Captain (+3 Command, VETERAN), Kubelwagen

1 x Medic

Elements Company Support (Patulin)

2 x 75mm IG-18 Inf Gun (Light Howitzer, 3 Crew)

2 x Pak 36 (Light Anti-Tank – 1 damage (37mm), 3 Crew)

SOVIET

For the last few weeks there has been an increased amount of activity on the other side of the Bug River around Patulin but you have been unable to work out exactly what is going on over there, all in all it has given you a bad feeling…so you set about your orders and attend to your department. Some wire arrived last week and you have strung that across the line and personally inspected the trenches of your infantry sections. All the defences are prepared but whether this is just paranoia or not remains to be seen. There has been activity like this before but nothing ever came of it…

The NKVD border guards are ensconced in their bunker and that tank turret they have emplaced on the other side of the road is a comforting presence. Night falls gently in the warmth of mid summer Poland, tomorrow is Sunday, nothing ever happens on a Sunday…

On Table All REGULAR (morale value =9) except where noted.

Anti-Tank Platoon (Dug-in anywhere)

PHQ 1 x 2nd Lt (+1 Command)

2 x Light Anti-tank Guns (2 Crew)

1st Infantry Platoon (Dug-in anywhere)

PHQ 1 x 2nd Lt (+1 Command)

3 Sections of 1xSMG, 5xRifle, 1xLMG (7 figs)

1x MMG

1x Light Mortar

2nd Infantry Platoon (Dug-in Matykaly + Ljasnaja River bridge)

PHQ 1 x 2nd Lt (+1 Command)

3 Sections of 1xSMG, 6xRifle, 1xLMG (8 figs)

1x MMG

1x Light Mortar

NKVD (Bunker, FANATIC – Do not test morale due to casualties)

1 Section of 4xSMG, 4xRifle

1x MMG

1x T-26 Turret (Armoured Car, Light Anti-tank, Hard cover)

Mortar Company (Dug-in anywhere)

2 x Medium Mortar

2 x Trucks

1 x Spotter (2 figs)

Minefield (Anywhere, hidden deployment)

2 of 4” x 4” Minefield

Reinforcements

2 x T-26 (Armoured car, co-ax MMG, Light Anti-Tank)

2 x T-28 (Medium Tank, co-ax front + rear MMG, Light Howitzer, 2 x MMG turret, SLOW)

In true German Style, Only those with the correct paperwork may enter the battlefield!

Now for an after action report, Now, I tried to get everything that was going on, and I typed it up on my Nexus7 as we were playing the game, but I probably missed a few things and possibly even got a few things wrong, I also typed a lot of things in shorthand (like just refering to “panzer” instead of whichever one it was)
Also, I was playing on the side of the germans, so If I reference an action, but not who did it, it was the germans… I think I referenced each Russian order as “Russians” so you should still be able to follow along.

German turn 1: 10 German dice 0 Russian + dice of doom!
Preparatory bombardment:
Pin 9 units.

One unit moves to the river.
Dice of doom comes out! Turn over!

Turn 2: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
3 smoke rounds (free shot’s not needing order dice) hit exactly there targets smoke the gap in the trees, the turret and in front of the bunker
Bridging team advances
4 German squads advance

Smoke!

Advance across the river!

Gun moves up!

Turn 3: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
Smoke stays
More smoke from the 15cm infantry gun
First Germans across the river!
Russians get a dice. Try to rally. Fail. (Down)
Russians put BMG on ambush
Russians try to rally the AT gun. fail?
Both panzers move forward. First one makes it to the far side of the river
Brings on a howitzer.
More Germans come over the hill
First bit of the bridge! (1 of 5)
More Germans come on to support the right hand side.
End of turn!

First Bit of bridge

More Smoke

Panzer across the river

Turn 4: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
Smoke stays
Russian dice stay on. (Downs and ambush)
Second boat advances to far side of the river
Russians rally the NKVD
Russians set ambush on second at gun
Infantry gun sets up
First unit gerts over the river, boat goes back. Second unit gets in boatsvv
Turret rallys
Germans run through the woods
Second panzer gets to far side of the river
More Germans advance

Germans In Boats

First germans out of Boats on far side

Both Tauchpanzers in the river

Smoke stays put

Russians go into ambush

Smoke on Target!

Pinned Russians

Russian Defenses

Turn 5: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
Second boat delivers troops to other side of the river
Third bit of the bridge.
Smoke from infantry gun hits the BMG
Russians try to mortar the troops on the river. Miss.
Germans advance. Sets off ambush from bunker. Pins unit, doesn’t kill any.
Germans advance to the river.
Second unit gets boats to the far side.
German arty fails to effect the bunker.
Second reserve gun comes on.
Light mortar smokes the gap. Bang on!
Tank gets out of thge river. Is ambushed by the turret. Which does nothing. The at also trys. Fails. The panzer returns fire, misses.
Germans advance. Backing up now waiting for boats.
Another panzer gets up the other side of the river, fails to hit the turret.
German platoon command moves on from the rear.
Russians rally the foo.
Last dice out of the bag is an order dice! Dice of doom is not seen!

Third Piece of the Bridge!

Smoke

Measuring Range

75mm Howitzer firing

Perfect smoke placement covering advance

Panzer gets out the water

TauschPanzer

Traffic jam waiting for transport across the river

Ambushing Bunker

Turn 6: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
Bridge 4th bit!
One German unit gets put of boats
Smoke stays!
Dice of doom!

Russian AT gun

Pinned Panzer

More Germans in boats

Bridge is nearly ready!

Turn 7: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
Smoke stays
Turret hits the panzer. Pins but no damage
More Germans in a boat.
Russian at misses the panzer
Bridge is ready!
Truck roles on from the rear, onto the bridge
Russian at hits the pinned panzer. Bounce!
Russian infantry goes too ambush
Germans pass command role and advance through the smoke.
Pinned panzer does nothing.
Other panzer hits the turret. Penetrates. No damage 2 pins goes down
Far side Germans run through the wood to advance.
More Germans advance on the far side of the river
Russian Light mortar which is pinned attempts to fire on advancing Germans, blunders
German engineers advance to other side of their bridge.
Russian T28 (monster) advances on
Germans in the boat advance across the river
Russian bunker shoots the Germans who’ve advanced across the river. One pin. One dead!
Russians mortar the same Germans. 2 pins. 5 hits. 5 dead! Fail moral. Run away.
Smoke from the 80 km mortar smokes, drifts 10 inches
Rear infantry gun smokes bunker. Hits!
Forward 75mm smokes in front of advancing infantry

Turn 8: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
Germans advance through smoke. Shoot mortar, kill one.
Russian bunker returns fire. 1 pin. 1 dead!
Russian t28;advances
More smoke on the bunker, drifts back.
Two units attack the Germans. No dead. 2 more pin markers.

Turn 9: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
Smoke disappears!!.
Smoke from the rear infantry gun in front of the advancing troops.
Russians in bunker shoot BMG at advancing
More smoke on the bunker from forward infantry gun.
Russian turret unpins and machine guns the infantry who go down. One hit.
Tank advances and shoots turret. Penetrates. 2 pin markers.
Russian at gun shoots the tank. Misses!
T28 advances up the road. Pot shot at the panzer. Misses!
NKVD squad round the bunker misses the advancing German unit.
More Germans get across the river.
Deploy last gun!
Mortar hits observers on the hill, kills him!

Brigade commander in kubelwagen comes on and moves towards the bridge.

Mortar pins the panzer.
Germans advance to support the uberr pinned init
Half track runs onto the field and up to the bridge
Russian mortar fails to spot advancing Germans

Halftrack moves onto the bridge

Uber pinned squad!

Russian AT

Middle of the table

T28 advances through the hamlet

Yet more germans in boats

Smoke and wrecks

Pinned Germans

Turn 10: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
Smoke from forward gun on the hmg
Rear gun shoots at turret. Misses
Turret shoots tank. Misses
Machine gun pins the Huber pinned guys. One more pin.
Truck moves off bridge, behind trees and deploys squad.
Russian mortar attempts to shoot the engineers. Fails.
At gun pins the panzer.
T28 does pins on the panzer. Now has 5!!
T28 kills 2 from the Huber pinned unit.
More Germans over the river into the woods
Russian mortars at the rear shoot at advance
Panzer trays to rally. Fails. Falls back.
Brigade commander advances over bridge. Messy!
Russians pin advancing Germans
Panzer in river rally
Russians in bunker fire and kill 2 Germans.
Russian t26 comes on from reserve runs to the t28
German hmg gets in a boat.
German panzer 3 runs on from reserve up to the bridge.
Germans run for the boat!
End of turn

Pinned Tank

Playing the game

How about a Russian Die eh?

The Dice man

Turn 11: +2 Russian dice + 1 German dice
Smoke drifts backwards and exposes the germans
Commander advances. Maxim opens fire from ambush. Pins. No damage.
Germans advance, ambushed by squad. No casualties. Return fire but no beans.
Bunker on ambush
Turret shoots the panzer Thats Huber pinned. Fails its roll. Down.
Germans advance. Spring ambush. Get pinned,
Next German unit springs out of the woods moves up to barbed wire and flame the Russians. Kill 3 but runs out of ammo. These were ambushed by the bunker which killed one of them.
Mortar shoots the kubelwaggon. Misses everything! Surprising considered how close they all are.
Germans try and smoke the maxim, it drifts forward and lands on the advancing Germans. Could be worse!
Two German tanks advance
German unit at the front is one unit away from running away!
Machine gun team advances across the river
Russian mortar misses advancing Germans.
Spotter moves to get a better overview of the battle
More smoke near the uber pinned Germans
T26 moves along the road.

Brigade commander

Advance on the Russians!

Pinned

Pinned on the far side of the table

Slurp of tea

T26

Turn 12: +2 Russian dice
S,joke stays still.
Germans try to assault! Uncoverr a minefield, 2 pins.
Engineers cut the barbed wire then shoot at thge russiasns. Kill 3, whole squad dead!
End of turn!

Achtung! Minen!

Turn 13: +2 Russian dice
Smoke drifts a bit
Turret fires at the panzer. Misses.
Germans at the rear try to advance on the bridge.
Panzer misses with return fire on the turret.
Commander advances to get close to the pinned units.
T28: shoots the uber pins. Takes them above the moral threshhokd so they flee!!
Bunker fires across the river at extreme range at the 75mm guns. Misses
Russians withdraw machinegun from smoke towards the lines behind them.
Engineers assault the wounded mortar crew in the smoke. Kill him and take his position
Panzer 3 advances across the bridge
Panzer 3 shoots the turret, gets two pins on it.
75mm howitzer trys to get the turret but misses.
Two German units previously pinned try and advance but fail. Both go down.
Russians mortar the advancing machine gun. Misses.
Russian mortar again misses advancing punned get,and on far aside of the table.
Russian Machine gun kills two Germans.
The newly positioned German spotter sees the firing machine gun. Calls down the 15cm gun. Dead.
End of turn

Advance! (backwards..)

Turn 14:
Russian hmg re-positions.
Panzer 3 shoots the turret. Immobilized, now on 4 pins.
Both 75mm try and kill the observer on the hill but fails to land on target.
Russians shoot the 81mm mortar and kill 2 guys.
The mortar then unpins and smokes the bunker
The lazy Germans in the boats advance to the far side of the river.
T28 advances and shoots the panzer.
Panzer iv finally makes an appearance!
T26 has sneaked across the battlefield to support the Russian lines!
Panzer 3j advances and shoots the t28. Pins it but fails to penetrate.
Russians try and shoot the panzer 3j but miss. End of turn

New Position

T26

Turn 15:
Smoke stays
Panzer 3 fails its order.
15cm gun aims at the t38 but hits the squad next to it. 4dead! Pass their moral.
Russian at gun shoots the panzer but fails to penetrate
Russian mortar kills two Germans who stalled at the minefield.
Panzer 3 fails to hit the t28
Both 75mm howitzers spectacularly miss the spotter.
End of turn.

Pinned Panzer back in the water

Advancing T28

Panzers love being pinned

So Do the Regular troops!

Turn 16:
Smoke stays.
T28 fires at panzer. Misses.
Turn ends!

T28

Turn 17:
Smoke lifts!
Bunker fires at the 75mm. Pins but no damage
15cm gun misses the spotter
Germans at the rear advance over the bridge
Panzer 3j advances, crushes the barbed wire. Finds a minefield and blows itself up. First tank kill of the game! Himself!
T28 advances, pins the panzer 3. Shoots the infantry one dead.
Russian at shoots the panzer but misses
Russians mortar shoots the advancing Germans but misses.
Russian mortar trays to hit far side Germans but misses.
Bunker shoots infantry on far side kills 1.
Panzer in the river fails to unpin.
Panzer moves off the bridge.
Another panzer 3 comes on and goes for the bridge.
Russian maxim pins advancing Germans who’ve captured the German position.
T28 runs on from reserve!!
Another t26 runs on from reserve.
German BMG trys to shoot spotter. Misses.
German pinned troops try to run. Fail order.
Germans advance to occupy trench. Far Russians spring ambush and kill 3
Another German tank comes on.
Infantry run over the bridge.
Russians at rear ambush.
Germans advance into half track.

Occupy the Trench!

Russian Second line

Stoopid Panzer runs over mines and kills itself

Turn 18:
Smoke moves 1inch.
T28 kills 1 German in the trenches. Main gun kills another.
15cm gun pins the t28
Bunker shoots the 75mm coins but no damage.
Panzer 3 advances shoots the t26. Misses, it misses too when it ambushed.
Commander moves to support pinned troops.
Bunker pins the commander.
End of turn.

Use his burnt out hull as cover. good plan.

T28

Turn 19:
Smoke moves
Panzer shoots the t26. Gets 3 pins.
At gun returns fire. Misses.
T28 moves up.
15cm gun trays to shoot the two t28s. Misses.
End of turn.

Rush hour traffic

Panzer fires on the far T26

Turn 20:
T28 with 3 pin markers passes its order dice. Misses the tank then shoots the infantry. Pins more Germans.
15cm hits the tank. Blows it up.
Half track races up the road filled with troops and stops in front of the newly killed tank
Panzer 3 advances and misses the t28.
Panzer 3 advances, passes its order dive and advances.
Panzers get caught in a traffic jam on the bridge.
Germans advance past the wire.
Panzer 3 advances into the trench and makes the t26 set on fire.
German hmg fires at the spotter but misses.
Germans near the bridge advance.
Russian li GH hit mortar does nothing.
Turret with 4 pins tries to rally. Fails.
Hmg pins the guys up the middle.
Hanomag comes on. Much to the elation of Nigel.
75mms both try and spot The spotter. Fail again!
NKVD run out the bunker and attack the Germans. Kill 2.  Germans kill 1 then Fall back. NKVD consolidate back into the bunker.
Germans on the far side assault the spotter. He dies.
End of turn.

NKVD assault

End of game!

This is the table at the end of the game (split over each 2′ section-ish)

German Deployment

Over the Bug

Centre of the table

German defenses

Russian Reinforcement Zone

Overall the Game was a lot of fun, It’s pretty hard to get a game this size “finished” at a show, as there are people coming and looking at the game, talking and shopping to be done, and setup/packup time to take into account. Over all though we played 20 turns, which was a great achievement in its self.
The Russians held off the German advance, but with more time the Germans had a good chance of breaking the line as they still had a lot of reserves left off table!

The game even won Best in show! Well done Newton, Nigel and Graham for an epic game!

Best in show

The plastic orange pin markers we were using for most of the game were kindly supplied by the good folk at Figures In Comfort, and are from their Litko range, which can be found HERE. Many thanks to them for the markers!

See all the Photos I took on the day HERE:

The table we used for the game was built by Newton, He has a blog which you can see by visiting: newtshobby.wordpress.com where he blogged his progress building the board (amongst a plethora of other things!) and also reviewed the game too. Check out his blog!

Thank you for reading, Hope you’ve enjoyed this (epic long) post, feel free to leave a comment!

Chris.