I managed to take this picture of some of my buildings representing a small town to the southeast of Hildesheim.
A shot of the river line which crossed my tables in the rapidly developing gloom.
The next day I managed to take these shots of the terrain as we were deploying. This is looking northwest towards Hannover, way off in the distance beyond the end of the tables. Dennis is deploying part of his armoured division beyond the road running across the table, while Ian would deploy another armoured division in the space this side of the road. Facing them would be a West German brigade and a Belgian brigade, with a brigade from British 1st Armoured, and part of a brigade from 4th British Armoured Division (my troops) in the corner where the table turns towards the northeast.
This is the hilly country where 4th Armoured deployed an armoured recce regiment with attached engineering squadron, and a single Chieftain regiment. Just out of view on the far right is a large airport, which was garrisoned by a RAF Regt infantry squadron and an RAF Regiment Rapier squadron. Later, a Challenger Regiment would advance down the road skirting the edge of the high ground, to take the Soviets in the flank.
The area around Saltzgitter, with the large power station and industrial centre around docks on the canal.
Another view showing the lovely building models used for Saltzgitter
The built up area of Brunswick, soon to be the centre of some hard fought actions.
Brunswick with the heavily mined NATO side of the river.
The far end of the table layout with the autobahn crossing the river in the distance - the East Germans were to suffer heavily in this area.
So, this was the terrain to be fought over on the Saturday and Sunday. More pictures of the action to come shortly.
Thanks for looking.
It's awesome Andy, wish I was there!
ReplyDeleteI've seen pics posted on TMP, and on a gentleman's blog, and I have it on good authority (from another blogger) that you had a good time, despite being on the losing side (NATO).
Very cool, can't wait to seek more pictures.
V/R,
Jack
Hi Jack,
ReplyDeleteYou'd have been most welcome. Next year in the Aegean if you fancy an outing.
I'll post more on the actual battle, but suffice to say at one point it resembled Michael Caine's "Hold them! ..... HOLD THEM! ...." moment. But we did! Some neat use of massed NATO heavy artillery to more or less wipe out an East German river crossing. I managed to take one of the Soviet tank divisions in the flank with a company of Challies and one of Chiefies, net result scratch two tank battalions and most of a BMP battalion, all for the loss of a platoon each of Challies and Chiefies. It certainly didn't feel like a NATO defeat! The Belgians and West Germans suffered the most on our table, but were still more than capable of holding the river line by close of play. Komrad Shawski, commander of the Soviet and Warpac assault was subsequently retired, by Beretta allegedly, while the East German commander claimed they had shown their Soviet allies how it was done in getting across the river, despite the losses to artillery.
Lots of fun all round.
Cheers, Andy
Thanks for the invite man, the Aegean does sound interesting.
ReplyDeleteBut that's very interesting regarding your take on the battle; you see, some of your opponents had led me to believe the Soviets had swept away the NATO forces. I should have known better than to believe some commies ;)
Now that you're on the Pendraken forum, you should see some familiar faces from the 'X Commander' forum.
V/R,
Jack