Museu Maritime de Barcelona

On a recent trip to Barcelona I visited the Maritime Museum. It is in a most impressive building near the harbor and had the advantage of being dry in the pouring rain!

It starts off with an exhibition about shipbuilding in Barcelona, several models of ships:

Followed by some nice models of the shipyard and port:

The next hall has the most impressive thing in the museum, a full scale replica of the Royal Galley which was built in Barcelona and fought at the battle of Lepranto in 1571.

A model of the galley:

The full-size reproduction with Neptune riding a dolphin on the ram:

It was surprisingly big, for some reason I thought these galleys were quite small:

The stern towers up:

 Some of the ornate decoration on the stern:

Looking down the length of the galley:

The richly decorated stern with three very impressive lanterns:

Another view of the stern:

The real thing fully manned and in action must have been an impressive sight given the technology of the day and the reproduction is certainly worth visiting if you get the chance, apparently it was constructed using the original construction techniques and it certainly shows the size and power of these ships.

I actually bought a few Langton galleys a while ago but never made any progress with them, perhaps this will inspire me to revisit the project!

There wasn't much else in the museum really though I did notice a model of HMS Victory which was slightly odd as it was by itself with no mention of the Spanish fleet at Trafalgar!:

Now where did I put those galleys?!

Chain of Command "30 Days to Dunkirk" Game 2

Jerry and I played the second game of his '30 Day's to Dunkirk' pint-sized campaign last night. In this game the Royal Irish Fusiliers are tasked with retreating west around the village of Aspelaire while under attack from the German 37th Motorcycle Regiment.

The terrain consisted of fields, woods and a few buildings on either side of the road:

The patrol phase didn't go that well for the Irish with all their jump-off points being on the table edge. The 3rd Section deploys in the field and awaits developments:

Germans appear in the distance but due to the hedgerows and walls neither side has a clear view of the other:

The 2nd Section deploys while the 3rd moves towards the wall. A shabby Nazi trick in the form of a French civilian delays the Lieutenant's arrival:

More Germans move up over the road towards the fields:

The Irish mortar starts deploying smoke forcing the Germans to move to their left and blocking a German MMG which had deployed behind them:

The 2nd Section lines the stone wall while the 3rd covers their flank behind the hedge. The mortar is dug in and starting to lay more smoke to hold up the German left. The Lieutenant is still delayed:

The smoke is obscuring almost all the Germans on the right flank. Having left a small gap allowing the 3rd Section to target the German MMG rapid and accurate Irish fire soon eliminated the MMG:

The 2nd Section is slowly winning it's firefight withe the Germans opposite, being behind a substantial wall is an advantage compared to lining a hedge. To increase the pressure on the Germans the 1st squad deploys on the left and advances while Lieutenant Sadlier finally makes an appearance. German morale is starting to fall as they take casualties:

The German left flank section advances with little enthusiasm and is still blocked by the smoke to a great extent:

The 2nd Section takes a number of hits and is reduced to three effective men. The German's opposite have almost been wiped out though:

The last men of the 2nd Section are down and the 3rd section is under heavy fire from two German squads:

Lieutenant Sadlier directs the 3rd Section and the mortar:

The Germans have ended the turn to remove the smoke. This allows the Irish to gain support from a Bren Carrier from the Coldstream Guards though and the Irish mortar quickly replaces some of the smoke. Sergeant Ryan has also deployed to take control of the 1st Section while Lieutenant Sadlier repositions the 3rd Section away from the advancing Germans on the right:

The Irish retire to a more coherent position and await the arrival of the Bren Carrier:

One German squad starts a firefight with the reduced strength Irish sections. To try and reduce casualties one Irish section puts down covering fire while the other aims to kill:

 
The Irish keep taking losses and there are few survivors now. Luckily the other German squad is still  refusing to advance quickly and has not got into action:

It won't be long before they come into action though and the mortar squad is looking vulnerable. Luckily for them the Germans seem to have forgotten about them:

The Bren Carrier arrives and shoots up the German mortar team pinning them. German morale is close to breaking while the Irish, though morale is high, have very few men left:

Lieutenant Sadlier reduces his perimeter further. There are now almost as many Irish officers as men left!:

The Bren Carrier advances and wipes out the German mortar team together with a senior leader. German morale breaks and the Irish hold on:

Another close game which could have gone either way. I've got better at using the British and combining smoke, covering fire and careful deployment to try to compensate for the far superior German firepower.

In total the Irish suffered one officer casualty (Corporal O'Brien from the 2nd Section) and sixteen men, mainly from the 2nd and 3rd Sections. Considering their opening strength was only 28 men that's well over 50% casualties! I don't think the Germans lost so many, most of their morale loss was down to one section being wiped out, the support MMG and mortar team being eliminated and a number of officer casualties.

I find one of the weaknesses of CoC is that, while my objective was to cross the table, you can almost always win by ignoring your objective and just reducing the opposition's morale to zero. I guess the rationale is that once the German morale broke the surviving Irish would just slip away to safety.

The next scenario involves the Irish attempting to blow up a bridge across a canal before the Germans can capture it.

10 mm WW2 Germans

Having finished the Americans in 10 mm and decided I should try being the Germans for a change I ordered an army from Pendraken and Minifigs.

German infantry from Minifigs, largely chosen as they work out a fair bit cheaper than the Pendraken ones:

Everything else was from Pendraken. Artillery support including the Nebelwerfer:

Motorised Infantry and Panzer Grenadiers:

Infantry support from some Stug IV's:

Panzer IV H for the majority of the tanks:

Finally some Panthers to add a cutting edge:

As with all my 10 mm WW2 stuff these didn't take long to paint at all. I've always found it hard trying to paint later war German camouflage schemes, people produce wonderful looking results with an airbrush but a) I don't have an airbrush and b) If I had I'm not sure it would work on 10 mm models.

As a result I went for a relatively simple striped pattern (following 15 minutes 'research' on Google images) which has come out okay and gives me another army to use against Andy and two armies if I want to play solo games or introduce someone else to Rommel.

Blucher Austrians

Some more very old figures finally making it to the painting table in the form of another Galician Fusilier unit and a base of Grenadiers for the Austrians:

They have the apple green facings of the 'Czartoryski' IR#9 and are Minifigs. The Grenadiers will make up the numbers for an old unit which only had three bases painted.

I thought this was all my old Minifigs Austrian infantry painted up then found another two bags in a box so still more work to do!

Chain of Command Tiger Time!

While we have been playing the 'Kursk' scenario's I've read a couple of books on the subject which emphasize the influence of the newly deployed Tiger tanks on the battle. It is also possible to choose a Tiger as one of the support options for the Germans (though not by me as I am the Russians).

On my recent trip to the North-East I visited a wargames store in Redcar and picked up a couple of things, one of which was a Rubicon Models Tiger tank:

Better get out of the way!:

It's a nice model that was very easy to put together and is quite the monster tank in 28 mm. I'm not sure it will get much (if any) use but maybe it will see action in the future.

Chain of Command 'Kotelnikovo Station 27th November 1942'

Having played scenario's 1 and 3 from 'Winterstorm' Gary and I decided to give Scenario 2 a go now that I'd finished off all the things I bought for the station.

It looked a tough task for the Russians with 4 small dismounted cavalry squads, a MMG and a sniper being tasked with capturing the station faced with 3 Panzer Grenadier squads and a sniper.

The view from the Russian lines:

The German train containing the Panzer Grenadiers:

A Russian squad deploys tactically in the village awaiting the German's disembarking from the train:

The Russian sniper takes up position at the other end of the town:

The first German squad appears and opens fire on the Russians. Their aim is excellent as, despite counting as being in hard cover, three Russians are killed and the Serzhant wounded!:

A second Panzer Grenadier squad deploys to over watch the area the sniper is located in:

The remarkable marksmanship of the Germans continues and the Russian squad is wiped out!:

This prompts a strong response from the Russians as two more squads and the MMG deploy together with one of the Leutnents. One squad is in the open but the Russians hope their numbers will pay off against the single German squad:

The Russian fire proves too much for the Germans who take several losses and are pinned:

The Germans flee taking their force morale down a fair bit:

All the Russians are now deployed on the left. Two squads are vulnerable in the open and the Germans still have one squad to deploy:

The final German squad deploys and opens fire:

Russian losses start to mount, the extra German firepower and half the Russians being in the open making up for the Russians numbers:

The MMG is pinned and the Russians are taking casualties at a higher rate than the Germans:

German force morale has plummeted and they only have 3 command dice. However, one Russian squad is down to three men and is pinned. It's going to be close run thing:

The Russian MMG has broken and all three Russian squads are pinned. The Germans are weakened but holding on and the two LMG per squad gives them an increasing advantage in firepower:

The view from the German lines. The squad on the left which was covering the sniper has not contributed much other than a few LMG shots at the end Russian squad:

The Leytnant rallies his few remaining men and unpins them:

Further German fire breaks the remaining Russians, the attack on the station has failed:

I confess I didn't think I stood much chance in this scenario. It probably helped that Gary diced for his support again rather than taking a 4th PG squad (on the basis that he only had 3 squads). After the initial destruction of the first Russian squad my opinion of my chances of success was even lower, losing 8 men in hard cover in two rounds of firing was rather depressing.

In fact after that the Russians made something of a comeback by throwing everything at one end of the train and quickly breaking a German squad. We both thought after that the Russians would win but the final German squad fought well even when reduced to only 3 command dice and made the small Russian squads in the open pay dearly for their lack of cover. I did attempt one 'Uzzah!' to attempt to melee the first German squad when it was pinned but unfortunately the men were very unenthusiastic rolling 3 1's and not getting anywhere near close enough to attack!

Gary and I have now played three scenarios from Winterstorm with all going to the Germans. As they aren't linked the German losses don't carry over, if they did Gary would now be leading a much reduced platoon while the Russians would be able to rely on the plenty-more-where-they-came-from theory!