Progress Report 8/14/10: The Red Barricades Project

All;

I’m pleased to report that we had five players at our inaugural engagement of the Red Barricades Project at St. Cripin’s. By pre-arrangement, I took the Russians and had a set-up prepared. Mike Cirrincione and Stephan Tourville took the Germans. We were joined by Drew Simon (Russian team) and Dan Plachta (German team).

The Russians up in strength on the west board edge, just south of the German entry area (centered on bldg B13), then across and north along Tramvaynaya to Dom 43 (bldg F5) and then east in the stone buildings and rubble along the road (hex rows 5/6) to Workshop 4 (factory O7) which was packed full of cloaking counters, back to the Main Mechanical Workshop (factory Q12). The Russian line then continued across Pribaltiskaya to Haus 78 (bldg X9), and north into the mostly wood buildings along hexrow Z. HMG’s were set up fairly far back with Lt Mtrs on factory rooftops.

Turn 1:

The Germans hit the west board edge in strength with what looks to be most of two companies (one rifle, one sturm), plus the 80 OBA with both pre-reg’s and two Pz III’s. At the same time, a platoon-strength force and a third Pz III came in on the far east end of the German entry area and worked their way into some of the wood buildings along Pribaltiskaya. The Russians responded by mostly limiting their fire, opting to retain concealment. The exception being for their two 45LL AT Guns, which engaged the Pz III’s from 1st level fortified locations in F11 and W10. During the Russian half of turn 1 the Russians mostly skulked as much as possible. The Russians lost 1 OBA module (spotter in P18) on two consecutive red card draws. Well, at least we’ll have that module for the next CG date. But a second Russian OBA mod has an SR in C8.

Turn 2:

The Germans followed on the east side attack with most of a sturm company entering on a broad front along the north board edge. On the west side they continued to press in on the Russian position, especially around Dom 43 (bldg F5) attacking through the wood buildings west of Tramvaynaya. The terrain is dense in this area and the going slow. The Russians mostly reserved their fire for units moving in bypass and other open-ground or ‘0’ mod shots. The highpoint for the Russians was a sniper attack into a German kill stack lead by a 9-2. Of course the sniper found the 9-2 and two of the 3 squads broke on the LLMC. They also immobilized one of the Pz III’s on the west side. We halted play at the beginning of the DF phase. The dead cup has two German HS and the 9-2; and no Russians.

By pre-arrangement, because I had to depart for a family commitment, we had to make it a short day and started wrapping up at 1:45 PM. It took us about 15 minutes to record positions (using my dry erase system). I was very pleased to get both set-ups and almost 1.5 turns done in less than 4 hours (including board set-up and breakdown). The dry erase system worked smoothly. We got quite a bit of interest from passersby also. It was a great beginning for our new format, and everyone had a lot of fun.

Regards,

Jim