A Bolt Action Campaign, part 3: counterattack at Mill

During the last battle of our campaign, the Germans succesfully assaulted the Peel Raam stelling. Now for the first time the dutch would go onto the offensive, by counterattacking the recently conquered defense line at Mill in the morning of the 11th of may. Historically the attack consisted out of an amalgamation of various availlable units. 

We played a modified Point Defence scenario, with the three Pill boxes being the dutch objectives. Although we had both suffered casualties in the previous scenario's we could replenish most casualties and deploy full units. Because he wanted to take advantage of the availlable cover Michael deployed his forces relatively far forward  along the trenches. As usual we used our hidden markers for units that had not yet been spotted (Germans blue, dutch red). 

The first turn saw the dutch fire suppprt move up to the treeline allong the road, ready to fire at the defending germans. A platoon of two squads and a lieutenant were send to outflank, and the huzaren advanced on the left flank. Casualties were relatively light.

  The second turn started with a full on assault of the most forward german positions, and even though the german defensive fire caused some casualties the dutch infantry managed to redeem themselves and won the close combat. The germans redeployed some veteran infantry in the centre of their line to cover the retreating german right flank.

On the third turn the dutch left flank bravely advanced, but the german infantry and pioneers counter attacked, causing severe casualties on both sides. A squad of wielrijders reinforced the dutch left flank. On the dutch right flank the German defenders kept their heads down, avoiding the worst of the dutch direct artillery fire. 

The fourth turn started with a massive dutch artillery barrage smokescreen coming down in front of the pillbox on the german left flank. Under cover off the smoke, the dutch outflanking sectie(platoon) made a dash for the pillbox. This forced the german defenders to reveal themselves, trying to ambush the advancing dutch. In return they exposed themselves to the dutch firing line. 

In the mean time the dutch assault on the left flank reached the first german pillbox, which was quickly captured (due to a lack of firing slits on the rear, the germans had chosen to not occupy the pillbox, but to deploy their defenders behind them as cover).

The situation was not looking well for the germans, and since this was a campaign and not a one off, Michael wisely decided that it was better to save as many of his forces as possible, than to risk them all for the slim chance of getting a draw. The Dutch, having the second pillbox within reach, focused all their effort on it, and only consolidated their already succesfull left flank.

The battle ended with the dutch in firm control of two pillboxes, gaining the first Dutch victory of the campaign. The german choice for a forward defence turned out to be a costly mistake. Only a few of the german casualties would be replaced, and the loss of the light howitzer was costly. 

Just like history the dutch counterattack was succesfull due to a combination of bravado and a coincidental simultanious attack by two units. Unknown to the brave Dutch forces the rest of the Peel-Raamstelling had already been abandoned, so during the night the Dutch left their reconquered positions and retreated to the next defence line: the Zuid Willemsvaart.

28mm Dutch Marines Review

Yesterday a friend of mine brought in a few packs of May 40's new 28mm Dutch Marines. He picked them up for me at a local gameshow. I got a full squad of Marines(12), a set of three marine officers and a small separate three man Lewis team, aptly named the Rotterdam Team, for their poses where inspired by a locally famous painting of the Marines defending Rotterdam against the Germans.

Even though I have slightly to many projects going at the moment, I couldn't resist opening theblacks up. The Marine squad contains a mix of 12 different Marines in battledress and in long coats. One Lewis Gunner and a sergeant are included. The quality of the sculpts is very fine, and only a little flash. The detailing is excellent, the rifles have clearly sculpted bolts and even the anchors on the helmets are clearly visible. The quality of my tablet's camera don't do the models justice.

The size of the models is just a fraction larger than the warlord games plastics (even back than the Dutchie's were taller☺), but right on par with most metal ww2 ranges, and they blend in nicely on the battlefield with my BTD early war Germans and fallschirmjager. Because of May 40's attention to detail there really is only one flaw to find, and that is more of a personal taste: the helmets on a few of the models seem to sit somewhat high on their heads, which can look a bit funny to me at times. I'm really looking forward to painting these miniatures up, and fielding them in a few Rotterdam skirmishes against some of my disembarking German luftlande division.

Dutch ww2 Huzars

The Dutch army of 1940 had a few motorised regiments; the Huzaren motorrijders. Around my hometown they were mainly used to guard the motorways against enemy airborne forces and insurgents. The dutch armoured car platoons were also supported by the huzars. Thus they helped defend airfield Ypenburg against the attacking fallschirmjager.

For my Bolt Action force I converted a BA10 into something not entirely unlike a Landsverk M 36, and converted some Warlord games German motorbikes into huzars, by means of a simple headswap. The huzars wore brown leather motorjackets and pants, coupled with dark cavalry boots ( and spurs according to some!).

Painting and basing spree

At the beginning of this year I had quite a long list of miniaturen to paint. Than life happened and only a handful got painted. The next few weeks are my holidays, and since the DIY tasks are postponed due to the builders finishing late, I have some time on my hands. Apparently I'm very good at starting projects but not at seeing them through ( it seems to me most wargamers share that ). So I've gathered some of the last remnants of armies almost finished. Below you can see them in all their unfinished glory:

- catachans (marbo, an ogryn stand-in for Not Deddog, and some snipers/ troopers)
- Russians ( scouts, an mmg, light mortar, commisar, spotter And officer)
- Germans ( mid/late war troops, panzerschreck and flamethrower plus a group of early war fallschirmjager)
- dwarfs ( anvil, lord, scouts, converted irondrakes and a unit of slayers)
- dutch ww2 Huzars on motorcycles

Hopefully I can start posting pictures of them finished or at least progressing through the next few weeks. Some of the miniatures only need basing, others haven't even received their basecoat yet.

Dutch support units 28mm

The first series of pictures of my 28mm dutch ww2 force. Since no company manufactures these units I've had to convert them.

The Landsverk M36 armoured car is based of a 1/48 Russian BA-10. I got that idea out of the flames of war dutch guide, but it seems to work better in 15mm than 28mm, the details are just to recognizable. Both the conversion as well as the paint job could do with some improvement, but for now it will do

The artillery is a piece of veld-7, converted from another 75mm Krupp gun. Since Outpost manufactures only one officer, I used some small conversions. On the artillery sergeant I just replaced the hand, having him ready for the fire order.

The last picture is an 45mm light at-gun. Luckily the Italian army used the same gun and had putties as part of their uniform. A simple headswap on the warlord games set (courtesy of their flexible head system) has them ready for action.

28mm Dutch ww2 army for may 1940

The last few months I've been working on a few different projects, and didn't get around to posting anything. The main project are two armies for 28mm ww2: Dutch and German Fallschirmjager. Since nobody manufactures 28mm ww2 Dutch, I had to mix and match different models from various manufacturers. The infantry is mostly Outpost Wargame Service's ( excellent service in providing a specific selection of models I could use) range of rumanians, who happened to use the same helmet and almost the same uniform. I sculped the webbing on (first sculpting project ever, the result will have to do), and ordered Lewis guns from another company. 

The weird green-blue-grey color of the dutch uniform was difficult to replicate, and I'm not entirely pleased with the result, but it's passable for tabletop encounters. I'll try and take some snapshots of the different units and post them soon, including my converted "not entirely unlike a Landsverk" M38 armoured car and my small but proud squad of motorbike mounted Hussars.