From Empire To Revolution - The I World War in the East

TooFatlardies has just released From Empire to Revolution, a supplement to its popular WWI rules set Through the Mud & the Blood for company-sized and skirmish actions. As usual by TFL, the book is available in pdf format from its website at the princely cost of GBP7.0

This 80-pages long book covers 

• A full section dealing with the Austro-Hungarian and Russian armies of the war, including OBs, tactics analysis, etc.
• 16 historical scenarios between 1914 and 1917
• A bibliography section to allow readers digging deeper in the topic

I have just downloaded my copy and therefore did only have time to rapidly skip through it. But written by Chris Stoessen, a very familiar name already in the TFL circles and active blogger,is more than enough guarantee of quality to me. 

Chris other works for Sharp Practice  in the American War of Independence or more recently "In the Name of Roma" for I Ain't Been Shot Mum and Chain of Command are thoroughly researched, solidly base on historical events, well written and this last publication, beautifully edited.

I really appreciate, on the one hand, that Chris has waded through this muddy and less well-known front of the Great war; and I hate him, on the other, because he's opening my appetite to engage again in the period (after a long absence!!)  and to start a new project, distracting me from my current endeavours (Spanish Civil War and WWII Chain of Command) 

Visiting El Alto del León: The Republican Fortifications

This a long due post from a second visit in August to El Alto del León, this time to see the Republican lines  (see here the post commenting the first visit to the Nationalists line in the same area). In the opening photo of this post you can see the communist symbol (hammer and sickle) followed by the incription "1937" that we found carved in stone next to a major resting area of the Republican line located at Peña del Cuervo.

The map above shows the the battle-front lines, the Nationalists in blue and the Republicans in red; the black ellipse covers the focus of our visit. The map and many more interesting materials can be found in Domingo Pliego's blog, a veteran mountain trekker who has explored in detailed all the Guadarrama area.

Ejército Popular de la República - The Reinforcements are Here

This is my second (and brief) post-holiday blog entry. I spent most of my painting time preparing the core nucleus of my Republican Army platoon for Chain of Command España. You have above the HQ section with an officer (Superior Junior Leader), a runner (with a flag) and a NCO (Sargeant).

The platoon has three sections:

• A mortar section with 2 squads (that usually doubled as a pure rifle section due to the scarcity of these weapons in the Republican side)
• Two rifle-grenadier sections each made of 3 squads (at 5 men each squad)

I managed to paint the 2 full rifle sections (a total of 30 models))...

together with a couple of supports: an LMG team...

... and a Russian-supplied 45mm AT Gun with crew

All figures are from the excellent albeit somewaht short in references, Empress Miniatures models (currently the only active supplier of 28mm models for this conflict).

On the painting desk still lie two light and one heavy mortar squads, one heavy machine gun and a few LMGs. I hope to make some progress on this through September, ready for the November campaign that we are planning. Note that I also have (for a later stage) a T 26, a Bilbao armoured car and a UNL wheeled armoured vehicle waiting in line.

NOTE: the flag showed in the photos is not a regular EPR model, but belonga to a 5th Regiment battalion; lacking a proper one I could not resist putting it there. The flag is from the superb Adolfo Ramos models range.    

Non-stop to Madrid - A Chain of Command España Battle Report

I’m back after a short 10-day break. As you’ll see over the next days, I’ve been all except idle having used this time to make a second visit to El Puerto del León (this time visiting the Republican lines), painted an initial batch of Spanish Civil War forces and even played with Chain of Command España.

This is the first post with the battle report of a game we played last weekend. The setting is the summer of 1936, where a column of Requetés (Carlists) Nationalists is confronted by a group of local Republican militias at a key cross road in a rural area.

The Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

Just to bring your attention to this high-quality book review of Michael Alpert's classical must-read work at the IIWW Military Operations Research Group blog (one that I strongly endorsed and you should follow in any case).

This book has an interesting story in itself:

The first edition  was published in Spanish in the late 60's but not in Spain;  this was the type of topic obvioulsy disliked by the Franco's regime censorship office!!  The edition was undertaken by Ruedo Ibérico, a France-based editorial group run by a group of  Spanish Republicans exiled in the country after 1939. 

Incidentally, my father (who was not exactly a great Franco fan) used to "smuggle" books from this editorial any time he had the opportunity to travel abroad ... and I'm now a proud owner of a first edition copy :-)

A second and greatly updated edition, after the declasification of some of the Civil War archives, was released a few years ago... and yes this time it was publised in Spain. 

Nonetheless, I must say  that the English edition is surprisingly pricey (GBP 65!!), specially compared to the Spanish edition (€25) and I don't understand why the price differential; although the book is highly recommendable, think twice before commiting to such an investment.

 

Chain of Commnand Grows Bigger

Ufff! No summer break at Lard Island this year. If last week we had the Winter Storm campaign pack, today a new short (a 13-pager) but exciting publication (available for free download) that allows to play larger battles (more than 1 platoon per side) and to field armoured forces with Chain of Command.

I've just skipped through it and to my relief the core of the system remains unchanged and you only need to make some small tweaks and adaptations to play. Very timely for my gaming group, who was already discussing and testing how to put more tanks on a table looking into our second campaign in Africa.

PS: These days is Chain of Command's first anniversary. Reviewing  my wargaming activity over the last 12 months in the blog, I've just realized that 99% of my games have been with Chain of Command and no signs of exhaustion yet, neither me, nor anybody of my gaming group.... on the contrary, everyday more excited... and facing September with a full pipeline of new games/campaigns: Spanish Civil War, a second Afrika CoC campaign, Villers Bocage and Winter Storm scheduled for Christmas/early 2015.

Viller Bocage Campaign - Game 1

The Chain of Command game played last Sundaybelonging to the Villers Bocage campaign (battle report  here) prompted a heavy email discussion and exchanges among our gaming group which resulted in the decision to play the full campaign, starting as early as... today!

The battle took place just a week after the D-Day landings and was related to the early British attempts to take control of the key city of Caen. Elements of the 7th Armoured Division exploited a gap in the German defense line west of Caen and moved towards Villers Bocage attempting to outflank the Panzer Lehr Division.

The battle is well known for the bloody defeat suffered by British armoured forces in the village itself when ambushed by the Tigers of the 101st SS Panzer Heavy Battalion (Whitmann); but this campaign is focused on the actions of the infantry formations