Rifle Corps … Baptism of Fire …

Of course the next most important thing to completing a reorganisation is getting the troops into action: and the opportunity came very rapidly in an important Winter Offensive in the Northern sector (in Chris Kemp’s ongoing NQM Barbarossa campaign).

Chris had set up a shallow defensive line of dug-in (hopefully ‘winter’) Germans and put me in charge of several divisional waves of freshly rebuilt heroes of the Motherland (not that we’re taking sides, of course 😉 ) …

(my guys are organised 6 half-battalion sized bases per regiment – and 3 regiments per division)

(Chris has his as 5 or 6 bases per battalion, but misses a level and represents a division with 3 such battalions)

Which is all quite fascinating as it means we have 3 blocks of about the same footprint with the same number of figures in a Division.   Perfect … just the scale logic getting there is not the same.

So in we went in great force, rolling reasonable dice … and mostly the German’s folded … To be fair to them, there were as many overloads as morale failures (on an Eastern Front Winter there really isn’t anywhere to run to anyway).

(Classic NQM … soldiers everywhere!!! ) …

I have some tank forces in reserve to boost up this attack but opted to put the rifle men in first, to see if the Germans were up for it.   This was a quick ‘working week’ session – and concluded that there is enough left in the game to give another session (so we get all the toys on the table) …

Meanwhile, we had rattled through about a dozen or so firefights, most of which were followed by an assault, and the Russians had pretty much carried the first line and were engaging the second.

In traditional fashion, I did try an impromptu attack, against to see if the next line of Germans were really committed to hold onto this patch of someone-else’s country.  They were, so the next wave of attacks will, indeed, need to be prepared properly.

Late evening, the Vodka was passed out amongst the men who took the key positions …

Whilst I was posting these pictures, Chris put up the annotated story (so for who was who etc. go to NQM blog/storm forecast )

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Limbering up … Red Army Rifles …

Almost done, now …

I’m waiting for some parts to arrive to add tows/carts for the big mortars but otherwise the infantry guns and limbers are complete and, for Operational Games, 3 divisions of infantry are rolling.

(I have given a horsed limber to each infantry gun and – somewhat generously – a Komsomolets to each anti-tank gun)

(each gun is mounted on a shim base which will mate with a magnetic patch either on the tow or the deployed base)

(I had some walking gunners liberated in the rebasing so these now are loose and can accompany the guns as appropriate)

(AT guns hitched up … there is some scope for me to add some riders to the tractor when time permits)

Each rifle battalion has a stand of small arms and a stand of support weapons … one representing the machine gun platoons, one HE type support and one anti-tank.  They all count as infantry in operational games but it gives a nice spread of types and functions.

(Rifle Regiment in half battalion stands)

(Rifle Regiment on the road)

Each division has three of these regiments …

(Red Army Rifle Division)

And the Corps has three of these divisions

(Red Army Corps … the Rifle Divisions)

Being for operational games … all these go into a bespoke file box …

(an exact fit – give or take some space for padding … at right there are some spare wagons but the space will be for mortar carts)

Of course, each Division has its Headquarters, services and Artillery, and the Corps has more of the same … these are all in the next file box (which we will look at in a future episode) …

The figures are mostly Peter Pig Russians, the Komsomolets are either Battlefront or Quality Castings.  The AT guns are piggies, the IGs BF and the big mortars Skytrex.   They all blend together nicely I think.

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