Monday 2 April 2018

Crete at Cannon

Top wargaming chum James has been beavering away on a Crete battlefield with assistance from other members of the Lenton Gamers Club Sam and Mike.
He invited me along to help out at the Canon show last weekend and I made a small contribution to the game in the form of some goats and oil barrels.
The whole game looked splendid on a huge table dominated by the valley of the River Tavronitis complete with girder bridge.
The game we played out was a bit of a "what if" scenario based on the defence of Hill 107 - where we allowed the British to attack the Germans earlier than they did in the actual battle.
Rules used were Chain of Command.
We played all day and because it was a (very) quiet show we got a lot of leisurely gaming in and were able to chat to the small number of punters as well. Mike took the Germans, James was overall British commander and I took the New Zealand and RAF rag-tag troops. Sam was sleeping off the after-effects of an actual Greek wedding so gave this one a miss.

There's a lot of pictures to follow, with some minimal commentary.
Models are all 28mm, a mix of Crusader, Artizan, Black Tree Design and one or two others. The flying planes are 1/72 (it works better perspective wise, oddly) the gliders are 1/48 scale plastic kits.
The terrain is mostly the work of James and Sam, the British are I think all James' work with the Germans being provided by Mike and Sam.

The British Commander arrives and takes stock

The New Zealand commander arrives and takes a sniper bullet.

Fallschirmjäger swarm out of the river bed



The Germans had strong air support



The British had a couple of tanks (that performed rather better than their real life counterparts)


The New Zealanders assemble at the wall


The British begin to advance through the olive groves

RAF ground crew were pressed in to servioce (led by Wanklyn Flower. No, really)






The sniper who took out the New Zealand officer



Not sure the AT gun was strictly historically accurate at this stage in the battle


Another Stuka bombing run completed



Lee McColl built the excellent out of service Brewster Buffalo, based on a contemporary picture





The British forces took their time establishing themselves at the edge of the olive groves


The Germans likewise took cover near the tents of the RAF camp


The New Zealanders came under mortar fire




Eventually the tank closed on the Pak.









Driving over them tends to rout the stoutest of chaps




Where's the bloody RAF?!





At about this point the organisers stopped by to award James the best game prize


Emboldened the British break cover




Hopefully this isn't about to lead to a war crime!



The tanks tries to escape from the river bed...

...and the fallschirmjäger take aim...



Look Hans, dinner!



The British storm the groves and attempt to retake the camp


Me109 flies in and strafes...his own side! (Should have stuck with Stukas!)


Fierce fighting about the camp



The British CO encourages from the rear


Partizans look on

In the end the British were unable to take the camp and were thrown back by some late arriving fallschirmjäger.
Victory to the German airborne invaders

A really great day out playing soldiers. Thanks to James and Mike for having me along for the ride.

The game will be at Partizan in May (though it may be a different scenario).

4 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Michael. All credit to the other chaps really (though I think my goats add a certain something :))

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  2. Splendid pictures of a great looking game, planes add a lot on the photos imho...

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Phil.
      Agree the planes do add an extra dimension to the game and the images.
      My favourite pic is the one of the Stuka flying up towards the camera with explosions behind

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