It began in Afrika-ka-ka-kaaaaa

Woah, I nearly let a week slip by without a post! Well, I've been pretty busy with this and that, but I did manage to squeeze in a game last weekend with Patrick. Pat wanted to try out his new Kiwis and I wanted to start getting to know the DAK army before I zeroed in on my army list.

I had a few things I wanted to try out. The first was armored infantry, based on my recent desire to run a half-track army. I also wanted some Panzer IIIJ lates, some anti-tank guns (PaK40s), a heavy platoon, some armored cars, and some nebelwerfers. This army had no real point to it other than to experiment with is components and see how they jelled together. As I don't have any DAK painted yet, I had to use my Late-war Germans as fillers for this battle.

The battlefield from behind Patrick's lines

From memory, Patrick's army included two or three rifle platoons, a battery of four 25pdrs, four 6pdr portees, four heavy machine guns, and three Bofors AA guns. I can't recall the other platoons if there were any. The portees were deployed in Ambush. Two rifle platoons screened the village and the forward objective. The 25pdrs lined the rear of the table and covered the objective in the back.

The big push!

We rolled up Pincer for the mission. My Mechanised force attacked his Infantry force, so he chose the table end with the village. This left me a wadi to use as a route of advance. I stacked my troops along the wadi. My plan was to get to the rear objective ASAP using the half-tracks and the tanks with stormtrooper moves to move quickly.

More than a few proxies!

In my first few turns I sped forward in the half-tracks. The tanks and HMG and mortar half-tracks provided fire support. The armored cars kept the ambushes away, but were unable to prevent the portees from appearing in the small copse of palms on the right flank.

Luckily Pat only managed to KO a platoon's half-track. My troops tried to knock out the portees, but their gunshields kept them in operation for another turn until I was able to get my tanks and mortar halftracks into the fight. My infantry dismounted from their half-tracks in an attempt to hold off the portees and prepare for the NZ reserves, should they arrive.

Dismount!

Turn three brought the Kiwi pincer attack. Pat lined up his heavy machine-guns, catching my infantry in the open. Once again, luck was on my side and the infantry only took a casualty. I lost another half-track, but it didn't seem to phase the platoon.

Pat borrowed my 6pdr portees. Unfortunately the models were recently damaged,
but this only added to the "twisted metal" look of the destroyed vehicle!

I called up some reinforcements to help seal off the Kiwi flank attack and wiped out the portees and HMGs with massed machine-guns and 2cm gunfire. I sent my second platoon into the village to secure the other side of the corridor. My armored cars and tanks pushed up the middle, knocking out the portees. The Nebelwerfers knocked out some stands of infantry, but had been largely ineffective to date.

Second platoon and the heavy platoon's mortars push in on the village.

The Kiwis brought in the Bofors guns on the flank. Their fire took out a half-track, but were otherwise unable to cause significant damage.

Panzer "III" tanks and armored cars push up the middle of the corridor.

In the endgame, I pushed my armored vehicles onto the back objective having blown away the British 25pdrs sitting on the rear objective. The infantry held the flanks, but were unable to stop the remaining 25pdrs from bailing out all of my armored cars (lucky!). Still Patrick couldn't shoot off my Panzers and the game was pretty much over.

Pretty much game over at this point.

Well, my platoon analysis was pretty basic and I made some calls for my DAK project:

Armored Infantry - I was very content with the performance of the half-tracks. They kept the infantry intact, even if it required a fair amount of luck! I think I'll keep them for the next game.

Heavy Platoon - Absolutely indispensable  With 2x HMGs and 2x Mortars, these were ideal for knocking out infantry in buildings, gun teams, and portee trucks. In this game I attached an HMG to each infantry platoon. One thing I'd like to try is a full strength platoon, keeping a pair of HMGs in the mortar platoon. One last observation: I thought the HMG carrier rule was a great long-range asset.

Armored Cars - An essential platoon. Without them it would have taken ages to dislodge the infantry in the village.

Pz IIIJ (late) Tanks - A good platoon. I think I'll have to keep them close to the infantry to help protect them from anti-tank guns, but they are a useful platoon.

Anti-tank Platoon - Pat didn't have any tanks in play, so these saw little action other than a few turns of opportunity fire. I think I could better use the points with PaK38s or PaK36s, but in the event that there are US Shermans and Soviet T-34s in the Mid-War world, AT 12 is a good asset. I'll have to play around with this platoon.

Nebelwerfers - I constantly forgot they existed in several rounds! However, they were helpful now and again. I'll consider their future, but I'm inclined to look into other multi-purpose alternatives, such as Bisons. Two-gun 15cm veteran batteries aren't horrible and I really could have used mobile bunker busters in that game!

Alright! Thanks for reading. Looks like its time to start painting some DAK!