LATE WAR BATTLE REPORT - ROMANIANS VS. SOVIETS

LATE WAR BATTLE REPORT - ROMANIANS VS. SOVIETS


Played another game on Sunday night after some windsurfing earlier in the day. Probably not a good way to relax the sore arms and legs, but never the less it was a fun evening. This time we played a Late War game with Andrews Axis Romanian Vanatori Motorizata Company (motorised Infantry) against my Legkiy Samokhodniy Artilerskiy Polk (Light self-propelled Artillery Regiment)


Andrew's Vanatori Motorizata List - All rated as Elite - Red Bear - Infantry

HQ         CO and 2ic Rifle teams with 2x 60mm light mortar teams
COMBAT   Vanatori Motorizata Platoon with 4 squads - Pzfaust command
COMBAT   Vanatori Motorizata Platoon with 4 squads - Pzfaust command
WEAPONS Motorizata Anti-tank Platoon with 4x 47mm Schnieder guns
WEAPONS Motorised Heavy Anti-tank Platoon with 3x TAC 97/38 75mm gun
WEAPONS Motorised Heavy Mortar Company with 2x 120mm Mortars
WEAPONS Pioneer Platoon with 3 squads upgraded Pzfaust command
SUPPORT Tank Hunter Platoon with 3x TACAM T-60
SUPPORT Tancuri Medii Platoon with 3x T-4 tanks
SUPPORT Armoured Car Platoon with 2x AB cars
SUPPORT Cavalerie Platoon with 2 squads
SUPPORT Motorised Artillery Platoon with 4x 10mm Skoda guns with obsv.
SUPPORT Motorised Artillery Platoon with 4x 10mm Skoda guns with obsv.

So Andy has 12 platoons in total. His Infantry are all MG teams so rather nasty on the defensive fire point of view, backed up by good artillery that can combine batteries if desired. His mobile element being the T-4's and Cavalry  platoon. Ooh and ya got to love those TACAM T-60 models (Andy scratch built these a few years ago now and look great) I will have to keep an eye on his cavalry as Andy knows how to use these offensively to great effect

My Soviet Infantry List - Confident Trained
Legkiy Samokhodniy Artilerskiy Polk - Red Bear - Mechanised

HQ CO T-70 obr 1943 tank
COMBAT Assault Gun platoon with 4x SU-76M
COMBAT Assault Gun platoon with 4x SU-76M
COMBAT Assault Gun platoon with 4x SU-76M
WEAPONS Assault Gun Reconnaissance platoon with 1 squad and BA-64 car
WEAPONS Assault Gun Sapper platoon
SUPPORT Gvardeyskiy Tyazhelyy Tankovy Company with 4x Mark IV (Churchill's)
These are Fearless Trained and do not suffer Hen and Chicks
SUPPORT Flame Tank Company with 10x OT-34
SUPPORT Tank Destruction Company with 4x 57mm ZIS 2 guns and PTRD AT rifle
SUPPORT Strelkovy Company with one platoon upgraded to SMG's with HMG team
SUPPORT Guards Rocket Mortar Battalion with 4x BM-13-16 Katyusha's
Equipped with extra loading crew  - Katy's are Fearless Trained

I have 10 Platoons and my force is built around the classic SU-76M which was a major workhorse of the Soviet army during the war (the second biggest vehicle production  of these built behind the T-34) These are backed up by some Flame tanks and Strelkovy with the Tank Destruction guns in over watch.
The Mark IV's are my assault monsters that usually take the objective once the OT tanks have done their jobs. You have to be careful with the SU-76M as they do have a major flaw in not having any MG fire so are very vulnerable to infantry assault.

Table setup pre-game

We roll up a Fighting Withdrawal mission (my personal favorite if defending - poo.. I'm attacking) Deploy the objectives and Andy deploys his Pioneers on the left with the 75mm AT guns among them. Artillery are placed on central left hill and other on lee side of right hill crest. His Infantry are in middle objective and on right side with TACAM's among them. The Heavy mortars are behind central hill, with Cavalry on central back edge ready to move on either flank to give support. T-4 tanks are in ambush.

I deploy a unit of SU-76M on right side to tie up TACAM's, Sappers are deployed in central wood, the Churchill's are in middle among wheat fields with ZIS-2 guns next to them for over watch protection. The OT-34 tanks on extreme left and strelkovy unit next to them. Recon unit in middle behind buildings. SU76M deploy on back edge in middle and left side as their isn't much room and didn't want to give Andy to many artillery targets - no doubt used as a reserve.

The left side of the table - view from my side

The right side deployment

My plan was to move the OT tanks up on left with Strelkovy support and recon, with Churchill's moving towards central objective - the SU-76M taking pot shots once in volley fire positions. - sorted, now to put it all into practice.

TURN 1
Before the game begins Andy rolls his ratings for his platoons, annoyingly the platoons on the left side are all Confident Vets (lucky swine) being the side I have decided to attack on of course, one Artillery are CT and the central Infantry are RV with the Cav being CT

Soviets 1st turn:  Move my Flame tanks up left with infantry following, Churchill's advance,
SU-76M on right move into woods on right (none bog down thanks to wide tracks)
Due to hen and chicks my OT tanks fire MG at the AT guns but no luck, the Churchills manage to kill an AB car though

Tanks - advance

Romanians:  Unpins his AT guns and places his T-4 ambush on edge of wood on the left (why I didn't deploy my recon this side fails me, as I could of pushed him back further... doh) Andy sees the danger on the left side and doubles his pony unit along the back edge behind hills. The AB car moves down road towards the rear. The TACAM's shoot at the SU-76M and kill one , 2 of the small AT guns centrally also shoot but only bail one. The T-4 tanks and 75mm AT guns open up and claim 3 kills and one bailed out. The Artillery then combine batteries and place double width on OT tanks and kill one tank and one strelk team pinning unit.

T-4 ambush appear

And the aftermath of their appearance

TURN 2
Soviets:  The OT-34 tanks unbails both and moves up around edge of small wood as to limit shoots from T-4, Strelkovy unpin and take residence in large farm house. The SU-76 on left take up positions behind smoke of burning tanks. SU-76 on right volley fire into the TACAM killing two. The lead OT-34 kills a artillery gun on the hill. The Katy's continue to barrage the AT guns on the left getting one and pioneer stand as well. Churchill's continue to move forward and kill a small AT gun.

OT-34 being sneaky

SU-76M on the right at TACAM T-60

Romanians: Andy fails to unpin both the AT and pioneer unit. Continues to trot his horses around to the left. Andrew seeing the lack of support for the SU-76 on the right moves his Infantry on the attack and advances towards them. The AB car hides behind hill (have a feeling its the first withdrawal) He then moves his T-4's along the edge of woods to bear down on the lead OT tanks but miss. The lone TACAM kills another
SU-76M. One 100mm arty unit bails two OT tanks while the other spots the oncoming Churchill's with all 3 under template for an impressive 3 bails (let it end ! ) The Infantry on the right launch an assault against the helpless SU-76 but fail their tank terror, saved......for now.

Andys Infantry advance on right

T-4 move over to see lead OT-34 tanks

TURN 3
Soviets:  Remount one of the OT-34 tanks, and even after the CO yelling encouragement only one of the Churchills gets back in. Both SU-76M on right unbail as well but then one bogs down in woods while trying to escape the infantry. The 2 Churchill's place fire on the hill and kill 2 100mm guns. The 3 lead OT-34's move up and pour flames into the AT guns and pioneer unit for 3 stands and an AT gun, the AT gun command tucks tail and runs in horror. The Strelkovy advance into the thin wood line. SU-76M on left bails a T-4, meanwhile the katy's have some terrible luck ranging in with four 1's being rolled.

Some flame action

Romanians:  As expected Andy withdrawals the AB car. His cavalry swing around to the left wood behind the objective ready to dismount if needed. The right Infantry unit moves now to advance on the sapper unit. The TACAM kills the bogged down SU-76. The T-4's are having a field day killing another 3 OT-34 tanks. The Heavy mortars spots the lonely SU76 and kills it.

Calvary swing around behind woods

TURN 4
Soviets:  The Churchill's and OT-34 tanks all remount. The central placed sappers make a dash for the village homestead. The OT tanks advance on the T-4 tanks now and bail one of them with a gout of flames but miss the others completely  and they fail their tank terror needed to assault them. My SU-76M fail me in time of need and miss targets left right and center, even with the volley fire re-rolls ... woeful dice rolling. The Churchill's fire into some 100mm guns and send them packing as they fail morale test needed. The Katy's manage to kill a small AT gun central.

Churchill's  shoot into the hilltops

Romanians: Andy withdrawals his lone TACAM T-60 and switches into counterattack mode by moving his right infantry towards my sappers. He also act some revenge and launches his 2 pioneer flame-throwers forward out of the woods and proceeds in killing 3 of my strelkovy teams. The T-4's now finish the OT tanks off destroying all. The Artillery manages to kill one Churchill and the Heavy mortars pin down the sappers.

TURN 5
Soviets:  Fail to both fail to unpin the Strelkovy and Pioneers (so need a kommisar team right now) The Churchill's advance into the vineyard, as do the recce platoon and with the help of the BA-64 lifting GTG on the central Motorizata platoon, the Churchill's fire guns into them, but only one kill.  The SU-76M have some overdue luck and kill a T-4 and double another one which runs, the lead T-4 stubbornly stays on ....
The Churchill's launch an assault into the vineyards which none bog (thankyou sir) but only manage one kill, after another round the Andy falls back behind the vineyard.

Heavy tanks move into the vineyards

Romanians: Andy begins the turn (after withdrawing his Heavy Mortars) with " I have you now" then cue an evil laugh as he launches his cavalry forward into my strelkovy trusting in his T-4 tank and artillery to kill my CO tank positioned there, for which they do of course .... (he has a knack of doing stuff like this , I should know this as I play him more often than not) The cavalry run down the infantry with ease killing them to the man. The Infantry in the middle right launch an assault against my sappers but thankfully never score a hit, for which they timely retreat back to my gun line.

Andy's Ponies charge in

TURN 6
Soviets:  Now getting quite desperate for time and with everything pinned it isn't helping much - I luckily unpin the sappers and advance into the central building with the Churchill's pushing into the vineyards again. The central SU-76 and ZIS 2 guns and the Katy's concentrate fire into the right harassing infantry and kill 3 of them (not enough) The Churchill's only manage one kill on the central unit and then launch an assault, after three rounds I force Andy off the objective - his unit then flees as failed their reluctant motivation. But in the consolidation phase I move 2 of my Churchill's to better positions to push off future on-comers but only to have both bog down in the grapevines

Romanians: Andy withdraws his lonely T-4 tank and moves his ponies up to contest the objective.

We decide to call it here as I have little hope to take the objective now being turn 7 already as Andy has plenty of room to sneak units up to contention range of the central objective and then remove other objectives later as needed.  So a 4-3 to Andy

Aftermath...... well I made too many mistakes in this game I think (I blame the windsurfing beforehand), first off I should of put the recon where the strelkovy was and used them to protect my OT-34 from ambushes. I thought the central location would help the Churchill's in the long time goal of the middle objective, but I had plenty of time to move over later. the second mistake was to not protect my SU-76M on the right, the sappers would of done a good job over there, as Andy would think twice about moving against them - well maybe not, knowing Andrew but it would of helped no doubt.
It was another good and exciting game with Andy having the knack turning into the aggressor when defending, always counter attacking when you least expect it. Another well deserved game to Andy ... mid war game next time gents ... I shall be victorious I hope ... dont want 3 nil drumming do we.

Cheers

Below ... some extra photos of Andrews Romanians

Andy's Scratch built TACAM T-60 Tank Hunters  -  cool models

Nice photo of Andy's Staff team - Snowman shenanigans

EARLY WAR BATTLE REPORT - POLISH VS. SOVIETS

EARLY WAR BATTLE REPORT

With it pissing down with rain all Saturday last weekend and it being too cold for Windsurfing, Andrew and myself finally got some spare time late morning to play an early war game of Flames of War, that's after watching some exciting America's cup racing.
Andrew wanted to run his Polish tank army he has in mind for using at next years Nationals, so I quickly put together a Soviet Strelkovy army from the new Rising Sun book to keep it nice and historical.


Andrew's Polish Tank List - All rated as Fearless Trained
Kompania Czolgow - Blitzkrieg book

HQ         CO in 7TP jw tank
COMBAT   Czolgow Platoon with 4x 7TP jw tanks   (in reserve)
COMBAT   Czolgow Platoon with 4x 7TP jw tanks    (in reserve)
COMBAT   Czolgow Platoon with 4x 7TP jw tanks   (in reserve)
SUPPORT Reconnaissance Tank Platoon with 3x TKS tankettes    (in reserve)
(note this is not a recon platoon- in name only)
SUPPORT Piechoty Company with 3 platoons of Piechoty Infantry
(Each platoon is considered a separate Platoon in its own right and
consists of HQ Rifle with 12 Rifle teams in each)
SUPPORT Light Gun Battery with 4x 75mm wz 1897 guns with added observer team

So Andy has 8 platoons in total, all being FT, with its core being his 7TP jw tanks which is quite a decent little tank in early war - AT6 with 4+ FP and 1 armour all round. The 3 platoons of infantry are the thing to watch with Andy though - always a canny player when using a mixed force, he never uses a tank army without infantry support. And this is no exception with 3 platoons of 13 stands in each !
He also gets to use the bypass rule the Poles have, which is a very nice rule I must say, also the main reason Andy decided on collecting Poles. The rule allows to place one platoon of Piechoty in a special reserve where upon on a 6+ it appears, but it arrives as a scattered reserve on the enemies side, whether its the back edge or within 16" of the two corners depends on the dice roll. Also being subject to the normal reserve rule it will automatically arrive on turn 3, so I need to take this into account.

My Soviet Infantry List - All rated as Confident Conscripts
Strelkovy Battalion - Rising Sun book

HQ          CO and 2IC kommisar rifle command teams
COMBAT Strelkovy Company with 2 platoons
21 stands of rifles with 3 being replace with light mortars    (in reserve)
COMBAT Strelkovy Company with 2 platoons with 21 stands of rifles
WEAPONS Strelkovy Anti-tank Platoon with 4x 45mm obr 1937 guns (in reserve)
WEAPONS Strelkovy Reg gun Platoon with 4x 76mm obr 1927 guns (in reserve)
WEAPONS Strelkovy Flamethower Unit with one team - attached to 1st Strelk unit
WEAPONS Anti-Aircraft Machinegun Company with 5x Dshk AA trucks (in reserve)
WEAPONS Sapper Company with 31 stands of pioneer rifle teams
SUPPORT Artillery Battalion with 8x 76mm obr 1902 guns
(I have used ZIS-3 guns in lieu of these as I don't have them)

My force with 7 platoons in total is a blunt horde of infantry backed up by guns and artillery. I will be relying heavily on my sapper unit and my wave attack rule for the strelkovy units. The AT guns are a valuable assets being AT 7. The AA trucks seem weak being only a 5+ transport save but having AT4 5+FP gun with ROF 4 (ROF2 on the move) makes them a sensible option.

The table layout

We roll up an Encounter mission for which Andy is happy with as he doesn't want to face all my force at once (dont blame him), so we deploy the objectives and Andy starts by deploying his artillery on the hill to the left and two units of infantry covering the objectives with one platoon in bypass, his CO tank positions on the right. I deploy my artillery in long line on back edge, with sappers on right and strelkovy unit in wood on left.

My plan was to rush Andy's positions  down each flank taking use of cover, and hope beyond hope that his bypass unit doesn't arrive until turn 3 as he wont be able to assault on the turn it arrives, and this will give me time to maybe get a reserve of my own, and use my artillery without disturbance for a while longer.

TURN 1
Poles: Andy's bypass unit doesn't turn up (Haha) Andy begins game by moving infantry units on flanks - one on right to edge of wood and other up left side. Artillery must be on hard rocky ground as it fails to dig in.

Soviets: I begin by moving my sappers and Strelkovy up on the flanks, with the artillery ranging in on the left Piechoty platoon with a double width template with all 13 stands under, but due to being conscripts only manage 2 kills.

Strelkovy 1st turn positions on left side

Sappers 1st turn positions on right flank

TURN 2
Poles: The bypass unit arrives on my back edge right behind my artillery !! (this being the best possible outcome for Andy) Andy then unpins his infantry on the left and attempts to dig them in but fails. His observer in the central building spots the advancing strelk horde and calls in Artillery with 6 hits but all find some cover thankfully.
The bypass unit shoots at the artillery guns and as they are nicely positioned behind their gun shields they take out 3 of them.

Bypass unit arrives !

Soviets: I continue to move my sappers and Strelkovy up the flanks leaving the artillery to their doom :-(   My gun teams fire as rifles and manage to maim two teams of the bypass unit (probably a mistake as I should of GTG to benefit from 3+ saves)

TURN 3
Poles: Andy's reserves arrive in the form of a unit of tanks, which happily turn up on his back edge and position themselves behind the vineyard to counter the strelk horde on the left. He finally manages to dig in his infantry on he right. The Co blazes away at the sappers killing one of them. Artillery continue to barrage the left but all find some cover and save. The bypass unit begin by killing 3 gun teams to rifle fire and then assault with bayonets  and kill another, the remaining guns tuck tail and leg it off the battlefield.

Strelkovy advance into the woods on left flank

Soviets: No reserves for me, but all infantry unpin. The CO moves back towards the right objective to contest it. Throwing caution to the wind I advance my troops forward on each flank trusting the Co to defend the objective till reserves arrive. I manage to shoot down a few infantry stands with mortar fire.

TURN 4
Poles: Andy's reserves get lost and don't turn up (good) His tanks move to the left and kill another 2 infantry, as do the infantry on the right killing 2 sapper stands. The bypass unit moves onto the objective but luckily to far to assault my CO.

Bypass unit on my objective - pesky polish rules

Soviets: My strelkovy Infantry turn up in the nick of time (phew) and also in the right place being the back edge, and position themselves to act revenge on the bypass unit. They assault killing 2 teams and push them off the objective as Andy fails a motivation roll to stay in the fight. The left side infantry launches a flamethrower team forward and proceed in roasting 3 infantry teams, but with the tanks on the hill the rest of the platoon decide its to risky to assault .... as they fail their tank terror roll.

My Strelkovy company arrive in exactly he right position

TURN 5
Poles: Andy's tanks arrive on the left side, he unpins and digs in his somewhat depleted infantry unit on the hill. The Artillery continues with 10 under the template for 10 hits but I manage to save all but 2 of them. The tanks on central left side move towards my left objective.

Andys 7TP jw tanks arrive on the left

Soviets: The trusty 45mm AT guns finally arrive on the left side hooray!, they position behind a small wood with one being able to fire on tanks for a bailed result. The sappers and forward left infantry fail to unpin and therefore GTG after failing to dig-in (darn conscripts with shovels). The freshly arrived strelkovy move to pursue the by pass unit and assault killing another 3 stands, Andy backs off but passes a morale test.

Strelk pursueing the by pass unit

TURN 5
Poles: Another unit of his tanks arrive. The central left tanks moves to engage my AT guns in a firefight and proceed in killing 2 of them and thier commander, forcing the others to flee (poo) The Artillery fail to hit anything this turn, meanwhile the tanks on the right with the help of his CO tank have a field day in shooting my GTG sapper unit and manage to kill 7 teams with MG dice .. ouch
The tanks on the left side shoot at the strelkovy mass there, and after a bloody assault resulting in one dead tank for the loss of 3 infantry stands I come out the loser and fall back. I decide to remove this unit to form a wave attack unit next turn.

Another unit of tanks in exactly the wrong place for me, against the sappers, of which are nicely positioned to assualt only if they unpin dam you.

Meanwhile on the left, a somewhat bloody assault looms

Andy's tanks making a run for the objective on the left after killing the AT guns

Soviets: The Dshk AA trucks arrive now on the back edge, the pioneers fail to unpin so GTG. But the wave attack succeeds and starts to form up in the woods on the left side, but due to the close proximity of the enemy teams they only manage a some what small unit of only 8 teams (As the wave formation has to be 12" from all enemy teams and 16" from recce teams - so if you can get around behind these units it limits their effectiveness for the this rule for which Andy has succeeded in doing) - oh well at least they arrived.

The tiny wave attack platoon form up in woods as
Andy limits their size with platoons in all directions

The Dshk AA trucks blaze away at the jw tanks and manage to kill 1 of them and bail another. The rear Strelkovy hunt down the bypass unit again for another 2 dead to shooting, but the assault was terrible where upon I had 10 dice but for a total of only one kill (appalling 5+ rolls needed being conscripts)

The AA trucks arrive - hooraa

TURN 7
Poles: Andy gets his little TKS unit on now arriving on the back edge to support the units against the sappers. The central tanks remount and put some lead into the AA trucks sending 4 of them into flames, the commander then decides to call it a day and flees. Andy has another shooting spree on the right and kills another impressive 6 stands of sappers (thank god they have a large unit size) they pass their morale. The tanks then assault  killing 2 more, but they fail their morale so their kommisar team yells encouragement by pistol shooting one, but must of been the team no one likes as they all ignore this and fall back.

TKS unit arrives to offer even more MG dice in the direction of the sapper unit

The aftermath of the tanks shooting at my AA trucks

Soviets: The little 76mm infantry pop guns finally decide to arrive and bails two of the tanks, in where the infantry assault and kill both, the commander wisely flees back behind some cover. The sappers have some since and digs in.

76mm regimental guns fire into the tanks

The Strelkovy assualt the tanks and bypass unit.

TURN 8
Poles: The tanks on the right are now poised to wipe out the sapper unit as they swing the TKS unit around behind them. They kill 5 more teams from main gun and MG fire killing 5 of them (aarrrgghh). Andy then somewhat fool hardly decides to assault the unit with his infantry first, and I manage to summon up 12 DF dice but only get 4 hits which all save. The melee battle lasted several rounds, where upon I was required to make 3 kommisar rolls to which all succeeded (losing 3 teams in the process mind you) but the tanks rolled up and finished me off as I fled the table with only one stand left.

The few sappers now surrounded awaiting the dreaded assault

Soviets: With his battalion in disarray the CO grudgingly decides hes had enough and puts in the general call to retreat his force from the battlefield having failed its company morale test. A good win to Andy.

GAME OVER .... with a 5- 2 win to Andy's Polish tank force.


Aftermath..... well what a game, full of assaults, huge infantry units, wave attacks, bypass units arriving in the rear of the battlefield to cause mayhem and mischief .... who doesn't like Early war I ask you ! always good fun.

Andy played an excellent game here, the tactic of placing the tanks in reserve and relying on his bypass unit made it hard for me. He was able to counterattack with his tanks while all I could do was sit still GTG as my reserves were far and few between and couldn't support one another properly.

Given another shot at this game, I would like to use the Artillery unit differently, as being conscript it was pretty useless for artillery - i think I was looking at the double width template with re-rolls but still, I should of used the guns offensively and placed them on the 12" line and advanced them 6" up the table to take the firepower to Andy's guns and remove the threat of Andy's bypass unit - only downside would be this would mean that the sappers would of had to sit still and defend the objective. I think this would of lead to a draw or stalemate though so unsure if this would of worked and maybe not as fun - always next time.

Might structure my force somewhat differently if I used in a tournament, I'd remove the artillery unit and replace with another unit of 45mm AT guns, beef up the Regimental Gun platoon to have 6 guns instead of 4, purchase a pioneer supply wagon for the large sapper unit and finally put in another small unit of sappers. This would make for a hard hitting force relying on the sappers to hold off attacks and the wave assault to push into positions to take objectives.

Cheers

US AMOURED RECONNAISSANCE COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT ON FLAMES OF WAR ARMIES I HAVE

I thought I would do a series of Flames of War army spotlights, highlighting some of the many Flames of  War army's I have collected and used in the past. Some people might not of seen them before and I thought it would be a good way to document / record them, and also my ideas behind them and why I collected them.

US AMOURED RECONNAISSANCE COMPANY - SPOTLIGHT


This was the very first army I started to collect for Flames of War. Thought it was a good idea to start in the mid-war period as it was the "in thing" back in those days and selected the force from the old Stars and Stripes book. It was also under the first edition rule book back then so a lot has changed.

Overall force

 I quickly found the force was a rather hard beginning army to start out with, mostly due to it being a mechanised force, also being reconnaissance didn't help much either, then there was the fact that it was a rather fragile army. So taking all this into consideration I thought not such a good army to start with perhaps and then swapped to my mid war Russian militia force being far more easier to use as a beginner to FOW.

Now days under version 3, I found the US Armoured Recon force a very useful and tactical army to play and very satisfying when it plays well. Against the right opposition it can be awesome to play with, but this can very much swing the other way against other types of forces and loose horribly, but maybe all mechanised forces are like this?

I mostly collected this army as I really liked the Battlefront models of the earlier USA vehicles, for example the T30 75mm HMC, T19 105mm HMC and the M3 75mm GMC model and it offered me the chance to paint these numerous open topped vehicles to which I do enjoy.

Keeping this mind, I decided to base my army on the Anglo-American invasion of the Moroccan and Algerian coast lines of North Africa in early November 1942 against the Vichy-French or as it was called "Operation Torch". My army is Historically based on the 82nd Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion (as part of the Second Armoured Division) that landed at Fedala, near Casablanca with the 9th Infantry Division. The 82nd Recon Battalion went onto fight at Tunisia, Sicily, and then took part in the Normandy landings in 1944. The 82nd was the "eyes and ears" of the 2nd Armoured Division with their commanding Officer being Major Isaac. D. White.

This army is very fast paced and has a tendency for a "in your face" attitude on the attack due to the recon units ability to move swiftly up the table with the Stuarts racing about in support being light tanks. The army has a lot of firepower in the way of 0.5cal's and machinegun dice available to it. The T30's support the attack offering high firepower to knock out nests and gun teams. The M3 75mm guns with AT9 and the tank destroyer rules makes an effective unit, theres also the reliable T19 unit with TOT bonus.

On the defense its not so effective but can still be quite a nuisance for the enemies tanks with the ability to dismount and having the option for bazookas and M3 37mm gun teams, but being only 3 stands to the unit they are still quite vulnerable. With most of the tank units being open topped the armoured reserve rule makes this army a hell of a lot better than in version 2 days, as it now starts with a decent amount of units on the table if those rules are in effect.

My typical 1500 point force consisted of :
HQ - CO and 2IC carbine teams mounted in M2 halftrack and Jeep
3 units of Armoured Recon - 2x M3A1 with jeep and Mortar jeep
Assualt gun platoon with 3x T30 HMC
3 platoons of M3A1 Stuarts - oh yes !
Self Propelled Anti-tank Platoon - 4x M3 75mm GMC
Armoured Field Artillery Platoon - 3x T19 105mm HMC

Also had the options of fielding 6x T19 105mm HMC artillery teams, Armoured rifle platoon, Engineer platoon, Self propelled AA platoon and another Armoured recon platoon if the need desired.

My CO M2 halftrack towing a 37mm AT gun.

M3 75mm GMC tank destroyer - love this model

T19 105mm HMC artillery platoon

Artillery command and Staff team

One of the three Stuart platoons I have

A typical Dismounted platoon, Bazooka, 0.5 cal MG, 60mm mortar team and Infantry options

My 2IC jeep team, all aboard 

Medic !

More medic jeeps

Co and 2IC command carbine teams

My overall Force

M3 half tracks if I need armoured Infantry platoon.
Also got me some M10 Tank destroyers and M4 Shermans that I never once used yet,
these mayvery well end up in my Late war French Goum force

Bulldozer Sherman

Other side of M4 Sherman Dozer tank