Assault on the Seelow Heights

Strategic Situation
The assault on the Seelow heights took place between 16th to the 19th April 1945 and was part of the Battles of the Oder Neisse, the last defended location before Berlin. The Heights are known as the Gates of Berlin.

Marshall Zhukon had around one million men and and three thousand AFVs of the 1st Belorussian Front to force open the Gates. He was opposed by the German Ninth Army commanded by General Heinrici with around five hundred AFVs and perhaps one hundred thousand men. Heinrici decided to defend not the River Oder but to dig in on the Heights. Zhukov's plan was simple and typical of his methods: to hit the Heights with an armoured steamroller and roll over the defenders

The battle was a bloodbath for the Red Army, who struggled across the swamps and up the Heights under intense fire. Zhukov had to admit to Stalin that things were not going according to plan. Stalin authorised Konev, who was having beter success at pushing back 4th Panzer Army, to race Zhukov to Berlin. The Soviet troops were caught in a bottleneck.

With their usual fortitude, the soldiers of the Red Army broke through the first two defensive lines. The final third line was defended at the North end by the 11th SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland and 23rd SS Panzer Grenadier Division Nederland. The Red Army finally broke through and pocketed what was left of Nineth Army at the Battle of Halbe.

The Wargame
The scenario depicts a Russian Assault Tank Brigade of three battalions assaulting dug in SS in the north of the third line on the 19th of April. Shaun and I only had an evening so, to speed things up, we assumed that the Soviet Tank Riders neutralised the German Panzerfaust (tank hunter) teams and only played the armoured battle.

The Germans have the advantages of defence and the best equipment but the Russians are determined and T34 are fast and dangerous with adequate sloped armour and 85mm cannon.




Defence
The SS have a kampfgruppe defending a village on a vital crossroads. Kampfgruppes were German ad hoc formations of variable size formed from available units for a specific purpose. The Germans were just better and more tactically flexible than any allied army. Kampfgruppe Shaun had one battery of Wespe Self Propelled Guns, 88mm Flak guns, 75mm Paks, Stug IIIs, Marder IIIs, Jagdpanthers and JagdTiger IIs, respectively. They have only one company of MkIII tanks (from a training regiment), Panthers and Tiger Is. All the German units are well under strength, many consisting of only a single platoon (one model). The German armour is dug in, until it moves.


The first Soviet Battlion rolls up the road. It has three full strength companies of SU152 Self Propelled Assault Guns, T100 Self Propelled AT Gunss and Sherman 75s, with an HQ equipped with T34s.



The follow up battalion has T34s. It is supposed to exploit after the assault battalion has cleared the village.


Similarly, a third battalion also of T34s, to exploit if the second battalion gets bogged down assisting the SP Guns.


The Assault Guns rush the village and run into withering fire. The Russian second battalion breaks to the left and right to envelop the defenders but the company attacking to the left is destroyed by massed fire from Paks, Flak guns and Panthers. The Shermans force their way into the village reaching the crossroads.


The third Russian battalion is forced to reinforce the left and right flank attacks. The assault gun platoon leading the attack through the village is brewed up by Tigers, blocking the road. The Shermans have to back out.

The Panthers creates havoc, shooting up the T34s. They run into an ambush from the Sherman company but the 75mm shot bounces off.

The Panthers are finally knocked out by 85mm fire from T34s. A company finally gets behind the Jagdtiger and Tigers and brews them up. The Paks are ground under the tracks.

Kampfgruppe Shaun is destroyed but there is no question of exploitation as the Russian Tank Brigade has only a handful of 'runners', but the gates of Berlin are open. Zhukov shrugs and send in the next brigade of T34s. Within two weeks Hitler has shot himself in the bunker.

War Cemetary at Seelow

Eastern Front battles are good inspiration for 40K games. The Soviets are the Guard, (or Human Renegades) or Orks, and the Germans are Tau, Eldar, Marines, Chaos Marines or Necrons.

Russian Mobile Detachment - 1943

This is my finished Russian Army for the Rapid Fire Rules. Everything ia in 1/72 plastic.

It consists of three battalions, one armoured and two infantry (tank riders).

The armoured battalion has an HQ tank (T34-76), two companies of medium tanks (each of two T34-76), and a company of light tanks (two T26). In support, it has two batteries of self propelled anti-tank guns (each of one SU-85)

The first infantry battalion has an officer and three men (riding on the HQ tank), and two companies of tank riders (six men each, riding on the T34's). The second battalion has an officer and three men riding on the light tanks, and two companies of four men each riding on the SUs.

The T34s and SUs are from Armourfast kits and the infantry from Pegassus Hobbies kits. The T26s are actually Vickers light tanks from Airfix. The early Russian light tanks were based on Vickers prewar designs. They should really be T80s (or similar) but I have not got any. However, the Red Army had a huge number of T26s so it seems likely that a few were still running in 1943. Light tanks are all much of a muchness anyway. Too slow to keep up with median tanks so useless for reconnaissance, they were also deathtraps in combat. The Soviets called them a 'grave for two brothers'. Everyone stopped using light tanks during the war (note the successful Stuart was technically a medium tank) as reconnaisance was much better done by cheaper armoured cars, which were not expected to fight.

The infantry are mounted on spare GW plastic bases.

The total cost of this army is one box of infantry at £7, seven T34s and SUs at £28 the lot and two light tanks at £14: total £49.

This is wargaming on the cheap, without sacrificing the visual appeal of miniature wargaming.

Second Childhood

I guess that many wargamers these days start with Warhammer 40K but wargame veterans of a certain age (aka silly old farts) started with Airfix. When I was about seven my doting mater brought home this new toy, called an Airfix Spitfire kit in 1/72. From there I discovered tanks and little toy soldiers made of wobbly plastic. Then there were the Airfix modelling and Rule Books, which replaced rolling marbles against our armies. Airfix and I are almost exactly the same age.

Wargaming got more complicated during the seventies and eighties, until the games became almost unplayable. Do you remember the final version of WRG's WWII rules. Oh dear God, I do.

In the early nineties there was a move back to games; you know, playing with toy soldiers. A set of rules called Rapid Fire were written by Colin Rumford and Richard Marsh. I played them a few times but my interest in modern warfare had been burnt out by then.

However, there is now a new version of Rapid Fire. The name gives it all away. This is a fun game that can be played in an afternoon. It is wonderfully old fashioned but, best of all, is designed for 1:72 plastic toy soldiers. Oh joy, just perfect for a man going through his second childhood. You could play Rapid Fire from scales of 15mm to 28mm but, for me, it has to be plastic toy soldiers.

There are haunting similarities to 40K, another seventies game originally. We are in Charles Grant and Donal Featherstone territory here.

The game uses IGOUGO and is broken down into 1. Morale, Observation (of enemy units), Smoke, Heroic Actions, First Movement, Opportunity Fire (for the other player to fire units on Overwatch), Close Assault, Firing, Second Move (for units that have not yet moved).

The basic unit in the game is the figure, not an abstract concept like a stand (just like 40K). You play it with a few D6s and a D10.


The production quality is scrumptious, and 1/72 plastic toy soldiers are used for all the pics - Rumford and Marsh are men after my own heart. Of course, the other thing about 1/72 plastic models are that they are as cheap as chips in comparison to resin or metal, especially as the manufacturers have huge production runs - most of the cost of a plastic kit is in the mould production, the plastic is dirt cheap, but the moulds last nearly forever.


A soldier figure represents about 15 men, and a vehicle about five. This means that a battalion can be recreated on the table as the unit of manouvre, which is clever as modern armies fight in battalions, and combinations of battalions make up all arms-armies. 40K fudges this a bit. It sort of pretends to be a skirmish game but operates more like a traditional wargame where one figure represents many.

The above picture shows a 1944 German infantry battalion. The photos below show my recreation using a single box of Revell 1/72 panzergrenadier figures (for the princely sum of seven knicker). I broke with tradition and mounted them on plastic GW-type bases. 1/72 soldiers are made from a soft plastic that flakes easily when the plastic flexes. The stands protect the models. Incidentally, I have found the trick to painting soft plastic is to degrease thoroughly and then spray with a good primer.

I mount the figures on the stand initially with superglue in order to paint them but this is not a durable solution (don't even think of polystyrene cement. I finally coat the base with white glue to stick on decoration. White glue sets very hard and makes a good rigid fix.

So here we have the battalion HQ, five 'infantry' figures, and the 4th Heavy Company - nine figures with three 80mm mortars. At the back are a depleted light anti-tank company of eight men, with three Panzerschreckes.


Above are the 1st, 2nd & 3rd companies - each of seven 'infantry' men and a Panzerfaust man (to bolster the anti-tank capability). Note that the stands are of no importance - it's the figures that matter. Also note that the battalion has no 'points'. This is an old fashioned wargame where you are expected to refight historical scenarios - not play chess with toy soldiers.

The battalion has a company of heavy Tiger I tanks in support. There should be three troops but a third of the company has broken down in transit so it has been reorganised into two.


The Tiger I was a nasty surprise and was very difficult to knock out using the 76mm guns of T34s and KV1 heavy tanks. The Russian response was to mount a modified 85mm flak gun on a T34 chassis until the T34 could be retooled with a larger turret ring to take the new weapon. The SU85 self propelled anti-tank gun (SPAT) was only manufactured for a year as a stop gap. However, the concept was continued with an SU100 SPAT mounting an even larger weapon.

The Tiger may have been lethal but it was also highly unreliable and took four times the resources to make than a T34. The Germans produced a maximum of around 100 Tigers a month, the Russians produced 1000 T34s in the same time. You can make a similar argument for a Sherman. By 1944, the Germans had only 400 tank runners at any one time. The allied figure was an order of magnitude greater. The sophisticated Tigers and Panthers were swamped, most abandoned undamaged by their crew when they broke down or ran out of fuel.

Quantity has a quality all of it's own.

I have chosen to play the Russian front because this was where the European war was won and lost. All the rest was a sideshow.