Tony Rieger built a fantastic board for a 28mm game of Battleground WWII for the Maine Wargamers Convention Huzzah! The 8x5 table was filled with unimaginable details, my photos do it no justice.
Here was the scenario from Dave's discription:
"The Date: Nov. 11th. 1942.
Location Red October, Martin Furnaces. (The germans marked this as 'Workhall 4' on their maps.)
(anyone who has played ASL ..Red Barricades …would be able to locate not only the area on their maps, but also the units involved (I based my game on this)
The area: The Red October Factory (the forge area is what this all is) It was the entrance to the the Martin Furnaces (as I said …I couldn't actually build that monster of a building …so I just did the foyer.) The building you were in was the 'power plant' (in reality …this huge building was hundreds of yards away from the main building ….but gaming being what it is …it all had to be distorted and ground scale warped for their to be a big game that was PLAYABLE.) The building by the tracks was a kitchen/break hall if you will. The building section with the railcars …is just part of the service entrance of the building I was running (it should have been obvious as its painted and modeled the same.)
The troops involved were:
179th Pionier under the command of Hauptman Helmut Welz (almost all of the units assaulted the Power Plant)
and elements of 24th Pz Div/ Pi-Bat 40 (located near Workhall 4)
The soviets were mere skeleton crews and small patrols."
I commanded the defense of the Power Plant with a left behind force of 8 factory workers (green) with a single PPsH and a DP-28. The rest armed with rifles. I faced off against 60+ Pioneers and a StuG.
My report is based on my battle, I wasn't able to keep close track of the Workhall 4 battle.
The Power plant was divided into two sections, the crowded turbine room with furnaces, coal bunkers, the huge turbine itself, and offices. The other section contained the massive generator, but the room was fairly open with ad-hoc defensive positions. My workers had too much to defend with too little. Riflemen were scattered around the plant in hidden positions, covering entry points, and hold outs in each office (one on each level).
One entry point I was really worried about was a breach in the back wall, that was very close to my only secure path to flow reinforcements into the Power Plant. With little to defend it with a rifleman was assigned to cover it.
My only initial reinforcement was a command group with a commissar, a leader with a PPsH and a DP -28 team, However luck was with me and the first card turned was a reinforcement of 5 PPsH gunners, but no leader. They moved towards the Power Plant.
The Germans threw smoke grenades into the street as their MG-38s raked the fromnt of the building, and stormed across. Their sappers placed demo charges on the front wall to create a breach. Unbeknownst to them the turbine room had an unusual structure, there was an elevated concrete structure that made the street face unbreachable, leaving the door apparently the only place to enter. (Their scouts had not noticed the beach in the wall. But I didn't know that)
The generator room was a different story the thin wall would be easily breached. I decided to shift my single LMG to the catwalk above the power plant floor, with the intent of running across the catwalks to the upper office to have a reverse field of fire.
More reinforcements arrived, a 5 riflemen, without a leader, the too moved towards the Power Plant. The Commissar lead his command group to take charge of the defense, but he peeled off his LMG team to move into a ruined boxcar to cover the wall breach.
In the generator room the Pioneers on the flank of the building stuffed a flamethrower through a window and immoliaded one of the few defenders of the room. Most of the reinforcements were flittering through the turbine room with all of its covered firing positions.
Suddenly an unexpected Soviet reinforcement arrived a T-70 tank, it showed up on the street along the flank of the power plant. The Pioneers were all along the building wall and behind in their placement of charges due to having to cover more ground. The tank raked them with fire with its LMG, to little effect. But the StuG reacted, without an AP round it fired a smoke round, obscuring the entire end of the street, blocking the fire of the T-70. But with unexppected consequences for the Germans.
The German flowed into the generator room through the front breach, facing little resistance. The turbine room was a different story. Unable to breach, the Pioneers, rushed the door. A booby trap went off killing the lead soldier, rest poured into the elevated foyer. The waiting riflemen and SMG gunners poured fire into the Germans, the responded with SMGs and Flamethrowers. Killing a few of the defenders. Then the DP-28 on the catwalk, open fire and slaughtered the Germans. Exposed, on the catwalk, the team planed on retreating behind a wall, but with the Pioneers in the Generator room, the run down the catwalk would be under fire so the decided to make the Germans pay, and continued to rake the"Foyer of Death".
Another reinforcement arrived, 4 Scout Snipers armed with PPsHs, and a flamethrower man. The path to the turbine room was jammed, but an opportunity was opened by the Germans, the massive smoke cloud genre rated by the 75 round had obscured the street, so neither side could see. I noticed the Germans had ignored a building behind then on the side of the Power Plant, I decided to infiltrate scouts behind the Germans and not into the factory.
As the battle raged in the turbine room, the assault in the generator room was facing little resistance, when a hidden rifle man surprised the lead pioneer. The shot missed, but the German fell to the ground. The Factory worker lept upon the prone Hun, and trird to bayonet him. The resulting battle was like "Saving Private Ryan" we went 3 rounds tied, till the Fascists cheated and added extra men, killing the heroic factory worker.
The "Foyer of Death" was still grinding up Germans, to add insult to injury the rifleman in the upper office stepped out onto the landing and dropped a Molotov Cocktail into the clustered Germans. Killing a number.
The T-70, decided that it had to charge out of the smoke scattering Pioneers who were waiting along the wall for the breaching charge to blow. The problem with overrunning Pionerrs is the know what to do, and soon the T-70 had a demo charge resting on its hull.
But it kept driving and firing, scattering Pionerrs in its wake,and forcing them away from the Power Plant and towards the hidden Scouts. The Scouts revealed themselves by firing the flamethrower, burning 6 Pioneers to death (they were in a perfect cluster due to the T-70s mad dash), and breaking a number more.
The final action of the game was resolving the demo charge on the T-70. Luck was with the mad take crew (whom I had frankly written off) the German player rolled a 20 in the result, the T-70 was only stunned for two phases.
The game was well underway when we had to call it. 7 or 8 turns of insane Battleground fun, way to large for the rule set but Tony and Dave Schuster (the other GM) go big or go home!
Photos of the game ca be seen at this link
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More photos with comments from Dave here:
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