Sedan, May 13th 1940, 1: Scenario Research

All my games have been 'typical' battles as the terrain tiles did not lend themselves to recreating anything but an approximate setting for a real engagement. Now that I've got a nice gaming cloth and a selection of land forms to put under it, I've been on the lookout for a suitable battle.

Colonel Goutard's "Battle Of France" and Alistair Horne's "To Lose A Battle" are my staple reads for overviews of the invasion of France. Together, I think they give me enough information on actions in the campaign to be able to produce recognisable “based on” simulations without referring to unit unit histories (none from the French seem to have survived the war and probably this is just as well).

Working my way through chronologically, one of the earlier actions that took my fancy was the crossing of the Meuse at Sedan on 13th May.

An excellent find was "The Blitzrieg Legend" by Karl-Heinz Frieser which added more detail to this scenario (and the rest of the French campaign) and a fine map from which it was possible to imagine the area as it was in 1940 without the modern waterpark on one side of town and industrial area on the other shown on Google Streetview. Apart from enabling the gamer to see the lay of the land more less first hand, Streetview was very useful for finding landmarks and points of interest in the town which I will try and have on the gaming table for local colour. For instance, the rail line towards Bazeilles (built over when the waterpark was created) and crossing-keepers cottage or small halt at the main road; the Chateau Bellevue on the way to Frénois; the large cemetery above town on the SS Regt Großdeutschland approach; and the pretty Église Notre Dame above Wadelincourt. All good features to help get into the scenario

Approach route for SS Großdeutschland

SS Großdeutschland crossing point

Site of level crossing towards Balan

Chateau Bellevue near Frénois

Église Notre Dame, Wadelincourt

The battle was predominantly an infantry affair, which I think will be an unusual basis for a wargame, there normally being a dearth of foot troops in Kursk-like "typical" battle tank swarmings. Crossings were attempted at six points in the area as seen on the map, notwithstanding all bridges were blown by the French:

• Donchery 2nd Pz Div Panzer, Schutzen & Kradschutzen Rgts
• Isle des Iges 1st Pz Div Kradschutzen Rgt
• Gaulier 1st Pz Div Schutzen Rgt
• Sedan NW 1st Pz Div Grossdeutschland Rgt
• Sedan SE 10th Pz Div Schutzen Rgt
• Wadelincourt           10th Pz Div Schutzen Rgt

The first and last of those listed were unable to cross the Meuse because of covering fire from bunkers and enemy artillery shelling respectively. The 1st Pz Kradschutzen, although managing to get onto the Isle des Iges, were prevented from crossing the canal between Glaire and Villette until the division's Schutzen cleared the overlooking bunkers here and at Donchery from the rear. The two Schutzen regiments crossed at and followed the NW & SE edges of the town and went on to secure Frenois, Wadelincourt, the Marfee Heights and Cheveuges.

Isle des Iges across the Meuse

Casemate 104 near Donchery

The bridge in Donchery

The scaled down units I decided to use (which I hope will still preserve the feel of the battle) were thus:

GERMANY

• Donchery heavy tank company + schutzen platoon
• Isle de Kradschutzen platoon
• Gaulier Schutzen platoon + StuG III + Bunkerflak
• Sedan NW Schutzen platoon
• Sedan SE   Schutzen platoon
• Wadelincourt Schutzen platoon
• Off-table Stuka flight, 105mm battery x2
• Reserve          Schutzen platoon x2

FRANCE

• Donchery (S bank) Foot platoon
• Glaire Foot platoon
• Wadelincourt-Frenois  Foot platoon
• Numerous bunkers MG, MMG, HMG
• Marfee Heights 75mm & 105mm battery
• Off-table                          150mm batteries
• Reserve Motorised infantry, light tank squadron

There are a few things I need to get done in the meantime:

1. repaint old country houses & cottages and finish city apartment & office blocks and municipal buildings
2. one or two French artillery batteries (in the past, I always assumed incorrectly that they mostly scarpered or did not receive any 'fire orders') which I could get away with 'off-table' but some ought to be on the Marfee Heights
3. decide how I am going to model rivers
4. get a load of railway track off Leven Miniatures
5. make lots more hedge sections and flock my tree canopies

This will be an ongoing campaign series of battle recreations which will give my games a bit more structure than usual.

La Ferme de Tisserand

In spite of being in the middle of painting new miniatures, repainting old ones, trying to tart up others without doing a complete rehash and making a new set of terrain as well as playing catch-up with painting buildings, I wanted to have a game using my new hills, cloth and what terrain I had.

Contours used

It's an imbalanced forces encounter battle where the protagonists are out to secure the area from randomly determined approaches. I diced for the forces as well, giving the Allies two tank squadrons (1 cruiser, 1 infantry) and two infantry platoons and the Germans, one motorcycle platoon, an armoured car platoon and then a PanzerJager troop and Bunkerflak battery (to 'up' the guns & support which was also rolled).

Starting points & initial orders

The wood canopies have not been painted & flocked yet but at least they are fairly organic coloured (if a little dried up and twiggy looking for May in France). I screwed small twigs in to keep the rubberized horsehair off the minis but they are massively oversized (if they were supposed to be actual tree trunks and you can be bothered to look that close). I'll probably use painted cocktail sticks eventually because they can be stabbed in without ripping any of the structure to bits and maybe glue them in place. I used fence sections as giving soft cover due to not having many bits of hedge. All woods were 'open'. Ground scale 1" to 100m.

The Kradschützen quickly passed through the mill area and secured the farm and soon afterwards, the 8-rads & Bunkerflak got into position on the high ground. Cruisers on each flank moved into the churchyard and onto the plateau with their infantry. German recce is spotted moving about near the mill.

(Green markers remind me that a unit has been spotted and light blue mean the unit (in this case, the Bunkerflak) is on overwatch)

Kradschützen observing Cruisers

As the Cruisers nose through the gravestones, the Bunkerflak open up at 750m, brewing up two tanks in the space of so many minutes. I nearly always forget about using smoke but this time I had no excuse having an A9 CS in the CHQ so it was despatched to blind the 88's. On the common to the South, the A13s and armoured cars continue on their collision course.

First contacts

As the CS tank struggles up Chapel Hill, the Kradschützen fan out into the nearby farm outbuildings, still not spotted by the oncoming Cruisers. The Bunkerflak, with no armour targets but suspecting an infantry attack, shell the churchyard to little effect.

The mixed SdKfz 232 & 222 unit has been informed of enemy movement in the direction of the small common. PanzerJagers trundle through the mill works.

There is a fierce exchange of fire between the 8-rads (hoping for a lucky shot) and the last A13 sheltering from the 88's behind the chapel who, one by one, picks the armoured cars off.

(The tree canopy was moved back a bit to make measuring easier here and the purple marker denotes 'shaken' morale status. The green marker has the unit morale score written on it when required)

The CS tank inexorably crawls up Chapel Hill. The assault on Hill Wood must wait for smoke to be laid. Kradschützen sneak into the farmhouse. Infantry in the churchyard begin to cross the open ground, unnoticed at that distance.

The battle of wits begins on the small common and the PanzerJagers continue down the lane, the Cruiser CHQ tanks as yet unobserved.

The 8-rads in the wood finally notice the enemy infantry heading their way but the last survivor is shot up by the Matildas, who then wheel to take on the Bunkerflak 88's.

The CS tank makes it to cover but the slower A10 is still grinding up Chapel Hill when the tank destroyers finally notice and swing around for snatched shots. With two misses and one hit, the Sqn CO is saved by 2mm of armour. Unbeknownst to the A10s, the German infantry is moving around to their rear in the hedgerows.

Back in the field, the 222s try to get the Cruisers to 'come on' but a 'hull-down' slogging match begins.

The A9 CS begins laying smoke on the treeline. Luckily for the Brits, the wind from the South East, is perfect. The last A13 pops smoke too in case it helps protect the Matilda Is as they clank past. The A10s line up on the SP guns who have done for their CO before he could get hull down and the MkVI switches flanks and triggers the infantry ambush.

Infantry lurks in the dead ground to the South as AP zings over the crest of the small common. The 2nd troop of Matilda Is at left rumble inexorably on towards the farm. Being crucial to the assault on Hill Wood, the Colonel steps up to bolster the morale of the CS tank.

Overview so far

Outgunned, the German armoured cars throw smoke and bug out.

The Czech guns on the tank destroyers turn their barrels toward the A10s who spot and kill an encroaching anti-tank rifle team.

The Bunkerflaks give up Hill Wood and try to change position.

The lone Cruiser in the churchyard takes careful aim on the receding 88 SP guns.

In the mad scramble to back away from the grenades of the Kradschützen, an A10 misses with both machine guns but his comrade rolls 3% against one of the SP guns.

The CS tank up on the hill tries to blind the PanzerJagers with smoke but here the wind direction is not as favourable. The Mk2 Cruiser down the lane is too slow in reverse and over hedgerows to escape even the very first grenade thrown.

In this case revenge is a dish served hot!

Looking a bit untenable for the Germans on this flank.

Matildas heading for the remaining PanzerJagers...

The Bunkerflaks were going to take up positions (if they had time, which is doubtful) in the treeline at the back of this picture but would have probably ended up smoked up again by the CS tank. Matilda IIs & A13s were closing in on the PanzerJagers & armoured cars. Eventually the Kradschützen would have probably been isolated in the farm but finally cleared out.

West to East

Final scene.

South to North

I expected it to be quite an unbalanced game but when I added the Bunkerflaks I assumed they would wreak carnage but when it came down to it there weren't that many long sight lines. Possibly they would have been better where they were ultimately headed for.

I suppose the Matilda Is did what it says on the tin: plod on at walking pace. However this meant they never fired a shot as they didn't even get close to the thick of it. Hard to imagine how they could be used to any great effect.

First time I thought to fire smoke; was rather useful, will do again!

The cloth washed well; the oil based pastels (roads, stream) came right off in a cold wash and the various spray coats of paint stayed on! No rule tweaks to speak of.

Game time: 6 hours 

City Blocks, 1: Roof Shaping

I was looking at my buildings thinking that they are all OK (at least they will be when they are all painted) for country farms, villages and towns but in Sedan and many other French cities you have long blocks of municipal buildings, hospitals and apartments and multiple occupancy blocks for small offices.

Avenue Phillipoteaux, Sedan

Avenue Georges V, Paris

So I routed the roofs off some wood offcuts using some bog standard bits from Toolstation and as a quick cheap fix to pad out a larger town I think there is potential.

I only had two router bits that gave a suitable profile, one at about 45° and another that gave a sort of domed hipped roof. I might even use some thinner wood to reduce the footprint of the buildings.

The plan is to find some metal bar with a square or rectangular profile to use as a punch for doors & windows and maybe make some porticos, dormer windows and chimney stacks out of plasticard. The cut ends of the wood will need some filling to hide the grain and some sanding overall as paint will raise and roughen the surface.

We'll see how I get on with them. I'll certainly need some longer buildings for the Sedan scenario I've been researching for a while.

Some More Linear Objects

Continuing with terrain features on lolly sticks, today I made rustic fences, hedges and also some painted fences suitable for city boulevards and town squares.

If I never whittle another lolly stick it'll be too soon...

I chamfered and whittled off loads of lolly sticks, some of which had been cut to different lengths for variation this time and trimmed about 1.5m altogether from the aviary wire to see me out with the job in hand. The first lot of fences this time were going to be a more rustic style, bare wood or creosoted finish in Humbrol 98 with the usual Humbrol 29 dark earth and grass mix scatter.

Rustic post & rail fences

The thinnest possible strips were trimmed off green scourer pad for hedges. I used this instead of pipe cleaners as it seems you can only get the chenille variety these days and you can see the twisted wire all too easily compared to the fluffier cotton type that was around 30 years ago. The hedge bases had to be painted brown first as the green pad was open enough to see the ground. 

Hedge clipping

Various Humbrol greens and browns were sloshed on the glued down hedges (which had a good texture but were a horrible blue-green) and different scatters applied until there was a good variation of foliage.

The smartly painted city boulevard central reservations or town square railings differed only in that the grassy area was painted & flocked, then the edge where the stone kerb was going to be had to scraped clean with a scalpel. 

French blue town railings

I've also been experimenting with a fine tweed pattern polyester from charity shop clothes to use as texture for cobbled streets. So far I have sprayed it brown to take the contrast out of the herringbone design and when it is actually in use it will have all sorts of oil pastel shading across the surface. 

Various post & rail fences and hedge

The 'cobbled road' is still too uniform in spite of the amount of spray paint I put on it so I went over a bit of road gently with light yellow ochre and light red-brown oil pastels sideways on to prevent harsh lines and streaks.

With light yellow ochre and re-brown oil pastels

The texture of the cloth meant that I now got the impression of an even pattern of regularly laid cobblestones but without really seeing that it is actually out of scale and herringbone all over.

Post & Rail Fences

I'd been thinking about this since we knocked up an aviary in the garden.

Put simply, one strand from fine aviary mesh is trimmed to the length of a lolly stick (which had the edges chamfered off) and hammered gently into place. I used a small cabinetmaking hammer for this. The base is then painted or flocked as required.

I did this first batch in white for use on well-to-do farmsteads; the next batch will be in a more rustic plain wood finish. I am not going to need that many of them as I doubt they will even afford soft cover let alone incur a movement penalty and are just there for a bit of eye-candy.

Carving Hills

So after yesterday's success with colouring the gaming cloth it is time to start carving up foam for under-cloth hills.

Originally scrounged off a neighbour, the stuff has been hanging around for ages. My brother-in-law is having one sheet for his model railway.

Cut down the middle I now have several sections approximately 36mm thick which will be plenty thick enough for the majority of undulating agricultural land. I might save some of the original thickness bits for escarpments, for example, when recreating the town of Cassel.



I used a steak knife to cut the foam to size, going about a centimetre deep to start the cut off, then hacking all the way through. The shallow initial cut meant that the foam didn't split in the wrong direction and the thinness of the blade helped cutting round corners .A carving knife had a whippy enough blade to enable distorting it whilst sawing to scoop sections out or for shaving layers off.

I now have more than enough to cover two pasting tables placed side by side although a lot of the time the terrain will be fairly flat, completely flat (in places) or only slightly undulating. The river sections shown will probably only be used for special scenarios requiring a deeply cut valley (for example, crossing The Meuse or the attack on Fort Eben Emael)

The new gaming cloth on the table shown above. Just add trees, fields, houses, tracks and rivers. With all the hill sections used the landscape is probably rugged enough to recreate the Ardennes sector. May have to make/acquire some thinner contours.

"Looks Like A Tablecloth"

I have been hankering after new wargaming terrain system for months.

Frankly, I was bored fighting over the same old crossroads, river crossing and field network 30cm sq hardboard scenery tiles. Bless them, I only made them about 30 years ago during wargaming burst part one. They were a bit too flat with mesa-like hills looming up in the middle somewhere and were in desperate need of flocking or something as the original finish was whatever tin of green paint my dad had spare with black and other colours drybrushed in for shading.

I decided to go down the Mark Luther route as I call it as his is the best example of this terrain method on the internet and probably elsewhere.

Pommery Farm, Mark Luther

He uses 8' x 6' tables or thereabouts, places a large number of shaped polystyrene hill sections to form rolling undulations, often taping them into place. A variegated ground-coloured cloth is thrown over the top, eased into any small gullies and felt & carpet-like material is spray mounted into place for fields & rough patches. Roads & tracks are drawn on with chalk pastels and other pieces added like trees, buildings, hedges & telegraph poles.

So an old 'ivory' coloured bedsheet, trimmed to fit two pasting tables when bolted together, was dyed first with Dylon Pebble Brown hand dye then Olive Green (£4-6 in Wilkinsons or The Range) in the hope that it would...well I did not know what to expect, I think I hoped it would somehow mingle in some way.

That ended up a plain sage green so I then balled it up tight and bound it up with string in a few directions for a random tie-dyeing effect. I had to do this three times for the effect I was looking for, possibly because the dye wasn't up to temperature this time but came out a quite nice sage green with dark khaki brown mottled patches.

Going down the tie-dye route from the outset with Pebble Brown would have made an acceptable cloth for desert warfare.

Next to spray some random patches of green, brown and possibly some sort of dry grass kind of colour.

The only yellow I could find was Hycote filler primer (£6 from The Range; Halfords had some for £8) which is more like a ripe sunflower field than dry grass of the Pas de Calais region! Again, the only green was a rather rich bottle green Plasticote in a Super Satin finish (£4 I think, from The Range) and Rustoleum 'Painters Touch' in Nutmeg satin finish (Yorkshire Trading at £4 a can) for a dusty brown.

I hoped that the surface of the cloth was going to be adequately uneven and the spray coat thin enough for the satin finish etc to be invisible and this proved to be the case.

Even the slight breeze lifted the cloth outdoors so in spite of the budgerigar & guinea pig, I sprayed the cloth in the conservatory on some sheets of plasterboard, from a distance of about 40cm with very short bursts. I think I went over with each colour about four times altogether, building up the effect, being especially careful with the yellow.

One technique I discovered by accident was to spray from a low angle almost across the surface of the cloth. In this way, the spray caught on the slight creases in the material from when it had been washed after dyeing giving a sort of false 3D look.

Finished cloth in shade

It remains to be seen how it will wash up (if, indeed I am permitted to put it in the other half's machine). Before it had dried it was quite easy to rub the paint off if handled roughly. 

Finished cloth in sunlight, drying

When I find a decent dry grass colour I'll be spraying it a bit closer to what I really wanted.

Now for some forests...