Stalingrad - Bolt Action Campaign in 1/72 scale - Workers' Village Scenario

A few pictures of a game some months ago with three good gaming buddies, Alex, Carlos and Juan where we gamed a trial scenario out from the Warlord Games Stalingrad Campaign book using Bolt Action rules.  

We played the game on the sand table and used a playing area according to the scenario of 4x4 foot.

The German objective is to clear the Workers' Village of Soviet Defenders. There's a dense collection of homes, fences, gardens, craters and rubble, making the advance extremely difficult for the German armoured kampfgruppen

The scenario called for a 5 turn game. 3 objectives on the Russian side of the table that the Germans have to control and allocates points that the players use to decide on the forces available before the game.

 There are Soviet tank-hunters potentially lurking behind every corner....

Carlos acted as umpire and chose the forces for both the Soviets and Germans.  

1 x T34, AT Team and 3 squads for the Soviet forces, and for the Germans 1 x StuG III, 1 x Pz IV Ausf B, 2 x Half-tracks and Panzergrenadiers, + Pak 38

Germans enter the village

Soviet defenders lurk in the ruins and burnt out cabins

Germans have it very difficult and Soviets halt the advance.

Vehicles burn as the Germans take more casualties

The game ended quickly, the Germans took a lot of casualties and faltered. Once they lost the StuG and the Panzergrenadiers it was practically impossible to achieve their objective, but being part of a campaign you need to know that some scenarios will be very difficult. 

The game was enjoyable and we're not too competitive so we had a good afternoon gaming. If the Germans had concentrated their attack from one entry-point instead of entering the table from various places they could have done better, but hindsight is always a wonderful thing.

Cheers, John

20mm Wargame Photos - Stalingrad - City Ruins & Street Fighting -

With a few members of our gaming club, we recently finally got ourself enough 1/72 scale city ruins to get a decent sized game going.

We decided to work on this about 6 weeks ago and together we scratch-built various ruins, and also finally painted some resin ones that had been lying around unpainted for a long time. The results can be seen below.





One of Carlos' modified Altaya Sd.Kfz 250, now converted into an early war mortar carrier with 2 Pegasus figures and 50mm mortar inside



A Revell Russian sniper (very effective during the game by the way) in one of Juan's scratch-built ruins.



Matchbox Sdkfz 251, one of Carlos' repainted Altaya Pz IIIs and in the background a scratch-built factory by Iván.



The interior of Iván's factory (with my double-pinned Russian infantry hiding out in there).



That's what you call a "fire-engine". One of my Russian SMG squads tries to flush out some Germans (The squad is made up from Chinese copies of old Esci hard-plastic 1/72 Russians, which in turn are scaled-down copies of the old Airfix 1/32 scale Russians ..........if all that makes sense.....) Complicated anecdotes aside, these fellas got thrashed as they came onto the table by one of Juan's "last-man-alone" German squads !



Intense house to house fighting. The ruins are resin I bought off a friend, Rob, some time back. They've been hanging around for about a year now, and were painted last week by Carlos for the game.



Pegasus German Infantry Gun and crew in a crater made by Juan.



Nice atmospheric shot, Revell and Airfix grenade throwers silhouetted by a smokescreen thrown up by the Germans to cover their advance.



Airfix and Revell Russians trying to take the factory.



For the game, the we used a system of entry points into the sewers and Juan made these excellente stands with manhole covers as entry points a couple of days before the game. They added a really nice touch and the opposing squads were able to enter and exit at different points on the table.

Stalingrad, reinforcements on the outskirts

By Mark Thomas (original article formerly on the miniaturezone.co.uk website)

Photos of a big Stalingrad 1/72 scales scenario we played in late Aug. 2001.

The table is 6 feet x 12 feet long, and we are using modified "Spearhead" ww2 gaming rules.

Some stuff out of town, including a 15cm hvy. Inf. gun battery (revamped Lyzard's Grin 1:72 metal).





In the back, RGT.HQ, and a ESCI 3 ton half track prime mover towing 5cm PAK (modified Matchbox 7,5cm PAK 40). Horch kfz.19 is 1/76 resin. Wagons are Airfix & homemade.







Several of the buildings were from Scenic Effects, while one is from Queen's Hussars, and one is 1/87 from Pola, also one from Ian Weekly, and the old reliable Airfix French farmhouse. I also made resin cast of brickwalls from old Bandai 1:48 brick walls set, which made for 5 ruined brick houses. The remainder of buildings are homemade, using either wood, or sheet styrene w/ brick paper affixed.



A tractor factory assembly hall was made from a widened cassete plastic storage box. The brick chimney stacks came from Pola & Walthers Co.,of Milwaukee, USA. A resin cast was made of a used turbocharger brass bearing, to make sewers in the streets: the lid was a mold of a large wood screw. ( I am a diesel mechanic).

The Russian church is homemade. Most multi-level buildings have removable roofs, for the placement of troops.





























The wagons were from Airfix pioneers & also homemade using ACW Airfix cannon wheels.A stuka is from Revell.

Barbed wire is from Faller. Many artillerymen are conversions.




Russian:

7 infantry companies (3) Guards SMG, (1) Naval Inf., (2) Line/ Rifle, (1) Workers Militia (aprox. 17 figures per company), w/ headquarters stands comprising an additional 12 figures.(1) 45mm ATG, (1) 76mm inf. gun, (1) 76mm ZIS-3, (1) maxim quad AA pedestal mount, (1) 37mm AA gun, (4) ATR stands, (3) 82mm mortar stands, (1) 120mm mortar stand, (1) T70 light tank, (1) T34/41 med. tank.......offboard (across river); (2) 122mm how., (1) BM-13.

German;

(1) Inf Regiment, aprox. 200 figures, plus (2) Assault Pionere companies, (1) Rumanian Inf. Co.(1) 3,7cm PAK, (1) 5cm PAK, (1) 7,5cm light inf. gun, (1) 15cm hvy. inf. gun, (2) 10,5cm how, (1) 15cm gun, (1) 17cm gun. (2) ESCI pzkw.III, (1) ESCI pzkw.IV, (1) ESCI pzkw.II, (2) ESCI stug.III, (1) Airfix stug.III, (1) RHINO 1/72 resin 15cm auf pz.III SP, (3) ESCI 251/1 spw, (1) ESCI kfz.250/1 (mod.)(1) ESCI kfz.250/3 stabswagen, (1) ESCI kfz.11, (2) ESCI Blitz, (1) Hasegawa pkw & BMW R75. (1) BP Horch, (1) Hasegawa mod.) G4 staff car - 2 axle, w/ tilt down.

© Mark Thomas, Oregon USA