Bulging in a different direction!! Home brew theatre selectors for Bolt Action

Intro

It's been a fairly productive few weeks since my last post. Since our first foray into the Ardennes with the Bolt Action Battle of the Bulge supplement I've gotten into Test of Honour including painting up my force and getting in a few games as well. We've revisited Bolt Action Campaign Fortress Budapest, in particular Pest for yet another street battle (of which more anon) and I have taken the plunge and started putting together and painting my Soviets which I will cover in another post. In this post I intend to focus on a pet project; to whit my home brew Battle of the Bulge theatre selector.

The Inspiration

As ever when I get into a froth over a game or period I like to immerse myself in the background, not quite up to my neck in books and websites but certainly I go beyond dipping my toe, shall we say to the literal extent of rolling up my trouser bottoms and wading in up to the centre of my shins.

For the Bulge, I have listened to Anthony Beevor's Ardennes 1944 on Audible a couple of times (I can heartily recommend that book, it's a corker) and read Charles Whiting's West Wall for some back ground flavour and purchased and read the Battleground Europe guide book to the battle of St Vith, published by Pen &Sword, which describes the actions of the US 106th Division during the Battle of the Bulge

     And it was during the reading of the St Vith book that I cam across mention of the US 14th Cavalry Group who were tasked with holding the Loshiem Gap a very important stretch of the Ardennes front just to the north of the 106th Divisions stretch of the Ardennes front. Mention of the 14th CG kept cropping up in the book and it piqued my interest.

Putting It Onto The Tabletop    

The Battle of the Bulge campaign supplement is one of Warlord's first focused campaign books in that it looks at one particular campaign unlike their earlier campaign books which covered theatres of operations such as the Eastern Front. And the author, Mark Barber, has done a great job of it; plenty of flavoursome units and rules to reflect the campaign and 12 scenarios to boot. 

However in comparison with the Campaign Market Garden supplement which followed it further down the line, the Bulge book feels a little bit lacking. In Campaign Market Garden, Chris Brown, the author has given us linked battles with specific, historically based (as opposed to themed) forces; for instance one scenario calls for three platoons of the Border Regiment (and you best believe I am working my way towards that size force though admittedly slowly, very slowly) and in an other a troops of Shermans with a Sherman Firefly as well as their attached infantry in transports (see my Road To The Reich batrep). All of which I love and it was this kind of attention to detail that has enthused me and  prompted me to put together my own historically based Theatre Selector force for the Battle of the Bulge.

The Homebrew Theatre Selector

Employing my Google-fu I found out that the US Army's Fort Benning had a website and that in there there was an article on the actions of 14th Cavalry Groups actions during the Bulge. This little treasure trove gave me, amongst other things, an break down of the unit which was a good start for my own theatre selector

• Three cavalry troops, lettered A to C, each equipped with 13 M-8 armored cars or jeeps and an assault gun;
• Troop E, equipped with six M-8 howitzer motor carriages;
• Company F, equipped with a light tank and 17 M-5 Stuart tanks;
• A service company; and
• A headquarters and headquarters company.

      Now I must admit I haven't found out what the author means by "assault gun" or "light tank" (think that might possibly be an M24 Hellcat) but that doesn't worry me as there's enough in there to to get on with. In the account it describes the troops manning dismounted MMGs and HMGs as well as being armed with light mortars as they were not acting in their cavalry role but rather were dug in in defensive positions. So taking that as my start point I dug out what vehicles I had from the above list and using the Tank Platoon selector from the Tank Wars supplement this is what I have contrived 

My 14th CG defence force

Awaiting the glue and paints

So, working from left to right and back to front I have an M5 Stuart, an M8 Scott, an M8 Greyhound Armoured Car, a Dodge 3/4 tonne truck, two Jeeps and a Deuce and a half truck. To this will be added another M5 Stuart and another M8 Greyhound which I have still to build and paint. As the more observant of you will have noticed, some of these vehicles are a bit underdone looking, shall we say. The Dodge is still a WIP and the Jeeps are being repurposed; the one with no crew was originally for my British/Commonwealth force but I think it will serve better here so the crew have been removed pending stripping and repainting after the addition of US helmeted heads.

     Troop wise I have kept the squads sizes to a minimum to reflect that fact that this isn't an infantry unit so it doesn't have a huge amount of boots on the ground, so to speak, so each squad is five men strong including the NCO. To add to that, I have given the squads only SMGs and rifles, no BARs, again to reflect the fact that BARs are an infantry weapon and, this force being Cavalry just wouldn't be issued with them; that's my interpretation anyway. 

      As befits a US force though there are plenty of MMGs, well two in the ground role and one HMG in the ground role besides the ones carried on the vehicles.  I am toying with the idea that for each MMG or HMG in the ground role I can't add an extra MMG or HMG to my armoured vehicles. 

     Continuing with the dismounted troopers there's also a light mortar and a Bazooka as well as a platoon commander.

    The Dodge does have an MMG but the jeeps have the option, depending on their role, of having MMG/HMG fitted. Drawing on the Fortress Budapest campaign supplement were vehicle that are part of a recce unit can have the Recce rule for 10 points each I might do something similar with the Jeeps and Stuart tanks.

     Lastly, something that has just occurred to me; the Cavalry wouldn't have sniper teams in their ranks but could have a nominated marksman, possibly someone who was a keen hunter before being enlisted, who has the same profile as a sniper but, not having a scoped rifle, his range would only be 30" and he only hits on a 4+ rather than a 3+. I like that idea, I'll need to look into that. 

      So that's the 14th Cavalry Group troop. Next up I need to finish off the vehicles and put together a mini campaign for these guys to take part in. Fortunately that should be fairly easy as I plan to take various scenarios from the three campaign books mentioned above and adapt them to suit my needs.

And that's it for the moment. More soon, including another enthralling batrep from the Fortress Budapest campaign.

pip pip,

General J