Ultramodern Wargaming – Ukraine 2024
Recommendations: 13001
About the Project
Lately, I've been running war games every weekend with members of the community via web conference. Players log on and play wargames with each other in real time, regardless of location, and we usually have at least a couple spectators as well. Many times it’s been Darkstar, but we’re also running wargames in Panzer Leader, Arab-Israeli Wars, and now Valor & Victory.
BoW/OTT community members @brucelea, @damon, @davehawes, and @rasmus have taken the plunge, leading battalions across thousands of meters of desert, starfleets in pitched battles across the heavens, or vicious firefights in the jungles of Vietnam, all without leaving the comfort of their home.
Hard-core, old-school command-tactical wargames can now be run (complete with spectators and recordings) in real time, with BOTH PLAYERS moving pieces across THE SAME virtual game board, thus maintaining player agency, speedy and instant results (no play by e-mail), interwoven turn sequences, any questions / feedback instantly received and addressed, and with the game being virtually recorded as it goes, a ready-made battle report can actually be created as we go.
All of this without the players having to install any new software on their computer, on any platform (PC or Mac). All that's needed is to agree on a time, a handful of dice, and a bellyful of courage!
Every weekend can now be a boot camp! All without costing me thousands of dollars in airfare, too!
Related Game: PanzerBlitz
Related Genre: Historical
This Project is Active
Sitrep Podcast live Today at 5:15 UK Time
Happy Weekend, everyone!
The Sitrep Podcast show returns tomorrow (Saturday, May 27), live on YouTube!
Saturday, 10:15 AM East US time, 5:15 PM UK time (GMT+1).
Use the link to check us out live and comment to become part of the show!
Partizan 2022 Table Photos Video
Partizan 2022 Table Photos Video
Damon, long-time friend and supporter of the Sitrep Podcast Channel, recently attended the Partizan MMXXII event hosted by the Newark Irregulars Gaming Club. He was good enough to send over 150 photos of the amazing tables on display there, including a table his own group (Derby Wargaming Society) put on display.
Now I wasn’t at this event, so if I’ve misidentified any of the tables I offer my heartfelt apologies.
Gameplay Video - Oriskany vs. Chris - King Tigers in the Ardennes
Here is the video recording of yesterday’s stream. Great Panzer Leader game with Chris!
Might make for a fun listen while painting or hobbying.
Hope you like it!
Hunting Big Cats in the Ardennes - Tank Clash in the Battle of the Bulge
Join myself and community member Chris as we sit down for a small game of “Late War” Panzer Leader set in the wintery Ardennes Forest. It’s the second week of the Battle of the Bulge, and the stalled heavy armor of the infamous “Kampfgruppe Peiper” is about to be counterattacked by the US 3rd Armored “Spearhead” Division (Combat Command “B”).
Can the American Shermans use numbers, speed, tactics, and their new long 76mm guns to counter the heavier German armor? They’ll have to use every trick in the book, because among the German “big cats” are the rare and dreaded “Tiger II” of the Schwere SS-Panzer Abteilung 501.
Sunday – 2PM East US Time / 7PM UK
Sitrep Podcast YouTube
The specific part of the Battle of the Bulge we'll be looking at today. A viewer specifically requested King Tigers, so I gravitated toward Kampfgruppe Peiper (where most of these machines were deployed for this battle) and to set up a heads-up tank match, settled on where KG Peiper was counterattacked by elements of CCB, 3rd Armored Division.
Here we see the three task forces of CCB (Combat Command B) / 3rd US Armored involved in the counterattacks against KG Peiper's stalled positions at Stoumont and especially La Greize.
Composition tables for 3rd US Armored and constituent formations. Of course we'll only be using a small part of these.
The infamous KG Peiper. By the time of today's engagement it was well below strength (for lack of fuel as well as enemy action). Also, KG Peiper was spread between two major positions (Stoumont and La Greize) - and we're only doing La Greize, so again ... we won't have nearly this much on the table.
The map, based on 150m hexes. TF McGeorge enters from blue hexes to the northweast. TF Lovelady enters from the red hexes to the southeast,
German forces engaged. It's a rare thing when you can use Tiger IIs with "historical honestly."
American forces. I'm not 100% sure if the upgraded Shermans were M4/76s or full-blow "Easy Eights." Easy Eights were JUST entering service, and as one of only two US "heavy armored" divisions, the 3rd would have been the first to get them. In any event, the M4/76 and the Easy Eight have identical game values, so no worries there. 
German set up. Ready for today's game!Commemorative Air Force Visit – WW2 Aircraft at “1:1” Scale!
This past week my Dad took us to see the Commemorative Air Force display at New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Here we got up close and personal with the B-24 Liberator bomber, the B-29 Superfortress bomber, the P-51D Mustang fighter, and the AT-6A Texan trainer.
Bit of a change of pace from our usual content … but man, the folks who restore, maintain, and fly these aircraft really take their “WW2 Hobby” to a new level!
T-80s Built (first actual miniatures in ... over a year?)
Outside of some terrain building, miniature repair and restoration and upgrade, I think these are the first miniatures I’ve built and painted from box to completion in the better part of a year?
The five-tank box of T-80 main battle tanks for Team Yankee in 15mm.
I sort of left the camo and markings vague … not sure if I’d be using these as Cold War Soviets, Chechen Wars Russians, or even modern Ukrainians (yes, the reactive armor would be a little different …)
Hope you like them.
Building the M1A1 Main Battletank (15mm Battlefront)
It’s the main battle tank that’s appeared on CNN more times than Wolf Blitzer and is as American as apple pie … except for the British armor, German gun, and Japanese electronics. 😐
That’s right, everyone, it’s the M1A1 Abrams, backbone of American armored hitting power since the mid 1980s. Upgraded with a powerful new 120mm smoothbore, new electronics, improved running gear, better armor, and modernized secondary systems, this is the machine that dominated the 1991 Gulf War, won the biggest tank battles we’re likely to see in our lifetime, and (or better or worse) became one of the symbols of America’s “Hyperpower Era.”
Here we build the 15mm plastic kit for the M1A1 from Battlefront. We discuss the options you have when building the kit, what pieces would be appropriate for which M1 variant and which ones not to put together, and briefly review some of the tank’s more interesting design features.
EARLY WAR for the win! Video Replay: Anniversary of Battle of Hannut-Merdorp (12-13 May 1940)
Some people call it history’s first “true” tank battle, and if you’re interested in command-tactical level wargaming, this is probably true.
The Battle of Hannut-Merdorp was a more or less accidental clash between the 2nd and 3rd Division Légère Mécanique (Light Mechanized Divisions), formed into the French Cavalry Corps under Henri Prioux … and the 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions of Erich Höpner’s XVI Motorized Corps (Army Group B), fought on 12-13 May 1940.
The battle took place in a rolling band of Belgian countryside between these two towns, where the Germans stook startling, steep, and bloody tank losses against the French and their (in certain specific ways) superior tanks.
It’s one of the very few times German armor was seriously challenged anywhere in World War II before Russia, by large numbers of concentrated enemy armored hitting power in a focused counterattack.
The Germans would eventually prevail, but not until two days of fiery, costly combat … and heavy intervention of German airpower to finally tip the scales.
We go over the battle here, and quickly demo a couple turns of this battle in Panzer Leader.
Might be a fun listen while you are building models, painting, or making hobby terrain.
Hope you like it!
