Serafimovich- A New Chain of Command Campaign

A week ago, I got together with Dan at the Abyss for the start of a new Eastern Europe campaign. Dan has been a gamer for years, but I only started to game with him a few months ago. After a game of CoC, he put together what I believe is his first 20mm WWII platoon...and he picked a somewhat unusual force from the Armata Italiana in Russia. He decided to have both a standard infantry platoon as well as a motorcycle platoon. He has subsequently added lots of supports and is now adding a German supporting force. After a bit of searching around with the help of my friend Eero in Finland we found a suitable campaign: Battle of the Sunflowers, Serafimovich 1942.  The battle is part of Fall Blau, the German summer offensive in Russia in 1942 and focuses specifically on the attempt to take the Serafimovich bridgehead by the Italian Celeri division with their supporting German regiments. This campaign was put out by the Dunfermline Wargames Club, I have played 2 of their pacific campaigns and they do a very nice job.

Battle of the Sunflowers July 30, 1942

Italian Attackers- 3rd Bersaglieri (FM 8)

Bersaglieri Motociclisti Platone #1 (Superior Regulars FR -1)

1 Senior Leader

4 Squadras of 8 men, lead by a JL with 3 MC and 2 teams (3 man Breda LMG, 4 man Rifle)

Supports 7

Brixia 45mm Mortar Team

Car

Cannone da 47/32 Team with JL

Soviet Defenders-154th Rifle Division (FM 10)

Platoon #1 (Regulars FR 0)

1 Senior Leader

4 sections of 11 men, lead by a JL  (no teams, LMG with 3 crew and 7 rifles)

Supports 3

M1937 45mm ATG

The Game

The game was scenario 2 from the main rulebook, The Probe with victory conditions as written.

Patrol Phase

Russian JOPs

Italian JOPs if you look carefully

This was my second game of the day so maybe a little tired so only one photo taken during the game. Dan came on pretty quickly mostly on his left flank with a car towed IG on his right flank with a Mortar team. I set up in defence my ATG with a section in the top right of above photo in the forest. You cannot see another Soviet section but they were deployed in the my centre on the far right of the photo behind a stone fence looking to the northwest. I initially put the section in the centre of the photo on the other side of the fence but had to jump over as Dan was moving an Italian squad to the south along the wall. I placed my final squad in the farm compound but they were only in soft cover as this fence was wooden. I actually took a lot of attrition and I remember Dan having quite a few double phases. But eventually hard cover favoured the day and I was able to drop the Italian FM down to a point where they withdrew. This was Dan's first campaign game and maybe only his 3-4th CoC game, he was quite a challenging opponent so the campaign should be quite interesting.

Dan however added a few phots which illustrate some of the positions.

The Butcher's Bill

Italian Platoon #1 (FM4-2 dead, 1 missing next game)

4 figures lost

CO -1

MO -2

Outlook Happy

Soviet Platoon #1  (FM6-1 dead, 2 missing next game)

3 figures lost

CO +1

MO +1

Outlook Relaxed

Well that is the last report I will have to post after this round of games. I will not be in Montreal for at least a couple of weeks but we will have a lot of games planned.