Wargames Units - The German Army At Waidhaus

The Forces deployed at Waidhaus by the Germans represent the concept of a forward Screen or covering force established in order to Identify, Monitor and Delay the enemy such that the main defensive positions could be prepared. As such it would be unusual for that force to become decisively engaged and it would be supported by Air Aviation and Artillery assets to enable it to achieve its mission. The covering force would consist of elements of the Divisional Recconaisance and Divisional and Corps Reserves. in this case:

• Elements of Panzeraufklärungsbataillon 4
• A reinforced battle group from Falschirmjagerbattalion 251
• A Company from Panzerbataillon 123 part of  Panzergrenadierdivision 4's reserve Panzerbrigade 12
• elements of the covering force for Panzergrenadierbrigade 10 in the form of Panzerjagerkompanie 100 and Panzeraufklarungkompanie 100
• Air defence assets from Flugabwehrregiment 4 (Gepard)  and Flugabwehrregiment 200 (Roland)

The Remainder of the Recce Regiment was deployed to cover the Cham gap whilst the Recce Company of 12 Panzer Brigade covered the difficult terrain between Waidhause and Cham.  The off board elements of Panzerbataillon 123 and Panzerbataillon 124 were being held as an armoured reserve to be deployed as the situation developed.

The guilds Mausman provided all the German forces used on the day and built a number of the forces for the event. Falschirmjagerbattalion 251 consisted of two Luftlandepanzerabwehrkompanie each equipped with 3 TOW armed Weisels and 2 20mm Armed Weisels, The Weisel was just starting to enter service at the time of the scenario. The two Falschirmjagerkompanie are provided with Krakas for the use of their Milan teams. This was part of the earlier Kraka only equipped unit but it is not clear if these carried forward into the weasel equipped units

The Weisels are 1/72 models all from S&S and painted by the skilled hand of Mausman, in standard NATO 3 Tone, airbrushed using Tamiya XF-67 NATO Green, XF-69 NATO Black and XF - 68 NATO Brown

The Figures are 20mm from Elhiems Cold War German range and liberation miniatures Bundeswehr. The Krakas are by S&S and run up by Shaun to help John put his force together. As well as the cargo variants shown here S&S also do, TOW, 20mm and Milan armed variants, in fact just about all you need to represent the Falschirmjager units of the Bundeswehr in the 80's and early 90's.

As well as Falschirmjagerbattalion 251, the Germans deployed two of the Panzeraufklarungkompanies available to Panzeraufklärungsbataillon 4. One representing a heavy company reinforced by a Fuchs detachment with GSR and the other a light company with two Leopard platoons of 3 vehicles and 1 Luchs Platoon of 8 Vehicles. The Luchs are from 1/72 Revell kits and the Leopard 1 A3/4s are the Italeri 1/72 kit which has just been re released BTW. The Leopard 1 A2s shown below are Altaya resparays and the Fuchs from Revell. The Green Leopards are painted in a mix of Tamiya XF-69 NATO Green and XF-65 Field Grey

Panzerbrigade 12 provided two Panzer battalions as an armoured reserve to the covering force of Panzergrenadierdivision 4 with Panzerkompanie 1 of leopard 2s from Panzerbatallion 123 being deployed on board. a further 2 Companies from Panzerbatallion 123 and 1 from Panzerbatallion 124 were available as reinforcements during the game. The Leopard 2 A4s are from Dragon.

The final components of the onboard force were elements of Flugabwehrregiment 4 and Rolands from Heersflackbrigade 2's Flugabwehrregiment 200  The Gepards are altaya repaints the Unimog from S&S. The Marder Roland uses the missile unit from an Altaya AMX 30 Roland and the Hull from an Altaya Marder.

Confined to deploying at the rear of the area was Panzerjagerkompanie 100  from  Panzergrenadierbrigade 10  Mausman converted these from the S&S Jagdpanzer Kanone with TOWs missiles provided from the S&S range as well. All vehicle markings were either suppliesd with the kits or possibly Prieser.

There is a wealth of German Orbat information on the web, particularly if your not afraid to wade into German language sources.  Rationalising it all can be fun and inevitably you are left making a number of assumptions. listed below are some of the References  I have used in compiling the German orbats for our last couple of games.

References:

Fire and Fury German Cold War Orbat

Micromark G98M West German 2 Korps

Micromark G170M West German Paratroop Brigade, 1984 - 1990

4 Panzergrenidier Division

12 Panzer Brigade

25 Luftlande Brigade 

4 Panzeraufklarungs Battalion

NATO Order of Battle 1989

Die Bundeswehr 1989, Teil 2.1, Heer, I Korps, II Korps, III Korps

Armies Of NATOS Central Front D Isbey

Other Related Posts:

Scenario - Storming The Waidhaus Gap
AAR - Storming the Waidhaus Gap, part 1 Ground and Deployment
ORBAT - Soviet Air Assault Capability Part 1, Overview and Lift Assets
ORBAT - Soviet Air Assault Capability Part 2, Army Air Assault Battalion
ORBAT - Soviet Task Org, Fronts in the Western TVD
TTP-Forward Detachments and Tactical Air Assault
Wargames Unit - Soviet Late 80's, Independent DShV Battalion
Wargames Unit - Soviet Late 80's, MRB

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Scenario - Storming The Waidhaus Gap

This years game was an Air Land battle extravaganza played out by the usual crew, the guilds Panzerfaust 200, and Mausman were once again the Germans and Myself and Elhiem ran the Soviet horde. The detailed scenario can be downloaded from the link at the end of this post and the AAR will be the central theme of the Autumn magazine.

I started work on this project almost as soon as we had finished last years marathon. It all started with a desire to take my VDV units into the late Cold War period (Post 1985) after that it got a bit out of hand, resulting in the construction of 26 Aircraft of various types, which turned out to be a fairly large commitment.

It continues my fascination with the Soviet forward detachment, but starts to examine it in the context of offensive operations against the NATO covering force and in cooperation with Air Assault assets. The Scenario was set in the context of the military operations that formed the back ground to the Wissenberg Counter Attack, looking at the initial actions taken by 22 Combined Arms Army in crossing the German Czech border at Waidhaus. This present the army commander with a few interesting problems:

• The crossing point is a terrain constraint or bottleneck
• The Terrain opens up exposing the flanks shortly after moving through the constraint
• He needs to maintain the momenttum of the main body in negotiating the crossing point

To which the answer was to secure the gap with a forward detachment and the flanks with Scaterable mines and an Air Assault force. This then is the Soviet context of the scenario and provides a broad scope for the examination of Soviet Doctrine of the period.

The NATO plan in this part of the battelfield is also interesting, Germany pursued a concept of forward defence and so I have deployed a strong covering force along the border, the nature of the terrain allowed a degree of focus on the main crossing points with a mobile reserve left to deal with any other incursion routes identified by a weak recce screen across the more difficult approach routes.

The Divisional Recce unit was concentrated at the two primary points and reinforced by elements of the Divisional reserve 12 Pz Bde and the Korps Reserve, 25 Luftlande Brigade as well as being strongly supported by Air and Aviation assets. This made for an interesting German force structure and is broadly in line with their doctrine.

In terms of the scenario design I wanted to keep all 4 players amused and broadly have the game play out to a conclusion without it bogging down in any particular place. This required the following activities to happen:

• The Soviets had to get on the ground with the air assault force.
• They needed someone to fight before the reserves turned up.
• The reserves needed to be controlled and ultimately taken out if the Soviets were to reach the far end of the board.
• The Germans needed to be able to snatch victory at the back end of the game.

To meet these needs we developed an air superiority rule which allowed us to play a very full ground attack game but with the balance alternating between the two sides in the early part of the game. The Soviets had turns 1 - 3 the NATO team 4-6 and thereafter it was to be randomly determined. This should allow each side to dominate in turn the early phases of the game. Giving each early success and allowing the game to progress to plan.

This also met the need to create effectively two games one at the front of the board and one at the back. As we had an 18 foot by 8 foot table to play with I knew this would be broadly achievable. The Terrain was derived from the Google earth imagery but simplified to contain the main settlement, the main roads major wooded features and three prominent ridge lines.

The broad scope of play was therefore that the German covering force built around:

• 2 Recce Companies
• 1 Tank Company
• 1 FJ Battalion

would fight the ground battle forward against the heavily reinforced 480 MRB:

• 3 MR Coy
• 2 Tk Coy
• 1 Mobile Support Group
• 2 Bns of Guns

and that the covering force of 10 PG Bde together with the Air Defence assets of 4 FLAK Bn:

• 100 PzAufZug
• 100 PzJgrKp
• 41 and 42 AD Bty

would initially take on 901 Air Assault Battalion and its accompanying aircraft after the landing phase the germans would be reinforced by 2 Kp of Leopard 2s and towards the end of the game receive a further Kp and a lot of Artillery and Air to enable them to pull back.

Related Posts:

TTP

TTP-Forward Detachments and Tactical Air Assault

Scenario:

Scenario - Storming The Waidhaus Gap
ORBAT - Soviet Air Assault Capability Part 1, Overview and Lift Assets
ORBAT - Soviet Air Assault Capability Part 2, Army Air Assault Battalion
ORBAT - Soviet Task Org, Fronts in the Western TVD

Wargames Unit:

Wargames Unit - Soviet Late 80's Independent DShV Battalion
Wargames Unit - Soviet Late 80's MRB
Wargames Unit - The German Army at Waidhaus
Wargames Unit - Soviet, Combat Helicopter Regiment, Assault Helicopter Squadron
Wargames Unit - Soviet, Combat Helicopter Regiment, Attack Helicopter Squadron

AAR:

AAR-Storming The Waidhaus Gap, Part 1 Ground and Deployment
AAR-Storming The Waidhaus Gap, Part 2 Soviet Air Land Battle
AAR-Storming The Waidhaus Gap, Part 3 Counter Attack

Downloads:

Storming The Waidhaus Gap, 19 Mb

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Scenario - The Weissenberg Counter Attack

For the last 3 years I have participated in some fairly large games with a group of people I met through the Guild Forum.  As you might have noticed my personal poison is Cold War, this year the intent was a bit of a downscale and 4 of us with a mix of Soviet and German Armies got together in August to play. The German Team were Mausman and Panzerfaust 200 whilst the Soviets were Played  by Elhiem and myself.  The detailed Scenario can be downloaded from the link at the end of the post. 

I started work on the scenario in January, determining that the Scenario was going to develop from an attack into Southern Germany along the Boundary of II Ge Corps and VII US Corps by a Front based on the CSLA and the Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia.  The intent being to keep the top level detail the same and play scenarios against US, Germans and Canadians.  The Canadian Brigade constituted a CENTAG reserve that would support into these Corps areas.  The Central Group of Forces was selected as my Soviets are mostly equipped with T-72s.

I roughed out the the Fronts advance and Laydown based on a look at the likly crossing points of the mountainous Czech border.  I placed the Soviet 22nd Combind Arms Army as the Northern of the two Armies in the first echelon, with its two first echelon divisions straddling the inter corps boundary. 22 CAA would take the less than Optimal Weidhaus gap shown below, more gaming opportunities around that route I suspect.

As this first game was a Soviet German combination I deployed II Ge Corps with 4 PzGren Div in the North and 1 GbJgr Div South (where the mountains were).  The laydown of 4 PzGren Div, placed 10 PzGren Bde North, 56 HS Brigade Centre and 11 PzGren Bde South with 12 Pz Brigade in reserve.  I have yet to consider the US VII Corps laydown.  The detail of this can be found in the Google Earth .kmz file included as a download at the end of the post.

At this point I was not sure what sort of a game we wanted to play although the previous years  game was originally intended to be a Soviet defence and I was in the middle of finishing a Divisional AT Battalion that I was quite keen to see fight.  I roughed out the Manoeuvre of 18 Guards MRD through 10 PzGren Bdes area and started looking for potential spots where action would occur, based around the concepts of a German covering force pulling back onto a main defensive area and an intent to base games around the Soviet use of forward detachments to enable tactical manoeuvre which allows for some interesting approaches to task organisation on the Soviet side, and is covered well in David Glanz's The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver: Spearhead of the Offensive

The battlefield size we had in mind was 16" by 8" which I was mapped to an area 4km by 2km, selected from Google Earth but based on the larger scheme of manoeuvre outlined below. In order to meet the need for a defensive game, I exploited the breakout of 18 Guards MRD from the bridgehead it established over the Rhien-Main-Danube canal as it bypassed 10 Pz Gren Bdes main defended area around Neaumarket. and then exploited into the depth of 4 PzGren Div.  At this point the Germans counter attacked with 12 Pz Brigade and the scenario developed around an attempt by 18 Guards MRD to block this action in the area of Wissenberg.

In order to give players some control over where the game would be fought 12 Pz Bde was given a choice of two routes and on each route 18 MRD had two blocking options.  For our game the Germans chose the Western Route and the Soviets chose to fight on the Northern of the two options provided.  Alternatively the two positions can be played as a mini campaign with the an initial Soviet force on the Southern table withdrawing to the Northern Table in truth you could easily create a 4 game mini campaign which could include subsequent actions depending on outcome.

• Game 1 Delay battle Treuchtlingen
• Game 2 Block at Wiessenberg
• Game 3 (German Victory in Game 2) German Counter Stroke into Flank of  210 Tank Regiment
• Game 4 (Germans blocked) Counter Attack by 91 Independent Tank Battalion

In the later Games, it would seem logical to introduce the lead elements of the 2nd Echelon, Divisions.  effectively the thinking through of the high level manoeuvre provides the context for force composition which would otherwise be provided by history.

The broadscope of the play was that the mixed (121) and Pz Grenadier (122) Battalions of 12 PzBrigade reinforced by an airmobile Jager Battalion from division and elements of divisional recce and artillery had to secure the route to and start line for the Two Panzer battalions to strike into the flank of 18 Gds MRD.  The Soviets on the other hand were aiming to delay this from happening for three hours and had:

• A Motor Rifle Battalion (BMP), 
• 3 Air Assault Companies,
• An Anti Tank Battalion 
• A Mobile Obstacle Detachment
• A Recce Company 
• A company of Tanks 
• 3 Artillery Battalions 

with which to do this along with a T-72 Bn held in reserve, the deployment of which altered the victory conditions. As the concept was hasty defence the Soviets were only provided with limited field defences and obstacles. Though they had the ability to deploy more in game using Engineer and Artillery assets. 

This is the first of a series of Scenarios that I intend to develop around this broad theme others may include the covering force action, the Neumarket defence, the river crossing and the meeting engagement that developed following this action.  Each will be preceded by a look at some of the relevant Tactical Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) along with a look at the Scenario and followed by an AAR.

References:

TTP - Soviet Forward Detachments as a Covering Force
ORBAT - Soviet Task Org, Fronts in the Western TVD
ORBAT - Soviet Air Assault Capability, Part 1 Overview and Lift
ORBAT- 1980's MRR and TRR, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
ORBAT - Soviet Divisional Units, Part 1MRD Anti Tank Battalion

Downloads:

The Wissenberg Counter Attack, This is a big file 30mb (too many pictures)
Wissenberg Google Earth KMZ file
Soviet Military Maps

ORBAT - Soviet Task Org, Fronts in the Western TVD

In considering the development of War Games scenarios for the cold war a few context elements are requiered in order to be able to consistently develop them in a logical way that allows the war gamer to create realistic task organisations at the level of play. My principal area of interest is NATO Brigade or Soviet Regiment and below. The easy way to do this are to use the unit peacetime Orbats, in both NATO and the Warsaw Pact there was specific mission orientated force tailoring that went on and for the Soviets in particular this could be significant when looking at the Regiment or Battalion in the context of the Divisional, Army and Front level operations.

In adding the extra bits it's difficult to justify the composition without some level of definition of the high level plan, through developing a high level plan for both sides you can quickly start to develop a number of scenarios in a linked campaign in which the force structures for each side, for each engagement are logical within the wider operational and force context. I find that it also stimulates the thinking around different types of organisation and games specifically when there are no historical events around which to base the scenario development.

This post will aim to set out the structure of the Fronts in the Western TVD that I will then use to drive the overarching campaign context for a series of linked scenarios set in different parts of NATOs Central Front.

Victor Suverov in his book inside the Soviet Army, proposed in part 3 Combat Organisation, that the peacetime deployment of forces in the Western TVD did not represent the structure of the force that would appear and this basic tennent is reinforced in a number of other sources. Suverov went onto suggest that:

• A Soviet front has a clear structure essentially two combined arms armies, a tank army and an air army, along with a variety of supporting units and sub units.
• Units of the Warsaw Pact would be incorporated in detail into the structure of the Soviet commands below army level. The numbers suggest that this would be at Army level and below ie: some Armies would only contain Warsaw Pact Allied units particularly with CGF and the CSLA and NGF and the PPA.  
• His analysis of the forces available within GSFG, CGF, NGF and the Russian MDs of the Western TVD including those of the Warsawpacts CSLA, NVA, and PPA suggested that they contained sufficient force to create 4 Fronts and a Group of Tank Armies.  Where 3 Fronts would sit in the first echelon and 1 in the second.
• He asserted that in order to acheive this some redeployment of Divisions Units and HQs would be requiered.

This has always made a degree of sence, particularly given the level of effort the Soviets always went through to decieve there enemies, It was logical that the Army and Front structures observed in East Germany were unlikely to be what we would fight.  Some High level analysis of the units available demonstrates that his concepts were indeed feasible with minimal additions from the MDs of the Soviet Union within the Western TVD.

For my Scenarios I intend to represent a Front containing 2 CAA, 1 TA and an Air Army, with a subordinate Army structure for:

 CAA's as:

• 4 MRD
• 1 TD 

TA's as 4TD.

This is more structured than what was seen on the ground in GSFG and CGF and represented by the TO&Es presented by the US FM 100 series of manuals. Ultimately it makes Scenario design a lot easier and seems to fit the Soviet way of doing buisness passing units between the echelons within an organisation and supporting forward from the higher formation assets determined by the mission need and the definition of the principal axis of advance.

For my Scenarios in Southern Germany I have organised the Central Group of Forces into a single unified front of two combined armies and a tank army as follows:

22 CAA (Soviet)

• 30 Gds MRD
• 18 Gds MRD
• 48 MRD
• 15 CSLA MRD
• 31 TD

4 CSLA CAA

• 2 CSLA MRD
• 19 CSLA MRD
• 20 CSLA MRD
• 3 CSLA MRD
• 1 CSLA TD 

1 CSLA TA

• 15 TD (Soviet)
• 4 CSLA TD
• 9 CSLA TD
• 13 CSLA TD (T-55)

In respect of the supporting troops my general assumption is that these are deployed as represented in FM 100-2-3.

Given The way Soviet Artillery, Engineering, Anti-tank capability and reserves of Armour, Aviation and Air Assault units were allocated from front to Army to Division and the manor in which Forward detachments were task organised and deployed I find that some understanding of where the Front was going and what it was unto helps to structure my thinking for Scenarios and put some context on the very wide scope for task organisation which existed within elements of the force on the main effort between the echelons or when representing exploitation forces such as Operational Manoeuvre groups.

GSFG can be similarly structured into Two Fronts around five balanced Soviet Armies reorganised in line with Suverov's assertion and an Army formed from the NVA each consisting of two CAA and 1 TA.  With the broad outline of the supporting elements again reflecting Fm 100-2

I have not examined the NGF nor the Western Military Districts in detail yet as the scenarios I am currently interested in creating would involve NATO forces from Canada, Germany and Britain and the bulk of that action sits either on the North German Plain, or on the Southern flank of CENTAG on the boundary between II Ge Corps Area and XX US Corps.

The interesting part of this exercises is that whilst the numbers quoted in Suverovs book don't add up, when that evidence itself is examined the theory seems highly plausible. Which just leaves the T-64, T-72, T-80 debate to resolve.

References:

ORBAT - Soviet Air Assault Capability, Part 1 Overview and Lift
ORBAT- 1980's MRR and TRR, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Warsaw Pact Orbat 1988
FM 100-2 Specialised Warfare and Rear Area Support, Chapter 3 Heliborn Operations
FM 100-3, Soviet Troop Organisation and Equipment
Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army, Isbey, 1988
The Third World War, August 1985: A Future History
The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver: Spearhead of the Offensive
Inside the Soviet Army

Web Resources - Fire and Fury, Cold War Orbats & Modern Resources

Fire and Furry is a games website covering 2 Rules Systems, Fire and Furry and Battlefront World War 2.  What makes the site a phenominal resource is the ammount of suplimental material produced for the Battlefront set in the Modern Period this includes:

• A Modern Forum and Discussion Group
• A free Modern Suppliment for the Battlefront Rule Set
• An extensive set of Modern Equipment Cards
• An Extensive set of Modern Orbats
• Modern Scenarios

The Orbats are what first attracted my eye they have a very consistent structure and style and are visually appealing which makes them easy to use.  The Orbats are relativly easy to work back to the real world organisations or translate to other approaches to unit representations. Clearly there are generalisations applied for the rule set in question but this can be refined by following up with your own research or through purchasing lists from other sources such as MicroMark @ Wargames Vault.

For the Cold War gammer they cover all the main central front players extensively with some excellent research sitting behind the products.  In addition a significant number of the surrogate wars are covered including the Ogeden, The South African Bush War, Granada, the Falklands and the Arab Israeli Wars. I have used these on Numerous occasions but keep forgetting they are there.  It is the very best of start points for working out Orbats for the Cold War Period and the lists are revised and updated as new information comes to light. Just what the internet was made for really, sharing :)

Cold War Orbats covered include:

Warsaw Pact - Soviet, East German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romanian
NATO - British, US, West German, Canadian, Belgian, Netherlands, Danish, Norwegian, Greek, Turkish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French