Building the British Airborne - Part 1

Chapter 1 - July 2016

"I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid we will need to occupy your house" - Col John Frost - A Bridge too Far

"This is....Everything, 2 .30 cal machine guns, 11 Hawkins Mines, 17 grenades, two bazookas but we only got 8 rounds left, and assorted small arms.  We had a 60mm mortar, but an arty round took it out.  Might as well be spit wads if we run into some tanks." - Saving Private Ryan

I've always been fascinated by the British Airborne's campaign during Operation Market Garden.  The ambition of it, the audacity, the courageousness it took to hang on that long.  All the books I've read, documentaries I've watched, have made it a life's goal to visit the sites in Holland and see it some day.  And I know it is a relatively competitive force in Flames of War. So I went about collecting it all. But I didn't want to start assembling it or painting it before I was ready to do it justice.

So to paraphrase the quote above....here is everything....

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Market Garden Final Game

Our club up here "Ordo-ineptus" - Rolling low, rolling proud! , just wrapped up a Firestorm Market Garden Campaign.  The Campaign itself, while fun, was such a lopsided drubbing in favor of the Germans that I resigned formally as commander in cheif of allied forces forever.

We elected to end with a total war game.

The mission was a double sided breakthrough.

We wound up making a few tweaks to it in terms of size and layout.  We placed one objective on each end of the bridge.  In order for a team to win, they would need to break through the defenders and reach the other side of the bridge.

Defending companies could attack each other, or contest the objectives, but never control an objective.

Both Defending companies had 1500 pts, and deloyed on the board in a 2 ft bubble.

There would be 3 attacking companies, each with 1500 points, but they would be operating with half their platoons in reserve.  The idea being that what starts out as a tough fight for the defender, eventually becomes a massacre.

Some shots of the board.

(Club members from left to right, Wes (red shirt) Shane Lindey, and Kevin Dietz - German Commander)

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Battle Report - 11th Armored Division Vs. German Grenadiers (Market Garden Campaign Game)

Up here in Danbury Connecticut, where my local club is located, we are in the midst of a Firestorm Market Garden Campaign.  So Far, the Germans are kicking butt and taking names...and as the overall Allied Commander, I'm doing my best to reverse our flagging fortunes.

Through 2 Campaign Turns, our situation is becoming desperate.  Eindhoven isn't taken yet, and this map below shows the battles marking the end of the 2nd Full Campaign Turn.

My Friend Shane was good enough to come over to my place and give me a game. We rolled off for attacker and defender, and he won, electing to attack the Fabled Groesbeek heights.  Not having any american airborne, there was some proxying going on.  I am also, embarrassingly low on Jagdpanthers so when you see a stuG...that's what those are.

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Team Throck Does Market Garden, Turn One.

By Throck "T-Rock" Morton

Me and the local Northern Virginia boys who I call "Team Throck," primarily because I'm an egotist bent on world domination, decided to pick up the Flames of War late war campaign set Firestorm Market Garden and get our Bridge too Far on.

You'll notice some unpainted armies as we go along. We've used the campaign as a way to get more of our friends, who have some models and are interested in Flames, deeper into the game and they've committed to painting as we go along. At the very least, most of what you'll see is primed or base coated.

We split up into teams of three where (SHOCKER) I actually get to play allies for once, and set about figuring out how this whole thing works.

On of the great things about the Market Garden campaign is that doubles as a board game. So, to get a feel for it we actually played it that way a couple of times to get our feet wet. While this isn't a review of the board game version, I have to tell you, if you think you want to play the full campaign, sit down with the slimmer board game version first (it takes about an hour or two to play) it will certainly help you understand the campaign planning phases of the operation.

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