I Ain't Been Shot, Mum

In the midst of all my Warboard work, the IABSM system from TooFatLardies has been catching my eye. After several interesting battle reports from others, I finally decided to go ahead an acquire it.

Sunday evening, I tried my first game with it, a solo affair with my Italian platoon against one of my British platoons. I only managed 5 moves before I closed down for the night, due to a late start, but I have to say I'm already liking it. It won't replace Warboard for me, most likely...but it's an additional option. The card driven system actually makes it easier for me to solo it, because some of the decision of which unit to move when is taken out of my hands, making it a little harder to favor one side over the other. When game was ended, the British had suffered some significant thrashing of one of their sections on the west side of the board, while on the east side they were engaged in a slow war of attrition via firefight between a British section with light mortar support in a hedged field and an Italian section in the woods.

Warboard: Americans

Well, I've been lax on posting for a bit, but the American Infantry I ordered did arrive, and were promptly sent into organizing mode.

1 platoon of armored infantry in half-tracks. Check.
1 recon platoon from an armored infantry battalion TO&E (minus 1 half-track). Check.
1 Infantry company....not so check. You'd think 4 boxes of figures would be plenty, but I'm actually short on some needed poses. So...the infantry company is on hold till I can get some more boxes.

Warboard: Italians

Well, I now have an armored car platoon and an oddly armed motorized rifle platoon of Italians ready. Oddly armed in this case means that the slightly incomplete box I bought had no machine guns, so they're armed purely with a mixture of rifles and SMGs, except for the officer's pistol. Oddly enough, there are exactly the right number of men for an Italian rifle platoon, however.

Warboard: German Progress

Well, last night I made some progress on the Germans, after doing some more online research. I now have a satisfactory Panzer Company, short 1 tank. So a complete unit of 16 PzIVs is ready to seriously threaten the Allied forces.

To accompany the tanks, I've sorted out a complete Panzer Grenadier Platoon with their half-tracks.

I've got elements as yet undetermined for an assault gun platoon, an armored car platoon, and possibly a heavy tank platoon.

I'm thinking that the panzer company and panzer grenadier platoon, as well as possibly some support units, will be designated as being from a panzer brigade. Other infantry and support units will be from separate units.

Warboard: The Next Project

With my Brits basically settled, except for the leftovers and some need for gun crews, the next project on my Warboard to do list is to organize my Germans into satisfactory platoons, and hopefully a fully company. I'm debating making them a Panzer Grenadier company, and then dropping any leftovers into the infantry or other arms. The odd part about these is that they're a mixed bag of different sets, which I'm planning to combine together. This will make my platoons less uniform, but as I'm doing the latter half of the war anyway, it's not that out of the ordinary for the Germans to have a mixed bag of equipment and uniforms within that time period. We'll see what I end up with. I'm once again using Bayonet Strength as my primary source for their organization, though I will likely continue doing searches here and there for additional info.

I've actually got an abundance of Germans, with German Paratroopers and German Engineers also on the menu. I had intended to have enough Americans to counter-balance the Germans with the addition of my Brits, but made a mistake in my buying and bought two boxes of Modern US Infantry instead of two boxes of WW2 US Infantry. I do have one box worth of US Paratroopers, and some British Commandos to work with.

If anyone needs Revell Modern US Infantry, I've got two sealed boxes I can sell or trade. :>

Warboard: WW2 British Infantry Completed. Maybe.

As of yesterday, I've got my complete British Infantry company read to my satisfaction, with three full platoons and a headquarters. I've also built half a carrier platoon, and plan to add in a 2-gun anti-tank section.

I'm still debating whether to give them the standard 6pdr guns, or go ahead and upgrade them to 17pdr. Historically, the infantry tended to get the left-over 6pdrs as the 17pdrs went first priority to the artillery units. But since they're an attached unit, it's entirely possible they could be an artillery unit attached to that sector. I have an imbalance of tanks in the Germans' favor, so I'm pondering going with that as an equalizer.

This still leaves me with an odd collection of leftovers, and I'm seriously pondering doing some converting of the PIAT teams into infantry with rifles and Stens as I saw someone else doing this by simply cutting the PIAT related items carefully.

I'm open to suggestions though for using them:

10 PIAT teams (1 man marching with PIAT on his shoulder, and a sten. 1 man marching with rifle on his shoulder, and an ammo case in his other hand)

6 2" mortar teams

7 prone Bren gunners

7 running Bren gunners

2 Officers with Stens

Almost there!

Received the two boxes of Brits in the mail today, and spent a piece of the evening sorting out the remaining two platoons. I ended up re-organizing the first platoon a bit as well, to get the figures sorted to my satisfaction, but now I have three identical platoons consisting of:

HQ
===========
1 officer w/Sten (Subaltern, Platoon Commander)
1 kneeling Sten (Sergeant)
1 2" mortar team
2 riflemen (runners)

1st Squad
===========
1 kneeling Sten (Corporal, Squad Leader)

Bren Section
-------------
1 throwing grenade, carrying rifle (Lance Corporal)
1 Bren
1 rifleman

Rifle Section
----------------
6 riflemen

2nd Squad
============
1 kneeling Sten (Corporal, Squad Leader)

Bren Section
-------------
1 throwing grenade, carrying rifle (Lance Corporal)
1 Bren
1 rifleman

Rifle Section
----------------
6 riflemen

3rd Squad
===============
1 kneeling Sten (Corporal, Squad Leader)

Bren Section
-------------
1 throwing grenade, carrying rifle (Lance Corporal)
1 Bren
1 rifleman

Rifle Section
----------------
4 riflemen
1 PIAT team

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On the down side, I had to strip my carrier platoon to fill out the third platoon, and I still have to fill out a proper Company HQ. But I'm less concerned about the carrier platoon than having a full infantry company, so it's all good.