The Glenpool Strike: Hanger no. 1 (Game #3)

This is a photo of hanger no. 1 at the Tulsa Municipal Airport sometime in the early to mid 1930's. The small building in the foreground is the Spartan School of Aeronautics owned and built by William Skelly. I had started working on the Spartan building but to many other things keep getting in the way, and it kept getting put aside. I probably could have finished it yesterday, but opted instead to work on my partisan army that I have been putting off for a long time now. It will get used, as the KVOO radio station building is very similar.

Hanger no. 1 in the early 1930's

Back on topic, hanger no. 1 was the first hanger at the Tulsa airfield that opened in 1928. The previous airport, located closer to town, was part of the 1927 Ford reliability tour but was barely able to manage all of the planes that took part in the tour that year. The town of Tulsa was told that if they wanted the tour back again in 1928 that they needed a larger airfield. So in 1928 William Skelly with the help of other prominent business men bought the land and built the new airport. It was then bought by the city of Tulsa in 1929. It was the busiest airport in 1930, or so it was claimed. While it did handle more passengers in February and April of that year than any other airport in the world. Including, London, Paris and Berlin, the claim seems a bit dubious. Most of this traffic having to do with the local oil field business, but there were also many wealthy people in Tulsa at this time and it seems that Tulsa was a happening place. After all, more money was made on the Oklahoma oil boom than the California gold rush and Colorado silver rush combined. As a result, Tulsa was largely unaffected by the Great Depression. While the rest of the state of Oklahoma lived in crushing poverty that caused many farm laborers to migrate to California, the people of Tulsa were living large.

On to the game.

After assaulting the south gate of the Tulsa Municipal airport, the Cherry Street Irregulars (the local IWW chapter) pause momentarily to regroup, redistribute ammunition, and to bring up reinforcements including the Weinerwerfer.

Meanwhile, members of the first squad, Company M of the Black Legion arrive at the hanger after hearing the sounds of gunfire at the south gate. They bring with them a light howitzer, several volunteers and the two members of the Tulsa police department who are at the airport at the behest of the Mayor of Tulsa, to investigate the Black Legion presence. Upon arriving at Hanger no.1 the police officers spot Walt Little* leading the communist rabble. Having lost said felon on a previous occasion they are eager to apprehend him and regain their lost rank.

* A wanted felon and the former owner of “A Little Used Book Store” on Cherry Street in downtown Tulsa Oklahoma. Mr. Little’s store was found to have a copy of the communist manifesto for sale, a felony under Oklahoma state law. After his arrest an angry mob of pro-MacArthur supporters smashed the stores windows, looted the cash register and coke machine, then set the store ablaze. After spending three days in jail the prisoner was to be transferred to a state correctional facility. Officers Buckner and Visage were escorting the felon to the train station, where they were to be met by state police officers to complete the transfer. On the way they made an unauthorized stop at a local speakeasy just a block away from the police station. Their intention was to speak with police Chief Gunderson as to whether the prisoner should be transferred as planned, or shot for attempting to escape. Upon exiting the squad car they noticed a woman driving a car pull up and park in the space behind them, she then exited her vehicle and brandished a shotgun. After first attempting to reason with the woman, later identified as Mrs. Little, they were fired at several times, whereupon they ran into the speakeasy for cover. Mr. and Mrs. Little managed to escape before the other twelve Tulsa police officers stumbled out of the door to arrest Mrs. Little.

My humble attempt at creating hanger no. 1

The IWW forces lead the assault by firing the dreaded Weinerwerfer to put the fascist pigs in disarray. While the original target survives unscathed, the same cannot be said of a second squad nearby.

A stray rocket flies through the widow of the hanger and lands among the members of the first squad. The explosion kills two of the members of the squad and lightly wounds a third.

Though out of range, the Lewis gun lays down a barrage of fire as the other communist forces move forward firing at various targets.

The Black Legion forces respond with a Legion NCO accompanied by two of Tulsa’s finest, and two local MAC volunteers moving forward and firing at the oncoming communist forces. The first squad, quickly recovering from the shock and awe of the mighty Wienerwerfer exit the hanger and take cover behind a truck along with the spotter for the light howitzer. The second squad moves further back into the hanger hoping to out flank the commies and catch them unaware.

Two heroes of the communists uprising respond by gunning down the officers Buckner and Visage. There will be no redemption today.  

Shortly thereafter the shriek of rockets firing is heard again, and the spotter for the howitzer crew, standing behind the truck in this photo, is incinerated by a homemade HE rocket.  

 

Back on the other side of the Hanger, the second squad of communist move out from their positions in the trees and enter the hanger through the side door. They are met by fierce small arms fire as they and the second squad of the Black Legion fascist oppressor monkeys battle in close combat and hand-to-hand. In the end, no man (or oppressor monkey) lives to tell the tale.

Back at the other end of the hanger, the MAC militia decides to take cover despite the urgings of commander to assault the commies. The IWW squad, also having taken a few casualties decides to take cover as well.

Again, the shriek of rockets firing fills the air. Again, for the third time today, the Weinerwerfer finds it’s mark and the rest of the first squad of Black Legion soldiers is obliterated (mmmmm BBQ pork). Shortly after this, the communist LMG team moves forward and guns down Commander Vogel.

Unable to inspire his comrades to assault the remaining MAC volunteers, comrade commander Little decides to show them “how it’s done”. The command group launches an assault and weathers the return fire without harm. The two MAC volunteers are sent to meet their maker.

Having lost their spotter, the howitzer team is forced to move their gun in order to fire at the communist forces. After the two MAC volunteers are brutally cut down, the howitzer team fires at the IWW command team. Their shot goes long and an fuel storage tank behind the command group goes up in flames in a huge explosion (oops!).

Whether through adrenaline soaked courage or primal desperation, comrade commander Little, his wife, and his runner charge the howitzer. No longer will the football players of the world mock the manhood of those who major in the Library Sciences! The men manning the howitzer manage to reload the howitzer before commander Little and his team can reach them. [So at this point, all I need is a two or higher to hit the command team. Anything but a one! Well you can see the result in the picture. Of course it turns out that I forgot about the point blank bonus, it turned out the same at any rate.] The howitzer fires and the second oil tank goes up in flames.

The assault doesn’t go so well for either side and after a desperate fight, only Mr. Little and a Black Legion NCO remain up. Comrade Commander Little shows the men manning the Lewis machinegun why he is the comrade commander.

After tending to his wife’s wounds he quickly organizes the remaining men and women of the Cherry Street Irregulars. Among the comrades is a man who was working on his pilots license before the stock market crash in 1929. Though rusty, his skills are adequate enough to get one of the planes parked in the hanger off the ground before the dirty rotten fascists can get more forces to Hanger no. 1. Satisfied with the day’s gains comrade Little orders his forces to take everything they can. The communist convoy back home includes two new trucks, a pick-up truck and a police care. In addition they score hundreds of gallons of fuel, a howitzer, small arms and ammunition.  

 The prize for the this particular game was first pick of the three airplanes that I bought, and am working on for this game. So we will see which plane the communist menace chooses.

Glenpool Strike: Airfield Assault

Last Sunday we played out the second skirmish in the Glenpool Strike. In the last game I got my butt handed to me by my son, and the Black Legion lost an entire squad. Between games we followed the rules for force development from the Red Poppy / White Feather rules for the Cherry Street Irregulars. They managed to get a few improvements here and there, the most important being that a second leader has emerged, meaning that they can now activate as two groups instead of one group and / or individuals. I started with a squad of entirely inexperienced men and managed to roll as poorly as I do when we are playing, so I started with a leader and one model with an additional ability.

We then went ahead and rolled on the mission generator. I rolled a one, and so did my son, he however got to add a point to his total so he got a 2. This meant that he was the attacker and was doing a prepared attack.

It was decided that we would do a support weapon for each squad. I choose a MMG, but not having the model for one (it's on the way) we used a small artillery piece as a proxy. My son has been dying to have a Bazooka, his favorite weapon of all time, and why wouldn't it be. So he was a bit disappointment when I told him that it hadn't yet been invented in 1937. So we settled on something else that I had built a few months back. More on that in a minute.

Here are the Black Legion forces guarding the south entrance of the Tulsa Municipal Airport. The entrance has been sandbagged and a machine gun position has been set up to fire down the road. Around this the squad has set up their tents and a small fire pit for cooking. The squad has also been assigned a two local recruits, one of which the squads has nicknamed "cowboy".

Another shot of the Black Legion squad securing the southern entrance to the airfield. All is quite and has been all morning. The troops are just now rotating out of guard duty two at a time to sample some of cowboy's chilli for lunch.

The Cherry Street Irregulars, fresh off the adrenaline buzz of last nights victory have decided to push their luck and directly assault the airfield. Hoping to quickly destroy the fascist menace. They made a call to a local union held shop that escaped the anti-communist purge, and had a Rube Goldberg contraption ready for field testing, it was sent immediately to their location to aid in the attack. 

 What's this? Two trucks rapidly approach the checkpoint, just cresting a small rise. The Senior Sgt. gives the order to open fire with the MMG as these are clearly insane communists who have come to die at the hands of the dreaded Black Legion.

Wouldn't you know it. They are a half inch out of range. Damn the luck. The rounds hit the ground in front of the truck, kicking up dirt but otherwise having no effect. 

An aerial shot of the mad rush towards the gate by the CSI.

A quick shot from the MMG position looking down the road. And what pray-tell is that puff of smoke in the wheat field on the right.

Why, It...It's the "Wiener Werfer"! An old hotdog handcart turned into a mobile rocket platform.

Another gratuitous shot (or two) of the Wiener Werfer delivering red hots to the fascist pigs.

For the rockets we used the rules from "The World Aflame" and they worked well enough. My son picked the spot he wanted to aim at and then had to estimate the distance. He did surprisingly well, coming up about 5 or 6 inches shy of the target.

The first two shots land in the center of the Black Legion forces. Raining shrapnel down on our two diners, and the MMG crew. The two diners both go down but the MMG crew takes cover behind their sandbagged position and escape harm.

The cowboy momentarily rethinks his decision to join up with the Black Legion, but when he sees his award winning chili done wrong by those commies, he becomes a fanatic. "Those durned commies will pay"! he shouts, grabs his trusty shotgun and rushes to join the fray.

At this point we are between turns. We roll for initiative and I win, so I throw the Black Legion .30 cal on over-watch figuring that the commies will continue forward down the road and my boys will be able to get some good shots off and maybe knock out the lead truck. Since, there was no shooting, the initiative passed to the communist forces.

In a move that caught me by surprise, my son does not activate the truck but instead opts to fire the last two rockets from the "Weiner Werfer" and calls out the range again, with an extra five inches added. Which puts the rocket fire right on top of my MMG. However, he still have to roll for deviation which is a d12 so I'm still not worried, they could still land almost anywhere. Then he rolls a rolls a 1 and a 2. Well, the MMG team was nice while it lasted. LOL

The deadly accurate rocket fire from the dreaded communist Weiner Werfer blows the living daylights out of my machine gun nest, incinerating all those therein.

Now the lead communist truck continues it's mad dash for the front gate. It stops just short of the machine-gun nest and take heavy fire from the waiting fascists. Lots of shots are exchanged, a Molotov cocktail goes flying wildly as the thrower is shot and falls from the back of the truck. Another communist is shot as is a Black Legion trooper.

The Second Communist truck arrives with more soldiers. The cowboy takes a shot but misses by a mile.

The communist jump out of the second truck and fire at the Black Legion soldier with the hand grenade, and take him out. So ends the second turn of the game. We roll for initiative again and the communist win this turn.

They target the cowboy, taking careful aim...

...and punch a hole or two through his 10 gallon hat.

The other Cherry Street Irregulars open fire trying to kill the last remaining Black Legion soldier. Their luck has run out and they all miss.

He returns fire taking out the Thompson-wielding field  hockey player, before being gunned down himself.


So ends the second skirmish in the Glenpool Strike campaign. The communist have won again, two consecutive victories over the fascist Black Legion.

Skirmish Campaign Framework

I have been thinking about and working on a simple campaign system for use with Bolt Action and VBCW games, or for that matter any other skirmish game with a point buy system.The system is largely abstract and you don't need charts or need to deal with logistics etc. Something quick, easy and relatively painless, but at the same time makes things interesting and allows for more detail if that's your thing.

The goal

You're in, Win or Lose
Each player has to play four games regardless of whether they win or lose a previoius battle or even all four. Hopefully this encourages everyone to play through to the completion of the campaign, and allows them the capability to contribute to the win or loss of their team, even at the very bitter end of the campaign. This is after all, a campaign, not a single elimination tournament.


The rules

Multiple Army Lists
Each player must submit three Army lists for the campaign. These lists must include a force that is Inexperienced, Regular and Veteran.

Mixed Matches
In a perfect world you would know exactly which list your opponent is going to play and be able to pick and appropriate Army list to give him a run for his money. Well, that ain't gonna happen with these rules. The match ups in the first three round should be decided at random or in some fashion that at the very least isn't easily predictable. It should also be campaign specific and tailored to what is being played. The last match will depend on the results of the first three rounds.So this is all very vague and all depends on the context, so I will give two examples.

 Campaign #1 Pas de Calais Invasion
So I have decided I want to run a campaign centered around an alternate history scenario where the allies invade the Pas de Calais region instead of in Normandy, or maybe the landing is a diversion to draw off forces for the real Normandy invasion. Whatever the reason. I have decided that I will split the invasion into three phases.

Phase One - the allies land their special forces along the coast to take out the Cross-Channel guns.
Phase Two - Airborne forces are dropped behind enemy lines to capture bridges, and crossroads in order to keep enemy reinforcements from reach the beachhead and to keep them intact for the break out from the initial landing site.
Phase Three - the beach landings.

Since the Allies are the ones conducting the operation I have decided that their forces are deployed in the above manner and not randomly. The SAS and Rangers should be Veterans, Airborne forces should be the Regulars list (perhaps with some thought before hand that they will be playing an airborne for for this list), and the foot sloggers on the beach assault are inexperienced.

Axis forces forces on the other hand are the great "unknown" and draw lots randomly for which list they will play. No one knows if the forces guarding the Cross-channel guns will be Vets or Inexperienced Osstrupen. Same for the landing zones and the beaches.


Campaign #2 The Bulge
In this campaign both sides are lined up across from each other in a static front lines situation. One side launches an offensive attempting to capture whatever they can, or trying to punch a whole through the enemies front line. Each player decides which sector he will command for his team and assigns his Army lists; left, center and right, as he sees fit. In this instance the results are dependent on how both players deploy their forces, and each player will be playing the same opponent the whole campaign. So now I am thinking maybe to offset the various enemy sectors to allow for at least a little variation in opponents.

The Last Hurrah
After everyone is done with the first three rounds. Everyone takes a short break to assess the situation, consolidate gains and prepare their troops for the breakout or for a counter-offensive. At this point take count of how many games each side has won. Hopefully it will be a close tally. If not that's okay too. The losing side gets one last chance to win by launching the new offensive / counter-offensive. They can win the day by gaining enough victory points in Phase Four of the campaign to beat the other side, or by utterly destroying the opposition by winning all of the games in Phase Four (a long shot, but still a shot) of the campaign.

Regroup and Resupply
Each player should record which units survived the first three phases of the campaign, how many men survived in each squad, etc. In Phase 4 each player builds his ad-hoc final list from the remnants of those troops that survived the first three phases of the campaign. As such, players should keep track of which units survived, how many men in each, skill level and such. Alternatively if you are not fond of so much paper work, you could just keep track of the number of points of surviving troop by level of experience. Then allow each player to spend an equal number of points on same experienced units for their final list. 

Lastly, if a player does not have enough troops or points to play a full Army list for the last game, then allow them to buy as many Inexperienced units as they need to fill out the list. This is to reflect new troops making it to the front lines and being thrown into the fray along side the vets.

...and that's it.