IABSM AAR: Northern Shoulder Kursk

Nothing on IABSM for ages and then two AARs arrive at once!

Here’s a photo-report from a game played by Mark Luther and friends at the Gigabytes Cafe in July last year.

The game takes place a few days into Citadel with the German offensive running into a counterattacking Soviet force in wide open terrain.

Click on the picture below to see all:

IABSM AAR: Storming the Citadel V

It’s been ages since we’ve had an I Ain’t Been Shot Mum after action report, so it’s great to pick this one up from Will Depusoy on the IABSM Facebook Group.

Will and friends are working their way through the PSC Storming the Citadel campaign.This is the report from their table five game: the Soviets are falling back from village of Butovo with the Germans in hot pursuit.

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IABSM AAR: Storming the Citadel IV

Will Depusoy and friends have been playing through the PSC Storming the Citadel campaign set during the battle of Kursk , 1943, and posted this After Action Report on the IABSM Facebook group.

Here, the Soviet 67th Guards tries to hold the village of Butovo against German Grossdeutschland divison.

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IABSM AAR: Soviet Steamroller Wins!

Here are some shots of a game of IABSM that Chris Lane posted on the IABSM Facebook Group.

As Chris says: The sprog and I had a good game last night of the Russians trying to take a village. Suffice to say I lost as the sprog’s T-34s steamrollered the left flank.

IABSM AAR: Storming the Citadel

Will Depusoy and friends have been converting the Kursk “Storming the Citadel” campaign to I Ain’t Been Shot Mum, but using Chain of Command activation and buying support “platoons” instead of single models.

Here’s a quick report from one game taken from the IABSM Facebook Group. Click on the picture below to see all.

Eastern Orthodox Church Update

Whilst finishing off eastern orthodox church number twelve, I was again pondering why I was collecting them, so I thought I’d better look back over the many After Action Reports posted on this site and see how many of them had actually seen the tabletop.

An interesting exercise:

All I’ve done is find one picture of the church in question in action, so some of the above that have seen action have seen action multiple times. And two of the above are so new that I haven’t had a chance to get them into action yet.

So, in summary, five out of the twelve haven’t yet seen the tabletop, and I’m now wondering how that compares to my collection in general.

And how does it compare to yours?

How many units or terrain pieces have you spent your precious money, time and effort getting ready for battle only to see them languishing gathering dust somewhere in your storage area? My churches are a bit of an extreme, niche example, but I’ve got quite a few WW2 AFV platoons (especially tank hunters) that have never seen the tabletop…

IABSM AAR: Hungary 1945

It’s heatwave after heatwave at the moment, so Mark Luther attempts to cool us all down with a great game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum set in Hungary, 1945.

This was just a quickie scenario setup that wasn't based on a specific historical battle, but was inspired by the German actions to relieve Budapest in early 1945. Mark also wanted to get his Tiger IIs on the board.

Click on the picture below to see all:

 

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IABSM AAR: Take the Ztarmerski Bridge!

Lovely looking game of IABSM posted onto the IABSM Facebook Group by Phil Turner.

The Wehrmacht is advancing across the Russian Steppe at speed. It is of vital importance that the Ztarmerski bridge over the river Korbynskia is taken before the Ivan’s have the opportunity to destroy it.

Click on the picture below to see the full AAR:

IABSM AAR: Viking Panzers in Central Poland

Another cracking I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum battle report from the pen and camera of Mark Luther.

It’s another 6mm battle fought at the Gigabyte’s cafe, and this time features a somewhat generic game based on actions to the east of Warsaw in August 1944 where the Soviets had sent masses of tanks through thin lines of the German defenders. The panzer units were then forced to scramble to cut those units off before they totally disrupted the front.

Click on the picture, below, to see all…

IABSM AAR: 83rd Naval Brigade in the Caucasus 1942

Another superb 6mm I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum! after action report from Mark Luther.

This time Soviet Naval Infantry take on a German recce force in the north Caucasus in August 1942. The Germans were closing in on the port of Novorossiysk from the north and the Soviets had set up blocking positions before Verkhnebakanskiy. This represents the 83rd Naval Infantry Brigade's fallback spot. They were facing the 125th Infantry Division with some StuGs and armored cars.

Click on the picture below to see all…

IABSM AAR: Alt Langsow

Here’s another great battle report from Mark Luther. The game was I Ain’t Been Shot Mum in 6mm played at the Gigabyte Cafe in September.

This was a pretty basic Soviet attack on the defensive line NE of Seelow , 16 April, 1945. Elements of the 26th Fallschirmjaeger Regiment were dug in forward/east of Alt Langsow and the 301st Rifle Division and 220th Tank Brigade were ordered to overrun them and head to Neu Langsow.

Click on the picture below to see all:

IABSM AAR: Prokhorovka

Off to Dave’s for my first face to face game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum since before lockdown!

The scenario was set on the Eastern Front in 1943, and based on an historical encounter. Elements of the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army (played by me) had to advance onto the table and take a village, Prokhorovka, defended by German armour. Yes, unusually for IABSM, this was to be an armour versus armour game with no infantry present.

I had what looked like an overwhelming force: a first wave of an HQ element, two platoons of three t-34s each, and a third platoon of three BT-17s. Following that, I had six more platoons of armour split into two more waves for a total of six more T-34s, three venerable KV-1s, three SU-76s, two SU-76is and, the piece de resistance, two SU-152 big beast tank killers.

If that’s what I had, I was a little nervous about what I was going to face. I’d been told to watch out for the new German Tiger tank: presumably I’d be facing about 20 of them!

Click on the picture below to see what happened:

IABSM AAR: Barbarossa 1941 Solo

Here’s another excellent I Ain’t Been Shot Mum AAR and video AAR from Alex Sotheran, this time set in 1941 as Operation Barbarossa gets under way. The game is taken from Alex’s very readable Storm of Steel blog.

Unusually, it’s not the Germans that are facing off against the Soviets, but the Roumanians: some nice-looking infantry supported by R-2 tanks.

Click on the picture below to see all:

IABSM AAR: Kursk 1943 Solo

Here’s a great After Action Report from Alex Sotheran, taken from the IABSM Facebook Group and Alex’s equally excellent Storm of Steel blog.

It’s Kursk 1943, and Alex plays through a solo game with the Germans attacking a Soviet-held village. There are plenty of “big cats” out to play, and there’s even a link to the YouTube video of the game.

Click on the picture below to see all. Highly recommended.