Book Review: The Red Effect by Harvey Black

Well last week an order arrived from Amazon, and included in it was reading “The Red Effect” by Harvey Black – which I had discovered from the Cold War Message Board of TMP.


Now a week later and I’ve just finished reading it and thought I’d share my thoughts with you.

First up – buy the book. Simple as that. If you are like me and have always enjoyed Cold War fiction – then this book will float your boat.

Secondly – “The Red Effect” is meant to be book 1 of a trilogy – which I think is good news.

The book starts with the standard goings-on of Cold War soldiery – focussed mainly on BRIXMIS

Now onto more detail. I’ll start with my likes.

Harvey Black knows his stuff. He is ex British Army Intelligence and obviously served in BRIXMIS. His descriptions of things have a feel of authenticity which is excellent – almost too much at some points. You could probably drive around Berlin flowing the directions in this book, and know which camera and lens is best for taking photos of Soviet troop trains.

It has a nice reality feel to it. Later in the book when he is describing a British unit setting up I was able to look on Google Maps and pretty much see everything he was describing. I like this. Other books in this setting use fictional towns and locations (Red Storm Rising) or twist real locations so I found it difficult to follow on Google Maps (First Clash).

Another part of the reality that I was impressed with was the combat scenes. Although these only really come towards the very end of the book, again they felt authentic. Whilst I love Team Yankee, and read it probably once a year or so, I always felt that it didn’t really portray the potential awesome power of the Soviet Army in this period. Some of the actions, like the first couple of contacts, start with minimal artillery barrages, involve fairly small soviet units using poor tactics, against properly prepared, well placed US units. Bad things tend to happen to units “over there” rather than to Team Yankee. In The Red Effect, you get a feel for what it would be like under a Soviet preparatory barrage – from an infantry man’s point of view. You see the difficulties of a single British Division trying to defend 90 kilometres of front, the difficulty of infantry, not defeating but simply delaying an armoured juggernaut bearing down on them etc.

Black goes into detail on the make-up of individual units and their dispositions. This is gold for wargamers and I’ll be re-reading with a view to using the book to create scenarios.

NATO is kind of caught with its pants down – not wanting to upset the Soviets. A fairly realistic option in my view. No NATO first strike or anything like that.

I thought his approach to how the war started was “interesting”. Some books like Team Yankee and First Clash focus on the small picture and leave the strategic setting to other books like The Third World War, or ignore it altogether. Red Storm Rising uses the first quarter at least of the book to set out the rationale of the conflict, at least from the Soviet side. Black does something similar, setting up the characters and describing some historical events that up the ante. The reason for going to war though, is set out in a fairly short conversation between the Chairman/General Secretary of the USSR and the Head of the KGB. Part of the reason I read these kind of books is to see what things had to happen, in that author’s mind, to lead to World War 3. It appears not much in Black’s view – all it takes is his Leonid Brezhnev equivalent not to die – and like I said, I find that interesting.

Things I liked less – and bear in mind I like the book – so these are probably merely quibbles.

Black deals with historical events, such as the shooting down of KAL 007, but renames the flight. He renames the American President – who was an actor, the British Prime Minister is a stern woman and the Soviet leaders have names very similar to their real names. I don’t see the point. It’s fiction. Maybe it’s a legal thing (I have no idea) but I would have preferred real names and events.

There’s no real mention of REFORGER or other NATO exercises in 1984. No mention of NATO counter-battery fire or air strikes. These are really petty quibbles – as you can see I’m scraping here to find something negative.

I guess the bottom line is that I am very much looking forward to the next book. I’ve been doing a lot of WW2 gaming, painting, model making etc lately and it was really great to stumble across a Cold War Gone Hot novel and get back in the CWGH.

Having read all my other CWGH books to death it’s also interesting to be back in the position of not knowing how this will all end and wondering what direction Mr Black will take.  So well done Harvey Black - and bring on book 2!

Thanks and have fun



Richard

The House that Greg built

Please forgive the seemingly complete random approach to wargaming my blog has become lately...  It appears that I had a rash of "Oh! Shiney!" moments and everything has been a bit scattergun.

So in keeping with that here's a few photos I shot with my ipad last night of a bit of work I did for my mate, Greg.

Thanks for looking

Richard

Creating a World War Two Urban Tabletop - Part 1

As per usual - another lurch in direction.

At the moment we are starting to playtest Battlegroup: Fall of the Reich or BG:FotR - the thrid book in the Battlegroup series (if you don't count the new mini-rulebook).

I have wanted (for ages) to create a decent cityscape table - and years ago was inspired by this thread on the Guild by Faustnik.  He creates a cobblestone table-top using a fake (faux?) leather like material - which until a few weeks I ago, I had never been able to find myself.  Then I stumbled across it at "Spotlight" a shop frequented by my wife and bought some.

It's not cheap - about $40 a metre...

It's brown and looks like this close up:

Next step I popped down to "Bunnings" and picked up a couple of 4' x 2' MDF boards - 12 or 13mm thick - like this:

Then - with much help (meaning she kind of took over much to my relief) from my dear wife, and using an air-powered stapler - we stretched the vinyl like material over the boards and stapled the material down - so they now look like this:

You can see the air-compressor in the second pic.

So - Mission Accomplished as George W. Bush would say - meaning, Part 1 is done - much more work to follow.

Thanks

Richard

Zvezda German Medical Personnel

Well I've been building a fair amount of models and figures lately - but painting next to nothing - hence not much to show here for a while - so I decided I wanted to quickly finish a couple of things.

One of the figure sets I had put together for BGK and BGO was this Zvezda set:

I really liked this very cheap ($5.00) set which was crisply made and painted up fairly quickly - less than 3 1/2 hours over a couple of nights - which for me is quite fast.  I decided not to go with the white helmets and red crosses as both the un-injured chaps were carrying rifles - so I thought it better that it look like these were the wounded soldiers comrades carrying them to the aid station - or something like that.

Not the best photos - again... but I was doing it quite quickly so here are the results:

Photos are very dark for some reason - I think the figures look better in the flesh - so to speak.

Anyway - tonight I'll add some grass and finish these guys off - along some some other German troops I've nearly finished.

Probably a week or 2 more of WW2 stuff, then back to Cold War models - where I've added some nice stuff to my stash lately.

Have fun

Richard

Fun with my Grandson

Well we had our 10 year old grandson down to stay with us over the last few days and had a great time.  We played a few board games - Space Hulk (the original), the fairly new X-Wing Miniatures Game, Carcassone and Settlers of Catan - all of which were very new to him.

Fairly early on I took him down to my local hobby store and he selected a Hobbyboss CH-46 Seaknight kit to make with me and a box of Airfix WW2 British Commandos.

Over the course of his stay he made the kit annd painted some figures - first time for each.  I had him remove all the pastic peices from the sprues and I cleaned them up for him.  He then glued everything together, spray undercoated and base coated the helo, and then helped me put the decals on.  I painted the windows and a few other things for him.  ....I'm a big fan of painted windows....

Here is the end result - of which I am very impressed!

It was our first Hobbyboss kit - and came together very nicely.  We took our time and the end result was excellent.

I left the rotor blades as seperate so they could cope with the plane flight home.

We also painted his "Army Men"

I painted a couple to help him have an idea of what they could look like - and helped him take care of what was left.  One of them got turned into a Terminator Commando along the way....

So that's it for now

Have fun

Richard

More Soviet ACE kits

Over Easter I was up in Newcastle visiting one of my best mates and his family and we popped into Frontline Hobbies - a fantastic hobby store with friendly and useful staff and a great selection - which I recommend to anyone.  I was very chuffed to picked up this:

Which will be added to my Soviets - without the recoilless rifle in the pic - which may get transplanted onto a cut-down Airfix Land Rover for my British Paras.

I also grabbed 1 of these little tubs - MIG Productions - Europe Dry Mud.

I'd never seen this product before - but it looked pretty good - so I thought I'd give it a go.

When we got home I decided to use the MUD to finish is three more ACE kits - 2 x 2S1 Gvozdika (Carnation) Self-Propelled 122mm guns and a BMP variant - the PRP-3.

Here is how they turned out:

So I'm basically quite happy with how these have turned out.  Soon I hope to be able to show you my entire 2S1 Battery and associated vehicles - just need to finish a supply truck first.

Have fun

Richard

The curse of the W-I-P!

Well the work-in-progress curse has struck again.  I have only until next Monday to complete the Recreate a photo build and two things have happened:

1.  I've ordered this promodeller weathering wash product from Hong Kong

But unfortunately it has not arrived yet... but you may still find the youtube clip useful.

2.  My 10 yr old grandson is arriving tomorrow to spend a week with us - so I see very little chance of getting any modelling done anyway!  Still - I'm very happy to be able to spend some quality time with him.

So... I will finish this build eventually - I'm learning lots about dealing with planes which will be useful in the future... and I've always wanted to do this kind of thing anyway.

Tonight I'll add in a couple of W-I-P pics...

Thanks

Richard

Recreate a photo/movie scene - Build Part 1

Well, instead of the planned Soviet SP Artillery Battery which are still sitting around waiting for decals and weathering, I had an attack of the "shiney syndrome" and jumped into starting my planned entry for The Guild's current build - Recreate a photo/movie scene.

I had wanted to do something that I could also use for gaming, but couldn't find the "right" picture - so the other day I was down at my local hobby store when I spied this

for just $14 - a total bargain.

Ideas started to swirl around in my head and after a bit of internet surfing I came up with these two Cold War-esque photos that I would try to recreate:

and/or

At another hobby shop I picked up this cheaply:

So putting that all together - so far I have:

Hard to believe these 2 planes are the same scale!

Now I have to start painting and the weather in Sydney at the moment is not conducive to spraying...  Lets hope showing this W-I-P isn't cursing the project from the start!

Oh well, have fun...

Richard

A trio of BMP-2s

Well, here we are, back on the Cold War wagon again.  This time my Soviet reinforcements consist of 3 BMP-2s each of different make.

It's easiest to jump straight into the pictures - so just bear in mind as you look at them that they are arranged for easy comparison from left to right - MMS - S&S - ACE Models

As you can see - a fairly basic and simple paintjob - but the look I was going for.  These chaps will play a vital role in a small game I am currently planing.

Next up - some Soviet Artillery or perhaps something (Cold War related) that is a little different.

Thanks and have fun

Richard

Battlegroup Overlord is coming...

Well this should be my last World war two post for a little while - as I'm actually working on some more Cold War vehicles and an introductory scenario, so a bit of that should appear next week.

Anyway - on with the good news.  Battlegroup Overlord and the new Mini Rulebook have gone off to the printers.  So our playtesting (which was fun) is now officially over until the next book "Fall of the Reich".

Piers has kindly provided some pics of pages in the book:

If you look very closely on one of the pages you'll find me there!  Yay!

Anyway - make sure you get yourself a copy of BGO!

Now on with the show

Richard

Battlegroup Overlord Playtest

Recently my Cold War gaming/model-making/painting, has had to take a bit of a back step as I've been involved in playtesting the new Battlegroup supplement - Battlegroup Overlord.

My wargaming passions have the Cold War running first, with the NWE campaigns in World War Two running a close second.  When given the chance to playtest BGO I jumped at it - bearing mind there is a (distant) possibility that in the (distant) future there (just) may be a Cold war supplement for this system (if I have any say/influence etc) in it.

So last weekend saw Dean and I playtesting a couple of the new lists from BGO. As part of the playtesting process we’d been asked to take the German Panzer Division Battle Group out in a standard meeting engagement type mission (Attack/Counter-Attack) against a British Armoured Division Battle Group. I’d be commanding the Germans.


To make things interesting Dean and I decided to pull out some of our old 15mm kit which had been gathering dust for a few years and give it a whirl. We selected 750 point forces as we wanted to test playing a platoon level game at the highest point’s level to see what impact this would have on our command/orders.

My list looked like this:

and consisted of a Forward HQ with a Forward Signals Van, an Armoured Panzer Grenadier Platoon upgraded with Panzerfausts, a Panzer IV H Platoon, a Panther upgraded to “Panzer Ace”, a FO team, a Medium Panzer Artillery Battery, a Recon Platoon Command, 2 Pumas (coz I like ‘em), a Supply column with 2 trucks, an Armoured SdKfz 7 w/37mm AA and finally a Timed 150mm barrage off table. My BR was 38.

Dean’s list looked like this:

and consisted of a Forward HQ and a Dispatch Rider, a Motor Infantry Platoon with an attached PIAT team in Bren Carrier, a Carrier Section, a Sherman Tank Troop and a Cromwell Tank Troop, a Heavy Mortar Team, a recce M5 Stuart, a Sherman ARV, a Crusader AA Mk II, and a Churchill Crocodile. Off table he had a 1st Target Priority – off table artillery support request and Dean also had a Registered Target Point. Deans BR was 53.

The table consisted of a pair of small villages largely surrounded by hedged fields with a few roads criss-crossing the table. Here it is seen from the British end:

And from the German end:

Here are some close-ups of the two villages and the two farms:

Four Objectives were placed on the table. We determined that we would have to place one objective each in the no-man’s land centre of the table and the other objective in our opponent’s half of the table.

The first German objective (the memorial) was placed in the town square closest to the British table edge:

while the first British objective (the stack of boxes) went behind the schoolhouse. Subsequent objectives (a destroyed Panzer III and a destroyed SdKfz 251) went near each of the two farms in the centre of the table.

Things began fairly badly for the British as bad weather rolled over the countryside, ensuring that the RAF (and Luftwaffe) would remain on the ground for the duration. It also meant that both our AA vehicles would not get much action in during the game.

The British were also out-scouted, and the German Recon Command set up on one objective in the German deployment zone so before the game began the British had had to take a couple counters. It was the beginning of a trend that would continue for the rest of the game!

Keeping up with that the Germans won the right to go first.

The first couple of turns were fairly quiet as it was mainly just the recce elements on what was a fairly large tabletop for 15mm with a fair amount of terrain to hide amongst. The Germans succeeded in taking both the central objectives (and thought furtively about trying to pounce on the fourth before many Brits had arrived on the board). They also got the maximum possible reinforcements

The third turn saw an exchange of off-board artillery with a German 4 x 150mm harassment barrage successfully pinning a Firefly and a Cromwell, while two British 7.2” guns attempted to flatten the local church and only managed to pin the German FO team who had taken up residence in the belfry.


By turn 4 the Germans had most of their forces in place and were able to unleash the first of several highly destructive barrages of the Brits, this one scattered badly (for the British) and brewed up the Motor Rifle Platoon CO in his half-track and the Sherman Tank Troop’s CO.

Meanwhile the British reinforcements trickled on, definitely giving the Germans a numbers advantage.

In the middle of the table the Germans now had a couple of tanks lurking, with Panther going on Ambush Fire.

At the other end of the table the M5 Stuart had spent several turns creeping along the German’s left flank and would soon be in a position to irritate my artillery park – so a couple of Panzer IVs were sent to corner and dispatch him. One might not be enough to catch him. Of course my first shot missed – better luck next turn.

The next few turns saw shots traded amongst the tanks with some seriously good rolling seeing the panther on overwatch hitting a moving Sherman at long range and then in some seriously bad rolling failing to kill him. Fortunately for me, Deans literal roll of “1’s” continued and the Firefly was pinned.

Eventually the M5 Stuart was knocked out by a Panzer IV (the CO of the platoon) who was in turn brewed up by a Cromwell, who was then KO’ed by a Puma. The Panther finally managed to take out the Firefly, while the Hummel’s killed the other Firefly.  Sadly as a result of all these BR chits flying - the Panther ended up immobilised.

In a bold (some would say rash, most would say stupid) move one of the Puma’s hurtled down the main road between the two towns and contested the final objective not in German hands. All the Germans had to do was kill the British Company CO and a detached Bren Team (which Dean had left there early while the rest of the section advanced) in the next turn and victory would be theirs.

Sadly for the German’s the British didn’t quite see things turning out that way. Reinforcements arrived on the table and an M5 half-track drove up behind the houses and the troops onboard disembarked into the houses beside the Puma. Pulling out their PIAT, they let loose and lo and behold, much to the surprise of both of us, managed to take out the Puma. Fair reward for the stupid Puma move on my part.

Revenge came soon after for the Germans when another Hummel barrage killed the PIAT team, the M5 half-track and several of the lads cowering nearby.

Dean managed to drop a 120mm mortar barrage down on my armoured half-tracks and a Pzr IV.

which managed to scratch their paint - but little else.

Several turns later the Germans somewhat re-enacted the British PIAT team move and moving their SdKfz 251s from behind the farm, along a road and then into a field, deploying the infantry into some woods nearby. The rifle teams moved up through the woods, seeing the awesome Churchill Crocodile lurking nearby. Surviving some desultory machine-gun fire (it failed to pin them) they managed to kill the beast with panzerfaust fire.

Meanwhile the Sherman ARV had arrived on the table. It moved up to the Sherman Troop commander’s tank and began working on it – seeing if it could fix the artillery damage. A turn later and it was back in action. Well done that ARV!

The death of the Crocodile and a couple of Panzer IV’s killing another Sherman had pushed the British close to their breaking point and as it was getting late we decided to call it a night. In total the British had lost 38 BR while the Germans had lost just 13 – so it was a fairly comprehensive victory to the Jerries.

We both had a great time and love the new Battlegroup setting – a return to our old favourite – Normandy.

Thanks for reading

Richard