British Horsa Gliders

[Sierra 19]

Didn't you used to be able to get British Horsa gliders through the online store? Or are they only available in the Combat Command sets? I'm just curious as I was wanting to do D-Day and Market Garden. Thanks!

[sosna]

Those models are available only Combat Command set.

[Bob2000]

But their combat command with the Horsa Gliders are great !

Each have 3 Glider witch are about 4'' wide and 3'' long.

GHQ lists the content of each combat command as:

3 x Horsa Gliders
3 x Vickers MGs
4 x Jeeps
2 x PIAT Teams
48 x Paratroopers
4 x Light Mortar Teams

But actually, theirs a lot more stuff in it than what's written in the description: more jeeps, 3 PIAT teams instead of 2, many more Vicker MG's, etc...

I bought this pack together with one pack of extra individual heavy weapons and one pack of individuals Paratroopers. I also added one pack of 6pdr anti0tang gun and I ordered the ATG gunners (complete with opened ammo boxes) from another manufacturer and some 3'' mortars from the same other manufacturer. When finished, I will have a nice British paratrooper force.

You will need a large table if you want to play a glider assault as the gliders minis are big (see size above) and they need some place to land so be prepared to have a few, big nice field for your glider.

Please note that this is a bit specialized army witch cannot stand against a ‘’real’’ micro-armor army unless you play some kind of special scenario. If you are starting playing, you might want to consider buying a more conventional force.

BTW, 6 gliders was just the number used for the famous assault on Pegasus Bridge (even if one of them actually gets lost and landed faraway from the bridge).

[Sierra 19]

Well, you know, every time I watch A Bridge Too Far, I get an itch to do a Brit para force. I think it would be neat to do a Market Garden Campaign, and you could actually do it on a reasonable budget with MicroArmor.

[Bob2000]

For even more inspiration, their is an excellent article in September's edition of World War II magasine about Market Garden with a very detailed map of the battle near the bridge. I was thinking of making a special 6'x6' Table about this operation using this map but the position of the river and bridge make it a little difficult to separate the map in board.

The interview with Goring in the same magasine is also facinating

[mlcolbert]

OTH what of the German paratroops? Weren't they only used in the early stages of the war? Crete was one action but they weren't used after that very much, I can't remember the reason given though. But a scenario or two of Crete etc where they were used (with gliders?) would also seem to be interesting.

m

[thenorthman]

They were not used as PARARTROPPERS again because of Crete!

It was so costly...in terms of troops. Or at least that was a history channel special saying that.

Sean

[mlcolbert]

were they used in any other area in the early stages of the war? I don't recall if there were any drops in Poland, as one example, what of the blitzkrieg in France??

m

[Thomaso827]

I dont recall the details, as to whether it was a parachute drop or a glider assault, but there was the attack on the forts of Eben Emeil (think I have the spelling close enough - seen it spelled a few different ways) in the invasion of the Netherlands. They landed troops on top of the forts, taking them much more quickly than a siege would have. There were very limited ops planned for during the Bulge, but I dont think they actually landed a unit, more just a commando element. The books I have on the Bulge indicate that there was a brigade ready, but that weather conditions werent good. Part of operation Grief with the Germans in American uniforms. Other than those, it seems they were used primarily as elite infantry. I never quite figured out the purpose of the Ramke Brigade in North Africa, myself. Must have been some plan at some point that didnt materialize.

[srcurrie]

Crete was bad for the German Fallschirmjagers. The lost 70% casualties.
They were in several other actions in the early war including invading Holland and dropping on the Maginot Line.

An Arnhem campaign would be fun.

[Vanvlak]

Eben Emael was a glider assault if I remember correctly. And the paratroops were considered (but never confirmed, I believe) for Operation Herkules, the planned invasion of Malta which never materialized. That would make an interesting campaign, by the way. A very hypothetical show, this would be, with Italian landings by sea, Italian paratroops, and perhaps German paras, if they were permitted to operate as such after Crete. I'd love to add the DFS230 and Gotha Go242 gliders to such a scenario, but the tiny Maltese fields and their rubble walls awould have played merry hell with glider landings.

As for the Horsa -they'relisted in GHQ sourcebook 39 as being available in the Combat Command, so I guess there is no other option..yet?

[Sierra 19]

For even more inspiration, their is an excellent article in September's edition of World War II magasine about Market Garden with a very detailed map of the battle near the bridge. I was thinking of making a special 6'x6' Table about this operation using this map but the position of the river and bridge make it a little difficult to separate the map in board.

The interview with Goring in the same magasine is also facinating

I recently read that article myself (it was very informative too!). The Brits really got trashed pretty badly in Market Garden, although it looks as though early on they really had the upper hand.

[Thomaso827]

The now out-of-print Avalon Hill game, Air Assault on Crete had the mapsheet and options for the Malta battle, so that might also be a good reference. I dont recall what the unit scale is, but I believe it would give a good OoB as well. With that in mind, how would it go to use the board game for Arnhem as a campaign map and stage just the seperate fights, rather than trying to build the whole city. Use the "areas" in the map to stage the troops, then move to a minis game table. Would not be as impressive a table, but would probably be easier to work around, especially if you only have small gaming areas.