WWPD Italian Campaign - 6th Armoured Division

6^th Armoured Division

Welcome once again to another look at the lists we’re going to use in our part of Italy. One of the obvious things about the Italy compilations is the awesome infantry lists you get, in fact I think the British and commonwealth rifle lists are some of the best available. But what about British armour?

I honestly had looked, and liked the 76mm shermans but not though of doing much else, as I only had  box of 5, and well you need 6 for two small platoons, so thought very little else. Until Ben popped round with a spare soviet 76mm Sherman – and a quick head swap later I had my 6^th British 76mm Sherman – and the start of a 6^th Armoured Division.

I’ve used shermans a few times for Brits/Canadians, and there are normally 2 problems I encounter – 1) standard shermans are a bit rubbish, 2) fireflies are expensive and have no HE. Well this time I have 2 new toys, 76mm and 105mm shermans, lets see what I can come up with.

HQ

2 Sherman 105mm – 130 points – so why downgrade to the 105? Well 2 reasons, firstly I like having some breakthrough guns, add that to SiF and point it towards some artillery units and I may have some fun – Also as I found later I needed the points. These are the one model I’m proxying currently – but as we all know can you ever have too many shermans?

Armoured Platoon, 3 Shermans – 240 points. These boys are compulsory if you want to be 6^th armoured, and I see them having one role, mobile smoke – helps deal with those pesky Elephants and the like. These guys strangely make the most of SiF again, they sit back and smoke away covering other units which have shot.

2 * 76mm Armoured platoon – 3 Sherman 76mm and a Firefly – 490 points (980 together). This goes against every fibre in my being – these units are all the eggs in one giant basket. I think the list needs fireflies to deal with enemy big cats etc, but the one problem is they are the only FA 6 model in an otherwise FA 7 list! However, the sheer amount of firepower these guys put out is brilliant, and with 2, the enemy has two major threats/targets to focus on.

Next I want recon, and seeing as I’m loving tanks so far, how about some Stuarts? They add lots of fast moving recon, and another decent(ish) gun. – Oh wait points, carriers it is for 100

I still have no way – other than a breakthrough gun or two to deal with enemy infantry – as such lets get some Gurkas – in roos of course a cool 250 points, of hard assault love for the enemy. Again though points are a problem! So lets go for 78^th division in roos instead. Only 205 points.

So I have 95 points left, and 5 platoons, Ok lets add some mobile AA – 85points, of cheapness, they can pin, they can stop enemy air. That leaves 10 points, so basically a 50cal for the 2 fireflies.

And there you have it a list of British tanks, and possibly with the exception of Canadian Armoured Recon – not a bad British list. And again I think it’s the 76mm, having the higher AT at long range means that in a gun fight versus anything like a panzer 4 you should be fairly safe – in theory. How they’ll stand up to an elephant though?

Anyway I hope you like the list, I’m certain it’ll see action soon.

Till then

Adam