Ep.63 Armies of Bulgaria V3 | Bolt Action Podcast

[@trt3g]

Thanks for the video. I appreciate it. You've given me some ideas to try. In V2 I usually went with a Panzer 3 or 4. V. 3 it looks, as you said, less beneficial. In last game of V3 I went heavy on the guns. I went with a German MMG because I wanted the extra die--probably not best use of Axis support. We actually played to a draw, but one more round and we would have been done for. There were a lot more enemy infantry on the board.

[@hippyhippyshakespear]

Roving patrols doesn't include Soviet scouts (or any other troops that can get infiltrators, -- think there is a German squad now) it seems.

[@TabletopTommies]

Good spot! I suspect this is because it is a copy and paste from the old Armies of Italy and the Axis book and the text wasn't updated to include units with the Infiltrator special rule, whereas the intention is that it does prevent all infiltrators and spotters deploying in their special manner - maybe we will see this in a future Errata? Phil

[@marclaplante5679]

The Axis Support rule has really been nerfed for the Romanians and Bulgarians, not just for the fact they take up a slot, but also any German AFV can not count as a core unit in the Armoured platoon. These means a player must spend the points for one of the lowly Romanian/Bulgarian AFVs - even taking two miserable tankettes at 55 points each, you will spend 120 points before buying the Axis Support. That’s quite a tax. In v.2 the axis support was just icing on the cake. In v.3 it’s a costly and restrictive item if you go for an AFV (which given the limited options in the native army list, is quite needed). The NCO with a pistol? Where is any historical reference for that. I can not find anything to support that weapon choice. Pistol armament is not what any infantry section commander would want to rely on in the front lines. It is a bizarre entry. The two French tanks are both incorrectly entered, the S35 has a one man turret, and the R35 has a coaxial MG, no hull mounted. That was corrected in a v2 errata but has popped up again. The S35 was used by Bulgaria, 20+ supplied by Germany in 1941. The v2 Bulgarians had access to 222/223 armoured cars, plus Stugs and PzIVs. They have lost them, as have the Romanians.

[@jonathanbirkeland1085]

An NCO armed with a pistol was a quite common thing in some armies during this period. The NCO or Officer’s main job is to lead and direct, not to engage in direct fire. Some armies devised that because of this an NCO only needs a pistol which is a better self defense weapon at short range than a bolt action rifle. Pretty much every other army later on decided that the NCO should have an SMG for the same reasons, just that an SMG is better at being a self defense weapon than a pistol is while still being more compact than a rifle. The exception to this is the US where NCOs had an M1 rifle, which being semi automatic gives the NCO a lot of firepower at all ranges compared to a pistol or a bolt action rifle while also simplifying equipment at the squad level. Many guys would seek out and get SMGs, but per the TO&E they should have been issued an M1 Garand.

[@marclaplante5679]

⁠@@jonathanbirkeland1085huge difference between an officer (platoon commander) and a section leader. A pistol is useless in the front lines, and I do not know of any WW2 army that uniformly armed their corporals with pistols and not rifles. I have copes of George Nafziger’s research papers on both the Bulgarian and the Romanian armies, plus Katolyn Matev’s huge tome on the WW2 Bulgarian army, and at no time do any of the books refer to front lines section commander NCO’s being pistol equipped. If you have a source to prove otherwise, please share it.

[@jonathanbirkeland1085]

@@marclaplante5679I think you are missing the point I was trying to make. I do not have any specific reference for you about pistols used by the Bulgarian army, but I do know that as a US Marine who has been in for 15 years if the squad leader is shooting his personal weapon then he is doing something wrong or something else has gone wrong. Given the choice of carrying a bolt action rifle or a pistol as a squad leader myself, I would take the rifle only because it makes me stand out less. As a combat weapon, a semi automatic pistol beats a bolt action rifle in the type of combat the squad leader should be doing, specifically; leading in the attack and for close range self defense. Long range shooting is not a thing the squad leader should be doing. If the enemy is far enough away that a bolt action rifle is more effective than a pistol, then the squad leader has time to be moving around and directing the fire of his squad and communicating to the other maneuver elements. This isn’t true for the individual squad member who needs to be able to generate fire at extended range. This is all mostly a moot point today because the universal issuance of carbines to everyone, with a few exceptions such as the US Marine Corps where we issue carbines to squad leaders but every other member of the squad is issued with an M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, which is effectively a “heavy carbine” that can do the same job as a carbine or assault rifle, but has superior accuracy and sustained fire capability at the cost of extra weight and literal dollar cost. This goes back to my original point that the squad leaders job is to lead and an M4 carbine is lighter and cheaper for the squad leader to be carrying around while he does squad leader things while the rest of the squad has the superior, but heavier, weapons.

[@marclaplante5679]

@ I got your point. It just isn’t based on any facts, references and is pure conjecture. The same goes for the WLGs entry. At no time in modern military history has a lowly front line infantry NCO been given a pistol as his primary weapon.