Greetings, hope all is well! Just a quick update on what the boys and I have been getting up to. We played a game, but I shouldn’t really call this a battle report; there’s not much much in the way of a narrative, or a real scenario, or a plan… hell, there’s not even many photos! What we did have was lots of learning and lots of fun, which is a great thing to report, and should lead to some actual batreps.
Last time we played on a 3’ x 3’ table using a skirmish version of Warlord’s “Bolt Action” rules, whereas this time we used a modified (simplified, by me) version of Bolt Action version 3. The simplified piece consists of a few things I changed to speed things up and/or season to my tastes, but the guts of the game are still there: random activation via dice draw, orders straight out of the book (well, mostly; we allow sustained fire MGs to engage multiple targets on Ambush), movement simplified a bit but largely in line with the book, anti-personnel fire pretty close to the book (I really don’t like the “roll for damage” step so I got rid of it and changed things to take troop quality into account in the “roll to hit,” added a “target obscured” DRM, and kept cover saves), I changed up anti-tank fire to simplify it (but actually made it almost impossible to kill tanks), and order and morale tests straight out of the book (except I messed them up with regards to casualties for the morale test, made them too easy to pass). I don’t really pay any attention to force construction/structure/points rules, I give a numerical advantage to the attacker and go with what I believe is plausible (maybe leaning a little towards Hollywood in order to make sure it’s interesting for the boys, particularly in terms of AFVs).
The table, again somewhere in Normandy. Let’s say it’s June 8, 1944, on the eastern edge of the Allied bridgehead. Ground forces have linked up with British 6th Airborne Division, which is now attacking south against 21st Panzer Division. North is left, buildings and stone walls are hard cover, fields and trees are soft cover, attacker comes from the left and mission is the village at the crossroads (center-right), a super simple “attack-defend” scenario.
You can see I’ve “opened” up the table a bit, hope it looks more like a conventional Bolt Action/Battlegroup/Chain of Command-type table this time. Last time it really felt like I had too much terrain on the table, really more suited for skirmish gaming rather than reinforced-platoon level gaming (at least in my humble opinion).
Looking south from the British end of the table.
Looking north from the German end of the table.
The British assault force:
-a three-man command element
-4 x eight-man rifle sections
-a two-man PIAT team
-a Vickers MG team (three men)
-a 3” mortar team (three men + two-man FO team)
-2 x Sherman and 1 x Firefly tanks
I made the Brits, played by my younger son (who played Germans in the last fight), keep two rifle sections and all three tanks off-table to begin the game, coming on when an appropriate dice was pulled and they past an availability check (4+ on Turn 1, 3+ on Turn 2, 2+ on all turns thereafter). There were a lot more failures to come on than I predicted, which led to quite a bit of laughter (at least by me)!
Despite “opening” up the table, I was still worried that it was too much forces for too little table, was worried it was going to look like a Napoleonic attack going in with troops shoulder to shoulder, so I only used 8-man squads/sections (also because I wanted to see what 8-man companies in Rapid Fire Reloaded would look like).
In the event, I was quite happy with the troop density, I thought it looked ‘right’ and never had the feeling that stuff was crowded or too close together.
You won’t see it because I was clever enough to not take any photos of it, but at one point we had opposing AFVs about six inches from each other. This is not because of the rules or the size of the troops/table, it’s because I screwed up on the anti-tank shooting stats and made tanks nearly impervious to fire, so the boys were having to push their vehicles to point-blank range in order to have a chance to penetrate. I realized my mistake after the initial exchange between a Sherman, a Firefly, and one of the Stugs where several hits were scored but none were knocked out, and then when a Panzerfaust got a top-down hit on the Firefly and still didn’t knock it out!!! I told the boys we could fix it and move forward, but that all three tanks in the fight should be knocked out, or we could just leave them still in the game and keep playing the way we were and fix it for the next game. They couldn’t stop arguing about how THEIR tank wouldn’t have been knocked out in the initial exchange so I just left them on the table with the current (screwed up) rules and will fix it next time.
The German defenders, played by my older son:
-a three-man command element
-3 x eight-man rifle squads (each has 2 x panzerfausts)
-a two-man panzerschreck team
-a three-man sMG-42 team
-a Pak-40 ATG with three-man crew
-2 x Stug-IIIH
The Germans were required to keep one rifle squad and the two Stugs off-table to begin the game.
The British starting positions: there are two rifle sections (bottom left and center right too, just visible between the two buildings) a PIAT team (behind trees at top right), the command element and mortar team in the courtyard, and the Vickers MG team and FO in the two-story building.
Pretty standard setup by the youngster, except for throwing the PIAT team out all by their lonesome on the right flank. It would pay dividends, however!
The German setup. The older boy has a rifle squad in the street, between the buildings (bottom left), intent on dashing into the left hand building as soon as he can. The panzerschreck team is centrally located behind the wall behind them, with the MG-42 team at the wall above them. The command element is at bottom right, while the other rifle squad is in the trees at top right, across the road, while the ATG is in the clump of trees just below them, right where the road bends.
I think the ATG placement was probably in the only spot it really could be with a long field of fire, but I’m not really sure about the rest of his deployment. The rifle squads aren’t really in position to support each other, the MG has a very limited field of fire, the command element isn’t really in a position to support anyone, and the front rifle squad is about to charge into a position (albeit in hard cover) where he’ll be taking on all the Brits by himself, and while the panzerschreck team is centrally located, he should probably have realized his ATG would lock down that side of the table so the Brits would push their tanks up the other, more congested, side, perfect for panzerschrecks and panzerfausts.
We discussed his setup; he didn’t appreciate how much trouble those stone walls were going to cause him (in terms of trying to reinforce or withdraw), and he overestimated how much line of sight would be blocked (a difference between one man moving between trees and an 8-man squad moving through some trees). A problem most folks have (I think) is understanding that you don’t have to have troops everywhere, you own the ground you occupy PLUS that which you can occupy by fire (so he didn’t have to have troops on the right side, he just needed troops that could interdict enemy movement by fire). We also talked about the ‘reverse-slope’ defense concept, I.e., he didn’t need to get someone into that front building where he was exposed to the enemy’s long lines of sight and overwhelming firepower, he could have sat back and made them come to him, channelizing themselves and presenting piecemeal.
End of the first turn: the Brits got two tanks on (Firefly at center, Sherman below and to the left) while the Germans got one Stug on (far right bottom). The Sherman and Stug have clanged rounds off each other, and the PIAT team is dashing ahead (straight down from the Firefly). The older boy pushed a squad into the front building, but then he realized it would put him LOS of the entire 6th Airborne Division he decided to hold them back in the shadows, out of LOS, while the panzerschreck team hopped the wall behind them.
The Sherman (top left) and Stug (bottom right) continue trading ineffective shots as the German reserve squad comes on and dashes up behind the rear building (center) and the MG team hops a wall and moves up to the next wall (at the intersection). Meanwhile, the panzerschreck team (center top left, just visible on the other side of the wall next to the far building), prepares to dash through the gap between the building and chicken coop, looking to smoke the Firefly…
But as the German panzerschreck team dashes forward (between buildings at top left) they are spotted by the Vickers MG team (in building at bottom center right), which promptly opens up and mows them down!
The German rifle squad in the near building (top center) moves up to the windows on the second floor and fire both panzerfausts at the Firefly lurking below (center top). The panzerfausts score one hit on the Firefly’s top armor and… fails to penetrate because I’m a dummy and misunderstood the AT firing process…
End of Turn 2: the Brits have been punishing the German rifle squad in the near building (center) and MG-42 team (at crossroads), while the Sherman and Firefly have settled into a comfortable rhythm of exchanging ineffectual fire with the Stug. The remaining Sherman and Stug have failed their second consecutive reserve availability roll, much to my amusement.
End of Turn 3: the last Sherman has come on (far left bottom), adding to the ineffectual anti-tank fire, while the other Stug, needing anything but a ‘1,’ fails to come on again. The German rifle squad in the near building has been knocked out, their command element has fallen back, and the Brits finally get their riflemen moving in the center and on their left (top left).
The Brits continue pushing forward, putting pressure on the Germans. Frustrated at his inability to knock out the Stug (off camera up the road to top right), the youngster leaves a Sherman and the Firefly to continue trading shots with the Stug while the other Sherman dashes forward (just above trees at far right) to pour cannon and machine gun fire into the German units in the rear building (top right).
The other Stug fails its fourth reserve availability roll, rolling a ‘1’ for the second consecutive turn.
The youngster pushes the PIAT team up to the orchard (far left), trying to get a point-blank shot on the Stug (far right). The older boy pushes a squad across the road to counter the PIAT team (center bottom), as the British mortar pounds the MG-42 team and Pak-40 ATG (center right, between wall and field).
The youngster is getting bold, pushing a section forward to lay into the German command element (casualties on the German side were much lower than should have been because we forgot the ‘point-blank range’ dice roll modifier).
The German rifle squad at the orchard (top right) moves up to eliminate the PIAT team (at the bottom right corner of the orchard, above the tractor), but they only manage to kill the assistant gunner and put a pin on him! A Sherman moves over (bottom left) and returns fire, taking out a few exposed riflemen.
The German Stug (top right) moves up the road, looking to get a point-blank shot on the nearest Sherman (center left bottom, just above the trees, between the buildings)…
Which allows the surviving PIAT gunner to slam a HEAT round into the Stug’s side armor, knocking it out!
The second Stug had finally entered the fight on the German right, where it promptly shot up some British para riflemen, but the Brits finished off the German MG team and ATG crew right before this, so when the first Stug brewed up it broke the German morale, ending the game.
So, despite my colossally stupid mistake on the AT procedure, we had a ton of fun, lots of laughs, plenty of drama, plenty of whining about bad dice rolling, and we figured a whole bunch of stuff out in terms of tactics, gameplay, and rounding the rules into form for us. Specifically:
1) Fix the AT procedure so the shooter rolls a D6 (adding gun pen) but the target does not (roll D6 and add armor, just use armor).
2) Infantry targets will not count as obscured when AFV main guns, field guns, or infantry AT weapons target them in hard cover (building, wall, bunker, etc…).
3) Order/Morale tests will be at -3 for units that have suffered 50% casualties.
4) Add a third body to Bazooka/PIAT/Panzerschreck and Flamethrower teams to add resilience under fire.
5) Tree lines do not block LOS but obscure target (-1 DRM to Hit), copses/stands/clumps of trees block LOS, use base under to define border.
So sorry, not much there in terms of a normal battle report, I’ll look to get back to that as we get the rules ironed out. Now I need a good mini-campaign to run; still not sure what they’re called or how exactly to describe it, but you start at a central geographical location and move back and forth in a linear method based on who won and lost the previous battle. KISS Rommel did it like this:
Start at Tobruk, move left or right based on winner of previous battle report.
Track: Tunisia - El Agheila - Benghazi - Gazala - Tobruk - Mersa Metra - El Alamein - Alexandria - Cairo
I’d like to work mini-campaigns that have maybe five locations, and are much more tactical than that, I.e., you could probably do a five-step mini-campaign just for Gazala, Tobruk, or El Alamein, right? Or Stonne, or Dunkirk, Sicily (either the British track or American track), Salerno, Anzio, Caen, St Lo, various Market Garden locations, the Bulge, probably a million of them on the East Front, right? Anyone have any ideas?
Anyway, thanks for taking a look, I appreciate it.
V/R,
Jack
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