Oriskany’s Wargames on the Web

Okay, we’re back for Part 02 of this battle between myself (playing a kampfgruppe of Grossdeutschland Division – 500 men and 70  tanks) against the main body of 12th Tank Corps / 3rd Tank Army (1250+ men, 70 tanks) played by Andrew (@brucelea)

Background and setting details are all below.  Basically, Andrew’s set up his battalion of a Soviet motorized rifle brigade on the table on defense, now I have to assault with elements of Grossdeutschland Division (to include II. Bn, PzRgt “GD,” II. Bn, Fusilier Rgt “GD,” PzJgAbt and StgPzAbtg “GD,” and of course 13. Kompanie, PzRgt “GD,” some of the first Tigers to see action in this part of the war.

There are five objective hexes on the table.  I have ten turns to take at least three of them.  I took the first on the fly, but the second is heavily defended.  I’ve spent several turns carefully setting up an all-out frontal offensive (really my only way into this objective), so now we’ll see how it goes.

So that’s where we stand for now.  After 3 hours, we had to call the session for the moment, we will come back and finish this hopefully sometime in two weeks, Jan 26-27.

This one’s really on the razor’s edge, I think.  My Grossdeutschland Germans have one objective hex, we’re on the cusp of taking the second one, on Turn 6.  I don’t think I’ll be taking the southern one after that T-34 overrun, let alone reaching the one in the far northeast corner of the board (along the Khar’kov road).

This leaves me with the one on the east back on the river, where one hell of a battle is liable to open up as Andrew and I probably converge everything we can put there on the last 4 turns or so.

I have a lot of firepower but not much time, and of course Andrew can still cause problems for me in the backfield with his T-60As and my northwestern objective hex.

We’ll see what happens!  Can Andrew hold on for the Motherland?  Tune in and find out!

This weekend saw the kickoff of another web wargame, this time between myself and @brucelea (Andrew) in the UK.  Moving out of the Tunisian desert, we squared off this time on the Eastern Front, in the blood-spattered, snowy steppes of the northeastern Ukraine for a game of Avalon Hill’s PanzerBlitz (updated).

Setting:  February 1943.  The final death throes of the Battle of Stalingrad have finally ended.  The whole German 6^th Army and half the 4^th Panzer Army are gone, trapped by a massive Soviet encirclement and killed or captured practically to the last man.  To effect this encirclement, two more Axis armies (Romanian 3^rd and Italian 8^th) have been effectively annihilated in place.  A gash hundreds of miles across has been ripped in the southern German line, and fresh Soviet fronts (spearheaded by Katukov’s 1^st Guards Army and Rybalko’s 3^rd Tank Army) pour through the breach.  German Army Group “A” must be pulled out of the Caucasus in record time before they too are lost, along with the remnants of German Army Group “Don.”  As bad as Stalingrad has been for the Germans, another disaster is about to eclipse that defeat by a several grisly order of magnitude.

To win desperately-needed time and stabilize the southern German line, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein engages in a campaign of mobile defense, falling back, allowing the Soviets to rush forward, then hitting back only in carefully-chosen, perfectly-timed counterattacks.  He uses Soviet momentum against them, baiting them forward in the empty vastness of the eastern Ukraine, striking when forward elements have separated themselves from support columns, when Soviet spearheads have spread too far across the steppe, when Soviet tank and mechanized corps start to feel the iron tug of logistics tighten around their necks.

Of course Manstein has to trade space for time, and this includes the Ukrainian city of Khar’kov.  In a nightmarish breakout, encircled German troops of the Grossdeutschland Divisions and Hausser’s II SS Panzer Corps have cut their way free of the encircled city, disemboweling Soviet tank and motorized formations in the process. Still the Soviet advance continues, driving desperately south and west, hoping to reach the northern shores of the Black Sea, and thereby slice off the entire southern third of the German army in the East (perhaps a solid million men, three times what was taken at Stalingrad).

But in the wake of the Khar’kov bloodbath, Soviet armies may have finally pushed too bar, they’re too spread out, too exhausted, suffered too many casualties, and are too badly undersupplied.  Conversely, the Germans have been falling back on their supply lines and rail heads, and Manstein feels his moment has finally come.

This will be what history calls “Manstein’s Backhand Blow,” the re-re-retaking of Khar’kov, the stunning battle of maneuver that will slam the runaway Soviet advance in its tracks, and stabilize the German Army in the wake of the Stalingrad disaster.

One of the many opening attacks Manstein will launch, primarily along the routes between Khar’kov and Peter the Great’s old battlefield at Poltava, will come here, with the Grossdeutschland division, spearheaded by a handful of the precious new “Tiger” heavy tanks, hitting the 12^th Tank Corps of Rybalko’s 3^rd Tank Army.

This afternoon we have a live on-line game of PanzerBlitz scheduled for 17:00 GMT, pitting Germans up against Soviets in a command-tactical level wargame set on the frozen steppes of the northeastern Ukraine during the final days of February, 1943.

The scenario sets elements of Grossdeutschland division up against leading elements of 12th Tank Corps (Rybalko’s 3rd Tank Army), during the Third and Fourth Battles of Khar’kov, during Erich von Manstein’s “Backhand Blow” campaign that stabilized the German southern line in Russia and the Ukraine after the disastrous defeat of Stalingrad.

Ping me a PM if you’re interested in checking out the game live, chatting with the participants, or just seeing how we run global-community wargames every weekend on the web.  If not, we’ll  have the battle report up sometime next week!

The map is set up, with 13th Motor Rifle Brigade / 12th Tank Corps / 3rd Tank Army deployed.  86th Tank Brigade and and 97th Heavy Tank Brigade are entering the table from the east.  But so are the Germans, with II. Bn / Fusilier Rgt / GD Division, along with units of Grossdeutschland’s StuG Battalion, Panzer Regiment, and of course 13. Pz Kompanie, one of the first Tiger units to see action in the East, attached to Grossdeutschland (before the division would later get its integral schwere Panzerabteilung Tiger battalion).

December 1967, South Vietnam, Quang Tri Highlands, near the DMZ. To finish up the replay of Lima Co / 3rd Bn / 4th Marines / I Corps hitting an NVA-occupied village northwest of Camp Carroll (320th PAVN Division) during the infiltration and build-up to the Tet Offensive …

System: Valor & Victory (Vietnam Edition)

So here’s the final score.

The NVA have knocked out eight USMC fireteams, no officers, and one US Navy Corpsman (nine units), at 4 VP each = 36 points.  All casualties were secured, and the NVA hold no objective hexes.  One civilian counter was killed but it was the NVA that did it (no VP for the NVA).  Final NVA score remains at 36.

The USMC has knocked out 23 NVA fireteams and officers = 23 points.  Two POW counters successfully evacuated = 6 points.  USMC owns all five objective hexes = 15 points.  Total score = 44 points.

USMC has won this one, probably due to Captain Waterman up in that norther rice paddy, hopefully winning a Bronze Star at least if not a Silver Star or a Navy Cross.

So I’m trying this again, just to see if I get the balance right.  I’m adding the US off-board artillery back in, but making the NVA booby traps a bit nastier, IF the Marines do  not use Assault Movement (reduced speed, more safety, a Valor & Victory rule I didn’t use in the live game with Rasmus).  Also firmed up the victory conditions and other rules for the scenario (most of which are more or less standard for Valor & Victory Vietnam).

Casualties:  Every American Half Squad or officer or medic eliminated = a Casualty marker.  After Action Phase: Medic can automatically evac one casualty marker assuming he is stacked with the casualty after Advance and Assault.   Others can evac if they roll “Rally” (6 or 7).

Evacuated casualties = 3 VP for NVA player.

“Captured” casualties = 6 VP for NVA player.

NVA casualties = 1 for the US player.

NVA POWs (if evacuated) = 2 for the US player.

Civilians:  Move during both sides movement phase.   1-3, no movement.  4-6, they move 2 hexes.  1d6 for direction.   1 = north, clockwise from there. Americans lose 6 VP for any civilian counter they kill. They are worth 2 casualty points if struck by intentional / unintentional fire.

POWs:  Every NVA stack eliminated via close assault creates one POW.  They have to be evacuated by an American infantry unit physically off the table via a friendly edge.  One infantry type can carry off many POW counters.  Must get to friendly edge of map, infantry unit can then rejoin the rest of the game.  They are worth 2 casualty points if NVA wants to shoot at them.

Booby Traps:  Every time a US stack moves in Movement Phase (not 1 hex  in Advance and Assault Phase), roll 2d6 for the etack.  11-12, a booby trap is hit, immediately eliminates one half squad / medic / officer, replace with casualty marker.  US can reduce chance of only a 12 on 2d6 by using Assault Move (+1 Cover) rules.

Objectives:  Each objective is worth 3 VP for the owning player at the end of SIX TURNS.

So below we have the NVA set up.  I have broken more squads into fireteams (half squads), have the +2 commander with the mortar team, and was a little more aggressive in “tripping” the Marine entry onto the eastern, northeaster, or southeastern edges of the table with forward deployment of NVA spotter / GPMG teams

The battle of @rasmus ‘ NVA (320th PAVN Division) against my Marines of “Lima” Company, 3/4th Marines (Camp Carroll, 3rd MarDiv, I Corps) continues …

*System: Valor & Victory (home-written “Vietnam Edition”).

*Setting: December 1967, near the  DMZ between North and South Vietnam, along tributary of the Quang Tri River, toward the Laotian border.

Already things are going pretty badly for my Marines, trying to approach and clear this NVA-held village.  Their over-extended left wing has already been hit twice by devastating and bloody close assaults by die-hard NVA assault groups, their commanders all-too eager to exchange squad-for-squad with far more “expensive” USMC infantry.  The right wing of my advance has been more or less halted by pinpoint MVA mortar and DShK heavy MG fire from the village, streaking out across those open rice paddies.  My battalion 81mm mortars have more or less splashed all over the place and honestly didn’t kill anyone.

Now, to add insult to injury, as I try to pull my right-wing assault down to reinforce my left wing assault, as the last squads fall back to redeploy (screened from more of that DShK fire), they instead hit a booby trap, instantly knocking out a fireteam and causing another casualty counter that must be evacuated from the battlefield.

The big picture at the beginning of Turn 4, with Captain Waterman pulling in the platoons of 2^ndLts Pierce and Bergman into a renewed push on the village from the southeast.  If there’s any silver lining to the Marines’ clouds, it’s that these desperately bloody NVA charges have seriously depleted Communist manpower and killed off all their officers, leaving the remaining fireteams huddled in the center of the village (fortified mortar pit dug in with sandbags).

So Rasmus has two choices here.  Pretty much the only way I can even come close to winning this game is if I take all the objective hexes, and perhaps some prisoners as well.  He can either make a last stand, and hope to cut another bloody swath out of my Marines as we mount the game-ending assault.  Or, he can accept the fact that I’ll take all the objective hexes, and instead use the time-honored Vietnamese tactic of melting back into the jungle and off the table, denying me the victory points of NVA casualties and POWs.

For better or worse, he chooses the former.  The NVA will mount an uncharacteristic stand.  Perhaps it’s the fact that there are no officers left, and their last orders were to fight the American imperialists.

In any event, Captain Waterman has pulled his company together for the final assault.

Captain Waterman personally leads the assault into the final NVA position on Turn 5.  Now here, the Marines finally catch a real break.

Rasmus adds up everything in his hex into a final opportunity fire, hoping to gun down Marines as they rush his position.  Here’s what happens, though.  He rolls boxcars (all the firepower checks in this game are 2d6, low rolls better, so boxcars are the worst possible roll.  Not only does all the NVA fire miss (perhaps panicked as they realize their end has indeed come), but per Valor & Victory rules, whenever you roll boxcars on a firepower check … an enemy sniper appears.

So a Marine sniper, with his M40 rifle emerges from the jungle behind the NVA and immediately makes a sniper attack on the stack that rolled the boxcars.  I roll a d6, score a 4, subtract the +2 defense bonus afforded by those sandbags, and thus knock out an NVA fireteam (2 casualty points per half squad).

Alternatively, Rasmus could have chose to pin down two fireteams rather than killing one, but that would just lead to two fireteams immediately dying as soon as my assaulting Marines jumped into the sandbags and put a pistol, entrenching tool, or K-Bar into someone’s face.

The assault goes in and with a positively sick number of firepower points, wipes out the NVA position, “tabling” Rasmus’ force.  But honestly, he’s the NVA, he’s supposed to be tabled or run away.  It’s all about playing for time, and inflicting American casualties, of which there has already been far, far too many.  And this assault has cost me still more, with three NVA fireteams and +2 sand bags = 5 required casualty points.  I kill off half a squad for 3 casualty points and pin down two more fireteams, ending the battle.

On Turn 6, I have enough time to spread out and take all the objective hexes (bridge hexes H4 and D3, village hexes F6 and H8, and high ground hex C10).  Last-minute casualties are successfully evacuated during the after-action phase of Turn 5, and no civilians were hit.  Honestly, I would also have taken an NVA POW counter here (successful US assault on a Vietnamese position), but I would not  have had time to get him evacuated, so wouldn’t get the victory points for this anyway.

So here’s the score.  As often happens in asymmetrical warfare, the “stronger” side wins the battle but loses the game.  There’s just no way in virtually any realistic Vietnam War game that the NLF or PAVN will ever stand up and defeat American units in a face-to-face fight.  They will never hold the field.  They will either be wiped out or make a frustrating withdraw off the field, melting into the jungle in true guerilla war style.  They’re real objective is either stalling for time or causing unacceptable Free World casualties.

In this, Rasmus has succeeded admirably, as shown in the scoreboard below.

Now, the only thing I would add to this is the one POW counter we forgot to add back on Turns 3 and 4 (Lt. Phan Khoi in hex G10).  I would have had time to evacuate that POW to the rear, thus giving me 3 more victory points.  But even so, the score would have been 48 to 54, still a clear NVA victory.

So while the operation was an American success (the village was taken completely), it’s more or less crippled Lima Company’s ability to conduct further sweeps through the Hill Country northwest of Camp Carroll through the rest of December, 1967.  Accordingly, 3^rd Bn / 4^th Marines will have a tougher time countering further NVA infiltration across the DMZ and overall buildup or the 320^th PAVN Division in preparation for the Tet Offensive at the end of January, 1968.

Congrats to Rasmus on the win!

The battle of @rasmus ‘ NVA (320th PAVN Division) against my Marines of Lima Co, 3/4th MArines (Camp Carroll, 3rd MarDiv, I Corps) continues …

*System: Valor & Victory (home-written “Vietnam Edition”).

*Setting: December 1967, near the  DMZ between North and South Vietnam, along tributary of the Quang Tri River, toward the Laotian border.

Here we see the aftermath of that opening firestorm in the south.  Note that Marine losses are not simply removed, but replaced with Casualty counters.  These casualties must be evacuated by Navy Corpsmen (medics), of by their comrades if they make the required roll (all men have first aid kits, field dressings, morphine syringes, etc.).

This may have looked like a suicide charge by the NVA, or simple matter/antimatter annihilation of forces.  It isn’t.  Remember these are squads and fireteams, an eliminated unit means it is “combat ineffective,” each 4-man fireteams is probably 1 killed, 1 seriously wounded, 2 lightly wounded or panicked, etc.  But whether or not to divide or combine squads, who fires, who moves, who uses grenades or satchel charges, how to apply casualty points, when to pin, when to bite the bullet and take the losses, where to apply your officer bonuses, there are many tough tactical decisions being made in this furious and incredibly violent opening to our Vietnam Valor & Victory game.

In all, may have overextended my left wing a little with Collins’ platoon, an opportunity Rasmus seized upon and hit very, very hard. He’s actually winning right now, badly, in victory points.

Turn 2.  Now that I’m on the table with spotters and radios, I call back to battalion for my mortar strikes.  They’re very disappointing.  One drifts completely off the target and actually almost lands on civilians and my own wounded.  The other two land on the DShK position (I can’t see his mortar pit) but do very poor damage due to some bad die rolls. Actually no one is hurt, Rasmus is able to cover the inflicted casualty points with some pins.  So the gun is silenced for now, but will be back up in a minute.

In the south, Captain Waterman tries to get control of the chaos.

Civilians are running into his company area.  Civilians, by the way, move almost like zombies in The Walking Dead.  Neither side controls them.  At the start of every movement phase, they roll to see if they move.  If they do, they move 2 hexes in a random d6 direction.  So these civilians are rushing towards us for some reason (perhaps some of them have collaborated with the US MACV or Saigon government, and fear reprisal at the hands of the NVA).

Gunfire from two fireteams (supplemented by some 40mm frags from the M79 “Blooper”) kills off that RPG team lurking in those hooches to the north.  This clears the southern slope of that hill for movement, including more an assault on Lt. Trai’s position.  He’s eliminated, but whenever an NVA position is successfully assaulted by US unit (and not immediately counter-assaulted), an NVA POW counter is created.  I also bag a prisoner to the west, as Waterman’s Marines mop up NVA survivors of the bloodbath assault on Collins’ platoon.  Meanwhile, Navy Corpsmen are rushing in to start securing and evacuating casualties from Collins’ platoon.

In all, it’s a classic Vietnam scene here.  Casualty triage and dustoff, Vietnamese civilians in the way, NVA prisoners being secured, checked for intelligence, and evacuated to the rear.

The problem is, this all takes time.  My whole Turn 2 is going to be pretty much just sorting out this mess, when I would rather be rushing forward and taking all those objective hexes suddenly left open.  Rasmus is using this time to shuffle his remaining NVA officers, squads, and support weapons, ensuring that this battle is actually far from over.

Turn 3, and I finally have the southern slope of this village hill secured and cleaned up.  Two POW groups evacuated.  Most casualties secured for dustoff.  I’ve given up on that approach from the east(that DShK is too threatening and these is very little cover across those open rice paddies), Lts. Pierce and Bergman are moving their platoons down the river to join with Waterman’s platoon for an new combined push over that hill to enter the village from the south.

Meanwhile, Capt. Waterman himself has taken some men to the high ground and secured the first objective hex.

Disaster strikes!  Again, I left that left wing a little too exposed, and Rasmus seizes the chance.  Lt. Phan Khoi, the lieutenant who has more or less halted my eastern attack with the DShK and 60mm mortar, now blitzes south down the road, assaulting some of my exposed Marines where corpsmen are still trying to clear up casualties.  I do next to nothing in opportunity fire, and none of the other Marine units can actually see what’s happening.

This is bad.  As the NVA attack comes in, it naturally succeeds, although one NVA squad is destroyed in the process.  But the Navy Corpsman and the Marine fireteam in the hex are now casualties, and because this assault succeeded,  the NVA occupies the hex. This means these two casualties just inflicted (plus the one already in the hex the corpsman was treating) are in NVA hands.  This will count as 6 victory points each for the NVA, not three.

2^ndLt. Pierce gets the order and he rushes down the rest of that river bank, thank hooks up with his platoon for an immediate counterassault into Phan Khoi’s hex.  This assault succeeds, although almost any assault (especially one in woods or buildings) will cost casualty points I can already not afford.

Now one thing I honestly forgot here is that this assault was supposed to produce another POW counter I could evacuate, perhaps getting 3 victory points back.  But to be frank, I think I’ve lost so many points already that this game might be a hopeless cause anyway.

See if I can save this in Part 3!

Good morning, OnTableTop / Beasts of War!

Okay, as you may know, we’ve been running war games every weekend with members of the community via web conference.  Players log on and play wargames with each other in real time, regardless of location, and we usually have at least a couple spectators as well.  Many times it’s been Darkstar, but we’re also running wargames in Panzer Leader, Arab-Israeli Wars, and now Valor & Victory, the squad-based command-tactical wargame designed and published by Barry S. Doyle.

Originally written for World War II as sort of a “spiritual love letter” to the 1980s classic Advanced Squad Leader, Valor & Victory takes everything that was great about that game (but got perhaps a little too complex and cumbersome in later  variants) and boils it down to a fast, pick-up-and-play system that the community (especially on BoardgameGeek) has embrace to update, add to, create new scenarios, units, and maps, and generally have a great time with.

Well, as you may remember from the Tet Offensive 50^th Anniversary series we ran last January and February, I was able to rebuild Valor & Victory to play Vietnam era games, complete with US Army, US Marine, US Military Police, ANZAC, ARVN (Army of Republic of Vietnam), NLF (National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong), and PAVN (People’s Army of Vietnam, or NVA) forces.

So Saturday, Rasmus and I ran a Valor & Victory game in Vietnam.  He took the NVA, trying to hold a “hill country” village with a detachment of the 320^th NVA Division,  I took Lima Company, 3^rd Battalion, 4^th Marines (3^rd Marine Division) in an attempt to clear the village.  This battle took place near Marine Corps firebases of “the Rockpile,” Camp Carroll, and Cam Lo, dear the supposedly “Demilitarized Zone” that formed the border between North and South Vietnam.  The date is sometime in late 1967, during the period called the “hill fights,” where NVA divisions increasingly leveraged into position from North Vietnam and Laos via the Ho Chi Minh Trail, setting up for the imminent “Tet Offensive” that would strike on January 30-31, 1968 (leading to famous battles like Lang Vei, Khe Sanh, and of course Hue City).

So here is the imminent battlefield.  Rasmus will set up his NVA force (89 officers and men) wherever he wants.  I will come on anywhere on the eastern edge, or the eastern half of the northern and southern edges.  The mission is simple.  Control of the five objective hexes marked with yellow targeting symbols.  These are buildings, bridges, and high ground that Marine Regimental HQ has deemed are important for continuing operations to deny positions the NVA will want for artillery batteries, rocket positions, and artillery spotters in the ongoing “Hill Country” battle around these Marine Corps fire bases.

Very quickly, here are the victory conditions:  As usual for Valor & Victory, the game lasts 6 turns.  The Marines get 1 point for each NVA fireteam or officer eliminated, 3 points if I can take them prisoner and successfully get them off the board.  The NVA get 3 points for every fireteam or officer (or Navy Corpsman) eliminated, 6 points if any of these casualties are “unsecured” (left bleeding on the battlefield or even worse, if they fall into NVA hands).  The Marines also lose 6 victory points if they hit any civilians.  At the end of the game, the each s ide also gets 3 points for every objective counter they still hold.  The Marines also have to watch out for booby traps, and of course the “burden of victory” is on them as the NVA start out holding all five objective hexes.

Now this sounds terribly unfair to the Marines.  But in fact the Marines are much more powerful, better armed, better equipped, and have off-board artillery support.  In all my force contains 84 officers and men, and includes satchel charges, 24 M60 GPMGs, 4 M79 40mm grenade launchers, off-board 81mm mortars.  The NVA are well equipped as well, with a captured American 60mm mortar, a DShK .50 cal heavy machine gun, plenty of PKM GPMGs, and three B-40 / RPGs.

The game begins as the Marines enter the board.  I have two platoons coming on from the south (Captain Waterman, 2^ndLt Collins) and two more platoons from the east (Lts. Pierce and Bergman).

Things kick off in a very big way … right off the bat.

This is going to take a while to unpack, as a lot happens.  Suffice it to say that the NVA put up some very serious fire in the north and in the south, Lt. Collins’ platoon is immediately in the thick of a very serious battle for their lives.  As they launch an assault on an NVA scout fireteam, they will then counter-assaulted from three directions.  This will the main action of Turn 1, so we’ll break it down in a little more detail.

First comes Collins’ assault on that NVA spotter platoon.  Probably not the best move I’ve ever made, as I should have tried to pin him down first.  But since you can’t move and fire in the same turn in this game, pinning down enemy units for an assault requires either a fire and maneuver element (one platoon pins, another platoon carries in the assault), or wait until next turn.

Splitting up my squads into individual fireteams (dilutes my striking power due to stacking limitations but makes my units more resilient to casualties, basically my men are spreading out in their assault), I still have to leave one fireteam pinned to NVA opportunity fire, and then lose another fireteam in the assault itself.  The position is taken, but it probably cost me too much, especially since Rasmus (on his turn 1) will be counter-assaulting from three directions.

Further north, Lt. Pan Khoi with the mortar positively nails his check, with a “snake eyes” roll that pins down almost Pierce’s whole platoon (the Americans have to keep casualty points down in these Vietnam games, so I’m electing to pin down many more of my units rather than let far fewer of them actually be eliminated.  The DShK also opens up, although that does far less damage.  The scout fireteam of NVA rifleman (AKM assault rifles / SKS battle rifles and one PKM GPMG) also add to my problems on the Marine northern wing.

Ever see the final scene of Platoon?  Well, Rasmus has decided that will be the start of this little movie instead of the end.

So first we have Lt. Huang Giap attack from the southwest, rushing in with his two squads plus the scout fireteam he picked up from the jungle trail along the way.  I pin one fireteam down with opportunity fire, but the rest of the attack goes in.  He invests two grenades from his pool, as do I.  The assault is broken, and the NVA force is wiped out (except that one pinned fireteam because they didn’t actually participate in the assault).

But I’m down three casualty points as a result, forcing me to kill off one of my fireteams (half of one of this 12-5-6 squads).

This only softens up Lt. Collins’ position for the bigger assault coming down from the south, led by the NVA commander, Captain Jiang Xuan.  I cannot throw in in more opportunity fire, I already fired at Giap’s platoon to the southwest.  Again Rasmus tosses in two grenades, I have to toss in a grenade and (in a desperate attempt to save myself), a satchel charge.  This assault is also broken, wiping out the NVA force (Marine firepower is nothing to scoff at), but the casualty points are so high that Collins’ position basically wiped out as well.

Finally we have Lt. Nguyen Trai’s assault to the east.  Now this starts out bloody for me off the bat, as I have a pinned fireteam in the target hex.  Once that  hex is assaulted, that pinned unit is killed automatically.  The rest of the Marines in the hex fight desperately (Lt. Trai is pinned down before his assault even goes in), throwing in yet more grenades and the last of my satchel charges, countered by yet more grenades from the NVA.  This assault actually succeeds, but without Trai leading it, losses are so high that it’s basically annihilated as well.  Trai is ironically the only “combat effective” man left in that platoon.

The opening ground battle of the Six Day War continues in Avalon Hill’s Arab Israeli Wars, fought between my Egyptian and Palestinian Liberation Army forces (elements, 7^th Egyptian Infantry Division and PLA 20^th Infantry Division) and Damon’s Israeli forces (leading elements, 7^th Armored Brigade, Tal’s 84^th Division).

Again, the Israeli objective is to strike out of the southeast, seizing road junctions (yellow objective hexes – at least 4 out of 7) and thus cut off Egyptian and Palestinian forces in the Gaza Strip (extending o the northeast) away from the interior or the Egyptian Sinai (extending west and southwest).  The Israeli “big picture” objective here is to rapidly open an invasion route down the north coast of the Sinai, allowing them to strike quickly westward through the Jeradi Pass, El Arish, and toward Port Said and the Suez Canal.

So far, however, the Israeli offensive is a little unfocused, allowing me to make stands in key points (southern Khan Yunis and Rafah).  This is one of Damon’s first games of Arab Israeli Wars, and honestly I don’t think he understands just how powerful his units (especially Centurions of the 82^nd Tank Battalion and M48A3 “Magach 5s” of the 77^th Tank Battalion) really are yet.

Here we see things finally come to a head on the west flank, where 82^nd Tank Battalion has taken the high ground, using overwatch fire positions to hopefully engage my heavy JS-3s of 1^st Heavy Tank Brigade and SU-100 tank destroyers of 47^th AT Regiment.  He has the high ground and hull down shielding.  However, I am concealed in those urban hexes, he can’t fire at me until I am spotted.  I can be spotted two ways.  He can move a unit adjacent to them (basically sacrificing his spotter), or I can open fire.

The trade-off is that I get the first crack, and rarely do the Egyptian get the first round off in a tank duel against Israelis.  I probably shouldn’t but I can’t resist.  Twenty JS-3s (122mm guns, so large the ammo has to be leaded into two components) and fifteen SU-100s speak in one voice, firing at ranges between 500 meters and 1250 meters.

But here is where some of the Israeli advantages come into play, not in simple “overpowered” units, but tactical positioning.  Not only am I shooting uphill, but also against Israeli tanks in hull down “reverse slope” positions.  Then the range has been chosen where some of my tanks will have to fire at range penalties (northernmost JS-3s – bear in mind some of my tanks are shooting at what would be 74 feet on a 28mm table) but all of Damon’s Israeli tanks will get a full crack at me in return.

To get this position, Damon just had to accept that I would hit him first.  Classic risk/reward.  Fortunately for him, I don’t roll very well, and only manage to disperse a few of his tank platoons.

Meanwhile, my artillery does a better job and splashing some of his paratroopers that were pinned down earlier when my AT guns hit their halftracks.  Meanwhile, these AT batteries are coming under counterbattery fire from 202^nd Brigade’s M3 mortar halftracks.  Also, some of the tanks on that western ridge can just see over some of the intervening trees and town hexes … and spot my D-30 122mm howitzer batteries firing from five+ kilometers away.  So even as my artillery is tearing up his paratroopers, my artillery is in turn in big trouble from off-board M50/155mm howitzer batteries of Israeli 215^th Artillery Regiment.

Israeli counterfire off that ridge starts killing and dispersing JS-3 platoons – but not fast enough.  We’re now into Turn 4, where the Egyptian 14^th Tank Brigade shows up, forty more tanks, this time T-55s.  Meanwhile, Israeli 81mm mortar batteries start dropping smoke in front of my position,  blinding some of my tanks while leaving line of sight open for him to engage new tanks showing up.  Damon’s trying to divide and conquer, and I’m playing for time.  I’m on defense, after all.

Here’s a wider view of the western and central sectors of the battlefield, where you can see where some of the tank and support platoons of 82^nd Tank Battalion can see far back into the Egyptian backfield and spot those 122mm D-30 batteries firing.  They’re  doing pretty serious damage to Israeli paratroopers, and are not mobile.  I was able to “blind” some of Damo’s fire missions earlier in the game by dispersing or killing spotter units, but this time that’s not going to happen.  Those artillery batteries better get their shots in now, because Israeli 155s are gonna be howling in from off board any second …

To the east, things are heating up as well.  Realizing that sooner or later he’ll just have to smack the Palestinian 108^th Brigade somewhere, Damon forms up 77^th and the right wing of 2/202^nd Brigade and makes a push at southern Khan Yunis.  Some of those T-34/85 “pillboxes” are burning, but too many more remain hidden.  Damon decides to bait them out with some halftracks, I take the bait (knowing full well what is coming) because of those bait pieces is the halftrack platoon carrying the headquarters of 2/202^nd brigade.  Those two T034/85 platoon pillboxes are beyond toast (those M48A3s will blow them into the middle of next week now that they’ve fired and revealed their position), but ten immobile T-34s is more than fair price to pay for an Israeli battalion headquarters.

This would have played much harder into the future turns.  With their battalion HQ knocked out, Morale drops from an A to a B.  This is critical in the series of infantry firefights and close assaults the Israelis are going to need to clear out those town hexes of Khan Yunis.  The odds against him doing this are now greatly diminished (at least on time),  I’ll be able to slow down the elite Israeli infantry assault into Khan Yunis and turn it into a wild, confused street brawl, just like the PLA likes it.

This is where we called the game, at least for now.  Clearly the Egyptians are winning this game. There seems little way the Israelis can crack these town hexes and take at least four of those seven objectives by the end of the game.

This was my fault as a “gamemaster” and scenario designer on two levels.  One, Damon is still getting used to Arab Israeli Wars and I really threw a lot of scale and additional rules complexity into this scenario.  Two, I only finished designing the scenario a few hours before the appointed game time and Damon had no opportunity to review the battlefield, formulate an attack plan, and execute it.  Arab Israeli Wars is not a game you approach lightly (well, at least not scenarios like this).  You have to look at your forces, enemy forces, look at the terrain, and formulate a single, cohesive “big picture – broad strokes” battleplan and then execute that plan in minute tactical detail.  Damon never had the chance to do this, he was handed a map and with a resounding “Good luck … GO!”

So we can continue this game IF HE WANTS, or I can finish it up and see just how far the Israelis can get in salvage and damage control.  Or we can just call it, I can build a smaller, less ambitious scenario that we can use as a “staircase” game building into larger, more complex games like this.

But for now that’s if for this one.  😀  We’ll see what the future weekends bring as I continue to run web wargames on line for the OTT / BoW Community!

The game begins as the Israelis come on the table. They have four basic battalions in their force, two of tanks (82^nd Battalion is outfitted with Centurions with 105mm L7s and 77^th Battalion with M48A3 Pattons with 90mm guns), one battalion of armored infantry (2^nd Battalion, 202^nd Paratrooper Brigade, mounted in M3 Halftracks), and one of artillery (elements of 213^th Artillery Regiment).  All of this is basically welded into 7^th Armored Brigade, leading attack element of General Israel Tal’s 84^th “ugda” Division, one of three divisions striking into the Sinai today.

Israeli morale for this game is A.  Egyptian Morale is usually B, but for this game we’re reducing this to a C.  This is because they have already lost contact with their headquarters, divisional and regional command, and they know their Air Force has basically been annihilated by the Israeli air strikes that started the war a few hours ago.

By the way, no Israeli air strikes will be coming in to support this attack.  Israeli aircraft that just blew up the Egyptian air force and command / communication / control systems throughout the Sinai, Suez, and Nile regions, are now being turned around for preparation for phased strikes into Syria and Jordan.

There’s a helluva death match forming up to the west along the approaches to Rafah, where 30 105mm Centurions are about to square off with 20 JS-3s and 15 SU-100s.  If the Israelis make that ridge, they’ll have the benefit of high ground and hull-down shielding, but the Egyptians will have concealment and defense bonuses for firing out of those town hexes.

Close-up of 77^th Armored Battalion.  One of the company commanders here (stack of three M48A3 Pattons) was Captain Avidgor Khahalani.  Later in the 1973 war he’d have the whole 77^th Battalion, by then switched over to the Centurion with 105mm.  He would famously fight one of the most epic tank battles in history, the Valley of Tears at the Golan Heights, and write the book “Heights of Courage.”  He’d later command a division as a general in the 1982 “Peace for Galilee” invasion of Lebanon.

CONTACT!  First shots fired on Turn 3.  The explosion marker in the middle of nowhere shows where one of my artillery barrages guessed one of Damon’s units would be this turn (you have to plot and call in your artillery missions one turn in advance).  One of his TCM-20 AA halftrack platoons is being used to spot my tanks in southern Rafah, which just fired on that jeep recon platoon and failed to knock it out.    My 85mm ATGs give up their concealment to fire on halftracks loaded with Israeli paratroopers.  I don’t kill them straight off but managed to disperse them, pinning them down for artillery next turn.

To the east, Damon may have overextended his poor jeeps a little, racing them far behind PLA lines.  Makes sense for artillery spotting, but they’re caught out in the open (spotter positions really need cover and concealment).  My T-34/85 “pillboxes” manage to tip over a hew M3 halftracks and spill some paratroopers, but again, now they are spotted as well for Israeli artillery.

Good afternoon, OTT/Beasts of War:

Okay, with the Darkstar rulebook v1 finally complete, I can start turning my attention back to some other wargaming projects, threads, and campaigns.  First among these is the ongoing games of Arab-Israeli Wars between myself and @damon .  We had the beginnings of a rather large game some time ago, I wanted to post just a little of a battle report to show that with 2019 now underway, I fully intend and hope to get back to on-line wargaming with members in the community on a fairly regular basis.

So this is a scenario from the first hours of the ground operations, 5 June 1967, opening day of the Six Day War.  I have the Egyptians and Palestinians on defense, Damon has the Israelis on attack.  I have the “meat” middle of the Egyptian 7^th Infantry Division (9^th Brigade), holding the “neck” of the Gaza Strip, where it attaches to the main body of the Egyptian Sinai near the towns of Khan Yunis in the east and Rafah in the west.

On my left, centered in the Palestinian city of Khan Yunis, I have the 108^th Brigade of the 20^th PLA Division (Palestinian Liberation Army).  Note the dug-in T-34/85s (+1 defense, movement of zero), along with “Militia” infantry platoons, recoiless rifle batteries, antitank guns, blocks, minefields, etc.

On my right, sitting in Rafah on the roads that actually lead into the Egyptian Sinai proper, I have 47^th AT Regiment (SU-100s tank destroyers), and 1^st Heavy Tank Brigade (JS-3 battle tanks), with the main  body of 9^th Brigade/7^th Infantry holding the two wings together.  I have Soviet 120mm mortars, 82mm mortars at battalion level, and 122mm howitzers hiding up by the coast.

It’s a pretty serious force.  In all I have 68 counters on the map initially (a further brigade of T-55s arrives as reinforcements on Turn 4 historically this is the 14^th Armored Brigade).  So we’re looking at around 3000 men and 150 tanks and AFVs.

Each counter is a platoon of 5 vehicles, battery of 6 guns, or platoon of 45 infantry or so.  In all the map is 8 kilometers across and about five kilometers deep.

The Israelis will be coming in from the southeast.  Their objectives will  be to take at least four of the seven objectives hexes (highlighted yellow).  The idea here is to take the majority of the road junctions, and thus cut off the Palestinian forces in the Gaza Strip (extending northeast) from the bulk of Egyptian forces in the Sinai (west and southwest) – and open the major routes leading to the west (through Rafah, off the table, and eventually leading to the Jeradi Pass, El Arish, Port Said, and the Suez Canal).

The Egyptian right wing, centered on Rafah.  You can see the Josef Stalin 3s of 1^st Heavy Tank Brigade and SU-100 tank destroyers of 47^th AT Regiment.  There’s also some infantry platoons (each piece is a platoon of 45 men or so), a couple batteries of 85mm antitank guns, mortars, both battalion 82mm mortars and brigade 120mm mortars.

The Egyptian center, built around the main body of 9^th Brigade / 7^th Infantry Division.  At top you can see two of my D-30 howitzer batteries (122 mm). I’m hoping to use some of these to pin down the Israeli paratroopers as they enter the board in their halftracks.

Me left wing, centered on 108^th Brigade / 20^th PLA Division in Khan Yunis (eastern third of the board).  Note the T-34/85 tanks dug into the earth.  The Militia platoons here have lower values than my Egyptian regulars further to the west.  They also have 107mm recoilless rifles instead of dedicated antitank guns, no heavy artillery, and definitely not mobile tanks or reinforcements (unlike elements of Egyptian 7^th Division to the west).  This is definitely the “soggy” part of the Egyptian-Palestinian defense, I can really only hope to bog down Israeli tanks and paratroopers in all these urban hexes.

So our wargaming by webinar experiments continue to find success and expand into new games and genres.  Earlier today we took it into Darkstar and ran not only a full-scale, full-detail Darkstar game remotely, but a taught a new player, and with a carrier battle group no less (definitely a step up in intricate detail and rules complexity).

Meanwhile, we’re also getting ready for a Sunday, 2 December wargame of Arab-Israeli Wars.  This time we’re moving it forward in time a little, from the 1956 Sinai War to the 1967 Six-Day War.  We’ll be looking at some of General Tal’s assault into the Gaza Strip on the opening day of that war, where @damon will be taking 82nd Armored Battalion (Centurions) and 77th Armored Battalion (M48A3s) pushed into the gap between Khan Yunis and Rafah, along the norther coast of the Sinai Peninsula / Gaza Strip, trying to open the Jeradi Pass leading toward El Arish and eventually Port Suez along the Canal.

My defending units will include the elements of the 20th PLA (Palestinian Liberation Army) Division and detachments of Egyptian 7th Infantry Division, to include units of 1st Heavy Armored Brigade (JS-3s) and 14th Armored Brigade (T-55s).

Good afternoon, all.

So we’re back for the conclusion of the small introductory scenario we game last weekend between myself and @damon – getting Avalon Hill’s Arab-Israeli Wars off the ground.

We were playing Situation B-1 (Bir Gifgafa, November 2, 1956), recreating one of the closing actions of the 1956 Sinai War.

In this situation, a battalion of Israeli armor (M1/M4 and M50 Shermans, together with French-built AMX-13 light tanks) of Ben Uri’s 7th Armoured Brigade, was trying to push through the Bir Gifgafa road center in the north-central Sinai Peninsula.  The Israeli invasion of the Sinai had started about four days ago, and the objective was now to push to the Suez Canal and seize the whole Sinai Peninsula.  Israeli motivation for this action had been continued PLA terrorist, rocket, and artillery attacks out of this area into the Negev settlements and inciting unrest in Gaza, all with the Egyptian army and government (President Gamal Abd-el Nasser) conveniently looking the other way.

Meanwhile, Nasser had also nationalized the Suez Canal, triggering a military response in the form of British and French air and naval units, to include British Royal Marines and French Paratroopers in the canal zone itself (Operation Musketeer).  To what degree IDF ground units and these British and French expeditionary insertions were supposed to be coordinating remains a bone of debate.

In any event, Damon’s orders here were clear.  His Israelis, with their harder-hitting and longer-ranged guns, were supposed to smash my Egyptian 1st Armoured Brigade (remnants, rear guard) and get as many of his units off the west end of the board by the end of Turn 8.

In short, this is a classic breakthrough scenario.  Smash the enemy lien of resistance, push past it as fast as you can.  Your battle is only a small part of a larger operational picture in which speed and exploiting enemy disarray is paramount.

For my part, I have no hope of actually stopping the Israeli attack.  I can slow it down, bleed it a little, and perhaps pin down some of the Israeli units so they don’t get off the board in time.

So far I’m not doing too bad.  I have denied battle as long as I could, finally counterattacking Israeli vanguard which became a little too outstretched for all its elements to support each other.  It cost me a company and a half of T-35/85s, but I also claimed a full company of Israeli light armor.  That’s not a bad trade when you have the Egyptians up against Israeli tanks.

Now Damon’s column is starting to compress a little, but it’s taken enough time to allow me to scrape together my battered 1st Brigade and launch another overrun on these two AMX-13 platoons trying to get off the extreme southwest corner of the board.  Damon tried to go for maximum dispersals on his opportunity fire (i.e., forego shooting for kills, and instead try to pin down more enemy units, an an attempt to break up the overrun and survive the attack).

The odds were against it, and the dice came down with the odds.  He dispersed two platoons of T-34s, but those three platoons of SU-100s took care of the remaining AMX-13s.

But now the Israeli Shermans (slow as they are) are finally trundling up to the scene, too far away to overrun me right now (this screen shot shows them at the END of their movement), but I will definitely have problems from here on out.

Okay, those Shermans have blown those two platoons of T-34/85s into the middle of next week, and using the Split Move and Fire rule (available to Israelis but not to Egyptians, at least in 1956) they have started to scoot off the table and thus earn more victory points for Colonel Damon.  😀

My SU-100s had one shot at opportunity fire, failing to kill two platoons of M1/M4 Shermans to the south and one platoon of M50s to the north, but pinning them all down.  By the way, I chose to include fire on this trying to get by me to the north because I have 30 more T-34/85s trying to close up from the east.  If by some chance those Shermans don’t rally next turn, these new tanks might get a shot on them.

In the end, those two platoons to the south managed to rally and get off the board, the platoon to the north failed but I didn’t get another shot at them.  So it’s not destroyed, but it’s still on the table so counts as 1 Egyptian victory point.

The final score, as shown below …  16 to 16.  A dead tie.

I’m not gonna lie, for the Egyptians at Bir Gifgafa, that’s a damned good result.

To his credit, this was Damon’s first try at the game, we invented new rules for platoon facing and flank fire on the spot, and he was playing a guy who’s bee running the scenario for 20 years.

Although I have never tied with the Egyptians before … I use this scenario as a literal “training tool” to introduce new players to Arab-Israeli Wars, it’s challenging enough to test new players and teach the the basics of the system, but honestly the Israelis are almost fated to win, even after my scenario updates / modifications.

IN SUMMARY: This idea of wargaming via web conference is simply awesome.  I earnestly hope to do this over and over again, @brucelea and @damon have both vowed they want to try more games.

We’re trying this out with Darkstar with a new player on December 1.

Talk has been mentioned of doing this with World War 2.5 or Valor & Victory.

Honestly the sky’s the limit.  As fast as I can draw new maps, we can run more games.

So if this kind of thing interests you, ping me a PM and we can add you to the schedule / running order.

Here are some quick photos and an abridged battle report from the recent Arab-Israeli Wars game between myself and Damon.  Again, this was played via web conference so we could have real-time video, chat, shared desktop (so each player could move their own playing pieces) and even a “Twitch style” spectator, all in real time … actually more than Twitch because @brucelea could advise @damon and the people playing the game could actually hear and reply. 😀

Anyway, we’ve already gone over the background and details of the 1956 Sinai War in October and November 1956.  So the gist of this game is the the Israelis are invading westwards across the Sinai, driving toward the Suez Canal.  The Egyptians are trying to delay them, while maintaining some kind of a cohesive force in withdrawal toward the canal (where French paratroopers and British Royal Marines are already on the ground as part of Operation Musketeer, but that’s getting off on a tangent).

So Damon has the leading elements of Ben Uri’s 7th Israeli Armored Brigade, made up of Shermans, M50 “Super” Shermans (although of course they weren’t really called that), while my Egyptians are built around the remnants of 1st Armored Brigade.

I enter the west side of the map first.  My mission is to damage and delay.  I get one point for any Israeli unit that doesn’t make it off the west edge of the board (i.e., doesn’t get past me), and 3 points for Israeli unit destroyed.  My force is T-34/85 tanks and SU-100 tank destroyers.

Damon enters the west edge of the map.  He gets 2 points for any Egyptian units destroyed, and 1 point for any Israeli unit that makes it off the west edge of the map.

The map shows the situation at the end of Turn 1.  The Israelis have 60 tanks, the Egyptians have 75 tanks and tank destroyers.  Each hex is 250 meters across.  The overall map covers just under 50 square kilometers – 8 kilometers across and 6 kilometers tall.

The game lasts eight turns.

As always, for best results select the image, then open in new tab.

So in this game we decided to experiment with some facing rules for AFV platoons.  The top of the unit’s counter designates the unit’s facing.  When the counter top is facing toward a hex side, the unit is in road / march / column formation, and presents and very narrow front facing and extended, exposed flanks, but gets double movement of roads.  When the unit is placed in the hex so that it’s top faces a hex point, the unit is in some kind of tactical dispersion / combat formation, and the flanks of the platoon are much less exposed but still vulnerable from certain angles (frontal arcs described by the hex grid)

The Israelis are on the board and making their approach, making a generally southerly push westward across the board.  As the forces close to within five kilometers, I’m sidestepping with my Egyptians south, using my center and right wing to block / delay the Israeli advance while slinging out my left wing to envelop and threaten the Israeli north flank.

Contact!  And delaying battle as long as I could (Israeli guns are much stronger than mine, and even worse, much longer-ranged).  I finally pounced with the biggest overrun attack I could muster.  Typically in this scenario (Bir Gifgafa, 2 November 1956), the Egyptians get one real crack at the Israelis as they make their run across the table.  It’s not the best (I’ve over extended my left wing a little), and Israeli opportunity fire mauls my hapless T-34/85s as they rush in, but by 15 SU-100 tank destroyers go in against those AMX-13s, and leave three platoons of them as smoldering wrecks as well.

Any time the Egyptians can trade the Israelis in tanks on a 1-1 basis … it’s a good day for the Egyptians.

Meanwhile, I have three other companies of T-34/85s (6 counters = 30 tanks) behind the Israelis at this point, made up primarily of M4/M1 and M50 Shermans.  They’re too far away to really score any hits, can’t draw an LOS over those dunes, and in any event are too far east to coordinate gunfire attacks with my other units.

But these 30 T-34/85s are hopefully pushing the Israelis forward (well, that and the turn limit), driving them westward into the guns of my SU-100s.  Hounds to the hunters, and all that.  Alternatively, Damon can turn around and annihilate my 30 T-34/85s, probably with little effort.  It would sure feel good, and admittedly score some Israeli victory points, but would also cost the Israelis at least a full turn, possibly two.  Again, this could lose the game for the Israelis.  Either way, I’m hoping to scrape out at least a draw here.

Okay, here we go with the last part of last Saturday’s game between myself and @brucelea – British vs. Germans in southern Tunisia, March 1943, a battle where the British have seized a key bridge over a deep wadi and try to hold it until reinforcements arrive … while the Germans counterattack with orders to drop that bridge in the wadi, at all costs.

As you may have seen, the Germans have almost succeeded in part of their mission.  Their panzer battalion shoved across the bridge easily enough, while panzer pionier engineers tried to blow the bridge up.  They failed, but the bridge was then assaulted by 400 or so men of my schützen infantry battalion, and finally destroyed.  However, my panzer battalion was tghen systematically cut to ribbons by arriving Crusader IIIs and Shermans of British dragoons, thanks to some bad deployment on my part and well-executed coordination between infantry, engineers, and tanks on the part of @brucelea and his British.

More bad news  for the Germans came when the armoured engineers managed to  get their Valentine bridgelayer tanks up to the northern arm of the wadi and throw a replacement bridge over the wadi.  So now the game is tied for bridges (we each get 20 points for each bridge either blown up or established across the river) – this will come down to sheer casualties.  The Germans get 2 points per British unit eliminated, the British get 3 points per German unit eliminated (German units are always stronger, although you wouldn’t know it the way I’ve been playing them).

So we start in the south, where my three platoons of PzKpfw IIIJ “Specials” is sadly trapped on the wrong side of the river now that friendly infantry has burned down the bridge behind them.  To make matters worse, they’re now being overrun by Shermans of the British Dragoons.  My choice for opportunity was a stark one, do I try to disperse two or three incoming Sherman platoons, or kill one?  Kills are always more gratifying, but by pinning more units, I might break up that overrun and just perhaps survive.

The tactic works, sort of.  Two Sherman platoons are pinned down, reducing his overrun from 5 platoons to 3 (25 tanks reduced to 15).  My Mark IIIJs survive, although they are pinned.  If they can rally next turn … they can use Split Move and Fire rule to just maybe escape for another turn or two …

Up north, meanwhile, @brucelea has set up his bridge, the bridge laying tank is across the wadi (now empty), and two platoons of Crusader IIIs are also across.  The German “gun ridge” from which all my mortars, infantry guns, antitank guns, flak halftracks, etc … have been based, are now under threat.

Situation at the end of Turn 9.  As my artillery starts to evacuate that northwest ridge, the Crusaders take my trucks under fire.  My 5.0 cm guns get away, but my 7.5 cm infantry guns do not.  Meanwhile, the British have thrown a second company of infantr into the ongoing firefight in the north wadi, including the battalion commander.

Determined to play as a gentleman, I politely point out that that battalion HQ only has a defense of 1, and is meat on the hook ready to be slaughtered.  Furthermore, knocking out the enemy command unit reduces the morale of all his units from a “B” to a “C” – making it much easier for me to kill dispersed units.  This is a “realistic” command platoon, twenty men with radios, binoculars, maps, radios, half of them armed with only pistols, the rest shaky clerks with rifles they haven’t fired since boot camp.  Hardly fitting to send them into a 14-platoon (600+ man) battle royale with heavy machine guns, rifles, SMGs, LMGs, and light 5.0 cm and 2-inch mortars.

So the headquarters unit hangs back.  I start killing British rifle platoons as they are fed into the battle (but he is inflicting losses on me as well) while to the south, @brucelea’s Shermans are finally putting my stubborn but helpless PzKpfw IIIJs to the sword.

The final situation.  I have succeeded in destroying the initial bridge, as per my mission.  But I paid far too much to do it, leaving me with not enough strength (especially armored strength) to counterattack @brucelea’s second bridge he managed to get into position up north.  If I hadn’t squandered those two platoons of PzKpfw IVs and Tigers, I might have been able to blow up this bridge as well (tank bridges are metal, considered armored targets, and thus pretty vulnerable to long-range tank fire).

In summary, we both succeeded in our missions partially.  But the British have a lot more firepower on the table at the end.  I paid too much for my “partial win” – @brucelea only has a partial win but now controls the field through weight of numbers and Shermans alone.

So here’s the boneyard and the final score.  I might have been able to squeeze out a draw if I had let @brucelea move that HQ unit into the northern wadi hex – that would have been one more kill for me, two less kills for him, making the score 47 to 42 … and then the rest of his units would have been easier to disperse and keep disperse, and thus kill.  Definitely would have been a long shot.  I actually lost this game fair and square when I pushed those tanks into that town.

No worries!  I’m just glad it came down to a fair, fun, and enjoyable game.  As a scenario designer you always feel weird winning your own game anyway, especially against a relatively new player.

So 100 thanks to @brucelea for the great game!  I totally look forward to doing this again, and most certainly we will (Darkstar and holidays permitting).

Meanwhile, I’ll start posting the battle that @damon and I had in Arab-Israeli Wars, Egyptians vs. Israelis, Sinai Desert, Bir Gifgafa, 2 November 1956.

More great gaming, enjoyed in real time across the ocean thanks to web conferencing!

The virtual game board engagement of Panzer Leader between myself and @brucelea continues!

So here is where I really start to pay for my overly-aggressive move into the the northern hex of that Tunisian town.

The idea was sound, get heavy armor up into that town and use its defense bonuses to forestall British armor coming down from the northeast against my tentative bridgehead over the wadi.

What wasn’t so sound was how it was executed – putting tanks into urban terrain without infantry support.

There’s a rulebook somewhere, where all t he ghosts of all the great tank generals in all the wars write on page one … never do this!  Never send tanks into cities without infantry support!

Well, this is what happens.

Direct fire from the fifteen Crusader IIIs, at point-blank range, blasts away into the town hex and with a solid roll (and point blank range, and 3-1 advantage in numbers, and upgunned to 6-pounders), actually knocks out that platoon of Tigers.

How can those Crusaders see me?  They have friendly infantry swarming over me (adjacent hex to the south) probably marking the Tigers with colored smoke and flares.   Here they are, boys!  Come and get ‘im!  Shoot straight for once, you tanker pukes!

With the Tigers burning, the close assault then comes in at the end of infantry movement phase.  More bad news, the British infantry is now being supported by a platoon of engineers moving in from the southeast.

This is very, very bad news for my two platoons (ten tanks) of PzKpfw IV/F2s.  And they are put in a very tough position where they are faced with two really shit choices.

Those engineers only have one attack point, but because they are engineers, lend that combined four-unit close assault some very big bonuses.  So, do my Mark IVs counterfire against those engineers in an attempt to save themselves?

Or to they accept the inevitable and go out in a blaze of glory … blasting away at those Crusaders who have now revealed themselves by shooting up those Tigers?

After being too aggressive in moving in here, the German tanks now get too timid, and try to save themselves.

They pun down the engineers, but the three platoons of rifles close assault anyway.  Admittedly it is a weaker assault, but @brucelea rolls well enough where it disperses those two platoons of Mark IVs.

Now the Mark IVs will never get a shot off against those Crusaders.  🙁

THEN both Mark IV platoons will fail their rally checks next turn, allowing the British infantry and Crusaders (who now have them in a north-west crossfire, and they are still dispersed) to pick them off more or less at their leisure.

Definitely a bad day for the Panzerwaffe.

The end of Turn 7, where I zoom out a little so show some seriously dramatic developments in this ongoing battle.

So in the south is the good news for the Germans.  Even though my engineer platoon was dispersed and finally killed, meaning I can’t blow up the bridge in an elegant, professional, “proper” way … I can mass 400 German infantry and simply assault the bridge and try to literally tear it apart with satchel charges and stick grenades and integral 5.0 cm mortars.

It took two turns, and two assaults, and only succeeded because of some good dice on my end (finally) and plenty of smoke screen cover dropped in by the 8.0 cm mortars.

So my 400 men, with plenty of flak, 7.5 cm infantry gun, antitank gun, and mortar support, literally assaulted the bridge twice and finally succeeded in basically burning it down.

One engineer platoon with the proper training and equipment would have been better.  But either way, we finally got the job done.

Up north, things are not going so well for me.  As previously described, the British armoured dragoons have now blown up another platoon of PzKpfw IVs, the last one miraculously rallied and escaped into the woods to the north.  How?  where did those Crusaders go?  They withdrew to the north to cover that platoon of Valentine bridgelayer tanks, which is trundling toward the wadi to lay a second bridge across the wadi to the north.

Remember the victory conditions – the Germans get 20 points for each British bridge destroyed, the British get 20 points for each bridge still across the wadi at the end of Turn 10.  So, if @brucelea can get that second bridge across, the game is tied for bridges and it will come down to  destroyed units (British get 3 points for each German unit destroyed, Germans get 2 points for each British unit destroyed).

But as we see in those northern woods, there has already been a bit of a tank firefight as that last platoon of PzKpfw IV/F2s has tried to get around those Crusaders and put a hole through those Valentine bridge layers.

A close up of that bloodbath in the wadi, where my German schützen infantry finally managed to burn down that bridge.   The bad news is that my panzerkompanie of PzKpfw IIIJs is now trapped on the British side of the wadi, and several platoons are already “dispersed” by Sherman fire pouring in from off screen to the right.

Note where the bridge used to be is a counter showing a burning British tank.  This may not make sense.  Basically, these burning tank counters are not just for bragging rights or decoration, they also effect the properties of that hex (stacking, movement, etc).  Too many wreck counters can actually “clog up” a hex to a certain degree.  So when a bridge is destroyed, a wreck counter is placed there to show the effect of that collapsed metal.

Meanwhile, that stubborn British company of rifles (with bridging engineer support) is still causing trouble in the norther part of the wadi.

The Valentine bridge layer has reached the norther stretch of the wadi!  A new bridge is being thrown across the terrain obstacle!  After a brief window of German victory, it looks like this “Battle of the Bridges” is being tied up again!

Here are a little more battle report materials for  the recent game between myself and @brucelea (Panzer Leader, British v. Germans, Southern Tunisia, March 1943).

There’ll be a little more to come, I can’t put the whole battle report in full detail on here (a full battle report in Panzer Leader grows into novella length in very quick order).  And of course I still have Darkstar rules to write tonight, and I eventually want to take care of @damon’s battle of Arab-Israeli Wars as well.

So here’s a little bit of a zoom-in on the situation at the end of Turn 2.  In the center, you see my German engineers have reached the bridge, only to be suppressed by 40mm AA HE pouring down from that Bofors AA mount  Andrew has hidden in that town.  The good news for him is that my engineers are “dispersed” (note they are displayed at a cocked angle), but that Bofors battery is now spotted, and the Tigers lurk just to the south …

Meanwhile, I have a battery of 7.5 cm infantry guns, MG-34s on tripod company support role, 5.0 cm antitank guns, and 8.0 cm mortars all pouring fire on that reinforced British company on the slope of that hill overlooking the south shoulder of the wadi.  Furthermore, I have a kompanie of schützen infantry up the hill after them, launching repeated close assaults.

Meanwhile, my Tigers and Mark IVs pave made quick work of that annoying battery of 6-pounders to the southeast …  Mark IIIs are now across the bridge as well, setting up a perimeter to allow the engineers (if they ever rally) to set their charges per Panzer Leader engineer demolition rules, and blow that bridge sky-high.

End of Turn 3.  That 40mm Bofors AA battery, having given away their firing position, is long gone.  Andrew certainly saw this coming, he joked that the crews of those guns fired the weapons, pinned down those engineers, and then ran like hell back into the town to the nearest pub.  Good thing, too, because HE fire from those Tigers and Mark IVs reduced the Bofors AA mounts to twisted scrap.

But my engineers start a spectacular series of failed morale checks.  That gamble and sacrifice on the 40mm AA really pays off for the British, as the German engineers don’t rally for several  turns, buying the British several more turns before I can start laying charges on the bridge again.

Meanwhile, look to the northeast … the first squadron of Shermans has arrived from that dragoons battalion.  In all, some 45 Allied tanks are arriving on the field.  Desperately outgunned, the British infantry may be saved at last!

Meanwhile, to continue putting pressure on my pionier engineers on the bridge, Andrew’s other infantry company is coming down from the north, advancing into a smoke screen laid down by his 76mm mortar section, to start launching close assaults on my engineers.  It’s a long shot, but it might work, as this small infantry company has bridging engineers stacked with it, and any engineer unit in a close assault lends tremendous help in a close assault because of specialized equipment (satchel charges, explosives, bangalore torpedoes, perhaps even flamethrowers for combat engineers).

All the while, I continue to chew down that powerful British infantry company to the south.   Those 7.5 cm infantry guns, MG-34s in HMG configuration, and  5.0 cm antitank guns are now joined by a 2.0 cm FlaK gun on a halftrack, all blasting away at the stack as hard as they can.  As British platoons are pinned down, by follow-up assault wipes them out.  Rinse, repeat.  That stack of British counters keeps getting smaller.

Okay, here’s where I make a really critical mistake, and to be honest, Panzer Leader is not a forgiving game.  Anxious to keep his tanks away from that bridge (at least until I blow it up), I shove forward with my Tiger platoon and two platoons of PzKpfw IV/F2s, the fifteen German tanks pushing into that northern town hex.  Yes, that gives me advanced cover, some concealment, and a defense bonus against advancing British Shermans and Crusaders.

It also gives me a vantage where I can blow that first platoon of Shermans inside-out at very close range (for a Tiger), note the burning British tanks to the southeast (three hexes = 450 yards, three FoW tables, spitting distance for a pack of five big cats).

But the rest of this Tunisian town is swarming with hundreds of British infantry.  And fifteen Crusader IIIs with the new six-pound guns are rolling up on me from the north … and at just 300 meters, those 6-pounders hit pretty hard, especially against my relatively thin-skinned PzKpfw IV/F2 (these don’t even have hull schürtzen, remember).

Disaster, for both sides on the west bank of the wadi!

For the British, the last infantry are finally wiped out on that southern hill, leaving the Royal Engineers platoon (admittedly a powerful unit) now alone and pinned down under withering German fire from no less than eight units (six infantry howitzers, a dozen heavy machine guns, 200 infantry, five halftracks with 2.0 autocannon, and six 5.0 cm antitank guns lobbing HE shells into their perimeter.

However, more British fire and counterassaults  have finally killed by hapless engineers.  They never really rallied long enough to even start laying explosive charges.  The German pionier effort to blow that bridge has ended in complete failure.

So here is a wide-angle screen shot of the first game.

System: Panzer Leader (with Arab-Israeli Wars imports to rules engine)

German player: Oriskany

British player: Brucelea

Setting: Theoretical  Engagement – Southern Tunisia – early March 1943

As Axis positions in the Mareth Line are finally outflanked and dislodged, German and Italian remnants of Panzerarmee Afrika fall back before a renewed advance of the British Eighth Army, pushing up out of Libya.  The overall objective is a link-up with American, British, and French forces pushing in Algeria, currently engaged in the mountains of Tunisia’s “Eastern Dorsal.” Once established, this combined front can then turn north toward Bizerte, Tunis, and the final eradication of the Axis in North Africa.

Here we see where a British infantry battalion has reached a key crossing over a Tunisian wadi, flooded with spring water melting off nearby mountains.  They have taken the crossing, and a company of bridging engineers has erected a temporary bridge over the wadi.   This bridge is critical, as it is the only place any vehicle can cross the wadi so long as it is flooded.

Aerial reconnaissance, however, has spotted an approaching German counterattack.  Clearly the Germans have recognized the importance of this crossing, as they have scraped together a small but powerfully-equipped kampfgruppe to eliminate the threat.

Having called for help, the British infantry and engineers now grimly brace to meet the onslaught.  They are hopelessly outgunned, but take solace in the knowledge that a full battalion of friendly armor is en route from the east.  This mixed force of Shermans and Crusader IIIs also includes a section of Valentine III bridgelayer tanks.  No matter what, a bridge must remain standing over this wadi to facilitate larger bridge, division, or even corps operations deeper into western Tunisia.

The Germans, for their part, are equally determined to ensure that bridge is knocked down, as well as any new bridges the British might erect.  A British bridgehead here not only threatens the flank of what remains of the Deutsche Afrika Korps, but might also open a road toward Patton’s II Corps pushing east near El Guettar.

Victory Conditions:

• Germans get 2 point for each British unit destroyed.
• British get 3 points for each German unit destroyed.
(Trucks never count as victory points)
• British get 20 points for each bridge standing at the end.
• Germans get 20 points for each bridge they destroy.

Game lasts 10 Turns.

Set Up:

Bridge counter is placed at Hex 2413.  British Force A (infantry battalion + bridging engineers) can set up anywhere east of the wadi, or west of the wadi within two hexes.   British force B (tanks + Valentine armored engineers) enters from the east end of the board on Turn 3.

Germans enter along the western end of the board on Turn 1.

For best results, click on the image below, then open image in a new tab and zoom in.

The British have deployed their initial force – their infantry battalion and understrength company of bridging engineers.  Brucelea has opted to stage reinforced infantry companies on the high ground bracing both shoulders of the road leading to the objective bridge.  Counters indicate infantry platoons, MG sections, and engineer platoons.  In all  there is about 400 British troops shown on this shot (each hex is 150 meters across – about one FoW table or 2-3 Bolt Action tables).

The Germans, for their part, wasting no time. Leading with a platoon of five Tigers, then two platoons of PzKpfw IV F/2s, then three platoons of PzKpfw IIIJs, they are rushing straight up the road.  My objective is to cross the bridge in force as fast as I can, use tanks and support artillery to establish a perimeter around the bridge, lay smoke to block Bruce’s LOS on the bridge (delivered by my 8.0 cm mortars), and then deploy my panzer pionier engineers in halftracks to get on the bridge and start setting explosive charges.

Meanwhile, the Panzers will be able to meet the Shermans and Crusaders when they arrive on the board on Turn 3, probably reaching this immediate battle zone on Turn 4.  If I get lucky I’ll also put some holes in those Valentine bridgelayers, thus winning in a clean sweep.

By the way – I have resisted the urge to call this “The Battle of Biffin’s Bridge.” 😀 😀 😀

They’re not on the map yet, but here is the column of 45 tanks (30 M4 Shermans and 15 Crusader IIIs with the new 6-lb guns), plus a section of Valentine bridge layers, and the armored engineers in halftracks.  In all, 50 tanks here, five halftracks, 240 men.  The column is 750 meters long

First fire!  The British infantry open up with long-range rifle fire, Bren guns from their MG sections, and 76mm mortar fire on the Germans, pinning down several platoons and even killing one platoon while they are still vulnerable in their trucks.  But my tanks are across the bridge, only for my PzKpfw IV/F2s to take fire from the batter of 6-pounder antitank guns that Bruce has hull down behind that ridge to the southeast.

A lot more on this to come.

Not to be outdone, we also has @damon engaging in another wargame on Sunday, playing a modified variant of Arab-Israeli Wars scenario B-1, Bir Gifgafa (November 2, 1956).

System: Arab-Israeli Wars

Egyptian player: Oriskany

Israeli player: Damon

Setting: Historical Engagement – Sinai Desert – November 2, 1956

This is the very first scenario in the Arab-Israeli Wars book, to which I’ve made a series of changes in the interest of play balance, especially when using intermediate and advanced rules like Israeli split-move-and-fire.

To make a long story short, this is a historical scenario (i.e., this battle actually  happened) during the closing days of the 1956 Sinai War.  Egyptian President Nasser had been turning a blind eye to PLA rocket and terror attacks against Israeli settlements along the Negev Desert and up toward the Gaza Strip.  Israel had been keen to invade and clear out these nests, but to invade Egypt might bring down the weight of international opinion, which Israel desperately needed to survive these early years.

Nasser finally went too far and nationalized the Suez Canal, royally pissing off the British and frightening the French (still with strong interests in Syria, Lebanon, Algeria).  So Operation Musketeer was envisioned, with British Royal Marines and French paratroopers dropping into the Suez Canal zone to take it back from the Egyptians.

The problem was the sheer size of the Egyptian Army.  To tie down the bulk of the Egyptian Army in the Sinai Desert, the British and French reached out to the Israelis, and offered them assistance and “international support” in the UN to condone an invasion (Israeli Operation Kadesh).

That’s the very simplified version.  Long story short, Israel invaded Egypt in the Sinai, while British and French forces eventually arrived at the Suez Canal behind most of these Egyptian forces.

The Sinai Desert is very rocky in places, traversible only through certain passes.  The Israelis have already won most of the border battles and are now pushing in a 100-hour blitzkrieg through the passes in the inner Sinai.  Bir Gifgafa is actually a road center that sits at the mouth of one of these passes, through which Ben Uri’s 7th Armored Brigade is emerging on their way to the Suez Canal.  The Egyptians have 1st Armored Brigade, or at least its rear guard, ready trying to delay the Israelis and facilitate a cohesive Egyptian withdrawal to the canal.

This is a very flat table, truly “open desert” with only very short sand dunes, a scattering of vegetation, and a tiny roadside town.  Hexes are 250 meters.  Israeli forces include “M1” Shermans, upgraded M50 Shermans, and French AMX-13s.  Egyptian forces are mostly T-34/85 hand-me-downs and SU-100 assault guns.

Israelis get points for Egyptian units destroyed and for getting their own units off the west end of the map.

Egyptians get points for Israeli units destroyed and for any Israeli unit stranded on the map, even if they are not knocked out.

The game lasts eight turns – the Israelis are really under a time pressure here.  Orders have come down from division … GET TO THE CANAL!

A zoom in of one of the later turns, where the Egyptians have run out of space, and the Israelis have run out of time.

One thing @damon and I added to this game was some quick rules on platoon facing, so we can get flank shots, etc.  Combat formation and road / march / column formation are how incorporated, indicated by how the counter is placed on the map within the hex.

Using reverse slope tactics, I was able to force @damon into actually trying an overrun against my SU-100s and T-34s in hull-down positions, but even as t hose AMX-13s take grievous losses, those Shermans and M50s are ready to counter-overrun and really do some damage, or escape off the west end of the  map per their scenario objectives (or both).

I’ll say this much, for being pretty much the first time playing these games, both Brucelea and Damon did great, considering I’ve been playing these games for going on 25 years.

Best of all, the new web conference engine worked damned near flawlessly.  In all, this weekend we hand a three-man, 10 hour mini virtual boot camp.

I’ll be adding more pics and battle report details in the coming days, but for now suffice it to say we have opened a gigantic new potential for wargaming in the BoW/OTT community, especially for crunchy, heavy tactical wargames like this.

We’ll definitely be running some more in the not-too-distant future!  😀