1991 Gulf War on the Tabletop!

Part one of our playtest highlights reel is up on the Sitrep Podcast YouTube Channel.

This one still has a few bugs in it, the overall system is sound but there is some “edition conflict” in a few of game values on the counters.

Stay tuned for Part Two, and again, if you ever be interested in …

• Darkstar (please let me know what faction you’d prefer – Wave two ships are of course now available)
• Valor & Victory (WW1, WW2, Vietnam, Lebanon, or Falklands).
• Arab-Israeli Wars (1956, 67, 73, or 82 Lebanon)
• Tactical Combat Middle East (Panzer Leader in 1991)
• Panzer Leader WW2 as always, virtually any theater or campaign.
• AirWar C21 (any period 1950-present, Vietnam jet combat?)
• Naval Command (any period 1950-present)

… live on our channel, just drop me a PM and we’ll try to get you sorted out!

Part one of our playtest highlights reel is up on the Sitrep Podcast YouTube Channel.

This one still has a few bugs in it, the overall system is sound but there is some “edition conflict” in a few of game values on the counters.

Stay tuned for Part Two, and again, if you ever be interested in …

• Darkstar (please let me know what faction you’d prefer – Wave two ships are of course now available)
• Valor & Victory (WW1, WW2, Vietnam, Lebanon, or Falklands).
• Arab-Israeli Wars (1956, 67, 73, or 82 Lebanon)
• Tactical Combat Middle East (Panzer Leader in 1991)
• Panzer Leader WW2 as always, virtually any theater or campaign.
• AirWar C21 (any period 1950-present, Vietnam jet combat?)
• Naval Command (any period 1950-present)

… live on our channel, just drop me a PM and we’ll try to get you sorted out!

Had a great demo game of Panzer Leader, updated to 1991 Gulf War, using Toscach Miniatures’ Tactical Combat Middle East as a beginning guide.

Made some counters for the US, including M1A1 Abrams, M2 Bradley APCs, AH-64 Apache gunships, UH-60 Blackhawks, rifle platoons, and HMMWVs, and sent them up against a rag-tag collection of Medina Division Republican Guards (T-72s / BMPs) and remnants of a shattered Iraqi mechanized army division (T-55s / BTRs).

Just a few turns to try out the new counters, again, most of them make up just this morning.

We stream hobby every Thursday, and live games on the web every Sunday!  I you haven’t already, check us out!

SITREP PODCAST TWITCH

SITREP PODCAST YOUTUBE 

@Elessar2590 and I had a great game of Barry Doyle’s Valor & Victory.  Here are the “Battle Report Highlights.”

An Australian recon helicopter, returning to the base camp of 9th Bn / RAR (Phuoc Tuy Province, III Corps / II Field Force Sector, South Vietnam), has been shot down by Viet Cong RPG fire.

A rescue force of infantry, supported by M113 APCs, a UH-1H gunship, and even a Centurion main battle tank is sortied out to rescue the downed crew.

But main force battalion Viet Cong are swarming toward the crash site. It’s “Blackhawk Down,” the Australian Prequel!

Can they reach their downed comrades in time?

My friend Piotr ( @yavasa ) and I are taking a look at Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, using Panzer Leader, first playtest and demo game.

We’ll be live on Twitch in about 45 minutes!

8PM UK time, 3PM US East Time

Sitrep Podcast Twitch Channel

So we only got five turns through what’s normally a ten-turn game.  No worries, this was just a demo game / tutorial.  We hope to come back and do some more at a later time (schedules permitting) to continue our 80th Anniversary Commemoration of the 1939 campaign and the start of World War II.

We might set up a forum thread post rather than a project page, so both me and Yavasa can enter materials / photos / screen shots / battle reports, etc.

Two 30-min (approx) videos with the highlights of the AirWar C21 game recorded recently on Sitrep Podcast Twitch Channel.

@Oriskany: Fighter Regiment 921, VPAF (x4 MiG 17 “Fresco” + SAM support)

@Elessar2590: US Navy Squadron VF-51 (x2 F-4J Phantom II)

Enjoy!

Our Sitrep Live Stream kicks off in about an hour, where we’ll be featuring Australian forces, including new units, in an expanded rules set for Valor & Victory set in Vietnam.  In this game we’ll be seeing how the corrected helicopter rules work, along with polished anti-aircraft rules, antitank fire rules, new Centurion tanks of the Royal Australian Armoured Regiment, and so on.

The basic scenario:

1969, II Corps Sector, Phuouc Tuy Province, Southeast of Saigon – an Australian UH-1 Iroquois “Huey” on its way back to base camp has been shot down by a National Liberation Front (VC) RPG.  The bird has crashed in a former Michelin rubber plantation just a few hundred yards outside the perimeter of 9th Battalion, RAR.  There are casualties, but also survivors.  Now, a hasty armored force is sortied out of 9/RAR’s base camp to secure the crash site and rescue the casualties before they are overrun by elements of a Viet Cong main force battalion.

The game will be played between myself and @elessar2590 – so we’ll see what happens!

9PM UK Time, 4PM East US time, 6AM Monday AEST

Okay, everyone … I’ll try to upload some kind of video highlights of this recorded game this week, but for now, here is a traditional battle report for the game of AirWar C21 my friend @elessar2590 and I had last Sunday.

AirWar C21 is a great system by Wessex Games, available on Wargames Vault, recreating jet air combat in the modern age.  Think X-Wing except real.  For this game, I used the Data Annex supplement for slightly older aircraft to create a game set during “Operation Rolling Thunder,” the American tactical bombing effort against North Vietnam during 1965-68.

Elessar590 will wind up playing the Americans here.  These are US Navy F-4 Phantoms in 1968 Vietnam, so just for fun we decided they were from Squadron VF-51, based aboard the carrier USS Oriskany.  Movie buffs might know this is the squadron of “Duke” Mitchell, father of Tom Cruise’s “Maverick” Pete Mitchell in TOP GUN.

So let’s see how Maverick’s dad does today!

CONGRATS ON THE VICTORY @elessar2590!  You’re warned, though!  I’ll get you next time!  😀

Later today I’m having a game of AirWar C21 with @elessar2590 – where we’ll be in the skies over North Vietnam as part of the “Rolling Thunder” operations that took place from 1965-1968.

We hope to have this game streamed live on the Sitrep Podcast Channel on Twitch, available here:

Sitrep Podcast Twitch Channel

Our time is set up for 9PM UK time (4PM East US time, 6AM Monday Australian East Time).

We hope you’ll come by and check us out!

So yesterday my friend @damon and I had a great game of Panzer Leader, meant as a “historical approximation” of the Sherwood Rangers’ participation in Operation Martlet.  This was an attack launched in Normandy during the last days of June, 1944, west of Caen.  The objective was to pin German forces in place and prevent lateral shifts of reinforcements against the upcoming (much larger) attack of Operation Epsom, one of many British attempts to clear German divisions from the vicinity of Caen.

The Sherwood Rangers were requested by @damon , I found the battle, researched its general layout and topography, designed the scenario and the new map, and facilitated the game.  I played units of the 12^th SS Hitlerjugend and Panzer Lehr, while Damon fielded forward elements of 8^th Armoured Brigade (Sherwood Rangers’ parent formation).  I also included other units of 8^th Armoured, including most of 4/7 Dragoons and a little of the 24^th Lancers, as I’m not 100% certain they were there on this particular day (they may well have been, I only had a couple days to research this and design the game).

The three historical phase lines of this assault were Barraccuda (through the town of Fontenay-le-Pesnel), Walrus (extending ENE out of the high ground of Tessel Wood) and “Albacore” (roughly along the line of towns Vendes and Rauray).

These phase lines were used as the basis for the seven objective hexes.  Damon’s British must take four of them to win the game.  Thus, he only has to match the rough historical outcome of the attack, not its actual planned objectives, which were not reached on the day in question.

Again, each hex is 150 meters.  Most counters are a platoon, troop, or battery.  The game lasts 10 turns.

Oh, one more thing before the rivet-counting snipers start taking shots … these British tank troops are “intentionally inaccurate” historically.  Again, Panzer Leader runs on platoons / troops.  So each of these Sherman counters should read 10-A-8, math that is worked out to represent a four-tank troop of three “vanilla” Shermans and a Firefly.  I gave Damon the choice and he elected to break up his three battalions into specialized troops, so each squadron has three counters of 9-A-8 “pure” Shermans and one of 14-A-10 Fireflies.

Good morning, all ~

The third and final part of the Valor & Victory: Vietnam game between myself and Gianna ( @stvitusdancern ) is finally up.  See just how close this one finally came in the end, and hour our new Special Forces units work against PAVN / NVA communist regulars in the III Corps Central Highlands along the Laotian border!

Turn Twenty, and the game overall, is finally complete.

At twelve minutes a turn, this puts us at 240 minutes after H-Hour, four full hours.

In all, this game took seven days, playing at least 3-4 hours a day.  So how did it go?

Well, as students of the battle will tell you, the Americans are already kind of running away with it.  We’ll get into the “how and why” of it later, but for now let’s see how this game finally burns down to a conclusion of our re-creation of D-Day on “Bloody Omaha.”

So the game is finally done.   Yeah, the Americans turned out to be a little OP.  After Turn 6 or 7 it was really a steamroller, with the Germans more or less helpless.  While this happened historically, if didn’t happen until MUCH later in the day.  I’m not saying that games always have to go as history prescribes, but clearly too much of the American landing plan went like clockwork here, and as a result the Germans never stood a chance.  Had this been a live game, the German player would have spent the last 16 hours of gameplay as a patient speed bump only hoping to flatten a few tires as he was ruthlessly run over.

This was a reason I really didn’t want to run this game live.  There is no point system for Panzer Leader.  Followers of the game know there is just no way the system has room for that.  Designing scenarios is about experience, research, and gut feelings.  Needless to say, it is an inexact science.  In small or medium sized games, a 5% “wobble” is no big deal, one or two dice rolls can sort that out.  But in a game this gigantic (seven days, at least 3-4 hours a day), even a 5% wobble can quickly get out of control.

A detailed breakdown of American game losses by beach assault zones:

• Charlie / Dog Green:  24 counters (240 killed, 480 wounded)
• Dog White: 14 counters (140 killed, 280 wounded)
• Dog Red: 14 counters (140 killed, 280 wounded)
• East Green: 12 counters (120 killed, 240 wounded)
• Easy Red: 24 counters (240 killed, 480 wounded)
• Fox Green / Fox Red: 19 counters (190 killed, 380 wounded)

Total: 107 counters (1,070 killed, 2,140 wounded, 3,210 total casualties)

This is actually a little lower than the historical result.  Yes, most sources will cite “about 2,000 American casualties on Omaha” – that is complete horsesh*t, due in part mostly to American GRUs (Graves Registration Units) use of the “Missing” category for men killed who cannot be positively identified or are not found (like all those who drowned in the Channel).  The more recent and realistic figure posted by the US D-Day Historical Association (since picked up by other sources) gives 2,501 Americans killed on D-Day, with 979 in the airborne drops, 152 on Utah (including boating losses), and about 45 at Pointe do Hoc.  This leaves about 1,325 on Omaha killed, with easily double that in wounded for a casualty rate on Omaha alone closer to 4,000.

As you can see, the Americans in this game suffered far less than that.  AND far surpassed the historical results on the beachhead.  So this game was a little tilted toward the Americans.

If we run a SECTION of this live later, we’ll stiffen the dice roll for American tanks making it ashore, delay the M-7 Priests to when they ACTUALLY landed instead of when they were PLANNED to land, and reduce the American airpower (which was very spotty in effectiveness on the day).  One thing we’ll keep in the naval gunfire support.  The battleship USS Texas closed to within ONE MILE to deliver point-blank fire with 14” guns,  some destroyers closed to with 450 yards of the shore (insane for naval scales, the ships technically would have been ON THE TABLE about three hexes out into the water).

Still, it was a great game.  I learned a lot.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading!  We have more Panzer Leader in the works, this time with British units fighting inland in the weeks and months following the landings.

And again, if you’re ever interested in trying some of this out yourself, ping me an e-mail and I’ll add you to the weekly mailing list!

Turn Fifteen is now complete, putting us at three hours after H-Hour on Omaha Beach.

The game is now three-quarters over.

Waves Six, Seven, and Eight are now ashore, more or less wrapping up the first big assault landings of 1^st US Infantry and 29^th US Infantry Divisions (reinforced).  The next big group of landings will constitute the mid-day “second assault” landings that more or less put the rest of these divisions ashore (18^th Regimental Combat Team for 1^st Infantry and 115^th Regimental Combat Team for 29^th Infantry Division).

Throughout this third hour of the invasion, the Americans continued to face very tough resistance from localized German strongpoints, even as the overall German position began to disintegrate. Furthermore, seemingly endless waves of engineers (including US Army construction engineers, combat engineers, and US Navy Beach Battalions) have opened huge gaps in German beach obstacles, minefields, and the Omaha Beach shingle.  This means that follow-on waves have had very few losses coming ashore (still a handful here and there), and a much easier time getting up the bluffs through the opened draws to joined the fraying and bloodied remnants of earlier assault waves (some companies are down to a single platoons, some battalions are down to less than 120 combat effectives).

Yet even as the American position begins to solidify, off-board support is beginning to dissipate.  The American air strikes have now all shot their bolt and returned to base.  Eight P-47s were shot down and six damaged.  Furthermore, naval gunfire support has reduced as priority targets are shifted further inland against German communication and transport routes.

“The Longest Day” … and the longest game, are by no means over yet …

Turn Ten is now complete, putting us at two hours after H-Hour on Omaha Beach.

The game is now half over.

Waves Four and Five are now ashore.  The last German heavy artillery has been silenced (10.5cm, 15.0cm, and nebelwerfer batteries), and engineers have started clearing not only blocks across the four vital exit draws off of Omaha Beach, lanes through the beach shingle, and paths through German minefields, but also gaps in the beach obstacles at the water’s edge.  The tide is coming in, after all, and American waves Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine are still due.  In game terms, any American unit trying to land in a hex marked “OPEN” (after a successful engineer check) does NOT have to make the “landing survival roll” that has been killing or dispersing so many American units just trying to enter the game.

But two blocks remain across the crucial draws.  The Americans only hold three of the eleven objective markers.  And five German “wiederstandnester” fortified strongpoints remain intact, garrisoned, and offering brutal resistance on the bluffs and across that blood-soaked sand.

So this game is so big I’m literally getting 1-2 turns done a day.  Five turns are done so far, meaning this game is 1/4 over.

I’ll be streaming Turn 6 today, maybe even Turn 7 if we make good progress.

If you fancy dropping by, here is the Sitrep Podcast Twitch Channel:

Sitrep Podcast Twitch

I hope to be on at about 4:30 Eastern US, so 9:30 UK Time.

Turn Five is now complete, putting us at one full hour after H-Hour on Omaha Beach.

Wave three is now ashore, and finally the American losses in initial landings are starting to slacken off.  Almost all German artillery is now silenced or at least suppressed, sharply reducing the rate of wholesale butchery taking place on those bloody sands.  A handful of German “wiederstandnester” strongpoints have also been taken, American infantry and even some tanks are now up off the beach and atop the bluffs.  But other strongpoints remain in place and continue to exact a grim toll on American units trying to assault them, and also further assault waves still hitting the beach.

American air power is now more or less exhausted, although surviving P-47 Thunderbolts can still linger and attack light targets with  machine guns.

But dare we say … there are a few rays of hope?

Turns 2 and 3 are now complete, putting us at about 36 minutes past H-Hour. The American second wave is ashore … sort of.  Losses continue to be hideous.  American losses now stand at 48 platoons of various types rendered combat ineffective (1680 men, so roughly 560 killed and 1120 wounded).

Although some cracks may just be starting to spread in the Atlantic Wall, casualties and equipment losses are reaching the point where I honestly don’t know if the Americans will succeed in opening the four major draws off Omaha.

Turn One is complete.  It took about 90 minutes.  Nineteen turns to go.  So far there are few surprises.

The landings are chaos.

DD tanks are sinking.

German AT guns are murdering all the American Shermans with dozer blades.

Engineers cannot push inland to blow holes in beach obstacles or the sea wall shingle.

The Americans at Dog Green and Dog White have been all but shattered, with “A” Co / 116th all but annihilated in the opening fire phase.

But some armor has made it onto the beach.  And air power has knocked out at least one infantry gun and pinned German MG-42 bunkers in Wiederstandnester 71 (the exact bunker complex that butchered Captain Miller’s company at the Vierville Draw).

Meanwhile, German artillery (8.0 cm mortars, 15.0 cm mortars, 10.5 cm howitzers, and even one battery of 15.0 cm howitzers) has positively mauled American landing points at Dog Green and Easy Red (16th RCT, 1st Infantry Division).

So as horrible as things are, some parts of the American landings are actually going slightly better than historically, while others are going  much worse.

My God, I think there is something legitimately wrong with me.  What kind of fool tries to recreate a legitimate, full-scale, platoon-based, historically “approximate” re-staging of ALL of Omaha Beach?

Well, the map is complete.  The initial forces are set up.  Just a few special rules to iron out and it’s time to start this apocalyptic game.

Good afternoon ~  We have now posted Part 01 of the Sitrep Podcast Live Wargame between @oriskany and @stvitusdancern.  See if her US Special Forces can find, pin down, and destroy elements of my NVA main line regiment, Kon Tum Province, Central Highlands, South Vietnam, December 1967.

System:  Valor and Victory

Parts 2 and 3 coming soon!

Enjoy!

So I’ve taken a brief break from Omaha to build and run a game with @stvitusdancern on the Sitrep Command Team.  The game was Valor & Victory (Barry Doyle, Vietnam Expansion by @oriskany) where we pitted a platoon of US Special Forces up against Vietnamese regulars (PAVN) near the Laotian border, Kon Tum Province, South Vietnamese Central Highlands, III Corps, mid-December 1967.

The general situation in this part of the war was dominated by a VC/NVA build-up for the Tet Offensive that would hit in January-February 1968.  During this build-up, large contingents of NVA troops and weapons for the VC would come down the the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia – with branches leading off the trail at many points, leading into South Vietnam.  American and ARVN ground forces were not allowed into Laos and Cambodia, but they could interdict these forces as they crossed into South Vietnam, hopefully stopping the buildup and perhaps using intelligence gained in these actions (prisoners / captured documents) to build a better picture about the Tet Offensive that was building up.

The Omaha Beach Panzer Leader mega-game continues to come together.  The overall map is now complete (2500+ hexes, 24 square miles, or almost 63 square kilometers, estimated 2800 Flames of War tables).

American landings are researched and set up to pretty precise to the historical plan, we’ll see what the current, tides, beach obstacles, and enemy fire do to it.

Now I just have to set up the Germans.

The project is temporarily paused, however, to facilitate construction of a Valor & Victory Vietnam game for Saturday.

So after the success of last week’s Gold Beach game (Gold Beach is one of the British invasion beach zones during the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944), I thought I would create a new scenario for Omaha Beach, the big American beach depicted in Saving Private Ryan.

The system will be Avalon Hill’s Panzer Leader.

This will be a monster game, play-tested solitaire (not live … it would literally take days).  But the ambition here is to run all of Omaha Beach, in true scale, no shortcuts, no gimmicks.

So far I have the map mostly complete – with the American units built.

Part III of our Gold Beach Panzer Leader  game (myself with the Germans, @brucelea  and @damon with the British) has now been posted on the Sitrep YouTube channel.  It comes down to the final crunch here, folks, a 9+ hour game to the last turn, and almost the last roll!  We have Typhoon fighter bombers, German FlaK, Royal Marine Commandos, Centaur assault tanks, Churchill AVREs, desperate defense and frantic close assaults!

This is one for the record books!  With some funny jokes and sound effectsm too!  😀

British units: 1st Hampshire Rifles, 1st Dorsetshire Rifles, 2nd Devonshire Rifles (231st Brigade), “B” Assault Squadron / 6th Royal Engineers, Winchester Dragoons, 47th Royal Marine Commandos, Sherwood Rangers

German units: Infantry Division 352 (Grenadier Rgt 916, III. Battalion) and elements of 441 “East” Battalion, Infantry Rgt 726, 716 Static Infantry Division.

Part II of our Gold Beach Panzer Leader  game (myself with the Germans, @brucelea  and @damon with the British) has now been posted on the Sitrep YouTube channel.  Now that all the rules, units, history, and initial landings are out of the way, this video jumps straight into the carnage with improved sound, music, and a lot more combat.  We see Royal Engineer AVREs blowing up beach obstacles, pipers striding out of landing craft, steadfast defense by German coastal troops, British armored bridgelayers, and Flail tanks clearing lanes through German minefields.

The Germans are just about starting to crack (maybe ???)  But have the British lost too much already?  And will my reserves be able to seal the breach?  🙂

British units: 1st Hampshire Rifles, 1st Dorsetshire Rifles, 2nd Devonshire Rifles (231st Brigade), “B” Assault Squadron / 6th Royal Engineers, Winchester Dragoons.

German units: Infantry Division 352 (Grenadier Rgt 916, III. Battalion) and elements of 441 “East” Battalion, Infantry Rgt 726, 716 Static Infantry Division.

Things are just getting started here, everyone.  Myself, @brucelea , and @damon go over the map setup, the units involved on both sides, some of the objectives and special rules.  Finally we get into the opening shore bombardment barrage from HMS Warspite and her escorting destroyers … and then look into the first wave of landings of 1st Hampshire and 1st Dorsetshire.

This one gets bloody fast!

There will be at least two more videos.  Again, just the highlights, this game went for nine and a half hours, I wouldn’t even try to record, render, and post that much video.  😐

I hope some of you will check it out!  We really try to recreate the historical  conditions and tactical situation of 50th Northumberland’s right wing on that fateful day, putting the leading elements (first wave on our table is about 1300 men), 231st Brigade on Jig Green and Jig Red assault beaches.

Gold Beach Panzer Leader game: COMPLETE

Run Time: NINE HOURS

Result:  EPIC

Losses (both sides): BRUTAL

Decision: LAST TURN

Players: (@brucelea and @damon): WARGAME HEROES

D-Day 75th Anniversary: COMMEMORATED

>> End Transmission.

Okay, we’re all set.  Game starts in 1 hour (minus).  😀

SPECIAL RULES:

LANDING:

• Coastal hexes are designated either SEA hexes or BEACH hexes by the color of the hex beneath their central dot.
• At the end of movement, during the turn BEFORE they are scheduled to land (or in the initial set up for first wave units), British units are placed in a SEA hex adjacent to their planned beach landing hex.
• Germans may then fire at them during their subsequent turn.
• RULE SHORTCUT: Unlike “official” Amphibious Landings rules in Panzer Leader, where landing British units are inverted (so Germans cannot see which boats carry which units) – here we will roll a d6.  On a 1-2, the German attack hits the intended target.  3-4, the attack hits the “next unit to the left.”  On a 5-6, the attack hits the “next unit to the right.”
• As per Panzer Leader XI.D.3, all units except DD tanks are assumed to have an armored DF of 8. DD Shermans get normal DF, Germans must add +2 DRM to DF attacks (obscured target).
• Landing takes place FIRST during the movement phase of the subsequent British turn.
• DD tanks make a d6 roll. On a 1-5, they land normally. On a 6, they sink and are removed.
• All units (including surviving DD tank units) must also make a landing placement roll. Once the British player indicates which hex the unit INTENDED to land, roll a d6.
• 1-2 = unit lands normally.
• 3 = unit lands one hex to the west.
• 4 -5 = unit lands one hex to the east.
• 6 = unit lands two hexes to the east.
• Any unit that hits a block counter while trying to land is destroyed.
• Getting onto the beach hex is that unit’s whole movement.
• Exception: DD Tanks can land and hove half their movement.
• Any units that are CARRIED (towed guns, etc) must debark loaded in their carrier vehicle.
• Non-DD tank units cannot move half once they land (unloaded from LCTs, etc).
• Units scheduled to land on a given turn MUST land on that turn. They cannot “wait” until the beach opens up.
• Any hex that winds up “overstacked” (3 units to a hex) must IMMEDIATELY “lose” a unit per overstacking rules. This takes place BEFORE previously landed units move out of the hex.
• Once all units land on a given turn, units that were already landed in previous turns can now move normally.
• German units taking opportunity fire do not have to make the “shortcut randomizer” roll mentioned above if they shoot at units as they land (using normal unit DFs and target classes).

TERRAIN:

• All Beach hexes cost vehicles double movement.
• Entering a hex where the unit climbs one elevation level costs double movement (infantry included).
• Climbing a bluff hex off a beach hex costs 4 vehicle movement, 2 infantry movement, 6 truck movement. Churchill Bobbin Funnies can lay a carpet in these hexes to make it “clear.”
• Stream: This is a shallow stream. Costs infantry 2 MP to enter.  Costs vehicles 4MP to enter, trucks 6MP to enter.  Stream does not block LOS.  Stream gives +1 DRM.  Road negates stream.  Churchill Bridgelayers can bridge the stream.

BEACH OBSTACLES:

• Trench rules: Normal. Cannot be crossed at all by any vehicle. No effect on infantry.  Can be bridged by Churchill Bridgelayers.
• Mines: Normal. Can be removed by flail tanks per AIW rules. Can be removed by Combat or Construction engineers which move onto the mine hex and roll a 1-2 on 1d6.
• Blocks: No effect on LANDED infantry. Sinks any landing unit that drifts into them. No vehicle can enter a block hex.  Can be removed by LANDED  engineers who move into the hex and roll a 1-2 on 1d6.  Can also be removed by Churchill AVRE that is adjacent to it and declares an attack (BOOM).  Removed blocks no longer blow up landing units in subsequent waves.
• Churchill Bridgelayers can lay three bridges. Normal AIR Bridgelaying rules.
• Churchill Bobbins can lay three “roads.” Renders beach hexes and beach bluff hexes normal for movement purposes.

NAVAL GUNFIRE (SHORTCUT RULES):

• British get 50 points of (H) class INDIRECT naval gunfire support on every ODD turn.
• This can be split up into two attacks if desired (20/20, 30/10, 35/5, etc).
• Must be within LOS of the north side of the table (any beach or bluff hex)
• Can also be called in by any non-dispersed, unloaded combat unit (not trucks).
• On a 1-4 it lands as targeted. On a 5-6 the shellfire drifts one hex (1d6).

Work continues on the Gold Beach Panzer Leader game scheduled for Saturday, June 8, 4PM UK time.

We created some of the counters and set up some of the map live on Sitrep Twitch Channel last night.  We had some great conversation with the role of research in “high-history” games, naval bombardment, the potential role of the panzer divisions, the real reasons why Omaha was so much bloodier than the other beaches, the Juno Beach landings, and different eras of Canadian flags.

After we signed off I tinkered a little with the Germans, and started with a general map set up.  I will fill this out and get everything completed later tonight in time for tomorrow’s game.

But for now …

Looking forward to a great game tomorrow! 😀

Okay, the map is now complete.  It’s actually complete whether I like it or not, apparently this afternoon I didn’t save it properly as editable layers … so large scale changes are lo longer possible without re-drawing the whole thing.  Apparently the gods are trying to tell me something …

It’s fine!  Stop obsessing and get some sleep! 

I chose this sector for a number of reasons …

• My two players wanted to try British units (reasonable enough).
• Pretty sure Gold was “tougher” than Sword.
• This part of Gold (“Jig” Sector, turning west inland to fight toward Arromaches in “Item” Sector)  is one of the few times we see British seaborne infantry actually fight true German troops that day (as opposed to “Ost” battalions, largely drawn from Belarus and Ukraine).
• We get some Royal Marine Commandos in the second wave (and after all this Falklands work, I loves me some Royal Marine Commandos).
• Two squadrons of tanks also land here (Sherwood Rangers – I think later renamed the Nottinghamshire Rangers?)
• The terrain here is interesting, with substantial towns right on the water, tough German beach defenses and “wiederstandnester” strongpoints, cliffs to the west leading toward Arromanches (about 20 hexes off off the west edge of the map), marshes and farmland (which are still here today), and even a small river which … rather bizarrely, never reaches the sea (?), apparently diverted east to a series of canals and marshland.

My friends @brucelea and @damon are gearing up for a 75th Anniversary wargame of Avalon Hill’s classic Panzer Leader – recreating part of 50th Northumbrian Division’s landing at “Jig” sector, Gold Beach, 07:20 hours, 06 June 1944.

Initial waves will be made up of 1st Bn / Hampshire Rgt and 1st Bn / Dorsetshire Rgt, followed up by 47th Royal Marine Commandos, Royal Engineers, 2nd Bn / Devonshire Rgt, RFA batteries, and Sherwood Rangers (Sherman DD tanks).

They’ll be up against elements of Infantry Division 352 (Grenadier Rgt 916), and elements of 441 “East” Battalion, Rgt 726, 716 Static Infantry.

At least two of us have walked these battlefields, so there will be something of a connection in the design and play of this wargame.

The game will be played on-line on Saturday, June 8.

This thread will record some of the research, design, and of course game play that goes into this small week-long project.

And finally, the first work-in-progress of the Panzer Leader map board.  She’s not quite finished (no trees, a few labels missing, and of course one of the German beach defenses on here yet).  But she’s on her way.  My goal is to finish the map by Tuesday and get started on counters Wednesday and Thursday.  Friday we’ll hammer out a few special rules and design the workbook by which @brucelea and @damon and I will play the game (I’m taking the Germans) …

… and Saturday we hit the beach!

So as shown below, we now have enough for a beginning game in Valor & Victory for the Falklands 1982.

Please join us at 8PM UK time, 3PM East US time for another live stream on the Sitrep’s Twitch Channel, where we’ll be trying out these counters in a quick demo game!

New counters, new map, new setting, new expansions for a great game system, new options for historical wargaming!

The Sitrep never sleeps!  

Once again it’s time to “stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard favor’d rage ” … and take your dice to the wargame table.

As always we’ll be running wargames on the web this weekend!

If anyone wants to play in any of the games listed below, please let me know what game, what day and time, and which faction you’d prefer, as soon as you can so I can start building the scenario.

Options (Saturday at 17:30 UK time or Sunday 17:00 UK time):

• Darkstar (please let me know what faction you’d prefer)
• Valor & Victory (VWW1, WW2, Vietnam, Lebanon, or even Falklands if I can get some counters and maps put together)
• Arab-Israeli Wars (1956, 67, 73, or 82 Lebanon)
• Tactical Combat Middle East (Panzer Leader in 1991)
• Panzer Leader WW2 as always, virtually any theater or campaign. 😀
• AirWar C21 for the Falklands, 1982.
• Naval Command for Falklands, 1982

Again, if interested – either in playing or in spectating, please let me know with a PM.

On Sunday, I would actually like to give Falklands 1982 a swing in Valor & Victory if anyone is interested. This would help facilitate the last Falklands episode for the Ops Center, but of course I’ll run whatever the players are most interested in.

First come first serve, and I need time to build the scenarios.

Hope to see some of you there! Either way, have a great weekend!

JIM

Good afternoon, everyone!

The Sitrep Podcast Channel is hosting another live stream on twitch this afternoon.

Time:  8PM UK Time / 3PM East US Time

Game: AirWar C21 (Wessex Games)

Setting: Falklands War 1982

Scenario: Argentinian bombing attempt on British warships conducting shore bombardment on Port Stanley Airport.   Mirage III EAs escorting A-4 Skyhawks on attack run, intercepted by FRS1 Sea Harriers in Combat Air Patrol and air defense systems of HMS Glamorgan and HMS Alacrity.

Check us out on Twitch and see how we do!

Sitrep Podcast Twitch Channel

We hope to see some of you there!

This weekend my friend @elessar2590 and I took our first swing at a new game in a new genre: Modern naval combat.  Well, virtually a new genre for me, at least, I remember playing Harpoon back in the 1980s and early 1990s but haven’t really looked at modern naval operations in wargaming since then.

But Sunday we tried “Naval Command” – specifically for a scenario in the 1982 Falklands conflict.

Sitrep followers will certainly know that we’ve been running a lot of Falklands content lately, in support of our ongoing Ops Center video series on the topic.  I started looking at Naval Command as a system that could quickly and easily give us a look at the overall naval, maritime, and littoral operations involved with the British landings on the Falklands.  Harpoon is probably the “gold standard” for this kind of thing, but it’s also a very detail-intense and heavy-investment game from a research, prep, and paperwork perspective.

Accordingly, Sunday’s game was sort of a “live playtest” for the system, available for viewing in its 5-hour entirety on the Sitrep Twitch Channel.  But here are the highlights of the battle report.

So how did the game play out overall?  The game was definitely an Argentinian win, but with some serious apologies and caveats.  The Argentinians won because the British managed to make all the historical objectives (landing HMS Intrepid and Fearless at San Carlos, complete with Wessex transport birds dropping SAS on the high ground overlooking the landing zones for Royal Marines and Paras).  British losses in San Carlos were a basically a frigate, which almost matches historically (in our game the British lost HMS Alacrity, historically it was her sistership HMS Ardent).  The big difference was the loss of HMS Hermes, which obviously did NOT happen historically.

So here are the apologies and caveats.

One, this was totally an “alternate history” game where the Argentinian Navy mounted any kind of a stand at the Falklands.  Historically, their surface fleet was withdrawn to port after the loss of ARA General Belgrano (2 May 1982).  Just in putting ships like Santissima Trinidad and Hercules on the table, or really any Argentinian warships at all, is a massive break from the historical situation and a big “upgrade” to the Argentinian Navy’s performance in the war.

Two, HMS Hermes never really should have been this close to the combat zone.  Carriers by definition stay hundreds of miles away from the enemy, launching aircraft.  Harriers in this system have a 300” combat radius, meaning that HMS Hermes really should have been 200” further northeast, clearly off the table.

Three, even if HMS Hermes decided for whatever mad reason to come anywhere near this close to the actual Falklands, she would have had some aircraft already up, in a CAP role if nothing else.  I should have stipulated that @elessar2590 could have started with some aircraft already airborne.  This way, even if Hermes’ flight deck was devastated on Turn 1 as we’ve seen above, we would still have more Harriers available (at least as long as fuel allowed) to wreak devastating response on the Argentinian fleet.  Although let’s be clear, with 8-10 Harriers up instead of 3, there’s just no way those Super Etendards or Pucaras land those hits.

Four, the Argentinians just got damned lucky.  On camera I rolled that first “6” for the Argentinian aircraft arriving from the mainland, and then rolled 7s, 8, and 9s for damage (except that first Exocet).  We mixed up the rules a couple of times and so ran the resolution several times until we got it right, the Hermes would up with two “Heavy Damage” counters every time.  The old girl just could not catch a break.

So thanks very much to @elessar2590 for being a great sport, and helping out in our “guinea pig” experiment.  😀

Visit our Sitrep Twitch Channel to  check out our live streams, or catch up on hobby, battle reports, painting, and other great content!

UPDATE TO POST:

These are the two counters we created in the live stream.  Many more to come!  I still need to do:

• British Para Commandos (full and half squads)
• Leaders for Marines, Paras, (12 counters in all)
• British Support Weapons
• Argentinian Conscripts (full and half squads)
• Argentinian Officers (6 counters)
• Argentinian Support Weapons
• About 32-36 counters in all.

Okay, the stage is set for our first play-test of Naval Command by Rory Crabb.  I’ll be playing live against @elessar2590 tonight at 4PM US Eastern Time, 9PM UK time.  If all goes well, the game will be streamed live on the Sitrep Podcast Twitch channel as well, so swing  by and check us out!  See if the British can repeat their success, or if the Argentinians will repel (or at least critically damage) the initial British landings on the Falklands!

Sitrep Twitch Channel

Good afternoon, everyone ~

After an amazing weekend at the Fort Lauderdale Air Show, I am back and it’s time to start planning for another weekend of gaming.

If anyone wants to play in any of the wargames listed below, please send a PM to let me know what game, what day and time, and which faction you’d prefer, as soon as you can so I can start building the scenario.

All you need is an internet connection.  No software download required, it’s just a web conference.  You can either play or just hang out in the web conference, chat, and watch if you’re interested.  I just send you the link if ping me with a PM.

Options (Saturday or Sunday 1700 GMT): 

• Darkstar (please let me know what faction you’d prefer)
• Valor & Victory (VWW1, WW2, Vietnam, Lebanon, or even Falklands if I can get some counters and maps put together)
• Arab-Israeli Wars (1956, 67, 73, or 82 Lebanon)
• Tactical Combat Middle East (Panzer Leader in 1991)
• Panzer Leader WW2 as always.  😀
• AirWar C21 for the Falklands, 1982.
• First test of NAVAL COMMAND for Falklands, 1982?
• Again, IF INTERESTED – either in playing or in spectating, please let me know.

I would like to keep SUNDAY something MODERN-THEMED (Falklands Naval Command, Falklands AirWar C21, Falklands Valor & Victory, Arab-Israeli Wars, Gulf War, etc).  We will probably  be streaming this Sunday Modern game live on Twitch a well.

First come first serve, and I need time to build the scenarios.

I’ll send another e-mail later this week to confirm and send the link.  😀

Hope to see some of you there!  Either way, have a great weekend!

JIM

As part of our ongoing weekly web wargames, Sitrep content for modern warfare, and our small way of observing the recent ANZAC Day, @elessar2590 and I streamed another great game of Valor & Victory: Vietnam.  The game pitted Elessar’s Australian infantry (“A” Coy, 7^th RAR, 1^st ATF) against elements of a VC / NLF main force battalion, Phuoc Tuy Province, summer 1968.

The game is available on our Sitrep Twitch Channel in its entirety (about a 3-hour game).  In addition to the “modern-era” house rules for helicopters, casualties, POWs, and civilians, I also rolled out new experimental rules for obscured movement for the Viet Cong.  Basically, all VC units are “masked” until they are spotted, either by moving adjacent to Australian units, Australian units moving adjacent to them, firing on Australian units, or just being in an open hex in Australian line of sight.

Let’s see how the new rules work out!

Good afternoon, OTT!  We have a live stream going on the Sitrep Twitch Channel at 9:00 PM UK time, where we’ll see if @elessar2590 can lead his Australians in a successful “seek and destroy” patrol against my National Liberation Front Viet Cong (Phuoc Tuy Province, summer, 1968).

Sitrep Twitch Channel

The game system, will be Valor & Victory, adopted and expanded to Vietnam.  Vietnam-specific rules will include civilians, POWs, casualty evacuation, booby traps, helicopters, and obscured / hidden movement for the Viet Cong.

Check out the stream and see how we do!   Hope to see some of you there!

I’ve spent most of today gearing up Rory Crabb’s Naval Command system for play in the Falklands War.  With a ground scale of 1cm = 1 nautical mile (roughly 1:180,000) this is really the only kind of game that even comes close to representing the scope of modern naval operations.  In physical play, the table is usually 6 ‘ x 4’, and the ships re often 1:3000 with groups of aircraft represented by counters at 1:300 or 1:600.  (6mm or 3mm).

Of course, to facilitate play online or take screen shots to use in battle reports of use in future Ops Center episodes, I’ve been building everything virtually.

Of course, given the historical course of events, this kind of thing might wind up being more of a “campaign tracker” than an actual live game.  Then again, we can always run with the suggestion of a hypothetical game where the Argentinian Navy masses together for one all-out strike at the British, and we actually get the latter-day sea battle that (thankfully) never really happened.

Let me know what you think, or whether you’d ever be interested in trying this out over the next couple of weekends online.

In addition to the Falklands wargame we’ve had recently, we’ve also had a weekend web wargame with @rasmus in Valor & Victory: expanded to 1982 Lebanon.  My reinforced IDF mechanized infantry platoon was charged with going in and securing a Palestinian-help village in the norther Bekka Valley.

Things … didn’t go so well.  Although I did get to RUN OVER a Palestinian technical with my Zelda APC!  😀

Thanks very much Gianna for the great game and thanks to everyone who stopped by our streams to support us. It really means a lot. So yeah, I hope we gave AirWar C21 a decent showing here. I kind of didn’t do my Immelmans correct (at least the ones that succeeded), so I that’s on me … and there are additional rules for TAILING that can make the “dice-iness” of the initiative phase a little less luck driven – IF you’ve planned ahead and get can begin an enemy (your from 180-degree arc, in enemy’s rear 60-degree arc, you go when he goes, NO MATTER WHAT THE initiative is). SO we’re still learning this system, but already having tons of fun with it, and it’s deliver great realistic results for our 1982 Falklands wargames. 😀

(duplicate – apologies)

(duplicate – apologies)

Five more games played of AirWar C21.  Really getting the hang of that game and how it can show the dynamics, advantages, and disadvantages on both sides in the Falklands air war.

Now switching over to the naval side.  There will admittedly be a lot less here, honestly 95% of the “naval” war in the Falklands was one side or the other launching air strikes of one kind or another.  So AirWar C21 will have a lot of that covered.  That said, I’m also gearing up to use Naval Command system to play more of the operational aspect of the naval war.

Second try at Air War C21 for 1982 Falklands, this time with some improved player aids I re-designed for easier use on the virtual tabletop.

Also tried playing with +1 “Good” pilots instead of +0 “Average” pilots.

Went a little more smoothly.  Still made some serious goofs with the special maneuvers (do not rely on these too heavily in this game), I straight out destroyed two Harriers on one re-done turn by attempting … and failing … a Split-S maneuver at too high a speed, I literally ripped the wings off these things and probably killed both pilots.  Re-did that turn, only to blow a couple of Immelman maneuvers and quite literally “fell off the table” and inadvertently disengaged.

So still learning.  Clearly this game is aiming for a “realistic” look at flying combat jets, where it is possible to “crash and burn” without the enemy even doing you the courtesy of firing at you.

That said, Argentinian guns are still a very real danger, and Harriers are getting the hang of the AIM-9L Sidewinder.  And the game is very quick.  This introductory scenario was about 45 minutes.

So yeah, still got a little learning to do on this, but not too much.  Will try this one more time before moving to the next scenario in the Operation Corporate scenario booklet,  Argentinian bombing attack on Royal Navy outside of Port Stanley, HMS Glamorgan (County Class DLG) and HMS Plymouth (Rothesay class FF)

First playthrough of Air War C21 is complete – using the first scenario presented in the Operation Corporate Falklands 1982 campaign booklet.

This was less a dogfight than a collection of drunken cats trying to fight their way out of a barrel of peanut butter – no fault of the game system at all – just me learning how the system works.

The system seems actually pretty great, really challenging the player to consider when he should take gambles, especially with his maneuvers.  It also teaches some real flying fundamentals, like never forget to apply power before a difficult maneuver because whether the maneuver succeeds or fails, you’re losing speed and if you come out of the maneuver in a stall …

One things for sure … Argentinian fighters like guns.  British fighters like their American-made AIM-9L “Sidewinder” SR AAMs.  This results in a classic “high tech guys want to fight at long range, more numerous guys want to get into choking distance” dynamic.

Okay, so seriously … who’s in?

System:  AirWar C21 (Long Face Games)

Operation Corporate Supplement (1982 Falklands War)

Adopted to run via web conference.

Ping me a PM if you’re interested.  😀

Good afternoon, OTT / BoW!

Just a quick reminder …

Ops Center – Episode 04 goes out live tomorrow here on OnTableTop, YouTube, and Twitch!

We close out the 4-part series on the Arab-Israeli Wars, with a look at the 1976 Entebbe Raid (probably the birth of modern counterterrorist operations), 1982 “Peace for Galilee,” the Intifada, the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, and what the 2011 Arab Spring could mean for Arab-Israeli relations (or potential further conflict) going forward.

Remember to drop a comment or questions (on any platform), we answer questions in the next video!  And Ops Center Part 05 switches over to a new conflict, look for a hint on which one at the end of tomorrow’s video!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by! That was a great stream! I was only going to stream for an hour or so, turned into 3:45:00! I will be “off the radar” next week due to EOQ at work, but i really hope to be back starting on April 6 for some live games, either Valor & Victory Lebanon, Vietnam, Panzer Leader WW2, Panzer Leader Lebanon, Panzer Leader Gulf War 1991, or of course Darkstar!

Twitch Stream Sunday 3.24.2019

Just a quick “hello” to say I’ll be live streaming today at 7PM GMT, hopefully playtesting new vehicles in Valor & Victory: expanded to 1982 Lebanon.  We have Israeli M113 Zeldas (troops transports and gun IFVs) along with Palestinian technicals (with DShK 12.7mm HMG and ZU-23-2 twin autocannon).

Hope to see some of you there, to see how these new units work!

Sitrep Twitch Channel

Segments from our March 17 Twitch live stream, where we took a first swipe at playtesting home-expansion rules, units, and weapons for 1982 “Peace for Galilee”

In this video – AIR STRIKES! Syrian interceptors! SAMs! Ground fire!

1982 Lebanon Air Phase Demo

Good afternoon, folks!

We had a great Sitrep Modern Military Gaming live-stream on Sunday, March 17.  In this stream, we took a first swipe at playtesting the new 1982-era units, rules, weapons classes, and scenario conditions for Avalon Hill’s The Arab-Isreali Wars – which I’ve been working to expand beyond the published 1973 Yom Kippur War scenarios and into 1982 “Peace for Galilee” (Israeli Invasion of Lebanon).

Excerpts of this stream are now being posted on YouTube.  😀

Do you have what it takes to wear colonel’s eagles?  That first star for a brigadier-general?  This are the kinds of games that let you really “take a seat at that table” – and command whole battalions, regiments, or brigades in full-sized tactical combat.

March 17 Twitch Stream Excerpts – Lebanon 1982

Here’s a new WEC I’m putting together that combines / refines / reconciles data used in Panzer Leader, Panzer Blitz, The Arab-Israeli Wars, my 2014-15 “Putin’s War” update for Panzer Leader, and Tosach Miniatures “Tactical Combat Middle East” for 1991-2003 Wars against Iraq.  I’m hoping to use it in the first try of a The Arab Israeli Wars playtest for Lebanon 1982.

I’m hoping to live-stream some of the playtest for this new Lebanon expansion for The Arab-Israeli Wars starting at around 3:00 ETZ / 7:00 GMT tonight (Sunday March 17).  Hope to see some of you there!  😀

Sitrep on Twitch

Been working today on 1982-era counters for a new Lebanon expansion of The Arab-Israeli Wars.  Data’s been compiled from NE Atlanta Gaming Group (these guys do some very serious modern 1970s-80s Panzer Leader mods), Tosach Miniatures Tactical Combat Middle East (Panzer Leader for 1991-2003 Gulf Wars), and Shrapnel Games’ Steel Panthers: Main Battle Tank.

Still tweaking these of course, and there are a few more units I want to put together for 1982 “Peace for Galilee” Lebanon.

Good afternoon, everyone ~

Okay, time to finish the game that Elessar2590 and I had a great stream Sunday (Monday morning for him) – recorded at http://www.twitch.tv/sitreppodcast/videos– where we play-tested my new 1982 IDF and PLO forces and first Lebanon board for Valor & Victory.  He took the PLO (on defense) and I took the IDF.

This is squad based game – each piece on the map is either a single officer, squad, fire team (half squad), or support weapon.

Each hex is about 30 yards / meters across.

The game takes place during Israel’s “Peace for Galilee” invasion of Lebanon, June 1982.

The first two turns of the game are reported previously, here is the finish.

So this was a great game, thanks again to Elessar2590 and to everyone who watched us on Twitch.  Technically I won with the IDF, but really this is because a ridiculous turn of fortune on Turn 3 saved my ass.  Literally we had double 6s by Elessar, the worst roll for him, followed by two more 6s for me on sniper attacks, best possible rolls for me.  That’s actually 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 = 1,296:1 odds in my favor on Turn 3 … and even with this, I barely belly-crawled out of that one with a “win.”

Hey, we all cry when the dice gods punish us, and they punish me plenty.  They punished me pretty hard on Turn 1 and 2 (I still can’t believe that southern PLO assault).  But when the dice gods favor us, we need to offer reciprocal gratitude.

The real win for me here was the successful playtest of Valor & Victory 1982.  This means Falklands, Gulf War 1991, Somalia 1993 … all are potentially within reach.

Of course I’m not done with Lebanon yet.  I want to draw up some counters in “The Arab Israeli Wars” (Israeli Merkava 1s, M109 Paladins, Syrian T-72s, Israeli AH-1 Cobras), etc.  And I have the beginnings of technical / BMPs / Israeli M113 “Zelda” APCs in Valor & Victory.

So stay tuned!  More to come!

Good afternoon, everyone

Community member Elessar2590 and I had a great stream Sunday (Monday morning for him) – recorded at www.twitch.tv/sitreppodcast/videos – where we play-tested my new 1982 IDF and PLO forces and first Lebanon board for Valor & Victory.  He took the PLO (on defense) and I took the IDF.

This is squad based game – each piece on the map is either a single officer, squad, fire team (half squad), or support weapon.

Each hex is about 30 yards / meters across.

The game takes place during Israel’s “Peace for Galilee” invasion of Lebanon, June 1982.

This is only halfway through Turn 2, folks.  Stay tuned, I’ll put up the rest of this battle report later today (I hope).

Apologies to everyone – I’ve way behind in battle reports.  Real fast, here is the recap for the Valor & Victory: Vietnam game played between myself and Elessar2590 last weekend, with Elessar playing Australians on defense (2 companies, “A”CO, 7th RAR, ATF) vs. attacking guerrillas of my 274th Main Force Regiment, National Liberation Front (Viet Cong).

Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam, January 1968)

Obviously, the Australians have a ridiculous advantage in firepower, but my victory conditions are much easier.  For instance, I get 10 points for each objective hex I take (he gets none or anything he holds). Also, he gets only 1 victory point for each casulaty inflicted on me, while I get 3 points for each casualty I inflict (knocked out officer, medic, or fireteam), make that 6 points if Elessar doesn’t manage to evacuate that casualty.  He also can’t fire into civilian hexes, and if any casualties are killed by his incidental fire, that’s 6 more victory points for me.

So let’s see how this goes …

Good morning, everyone.

Well, we were able to run Valor & Victory Vietnam game this Sunday – pitting @elessar2590 and his two platoons of “A” Co, 7th Royal Australian Regiment against Oriskany’s company of 274th NLF / VC Main Force Regiment in Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam, January 1968.

It was neat wargaming live with a player from Australia, playing Australian troops, in a historical Vietnam wargame.  The dice gods also seemed to remember it was his birthday, judging by how those opening mortar barrages landed!

Okay we were supposed to live stream this game, but it didn’t really work out.  But I did record someof the highlights, and post the video excerpts to Sitrep YouTube and Twitch channels.

Just a clip, of course.  But might bring a chuckle.  😀

Good afternoon ~ Expanding on the idea idea of pushing Barry Doyle’s Valor & Victory system further into 1982 Lebanon, I’ve put the first swing into the opposition, namely the PLO / ALA for a “modern war” asymmetric dynamic.

A few more leaders,maybe another couple support weapons and game function counters (casualties, civilians, POWs, etc), and then we should be on to a couple of gameplay maps!

So we’ve been playing around with the idea of pushing Barry Doyle’s Valor & Victory system further into the modern era.  We’ve already done WW2 into Vietnam (late 1960s), i thought an interesting next step might be early 80s with Operation Peace for Galilee – the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Just starting out here.  This was one night.  Other factions will include Syrian Army, various irregulars (Palestinian Liberation Army / Arab Liberation Army / Hezbollah),  Phalange Christian militants, maybe even French and US Marine peacekeepers if this gets pushed into 1983 and beyond.

So here is the wrap up for the epic game of The Arab Israeli Wars between myself and @damon .

Golan Heights, Israel v. Syria, October 7, 1973.

So we’ve finished the game.  It took 6 hours and 43 minutes.  It is posted in its entirety on Twitch for those that are interested.  Needless to say, an entire blow-by-blow battle report would be a little too large to post here, so I’ll post some highlights and if anyone has any questions, I will certainly answer them either here or on the new Sitrep Modern Military Gaming thread.

Full Twitch Stream:

Damon v. Oriskany – Golan Heights 

Sitrep Modern Military Gaming Hub / Thread 

We’re preparing for another live web game of The Arab-Israeli Wars.   This time it will  be a “historically improved” rendition of what is probably the most epic single tank battle since the end of World War II, Lt. Col. Avidgor Kahalani’s 77th Tank Battalion at the “Valley of Tears” – Golan Heights, October 1973.

Outnumbered in places by up to 15:1, these 40 American-engined Centurions (Sho’t Cal) faced off against a combined total of 230+ Syrian T-55s and T-62s, plus perhaps 100+ more  infantry carriers (BTR-50s and 60s).

We’ll see if Damon can hold the “Heights of Courage” (title of Kahalani’s book) against my Syrian onslaught.

So far, I’ve spent most of the day trying to piece together an accurate map of the battlefield, “translating” it into TAIW system, and getting the scenario ready for tomorrow’s game.

If anyone’s interested in stopping by and checking this out live as it is played, ping me a PM and I’ll send you a link.

Meanwhile, the new Episode of the Ops Center is now live on On TableTop, YouTube, and Facebook!

Episode 02 – The Six Day War

Give it a watch, comment, or like if you enjoy the video!

And remember to ask questions if you’re curious about anything, we’ll try to feature a response in the next episode!

So with Episode 01 of the Ops Center up …

YouTube

BoW

… going over the 1956 Arab-Israeli Sinai War, we’re now moving into the 1967 “Six Day” War.  Again it was myself and Damon at a table of Avalon Hill’s The Arab Israeli Wars, with Damon playing the Israelis and myself playing the Egyptians.

The big difference here between this and previous TAIW games is that for once, the Israelis are on the defensive.  Damon’s Centurions, TCM-20s, and infantry will try to hold a Sinai crossroads and the high ground flanking it against superior numbers of one of Egypt’s better tank and mechanized brigades.

Furthermore, the battle takes place (initially) at night, where the Egyptians actually have a slight advantage in Soviet IR sights. If they can hold out until morning, however, the Israeli Air force (IAF) arrives in force, undertaking more tactical strike missions on the second day of the way now that the strikes against Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian air forces and C3 networks have been completed.

Last weekend @damon and I played a wargame in Avalon Hill’s The Arab-Israeli Wars, recreating the assault on Kussiema.  This was part of the IDF’s initial ground offensive that opened their invasion of the Egyptian Sinai on 30 October 1956.  The battle report is below in this project thread.

Long story short, my Egyptians won this game, and pretty  handily, too.  So much so, in fact, that I was actually a little concerned whether the scenario I had designed was actually balanced.

The Israelis have, predictably, overpowering advantages in mobility and firepower.  The will win this battle, ten times out of ten.  The trick with asymmetrical wargaming is to design a scenario that challenges the Israelis to win quickly enough, cheaply enough, etc.

Historically this is a good fit as well, as this assault (4th Brigade), originally meant as a supporting flank assault, was abruptly upgraded to the “main” attack when the original main attack (10th Brigade further north) largely failed. So 7th Armored Brigade was chucked in to support 4th in a new combined thrust around the Egyptian southern wing.  Standing in their way was this Egyptian outpost at Kussiema.  The point is, the Israelis have to win and win fast in order to turn the Um-Katef  defenses from the south and thus crack open the larger Egyptian defense in the Abu Agheila region.

So the game has five objective hexes, set on crossroads and road exit points.  The Israeli player is challenged with taking at least four of these hexes within ten turns.  It may not be clear on the maps, but control of four hexes basically means that the Israelis have opened at least one complete route from their entry zone on the northeast corner of the board, off the western end of the table.  Again, to facilitate larger-scale operations against the south and rear flanks of Um Katef.

Now in the game with @damon, he got two of the five.  Israeli tanks barely laid eyes on the third objective hex.  Did I give the Israelis enough time in this scenario?

So I reset the game and ran it myself, seeing if I can go hell-for-leather with the 7th / 4th Brigades and crack this game in ten turns or less.

So is the game balanced?  Eh … technically yes.  I mean, I’ve been playing The Arab Israeli Wars on and off for almost 30 years, and I designed this scenario, and I played it once already, and I got some very hot rolls for the Israelis.  And even with all those advantages, I barely got the required 4 objective hexes in 10  turns.

So honestly, against players of equal experience, I would probably give the Israelis 12 turns instead of 10.  Maybe a few additional IPs for the Egyptians.

But all in all, this is a solid design.  Ready for the portfolio!  😀

Just a quick battle report for a Weekend Web Wargame between myself and community member @Damon.  Using Avalon Hill’s The Arab Israeli Wars, we tried a home-built scenario depicting the opening day of Israel’s ground offensive of the 1956 Sinai War.

Using web conferencing and shared desktop, we were able to play across the ocean in real time, with each player moving their own pieces and always seeing the same board.

The Arab Israeli Wars is a command-tactical level game, where each piece is not an individual but a unit.  This allows wargames of the proper scale, ranges, timescales, and “tactical geometries” – without playing on a golf course or a tennis court.  😀

So that’s the game.  To be honest, I’m going to re-run this solitaire to see if I gave the Israelis enough time.  I have a sneaking suspicion the game length should be increased to 12 turns.  But even with 12 turns Damon would have not been able to take a third objective hex, much less fourth.

I probably won’t put up a FULL battle report for this solitaire game, but maybe an update.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in joining in these web weekend wargames, we have people from three continents participating in a regular basis!  Just drop me a PM and we’ll add you to the web conference!

Israeli Assault on Kussiema – southern shoulder of the Abu Agheila “hedgehog.”  October, 1956.

System: Arab-Israeli Wars (Avalon Hill)

Players: @oriskany and @damon

Ping me a PM if you’d like a link to this web conference.  😀  Hang out and chat, or check out a great game in progress!

Sunday we have an Arab-Israeli Wars game set up, recreating part of the opening Israeli drive against the southern wing of the Abu Agheila “hedgehog”  (Egyptian 6th Brigade / 3rd Infantry Division).  This was part of the opening of Operation Kadhesh, undertaken in conjunction with French paratroopers and British Royal Marines at the Suez Canal (Operation Musketeer) in response to Egyptian President Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal.

The game is scheduled live for 5PM GMT / 12 Noon EST between myself and @damon.

Interested in joining in or checking it out, just chatting with some hard-core wargamers?  Ping me with a PM and I’ll send a web address for our web conference.

Good afternoon, everyone ~

As usual, I’m sending an announcement / query to anyone who might be interested in either playing in or spectating a live wargaming web conference this weekend (Jan 26-27).

If memory serves, we’ll be running the rest of Andrew’s Eastern Front PanzerBlitz game this weekend (January 26-27).

Meanwhile, we also have:

Options:
Darkstar (anyone who’s interested, please let me know what faction, and what day works better for you).
Valor & Victory Vietnam
Arab Israeli Wars 1956-67-73
Panzer Leader (WW2 Eastern, Western, or Desert front)

Saturday 5PM GMT
Sunday 5PM GMT

Summary:
The more information I get from everyone the better on how I can plan the weekend. Also, please remember that I have to build these scenarios and send out the files, so if you are interested in trying something out, welcome aboard and let me know as soon as you can!

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!  😀