"A varient of the 6 node scenario and other stuff" Topic

I needed a complex reconnaissance scenario, one which may not be solvable, in that I need one to hard so as to bracket the problem to allow the right level to be estimated.

So imagine this as all woodland and for 1/144 models at a scale of 1mm represents 1m. I have omitted at this point any impassible bits of terrain i.e overly soft or dense areas impenetrable to vehicles. Grey roads are goo for 50 tomes without damage, Brown are 15 tone tracks, put a tracked vehicle down and they are impassible to wheeled 1980's vehicles (the period my scenario is set).

link

Now if you peer at the image in large size you may note the area is sort of in left/right strips. This is to aid marking a photo up of hidden troops. This is a new attempt for me to get some better appreciation of front to back depth for marking up. What do you think.

The aim will be for the Red force to enter from the far end (picture top), and attempt to get off some vehicles off the bottom of the picture. The exits are along the bottom and 2 exits in the first 2 horizontal strips. That is a total of 8 exits.

The defenders hopefu8lly will have a problem in that there will be insufficient forces available for them to adequately protect all possible exits effectively. On that basis they will need an advance guard to buy time for them to concentrate where the enemy is attempting to break through.

The attacking force will be that shown plus a platoon of armored infantry, the Iltis jeep is for the MOP as in my previous post with 120mm mortars available.

Gamer suggestions welcome.
I recognize this is an unedifying mgame for those who insist on having all toys on table. This really is for the serious gamer only.

Mister Natural- from past experience I get reply's from folk who seem not to understand the requirement we have for complex scenarios and so make unhelpful comments.

I got dragged away for family stuff so I did not get as much down as I would have liked in the first post. The road network would be better on a bigger board but I only have 6ft by 6ft and much bigger and you have reach issues. Hence the network has been squeezed and hence the need for forest to minimize sight lines.

Past experience shows that you need the complexity of the road system so that there are no obvious commanding positions which makes it too easy for the defenders. If you see too many let me know, after looking at it for the hour or so setting it up you get a bit blind to possible options.

Have you a copy of Soviet AirLand Battle Tactics WILLIAM P BAXTER 0-89141-160-7?

Might provide some insight to your scenario design.

Anyhows, depending on what is meant to be achieved:

You'd want to be using some route-denial to reduce enemy courses-of-action and channel them into a kill-zone.

Buried L60s, bar-mines, off-route mines, perhaps tree-trunk chevaux-de-frise covered by claymores, etc.

1980s anti-tank – you'll need some cleared spaces for your Gustavs and a large open area for your Milans.

And, dialled-in mortars for specific FPF, etc.

"I get reply's from folk who seem not to understand the requirement we have for complex scenarios and so make unhelpful comments."

This is TMP, UshCha. If you asked people how to get from London to Oxford, You'd get at least two telling you to go to Cambridge instead, and one wanting you to start from Cardiff. Taking swipes at fellow wargamers won't change that.

I like Stoppage's suggestions. One other from the period would be multiple prepared positions--shallow carved-out places a little bigger than the defender's tanks and deep enough for them to go hull-down. Fire once and move.

Stoppage – The simple answer is no I do not have the document. Alas the board is to small for clearings, so it's all close spece stuff. Thre is perhaps potential for a virtual board system but they are typicaly long runs of evening games, facinating but they are a lot of work and its easy for me to get them wrong, we have had one that failed disasterously in an evening, a lot or work for nothing. hence the veryu compact board.

The aim was for a situation where there has been minimal time for the defenders to lay many defences. There are examples in say aspects of WW 2 being Dickies bridge. The attackers are trying to find/clear/protect any route through. I had thought about streams and bridges but that may make it too complex even for us and/or reduce the intended complexity of the system desined to so its difficult to guard it fully. Hopefully it's a bit too complex so is undefendable but that at least makes it a bounding limit.

The defender will not be that mobile and hence the vehicles may outmaneouvre them, particularly as I am going to be first and the LUCHS have electic silent drive so some may risk a through wood run in places.

The proposed procedure is to individually map the defences and the Armoured car routes then compare maps, you have to trust your opponent, and then the game sort of starts as the Attackers may re-route to support detected enemy opositions, again by map move untill detected.

Robert – we can but try.

Here-yer-ar:

Amazon – Soviet Airland Battle Tactics BAXTER GBP16.40 well spent.

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If you want to make yourself really cross then read this book – it's especially good at describing the (excellent) pre-war Australian jungle tactics versus the ones actually used:

Amazon – Battle of Singapore THOMPSON

35,000 Japanese jungle-newbies trumped 85,000 in-situ imperial defence troops.

They could have been stopped near the Siamese border – using tactics you may well be war-gaming.

Instead the defenders gave up the fight, ceded ground, got bottled-up, and destroyed.

Sheesh.

So Bound 8 at the end of the evening.

Play has been slow as it takes a lot of thinking about.

There is lots of enemy about but just not showing itself.
The idea of mapping both the enemy positions and the attackers routes worked. We just stepped forward to a logical point or stopped if interacting with hidden enemy. It probably saved around 3 bounds and made it faster and more interesting way to get started. Bounds are progressing normally now.

Using a photo as a map worked better than we could hope definitely one for the future. Next time though, laminating the maps and using a dry wipe markers would be an advantage.

Definitely having weight limits on the roads worked well, as did the impassable areas within the wood, it makes it a "bigger" board by stopping direct movement in many cases through the wood. If you look on the Tree thread on the 1/144 board there are some interesting findings on the tree density.

Even on a board this size I probably should have, as the attacker, defined some FDF's for the mortars especially as I had a quite limited area I decided to concentrate on. My plan is an OK so far plan but there is a long way to go.

The basic premise of the scenario seems good but perhaps the Defenders have a bit too much on table, albeit hidden. Some should have been at call to thin out the Russian defense, they may have too many defending forces for the scenarios as envisaged originally.

So far the road network seems to be about the right level of complexity.

So what it is is FUN in the extreme! But only for folk who want a challenge and are not hung up about hidden stuff on the board, definitely a players game not a painters game, too little on the table for much of the time.

It has raised some interesting points. I had assumed that missiles could cover the straight sections of the road, beyond their minimum range of course. The defender is unhappy about this he considered that given the low light of a forested road that is not that wide, 2 carriageways at most, getting a missile down the road may not be plausible. Technical opinions on this welcome.

The hand held Thermal sight on the Luchs is a major force multiplier making spotting somewhat more effective, but still a long job. Especially as the Russians do not have such kit. Without it it may not have been a practical game, definitely too many defenders on table.

What is frustratingly fun is I cannot yet perceive how the defender has laid out his defense. This makes it harder to take any calculated risks.

Hopefully this thread will inspire the keener player's to define a similar scenarios but perhaps better than this one as you will have hopefully the benefit of hindsight based on this attempt.

PS losses. the Russians have had a BRDM 2 destroyed the Germans (attackers) have got lucky and only have a Luchs seriously damaged but it can get home and fight another day.

It will continue next week!

Mister Natural – I put it in because it's most certainly not everyones "cup of tea". I would hate for anybody to take on this large task and the work involved and then not enjoy it.

I an well aware that many folk would not like this game, for the resons stated above. There was no intention to discriminate negatively but to say it has an interest to only a minority of players. There was no intention to say I am better, diffrent yes better no.

If you read the thread "Do you take the hobby seriously? " you will see there is a broad swathe of TMP who are far more interested in painting than playing, diffrences as High as painting 10 game 5, supplied by the reponders not by me. So that this game provides for the less typical players entertainment does not mean it has universal appeal.

I believe it is possible to not see certain authors thread's should you so wish.

OK so the game terminated relatively quickly in the second half. It soon became apparent that I could get a section of Luchs reconnaissance vehicles of the table on the bottom left. However my hopes to maintain control of the adjacent tarmac road (second from the left of the picture) were doomed. I had insufficient infantry to come even close to that. The picture is at the end of the game.

There was also a possibility I could get a reconnaissance vehicle of the right hand side road. However again I had no infantry at all to attempt to secure this road. and ther may still have been problems.

In order to proceed at some pace with the scenario we made a couple of scenario specific rules.

1- When looking down a road using the LUCHS hand held Thermal imager, which can to some extent penetrate woodland. Provided the vehicle had stopped and an action penalty applied (i.e slowed the acquisition system down) it could attempt to spot any/all elements not shielded by terrain that were declared as at the edge of the woodland. This speeded thing sup significantly. Similarly if the vehicle halted we allowed the Reconnaissance element to use the hand held Thermal imager over the 180 deg of an unbuttoned vehicle to spot any hidden element within 80m. I admit this was somewhat of an artifice but it speeded the game up and neither of us felt that the results were unreasonable. We would expect the reconnaissance elements to be better at spotting and not being pre-warned of imminent activity the enemy elements would not be quite as careful so intrinsically easier to spot.

The silent drive was of use on one occasion as it allowed the vehicle to sneak up to some enemy it was already aware of from the attached infantry platoon and so provide some additional fire support before the final assault on the enemy.

As to forces, there was too much infantry on the Russian side and not sufficient Reconnaissance Vehicles (BRDM 2). This was part as I had not printed enough off them. The Russians perhaps should have had only infantry at call and then only 1 platoon. This is noted as although the scenario was great fun it did not meet quite the design intent of sneaking through, it was more sort of Batter the way through gaining a small window for the attackers to ship vehicles off.

Tanks were in general of little use in these very close woodlands as you would expect.

We spent a considerable time reviewing or movement in difficult areas after the game for this and other reasons. However the minor changes we will make would not really impacted this scenario. The debate focused round our woodland definitions, the comparison of Tracked vs 8 Wheeler mobility and the advantages of Low Ground Pressure Vehicles like the BMP-1.