"Battle of Lipovets for Look Sarge No Charts" Topic

Following this game we decided to go WWII again and over the past weekend played the battle of Lipovets. This is from the Rapid Fire East Front scenario book, which is an excellent source for battalion/brigade level games. However my rules of choice at the moment are LSNC and we used these.The battle was fought by myself and my 7yr old son Micky.

It's Barbarossa and the Slovak Rapid Brigade is attacking a Russian town held by the remnants of 4 Soviet Regiments.

Slovaks

Armored battalion. 2 Tank Company's ( 1 platoon lent to Recce force)
Recce Group. Bicycle Infantry battalion.
Recce Force. Infantry Company, A/C Platoon, Tank Platoon, AT and Inf Gun Battery.
Infantry Battalion. 2 Infantry Company's, 2 MG Platoons and a mortar Platoon.
Engineers. 1 Company.
Off board. 1 105mm and 2 100mm batteries. Air support.

Soviets

Rearguard. 2 Infantry Company's, MG platoon, 2 Mortar Platoons ( 1 lt, 1 Heavy ) an AT rifle section.

Lipovets Garrison. AA Platoon (40mm) 2 AT Batteries (45mm), Inf Gun Battery (76.2mm) 3 Artillery batteries (122mm and 2x76.2mm), 2 Infantry company's both with an MG and Mortar Platoon.
All guns horse drawn except the AA.

Reinforcements 2 full Infantry Company's with MG and Mortar platoons arriving after 8 turns.

The game was played up the length of a 5' x 9' table. A road runs the full length of the table down its centre. The terrain at the south (Slovak entry) was dominated by 2 huge maize fields (soft cover for Inf only) a couple of hills and a small village. The middle section a couple of hills and woods. The last section contained the town of Lipovets (which is the victory objective), hills, woods and is separated from the rest of the table by a fordable stream. There is a bridge that is mined and the Soviets can blow any time on a throw of 2-6 0n a D6.

I deployed the entire rear guard on one side of the road, one company in the maize with all the support. 1 Company in the village. The Heavy mortars were on a hill on the other side covering the road.

The AA was on the highest hill, the AT batteries in a wood covering the road and bridge. The artillery was on a hill covering the entire board nearly and the infantry in and around the town.

All my troops were regular and hidden off board. I would deploy them only if spotted or they fired (they would still need spotting). All in all a strong position despite my lack of Armour. Also his Infantry battalion was green, the rest regular.

We started with a pre game bombardment that did little except a single hit from a bomb on the Lipovets garrison.

The Slovaks arrive over the first 4 turns with Recce and Armour first. They fairly rapidly located my troops in the maize and deployed the Recce force to clear them out. With the help of the engineers this was done worryingly easily although a tank loss was inflicted by my AT rifles. The company in the houses would provide more resistance I hoped! At the same time the Recce group was pushing its bicycles through the other maize field, spotted by my mortars 120mm shells fell amongst them causing a single loss. In return this brought the entire off board fire on them, blowing them to pieces (the Slovak off board was deadly all game).

As the first armored company raced for the bridge, the Recce force attacked the village. Despite my position in the houses I was swept aside by the combined arms of Infantry, Armour and engineers. The only Slovak losses were the other armored step and the entire A/C platoon.

The 1st Tank Company had got well ahead of itself and found itself caught in my ambush ! the cross fire from the AA,Inf Gun, AT and Artillery batteries. A total of around 30 guns rained fire from all sides within seconds (well a turn) 12 of the twenty were knocked out and the remnants pouring back in disarray.

The Slovak Artillery and air power came into effect crushing my guns, only the AT which he just could not spot and a couple of 122's survived. However chastened by his losses he adopted a more methodical advance Infantry along side the road and Armour on it. A couple of shots from the 122's broke the bicycle infantry who fled never to return. By this time my reinforcements have arrived and are all deployed in and around the town. Despite the rout of my rearguard I am in a town behind a stream with AT guns and the bridge is mined. I am still confident.

The assault begins lead by the second Tank Company, we trade fire, despite the cover and the first shot I miss, their return fire destroys a step. My guns retreat ! they limber up and trot away. By a miracle they get away without further loss but take no further part.
The Slovak Infantry is now pouring up to the river and bridge with engineers in the lead. Time to destroy the bridge, I roll a 1, disaster ! a phut and nothing.

Supported by Tanks, Artillery and Heavy weapons the Slovak assault goes in. It was over in a couple of turns, they suffered minor losses and I was crushed. The C.O. the AT guns and a couple of Infantry platoons were all that escaped. When Stalin finds out he'll wish he hadn't.

The Slovaks suffered around 80 casualties and lost 20 armored vehicles, the Soviets lost over 500 casualties and 30 odd guns. I had been crushed. My dice throwing was bad all day and my troops couldn't hit the broadside of the Ukraine let alone a barn door. The activation process did for me at every opportunity and whilst I know some folks don't like it, decisive results are produced. The game about for 23 of the 30 turn allowed and took us about 5 hrs.

paul you were right, your dice just did not mee soviet norms of efficiency that day.

With that in mind its dubious how much more benfit you'd have gained from fielding two new Siberian regiments plus the 2 shattered ones from the frontier battles instead of the pick and mix you had.

it's been my experience that the more you want to field something the less effecitvely it perfiorms when you're allowed to :-)

Now, can you write this up, with a mini review of LSNC for the SoTCW Journal? Its a rule set I haven't met before…

:-)

Phil,

I am actually planning to write a review plus an article and scenario for the journal. This has been delayed somewhat by ill health. But I seem to be on the mend and will be back writing soon.

woohoo!

its amazing how inconvenient it can be when our bits of one suddenly cease to function as per the user manual.

i thought i'd have penty of time for reading etc, but it's only now, about 4 weeks in, that I find I can do much of any of that.

hope your road to recovery is a smooth one!

Phil:

Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII is a set of rules designed for each player to command a battalion. The title derives from the notion that there are no chart cards. The back of each bases has all the information you need to play the game. Some folks find this objectionable, but people have been putting labels on their bases forever. In our case the base labels have meaning within the game.

(We were advised to use a different title, because people wouldn't take us seriously with the title we chose. That may well be true. I think a lot of guys haven't bothered to give the rules a try because of the name. I think if you try them you'll like them.)

The game features a unique card-based AND dice-based activation mechanism (yes, it really is unique). Movement and firing are very streamlines, but this is not a bag-full-of-dice and sixes-hit system. As one of the authors, I am biased, but the mechanics I believe allow you to fight the game, not the rules.

One of the comments from a player at a convention game, who is a devout player of another system at the same command level, is illustrative: "this game really moves." He was referring to the fact that if you walk away fromt he table and come back two hours later it doesn't look the same. I know we've all wandered around conventions and come back to a table, thinking that nothing has happened in two hours. That is certainly not true with LSNC.

This is the second time that Paul has posted a battle report to TMP using these rules. I am quite anxious to see his review.

LSNC has a yahoo groups list as well.

Chris Palmer, several others, and I are running LSNC: WWII games at Historicon. Come by and give them a try.

Buck Surdu

P.S. We are working on LSNC: American Civil War. You can get a sneak preview at Historicon.

Buck,

Are you a member of the SOTCW. If so the review will be published in the Journal.

I read your review of the rules and also the battle report that was in issue 61. Thanks for the support and the nice writeup. I like your narrative style.

Buck