""Infantry" Battles rules..." Topic

Okay, not a WW2 freak by any means but based on my admittedly superfical research/reading…most armies, it appears, were mostly Infantry (Foot, airborne, wheeled, motorized, mechanized, whatever.)

So while many of the breakthrough actions might have been armor based, (especially later in the war,) there should have been many battles where armor was an adjunct element, right? River crossings, early war set-piece attacks, Company/Batttalion probing actions all come to mind.

So, are there rules that allow for "Infantry" to fight battles (rather tham skirmishes) while allowing for the influence of Armor?

Gracias,

Glenn

Command Decision: Test of Battle. Infantry is given it's due and even if you have nothing but Infantry on both sides, you'll still end up with an enjoyable game.

Many rules, especially the more "Operational" ones.

Cross Fire (a step up from Skirmish) and Battlefront WW-II at the lower end,. Command Decision (Test of Battle) and Spearhead as you move up the scale. We played MANY CD games with as few as 5 tanks (ok, they were really tankettes).

I Ain't Been Shot Mum by Too Fat Lardies. Infantry oriented. Rewards using real tactics. Can be played without any armor, vehicles, or artillery, or as much as you want. Great set of rules.

What sort of level are you looking for? At company level (ie. 1:1, but more men than a "skirmish") I Ain't Been Shot Mum is exactly the ticket – handles armour very nicely, but an infantry game first and foremost.

Dom.

Great minds and all that….

Battlefront: WWII is first and foremost an infantry game.

fireandfury.com

Arc of Fire and PBI are both great games which try to focus on the infantry. They are two very different games, though.

Try Crossfire. No rulers, no structured game turns. Fanttastic infantry game.
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Tim

I agree with Tim. If you're looking for an infantry game, Crossfire is the one.

Thanks,

John

"So, are there rules that allow for "Infantry" to fight battles (rather tham skirmishes) while allowing for the influence of Armor?"

At the risk of stating the obvious, any decent set of WW2 rules should let you fight sensible infantry actions at whatever level, with armour in a subordinate or non-existant role.

If interested specifically in infantry/armour cooperation in infantry heavy operations, then generally you want grand tactical sets like Command Decision or Spearhead where you can have infantry battalions with attached tank squadrons/troops but also model the interactions with artillery, engineers and airpower as well.

If you are interested in company/weak battalion games and the closest approximation to real infantry combat I've ever come across in a wargame, then I would also recommend Crossfire.

The vast majority of WW2 actions were set piece infantry attacks against fortified positions, probably with artillery support, and possibly with armour/air support but probably not. Even 'armoured' divisions had considerable numbers of infantry, particularly later in the war, as they were essentially balanced combined arms forces with a large armoured component. (Yes, I know there are lots of exceptions).

A reasonable ratio for tanks to infantry is one troop or squadron per battalion for infantry heavy operations, for the bulk of infantry actions, it is no tanks at all.

Another vote for Crossfire, superb infantry-heavy rules, by far the best IMHO.

John

I Would have recommended Rules of Engagement; all about men not machines, with vehicles and artillery very much "Divisional support" and on the sidelines. There is rarely more than one vehicle to be seen on either side and often none at all. However, it is a platoon level game, with your force being around thirty to fifty men/figures. A skirmish, in other words.

Still brilliant though. :)

Many infantrymen never had any armour supporting them in action.

I use my conversion of stargrunt 2 for ww2.
Rewards applying "correct" tactics.
I should mention that many players like tanks though.
So you might find with your purely infantry actions that players start asking where the tanks are.
Or where the half tracks are.

Surprisingly for its name, Mein Panzer is an excellent infantry game. So good, in fact, that it is being expanded into a new, lower scale version called Meine Truppen. It integrates armor and infantry very well, and models infantry only games very well.

Check out a sample game on the ODGW web site, odgw.com.

Having played a wide variety of WW2 games, I believe Crossfire does the best job of recreating infantry combat.

For completeness, let's not forget "Flames of War". Tanks are not required.

Allen

Crossfire for company up to battalion

TW&T for platoons

Nuts for squads

I have to agree with Allen – FoW works very well without AFVs (or even with just small numbers of lighter AFVs).

We play RoE with a company per side at our club and it works really well. We have 2-3 players per side, a 12 x 6 table, and plenty of tea!

Top four for me are:

I Ain't Been Shot Mum
Troops, Weapons & Tactics
Crossfire
Nuts!

I like Crossfire as well, but the included armor rules are really not very well concieved. It is primarily an infantry game, although there are some pretty functional house rules available on the net. It is one of my favourite games, but I don't think of it as manageable for large scale battles. The maneuver element is the single one-stand squad.

Although not popular, Ambush Blitz is a wonderful game and is better suited to multiple battalion battles. The maneuver element is the three stand platoon, with step losses by the stand. It has the most respectful treatment of the power of infantry that I have seen. Infantry, especially in a town or prepared defenses are a really tough nut to crack. The armor rules are well thought out, and combined arms assault rules are well thought out and necessary to crack the aforementioned infantry in the defense. I highly recommend it.

Available direct from the author/publisher on ebay. Better yet, just play in my game at Historicon this July in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Jim

Alas, I will be in Chicago during that general time frame (and broke afterwards…) then the wife goes private sector "TDY" for her organization for a week.

Gracias,

Glenn

Firefly……
martin

Funny enough, Flames of War is better played as a Rump-battalion (~2 companies of infantry and battalion/regimental support assets) than as a Company-w/Divisional support (at 2000 to 3000 points).

Nothing like showing the treadheads who OWNS the ground than having them try to clear 3 infantry companies, plus battalion assets with 14 King Tigers or IS2s. Perfectly legal to do in a game, just really shocking to see what that many infantry stands can do.

Shameless plug but Manouver Group (MG)will go back to WWII (we use it for that but some folk don't like the "modern terminology" Panzerfust is now a LAD or similar. Plug over.

However it does have relevance. Infanrty fight idealy at very short ranges in close terrain. That means if you get perfect terrain the MG 42's and Brens will cover lanes of fire upto about 600m. More is not helpful to a grunt. at even 1" =10m and 1/72 scale buildings tthat means you need idealy 20 buildings, plus other bits of terrain for an interesting fight. Note the buildings at this ground/troop scale are 25 timmes to big (on area) but we pack them in a bit tighter as we don't "do" gardens at this scale. The practical bit limit for most games is 50 "bits" be they Teams, Squads or Tank bases. So unless you have very small urban areas, combined arms will not really involve many tanks as they are not that much use in Urban. Most skirmish games don't do vehicals at all well. MG does it better, but you may get somewhere near if you modifie your favorite rules so that:-

1) Tanks do not see all when buttoned up.
2) Have infinite improbability drive which allows them to go from full speed to stop instantly.
3) Have a turret angular traverse rate which would be envied by a moderen AAA weapon.

4)Limit the elevation of tank main guns. In Starlingrad the Russian were safe on the third floor of buildings in many cases as the tanks could not elevate their guns sufficently to hit the third floor at short urban ranges.

Given all these limitations tanks are usefull but the grunts will not need many.

Crossfire is good but there are times even in urban when the MG will outrange the rifle which of course is out of the crossfire ethos. Inevitably there is compromise and you need to decide what you want to model in a battle.

Have you looked at "A Leader of Men" ?
tfpgames.com

Regards,

G