"What Level for the Six-Day War?" Topic

Martin Rapier recently published his high-level operational rules (1 base = 1 regiment/brigade, 1 turn = 1 day) for the Six Day War in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers.

If you were to wargame the Six Day War, which level of game would you prefer? High-level operational? Skirmish? Something in-between?

Skirmish

I've been playing Elusive Victory by GMT which is an operational level simulation of the 1973 Arab-Israeli air war. Counters represent flights of 2-4 aircraft and it is very good. Although it works well in the air, I'm not sure a ground campaign in miniature would be that fun. It's probably best using Command Decision or CWC.

Skirmish if I was interested in doing some of the fighting in Jerusalem, Martin's (or another operational rules) for anything else.

Dan

Skirmish, which is the level of all my post WW2 gaming.

Skirmish, because I am not sure how much fun the '67 land war would really be at any other level, it was a bit lopsided.

However of choice I would prefer to do the '73 war and use 6mm with brigades or divisions, 15 min turns.

Movement stand a platoon for one front.

The higher level that Martin did is fine for a scenario series fighting on both fronts. That would be an interesting convnetion set up. players running both fronts with Isreali players shifting units between them.

some encounters like Jiradi Pass, Mitla, Sheik Zuweid and Bir Gafgafa were pretty tense. And considering they were armor battles you want higher level games than skirmish or bigger tavbles and bigger budget!

also some of the clashes arounf Jenine were pretty hard on both sides (M48/M47 vs AMX, sherman and Centurion!). The jordanian army was still decent.

Btw Elusive victory has not only the 73 war, but also the 67 and the war of attrition!

Awesome game.

Tactical, e.g. platoons, companies, etc.

1 turn = 1 day

It's a six turn game?

Last time I played "moderns" was using Cold War Commander so scale was a little ambiguous.

skirmish

modern aircraft so skirmish

I would like to see Martin's rules but I dont subscribe to the SOTCW journal. Are they available elsewhere?

Rudy, There was a boardgame back in the 70's titled Bar Lev about the 1973 war. It worked as you commented. The Israeli player had to juggle ground and air unites in the Suez and Golan. I dont remember the level of ops. It would be a good basis for a campaign IIRC.

Al

Something in between.

I prefer platoon to company level. Any level higher and you have to sort out how many AFVs per miniature etc. which doesn't always fit neatly especially with support and specialist vehicles.

It also messes up when you have different sized platoon of armour, so I like to stick to 1 miniature = 1 real life AFV.

company or battalion level makes sense to me …

"Martin Rapier recently published his high-level operational rules"

Well, sort of recently. IIRC I actually write them in 2002, it just took a while to filter through to the Journals publishing cycle;) They've been through various iterations and have finally mutated into 'Panzergruppe' which now seems to be fairly stable.

If looking for Commadn Decision levels of exposition, then look elsewhere.

I've used these (or variants) to do a number of large scale operational games including Market Garden, Goodwood, Crusader, Gazala and Mansteins dash to the Dvina.

Original set and game commentary on my homepage:

link

as is Panzergruppe.

PDF link

IIRC these are linked from freewargamesrules.co.uk too.

We also did the 1967 War in Sinai using Megablitz, but that took all day rather than an evening.

"It's a six turn game?"

That seemed logical at the time:) Real battles last for days, weeks, months, and a lot of stuff happens overnight IRL (like resupply etc). Hard to fit an entire war into an evening with shorter turns.

Arnhem was a ten turn (day) game, but there were five Corps equivalents engaged. Goodwood I went with 12 hour turns, but there were 14 divisions engaged as I included the Canadians (who are often overlooked).

I've only ever really done AiW with elements of batalions size or greater, althuogh I did do some skirmishes with platoon bases.

I wouldn't claim these are the ultimate operational wargames rules, but they work for us. It is intended to be played with the strength points hidden, which makes quite a difference to game play. Casualties are function of combat outcomes and scale with target density, rather then being the determinant of combat outcomes. ie if you lose badly you take heavy losses, if you lose badly with a lot of units, you take really heavy losses. You don't work out the casualties to see who has 'won' though, so it is a bit more like a boardgame I guess. This means that a small number of very cohesive and effective units can tear huge holes in large numbers of less cohesive ones, rather like real life, although I've toned down some of the effects for game play purposes. Even in Sinai 67 the IDF can only expect to inflict a 4:1 loss ratio on average, more if they manage to concentrate. The relationship between target density and casualties isn't quite right (absolute losses should go up but percentage losses decline) but in such a simple combat model it was easier to go with a linear relationship.