"Scenaros For Rhodesian Bush War?" Topic

As I'm slowly getting my figures painted for the Rhodesian Bush War, I have begun to wonder about scenarios. Aside from the usual fireforce assaults a guerrilla camp, what are some scenario ideas for the conflict?

How would you handle scenarios like a guerrilla attack on a farmstead?

How should territorial/reserve units be used, or what would be common missions for these units?

How would you handle a Selous Scout recon type mission?

Other ideas?

Have you picked up the Bush Wars book for Force on Force?

They have several scenarios in it, one of them is an attack on a Farmstead. It looks interesting, it is a real crap fest of quality and equipment compared to other FoF actions. There is also discussion on how to use some of the other security type forces. I have done some PATU actions in the past.

There is also a Fire Force Scenario and one for Operation Dingo. There is also a pretty cool one for the action where the RLI knocked out a BTR-152. I now can't wait until Company B release their BTR-152, I will be getting 3 of those.

While I don't agree with the way FoF handles some things (having ground troops call in K-Car attacks and giving the RLI Abundant supplies), for the most part this is a handy reference that I would say get even if you aren't playing FoF.

For other Scenario help I would just pick up some firsthand accounts. In the last year I have read close to a dozen different accounts of the Bush War covering all different Security Forces. There are lots of great actions to recreate.

The Selous Scouts were more of a Recce force than an actual combat force so some of their missions might not be great to recreate. Though having a Selous unit in hiding (or evading) surrounded by Terr's and then having the RLI come to the rescue could be cool.

Let us know how things go, I enjoy reading how people game this conflict, I draw inspiration from them.

Chris

i would recomend the any of the books on the bush war, lots of usefull info and details.
these sites are also useful:-
freewebs.com/dudleywall
link
selousscouts.tripod.com
link
newrhodesian.net/index.php
i hope this helps, i use them a lot
shaun

S&S Shaun,

Thanks for the links, there are a couple there I haven't seen before.

Chris

Hey all.
I was the lead author on the Bush Wars project and the Rhodesian section was more or less completely my baby. Thanks for the kind words and recomendation, Spooner. As you point out we tried to include a variety of scenarios that highlighted different aspects of the conflict that ranged from the armed civillians defending a farm to the semi-conventinal fighting of the late stages of the war. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, although I do admit that I wish we could have included more. The fact that we were attempting to give overviews of six different African wars, sadly, restricted our space.

The "Operation Snoopy" scenario that you mention above is one of my favorites, and was a big hit both with my play testers and when I ran it at a local convention last year. Another fun scenario to both write and run was the "Operation Dingo" which we treat as a team game with all players running Rhodesian units and competeing against each other to score the most victory points.

Allow me to give you a quick "design notes" type commentary on what our thinking was behind the two criticisms you have about the work.

The thing you need to keep in mind about the "supply level" statistic of Force on Force is that is not only reflects how much ammunition etc that a unit is actually lugging around, but how well fed they are, how rested, and generally how prepared a unit is to fight. When viewed in this light, I certainly feel that most high end Rhodesian units like the RLI deserve to be classified as "well supplied". I would also point toward the proflific use of ammunition by Rhodesian units in the performance of such tactics as "drake/cover shooting" as some indication that small arms ammunition supply was generally not a problem. On the other hand, "supply" is something that is very scenario dependant and can certain ly be altered to fit the circumstance.

As to the way the K-Car is treated, I can certainly understand were you are coming from. The abstract way in which attack helicopters are treated under FoF makes it difficult to correctly simulate the dual command/gunship role of the K-Car in Fireforce operations. (it's one the few gripes I have about FoF…sorry Shawn! ;-) ) So a certain amount of streamlining had to be performed. For those who have not seen the book yet, under FoF Rhodesian K-Cars are indeed treated as a regular helicopter gunship that performs "pylon" attacks, albiet one that does not have to "called in" by a unit on the ground with line of site to the enemy. In addition the presence of the K-Car orbiting the battlefield in the Fireforce scenario precludes the insurgents from utilizing "out of contact" (hidden) movement. It's not a perfect solution, but one that I think works under the restrictions of the FoF game mechanics.

Others may disagree with those design choices for any number of good reasons. If that's the case by all means "tweek" the rules to fit your interpretations. That's the great thing about miniature wargaming after all: it's your game and you are free to make house rules to fit your needs.

Martin

Ok, now that the "design notes" part is out of the way, allow me to address Trojan Bunny's question about the Selous Scouts.

The Selous Scouts are a facinating unit and one of my personal favorites for the conflict. If you have not done so, try to get hold of Ron-Reid Daly's book "Selous Scouts: Top Secret War". It has alot of great scenario writing inspiration in it.

I had originally written a scenario for Bush Wars that simulated the action that resulted in the death of Clive Mason, who was probably the only formally trained sniper in Rhodesian service. (he managed to hold off a good sized force of FRELIMO regulars armed only with an edlerly scope mounted Lee-Enfield before finally being killed) But space requirements meant that I had to cut it. I may eventually publish it on the Ambush Alley site or something like that.

As Spooner points out above, most of the time the Scouts would be attempting to avoid contact with the enemy, but they could and did find themselves in hot firefights. Something that might work, would be to have the Selous Scouts team have to observe a particular point on the field (much like the Falklands War scenario in the main FoF book) for a set number of turns before retiring from the table. Full use of the rules for hidden units should be employed, keeping in mind that the Scouts should almost always be classed as "stealthy". Given that the Scouts often operated dressed as insurgents on such missions, you might require an aditiona troop quality test to fire upon a Scouts unit even after they have been spotted. (unless they shoot at you first of course!)

The other thing to keep in mind is that the Selous Scouts were known for highly agressive "flying column" raids in armed transports on terrorist bases. Something like that could be simulated using similar mechanics to the Dingo scenario. Yes, it's an exercise in target practice, but such scenarios can be fun from time to time.

Finally, in the closing months of the war, the Scouts were employed as shock troops in some of the external operations that targeted enemy bases inside of Mozambique such as at Operation Miracle in late '79. In such scenarios, the Scouts would be treated like any other high end Rhodesian unit.

Hope that helps some.

Martin

Edit: Oops. Missed the part about reservists/territorials.

The nature of the Rhodesian National Service System meant that reservists (especially in the late stages of the war) were usually men with pervious (often extensive) combat experience. Therefore it's always been my view that Rhodesian revervists should be treated as having similar game stats to regular troops. That's the opinion I expressed in my previous Rhodesian book (Man Among Men) as well as in Bush Wars. Once again, if one disagrees with that assessment, simply drop one or more of their combat stats a level. A good case could be made to lower their confidence level for example.

Reservists (as well as the police) really did alot of the "grunt work" of the war. Border control and patroling was usually a reservist thing as well as the esential duty of convoy escort. They also manned most of the static positions. All of these could make for good game scenarios. That being said, reserve units did occasionally find themselves in the Fireforce role, in place of the more familar elite formations. Once again, if you have not read it, pick up "James and the Duck", which is the acount of a Rhodesian reservist. It has some interesting scenario design ideas, as well as being just a fun read.

MI have also read B'Maso which has an excellent background section which you may find useful

My pre order copy of Bush Wars just arrived and impressed. Tks VM to Trench Raider.

The scenarios in the book can be adapted to almost any period covered with some minor thought but I must admit the Rhodesian period one look V Good. So good I have just finsihed painting up my first two sticks of RAR in 15mm to the detriment of other projects

Si

Actually I'd second the recommendation for Bush Wars. The Rhodesian section is probably the best part of the book, the others, particularly the Portuguese part suffers by comparison.

Thanks for the replies, lots of good info here!

I was thinking Selous Scout actions would be best handled as a sort of map type game. I think there is an FNG supplement for LRRP type games that could probably be adapted.

Was there much of a difference in equipment between the reservists and frontline units like the RLI, RAR etc? As far as I know they all used the FN FAL rifle (or the South African equivalent), but what about GPMGs? Would reserve units still manage one per stick, or would they be more scarce?

I do have James And The Duck, I just need to get around to reading it. I might have to pick up a copy of Bush Wars just for the scenario info.

As for handling K-Cars, that's something I'm still pondering for my own rules…

The Trojan Bunny-
On the whole, yes, most units did carry some varient of the FN-FAL, the most common being the South African R1. Some reserve units did retain the British L1a1 semi-auto rifle all through the war, though. oddly enough, I've seen a good number of photos of RAR troops with L1a1s as well. As the stock of FALs dried up, in the later stages of the war the non-elite units did get issued large numbers of ex-Portuguese G3 rifles as well. Some or the less well armed para-military units like Internal Afairs, Guard Force, and less fortunate police units often had to make due to with old bolt action rifles.

As for machineguns, the demand of having to arm each four man stick with a machinegun meant that units lower down the "food chain" had to make due with other weapons. The old Bren gun (usually the 7.62 L4 version) was a pretty common FN-MAG replacement amongst lower priority units. You also saw alot of useof captured machineguns at all levels.

Aires-
Thanks for the reccomendation and complements on the Rhodesian section. I saw some of the comments voiced about the Portuguese Colonial Wars section of the book in the previous thread. Aside from the brief chapter introduction, I did not write any of the Portuguese material. From what I understand, there was some difficulty in the translation procces as our author for those pages was not a native English speaker. I'm not sure how some of the errors got past the editing at the publishing house's end. I apologize for any errors or shortcomings you might have noticed.

Martin