"Platoon command and tactics" Topic

Sparker,
I haven't talked about it much because I'm long-winded enough as it is, but I've made the 'typical' wargamer trek of "gimme a thousand stats, charts, tables, etc…" to "I don't have time for this, and why do we think more charts equals more realistic?" In terms of rules, I think we agree on the need for abstraction, the question lies in where, and everyone has they're own expectation of what combat on their tabletop should look like.

I've been having a great time with my home rules, which (I think) are the heart of simplicity). I'm playing the Lardies "Blenneville or Bust" with Plt basing. Every element has 4 strength points and fires w/4dice. Each unit has a 'troop quality' for reaction tests (enemy sighted, rcvd fire, enter close combat, and being charged). Each unsaved hit takes away a strength point, a firing dice, and a troop quality, which diminishes combat capability and, regarding reaction tests, 'models' morale as the more hits the less likely the Plt will move and shoot. The difference between different units' combat capabilities is measured in a simple 'to hit' number on AT and AP stats, weapons ranges, and the 'save' stats. Levels of cover are dealt w/by adding to the save, while flank/rear fire adds fire dice and subtracts from save stat. I use the blinds concept for initial dispositions, and like FOW, Arty/mortars is on the table (albeit, in the form of a single stand). I've been having a great time playing solo, and look to modify "Platoon Forward" to Plt basing for further use.

Having said all that, my rules don't simulate the issues discussed above of moving and handling C2 under fire, or encouraging the use of a reserve either ;) As always, on the tabletop you're best served getting all your units into the firing line as quick as possible, because as long as they haven't actually taken hits they will respond as if they are miles behind the lines…

Jack

NickinSomerset,
I wholeheartedly agree! My favorite part is "One thing after carrying out multiple section attacks over a couple of km it all tends to slow down a little!" Again, not modelled in 99% of rules. We know that in real life, even if it somehow came through with negligible casualties (negligible in game turns='no hits'), after a couple hours the unit would be spent. But in our games 'negligible' means that Plt is spearheading the assault for the next 3 days!

Jack

Jack and Lion – Yeah it took a bit of time for my Co. Cdr to get who gave me the order … It was SOP in those days we used all calling signs that were listed in the CEOI, and those changed every 24hrs. even though we were on a secure net … He was too busy yelling to look up who was who ! Everything was Alpha-Numeric … a call sign would be something like "X-Ray 2 9er Kilo" … Just in case the enemy was listening … some times it confused everyone on the net if you didn't pay attention ! So from a wargaming example, even when commo was good, things could still go to at times !

I was just reading in the thread about splitting sections.
Pretty much didn't happen.

In ww2 training manuals you see reference to splitting sections/squads up.
In practice this was vanishingly rare. Not enough highly motivated infantrymen, not enough leaders. Many sections would be under strength due to casualties anyhow.

Bounding overwatch is post ww2.
As Wigram found and the gutful men quote explains in some detail, many platoons only had two effective leaders.
So the level of granularity wasn't even section.

Remember that we're talking conscripts and the modern infantry officer would probably laugh at the training and cry at the motivation.

Jack – I checked re: Assaulting a MMG in IABSM. I see what you mean. Though such an assault may well be suicidal – MMG get +6 dice if attacked in arc of fire – the assaulting section will still do some damage, on average 2-3 kills if led by a big man.

A 5 man MMG team will get 11 dice (if not in any sort of fortified/protected position), an average of a fraction under 4 Kills. If shooting they do an average of 3 kills for a Great shot, or 1 for Good – both pinned.

You could say that the attackers have to suffer the casualties first on any CC- this allows the defender, no matter who it is defending. If they have reserved dice they could fire on the way in, then cause damage first.

Legion,
That's interesting regarding the CEOI. We never changed callsigns, but changed freqs/nets and COMSEC every 24 hours. Amen regarding comms; I spent a lot of time training and doing 'peace-keeping and stabilization' operations in the jungle, plus the hills/ridges of Korea (training), and then 7 months in urban (Iraq). The only place comms worked like it was supposed to for me was Afghanistan and training in the wide open in Kuwait…

Jack

Last Hussar,

I like the idea of allowing the defender to take 'first shot' in close combat to replicate casualties taken on the way in, seems pretty simple and elegant.

You mentioned TW&T. Aside from what you said earlier (regarding not moving without Big Men, but able to fire), what other functional differences are there? I also heard they're coming out with a new one, "Chain of Command," based off Through the Mud and Blood. However, I don't know how that one is different from IABSM or TW&T.

Jack

AONeill,
I'm not sure what to do, I think this could be its own thread. I think that's a pretty strong statement that (paraphrasing) "…splitting sections was talked about but didn't happen." I don't see how there could be any empirical data one way or the other. Sure, there are studies and histories written, but every one of those can be based off nothing more than someone's (or a group of someone's) best recollections from his, and only his, point of view.

I was always amazed how, immediately after a firefight, everyone had a different view of what just happened. So all I'm saying is we really don't know for sure. I will say that regardless of how many sections/squads/elements/teams the platoon has, 'real' or 'administrative.' My experience was that the Plt charged with assaulting the enemy position started of moving essentially as one big happy family, and as the effects of enemy fire increased, combat leaders throughout time have sought to then have some portion of their unit fire while the other(s) is moving, and in the 20th century the idea of alternating bounds became established. Furthermore, as enemy fire increased, the natural tendency was for more and more of the platoon to fire while fewer and fewer were moving. I used the term individual rushes because that's what we called it in the Marine Corps; whatever you call it, it's happening, and the reason we had a name for it was to trainable battle drill to account for something that was going to happen on the battlefield, not because it was a novel approach to small unit tactics.

One more point to clarify on this part; when I say more and more are firing and less and less are moving, I'm not talking about being stalemated, i.e., the platoon's forward movement has ceased (though certainly that happens as well), and I don't mean the guy rushing right now is the only one moving forward; after he's bounded up, someone else will. At the beginning of the attack we had 100% moving (all squads), then 66% (2 squads) moving and 33% (1 squad) firing, then 33% (1 squad) moving and 66% (2 squads) firing, then 20% moving and 80% firing (via individual rushes, something to akin to, I'm your Corporal, you four cover me, I'm moving up, then Hanks, it's your turn, etc…). By the time we have reached individual rushes we are perilously close to losing forward momentum, and the Plt commander and Plt Sergeant are busy shoving men into place and directing fire.

I can agree with your points regarding poor quality, poor training, and poor leadership, but only insofar as that unit is not likely to get a lot done. I do a bit of reading myself and it occurs to me that it's a bit fashionable to say nothing happened except as a result of supporting fires (air and artillery). Personally I think that's ridiculous. In a lot of those books you'll read about indirect fire's impact on the operation (and I'm certainly not minimizing its role), and right before the author makes his claim that infantry are worthless he'll tell you that a company close assaulted the line of bunkers and suffered 80% casualties while clearing the line with satchel charges, grenades, and flame throwers. Something doesn't square in that formulation. I've got no issue with the idea of a platoon being a two 'groups,' with squads being nothing more than 'administrative' divisions of troops, but that still fits my model of reduced movement to add to the base of fire. I will also concede that a platoon down to ten men acts more like a squad than a platoon. But if you're saying that platoons in WW2 couldn't operate unless all ~40 of them were doing the same thing, I say nothing would have ever gotten done.

This concept is still hurting me deep down inside though. I don't believe this, but if I said, "sure, your 'average' infantry unit did not possess the training, morale, and motivation to operated at any level except as a whole platoon, that is, they couldn't have 1/2 the platoon fire while the over half moved (bounding overwatch)," what about all of the 'elite' units of WW2. Do you think they did? The reason I ask is because I do believe in varying troop quality (both real life and wargaming), but I don't hold elites as supermen. I don't even really see that big a difference in doctrine or training, mostly I see a difference in indoctrination and leadership interest (i.e., spending the time as opposed to 'they're just cannon fodder, give him a rifle and get his butt to the front). What I'm trying to say is that bounding overwatch is not post-WW2 (only the terminology is), and it's not magic, it can be taught to schoolchildren pretty quickly. Exercising it in training to the point of being confident in your tactics is back to the command interest portion, and I don't believe the the US or UK just shipped untrained folks straight into the lines (this topic could be its own thread).

"Remember that we're talking conscripts and the modern infantry officer would probably laugh at the training and cry at the motivation." I don't see that brother. Not to sound melodramatic, but it was WW2-trained and led infantry that got off the beaches at Omaha, held the bridge at Arnhem, climbed Suribachi, butted through/against ring after ring at Kursk, and a thousand others… There may been massive bombardments, aerial and tank support, etc…, but ultimately it up to infantry platoons to close with the enemy and dig his butt out of his defenses, and that doesn't happen with untrained, unmotivated troops. Again, I feel so cheesy saying that, but the evidence speaks for itself.

You can read about how the commander of nearly every attack in WW2 took higher casualties then he expected, and the reason they almost universally gave was essentially that he couldn't believe how many of the enemy survived the massive bombardment (WW1, Korea, and Vietnam seem to show this as well). All the troops interviewed thought it was going to be a walkover, that nothing could survive, and in the end the enemy had to be dug out, man by man.

So there's my (usual, long-winded) two cents worth. :)

Jack

Jack – my review from 2009

link

AAR

link

The biggest difference in mechanics is the Big Men. While each has a level, it works differently. When they are put in the pack you put 2 Tactical initiative cards of the same level. So a game with a BM3, 2x BM2 and a BM1 will have TIs of 2 x Level 3, 4 x L2, and 2 x L1.

When a BM is drawn he get 1 Tac Initiative for being him, plus he can use and thus discard) any TI of his level or lower already drawn this turn, so a BM of high enough level, who comes out at the right point can get loads of goes – in the example from above the BM 3 could get 9 TI points, if the cards were drawn and no one else had used them.

CoC is going to be pitched inbetween the two – a couple of platoons.

but the games I have seen play have all been equal point, competition games!

Just because FOW can be played in tournaments, doesn't mean it has to be! KGK has a points system too, and no doubt someone, somewhere, will organise a tournament with equal points. But because it doesn't (yet?) have the high profile of FOW, this won't be pointed out as a criticism!

By the way, those equal point tournament games – It doesnt mean two equal forces face off against each other in 18thc entury stylie – I used to think that too – but the scenarios mean that you can't have an equally matched set of armies – for example you might have an attacker that uses all his army to gain an objective within 4 moves, against a defender who can only deploy half his platoons until move 4, then attempt to start bringing on reserves…

Our rules Maneover Group works a bit different. Lots of rules have a rule called pinning. We don't. We get units pinned down but not by a rule. If fire becomes too heavy the bits shot at, be they squads or sections, either go to ground or if is really bad get off the killing ground. As the troops get "tired" they tend not to get up so fast from there grounded position. So in a long advance they slow down.

While again there is no "overwatch" rule there is a function that allows troops to intervene as they cross the field of fire. This can be aimed or if time and situation permits grasing fire by tripod mounted MG's.

As the fight gets down to further to team level the amount of forward movement slows which sort of gets were you are indicating.

However the role of leaders is a bit abstracted but we are more interested in the physics driving tactics than the human factors. Inspiring the troops is very hard to model in my opinion, and we are more bothered by the typical than the unique.

The rules were based on rules of thumb like "first win the firefight and then assult". "only infantry can take ground"
Artiller is to supress and fix inplace. The latter comes from a US field manual.

Using our rules you need interlocking fires. At the moment our lack of expertise is hindering developing the technique of hugging an enemy unit so he cannot effectively use area fire against you for fear of hitting his own troops.

The game although simple like chess is very hard to cope with above about a company in attack. Controlling who gets the call on artillery and placing supporting fires that are not halted by your own troops in the way gets tough regarless of the rules.

Last Hussar, thanks for the review, I'm a rules junkie anyway so you probably just gave me the final nudge towards purchase. The reason I hadn't already was I didn't want a copy of IABSM simply at the platoon level, thanks for the review and AAR.

UshCha, sounds like we see eye to eye on a lot of things regarding small unit actions. Forgive me, I've never heard of your rules before. How are they available (assuming they currently are)?

Ditto, I hope the wording of my reply regarding that post wasn't too hard-edged (always a concern for me on the internet). I absolutely agreed about a couple of the points, but that one and a couple others really seemed a bit far out to me. Maybe it's just my indoctrination/brainwashing (I'm reading the book "American Samurai," right now, which is really pi$$ing me off. Essentially it , says the U.S. Marine Corps is a sham that brainwashed us to be barbaric, homophobic, misogynistic racists, which is why we were so successful in combat, particularly genocidal "wars of extermination," but then argues that we really weren't that successful in combat, all written by a former Marine officer), but it seemed to me that the concept of fire and maneuver had been around for a minute or two.

Who am I to say what's true or not, I just know my own experiences and those influence how I'd like my games with toy soldiers to act :)

Jack

Just Jack

Our rules are availabale from:-

link

A couple of notes.

I always recommend you get our free Bulatin 1 and the QR sheet as they are free and give you a bit of an idea.

We do (biased opinion of course) do vehicals better. Very simple but they do have weaknesses and strengths. Get a vehical buttoned up in an urban area on its own and its in troubel, No morale tests needed its a sitting duck.
As has been said, for any infantry to work credibly you need a reasonably convinceing urban area. !0 houses for a platoon defence is a bare minimum 15 to 20 is better. Without that you hit the inevitable 1 section per house which is rubbish in any rules. You do not need our strange terrain, it just a way of getting what is needed in a small space. You will need a bit or work to start with. The marker s a key part of the game, not too obvious but keeps simple track of the units state of movement, its Fear/fire/Fatigue/Leadership level (we call it Leeadership). Its all part of allowing fast "planned" moves without paperwork. If you get a tank rolling in fast you cannot decide to stop instantly so you have to plan where its going to stop/slow down, no paperwork except in our head. Instant "friction" with no rules.

There is no points system. Any rule set that gives you one is by definition a failure. You cannot turn up in a jungle with a tank army and expect to win. Conversly a foot army on a slat lake is a disaster. Ergo points are pointless if you are to turn up in widely varying terrain. We have lots of scenarios you can have, my e-mail is in the rules. Many are unique to the model. Try getting a company down a 20 ft road in an eveing in most rules. Ironicaly 1/72 may be easiser, less choices. 1/144 in relatively open terrain with a company possibley more if the gruts are not getting out canbe an "interesting" excersice even with gods eye view of youe own toops.

I like this tread its good to understand where desigers looking for plausible behaviour are lookin and viewing the way a model is implemented and what the key prameters they define.

The WWII orders of battle in the rules are under minor review. The first desert 1940/41 lists are in. Minor changes to rules will come in. Mainly a bit "extra" for an Smg in close assult. Color maybe at this level but any game can have some colour as long as it is not at the expence of simulation and does not slow the game dowm. Speed of play is critical to a simulation. You have to have time for the ebb and flow of a battle. If you only get 4 short move bounds in an evening you cannot get ebb and flow.

"Just because FOW can be played in tournament….. ……this won't be pointed out as a criticism!

probably not but the mechanisms do not penalise the use of historical TO&E or tactics be it in a points game or not.

Back to topic, I suspect it is very difficult to replicate infantry action at the Platoon level without a good amount of abstraction, otherwise much too much time will be taken tracking the action/movement of each individual chap!

Tally Ho!

Dad trained in the UK 1940 to 1942 and then again in India 1943.
They never trained to split squads.

The Chindit jungle training was unusual in a number of ways.
In the UK they shot circular static targets on the range.
In the jungle they crept about and shot pop up man shaped targets.

In combat.
These guys ignore their training and suddenly invent bounding overwatch. With their bolt action rifles?

Aren't assault rifles necessary for bounding overwatch to work?

The on exception on squad splitting I've come across was river crossings.
Big thing in the jungle because of the effectiveness of ambush.
They would send one man across, possibly with a rope whilst everyone covered.
Similarly, they would leave one man behind for a while after a crossing.
Dad met up with an old member of his company who described being on this duty on his own with a bren.
Suddenly a bunch of Japanese appeared crossing the river and he shot them up, ran from the heavy return fire.
They later ambushed the following Japanese.
Messy business jungle war.

So yes, there are sort of exceptions but Jack could hardly wonder off or anything.

"Aren't assault rifles necessary for bounding overwatch to work?"

Fire and manouvre can be carried out with anything from a bow and arrow to Main Battle tanks. The principle is to suppress the enemy with one element whilst another element moves.

Tally Ho!

"but ultimately it up to infantry platoons to close with the enemy and dig his butt out of his defenses, and that doesn't happen with untrained, unmotivated troops. "

Well it does, but it is much harder work than with long service regulars. Same as in WW1.

I have no particular reason to doubt the accounts and studies of people who were there, particularly as they informed the way that modern (post WW2) infantry tactics were developed.

Some units could do fire and movement at section level, many couldn't. The Soviets never split their sections and still didn't in the Cold War (and maybe not in the modern Russian army?). Not enough good leaders so they did/do platoon fire & movement by section.

In the British Army the formalised tactics of rifle groups & gun groups were eventually taught as Battle Drill via Battle Schools, but even in 1943 Lt Colonel Wigram (who founded the Battle Sschools in the first place) was saying that the drills were too complex for the majority of the troops they were training and advocating reorganising platoons into two large sections – a fire support section and an assault section to make the best use of the limited numbers of good leaders available.

Contrasting views of the utility of Battle Drill may be found in Sidney Jarys '18 Platoon' and Thomas Firbanks 'I bought a Star'.

Jary thought it was a waste of time and generally favoured frontal assaults leading his men wearing a distinctive woolly jumper and waving an M1911. Jary was a highly successful platoon commander, was awarded the MC and on one occasion managed to take on an entire German infantry battalion with a single section (albeit by accident!).

Firbanks thought Battle Drill was wonderful and both trained and led his men using it in Sicily and at Arnhem and ended the war running the Parachute Infantry training school. One suspects that Firbanks paras were somewhat higher quality troops than Jarys conscript infantry in the Somerset Light Infantry.

AONeill,

Do to the vagaries of our shared language, I'm trying to figure out if I should be trying to wonder off or not wonder off (or wander/not wander off) ;)

"They never trained to split squads." In your mind, what does this mean exactly? If you are saying that the British Army didn't train or otherwise prepare their men for combat at anything below the section level, okay. If you're saying that, in an assault on a Japanses bunker, half the men of the section wouldn't fire while the other half crawled forward towards the bunker (because in a small jungle clearing I'd submit you're very unlikely to have room for one section to fire and another section to maneuver), I'd have to say that is truly divergent from any account of combat I've ever heard, seen, read about, etc… Not that it didn't or couldn't happen, but every time?

By that line of thinking, your Dad's buddy couldn't have encountered the Japanese with only his Bren; where was the rest of his section? If he was on picket duty by himself, the section was split.

What you described in the river crossings has battle drill, it's called 'crossing a linear danger area.' While I'm prefectly ready to admit that not all tactics were fully developed in/by WW2, I think fire and maneuver was a staple.

You mention exceptions, and I'm not denying exceptions, just sticking with my point, er, what was my point? I think this started as a discussion of the friction in C2 as the assault element came under increasingly heavy fire, causing '1 man leadership' to devolve to lower level leadership/individual initiative in the assault as the primary formation (be it company, platoon, or squad) could no longer be maintained.

If you've gotten close to the objective under (relatively) heavy fire, I would submit if you're not willing/able to push C2 down a level or two you are not in a position to do anything but 1) hold or 2) fall back. My experience was that you get to a point where an 8-13 man squad/section is not willing to advance under fire unless they are able to return fire themselves. Since it doesn't do me any good to simply sit and shoot (the idea was to close assault through the enemy), your only recourse was fire and manuever at the squad/section level, even though that fire was probably really only a panacea (i.e., to feel like I'm actually 'doing' something instead of just walking into the jaws of death) to keep the man moving forward.

Jack

Nick,
"Back to topic, I suspect it is very difficult to replicate infantry action at the Platoon level without a good amount of abstraction, otherwise much too much time will be taken tracking the action/movement of each individual chap!" Exactly. As I mentioned, my feeble attempts resulted in endless pages, tables, charts, and graphs, pretty much halted all forward movement by anyone in LOS of the enemy, and made for a whole lot of 'not fun.'

"Aren't assault rifles necessary for bounding overwatch to work?"

"Fire and manouvre can be carried out with anything from a bow and arrow to Main Battle tanks. The principle is to suppress the enemy with one element whilst another element moves." Amen brother.

Jack

Martin,
"…that doesn't happen with untrained, unmotivated troops. " "Well it does, but it is much harder work than with long service regulars."

I will state there are exceptions to every rule, though a human wave attack may happen with untrained troops, I would submit it does not work with unmotivated troops. He may not be motivated in the traditional sense, but he was motivated. And despite all the talk of penal battalions, etc…, I think most of those kids did it for the Rodina, just as the ChiComs during the Korean War, the NVA during the Vietnam War, and so forth.

I'm certainly on board with varying troop qualities, though, as I stated previously, my belief (at the risk of sounding like Joffre) is that it's largely a difference in esprit de corps, which equates to, in a way, 'battlefield motivation.' The German SS is always pointed to as different not just in terms of esprit de corps but in weapons and doctrine. My counterpoint would be that, as a whole, the Allies didn't do this with weapons, equipment, or doctrine. As an example, all US forces had the M-1 Garand as its main battle element, not the M-1 for conscripts and some type of super small-arm for 'elites.' The same is true of the Brits and USSR.

The point I'm slowly getting to is that I think we're putting too much into the ability/inability to train 'basket.' A dearth of leadership is one thing, but I have a hard time with the idea that you can't teach a conscript "this group moves while this one shoots, then that one shoots while this one moves." If that battle drill is too complex than I don't think you have a military. Again, let me stress that there's a big difference between not being able to train men and the men not being to pull the maneuver off under fire because of a the lack of quality junior officers and NCOs.

"I have no particular reason to doubt the accounts and studies of people who were there, particularly as they informed the way that modern (post WW2) infantry tactics were developed." I don't doubt anyone either, I'm just saying that if you and I were side by side in a three hour firefight, then interviewed separately, our stories about what happened, when it happened, and why it happened traditionally have a habit of not lining up. The men that devised the tactics/wrote the manuals are nothing more than men like you and I that had they're own opinions of what happened, what worked and what didn't (just like all us knuckleheads arguing about wargame rules), and the interviewers either came to their conclusions by aggregate or applied their own biases. As a most simple example, look at "Band of Brothers" and the conflicts in there (as well as the ones the author left out because it didn't seem to match up satisfactorily with what most of everyone else was saying), and bounce that off some of the 'off-shoot' books by men of the same company since the TV series was made.

"The Soviets never split their sections and still didn't in the Cold War (and maybe not in the modern Russian army?). Not enough good leaders so they did/do platoon fire & movement by section." I agree; the Soviets, because of their traditional lack or refusal to rely on junior leadership have always (WW2 and on) be known to use smaller equivalent formations but doing the same thing we (Western Allies/NATO) do. That is to say, at least from my training regarding Cold War armored forces, a MRR would have perform the duties and was approximately the size of one of our battalions. But please see my above post to AONeill (19 Feb 2013 5:53 a.m. PST); I'm not talking about doctrine and what senior leadership 'hoped' would happen on the battlefield, I'm talking about what I beleive to be the natrual inclination of 'most' guys under fire, that is, the desire to return fire. If you're in charge of that element, whether fire team, squad, platoon, you're going to have to let some of them fire (and you probably want to because it makes you feel better too) while you go kick others into moving up, then they fire and you run back and kick those other guys to move up.

Regarding Jary, there's a great Marine story about a 1Lt Lee from B/1/7 that wore an orange air-recognition panel in order to inspire his Marines. I've never heard of the story of taking on a German battalion with a section. He may not have liked battle drill and may have favored platoon frontal assaults, but I still bet someone in the platoon was shooting at the bad guys while someone else was moving in. I'll have to get my hands on "18 Platoon."

Jack

Great topic and lots of interesting information here!

A recurring theme I've encountered in the memoirs of small unit leaders (platoon and company) is that coordination is crucial to avoiding fratricide.

We gamers, whether miniature or even video, have the luxury of spreading units willy-nilly all over the table, often on angles that would mean shooting each other in real life!

This reminds my of the scene in the movie Ronin in which the character played by Robert De Niro ridicules Sean Bean's character for setting an ambush with friendlies on opposite side of a road…ie facing one another.

There's another thread around here somewhere in which we discussed "unit integrity" below platoon level. IMO, based on memoirs from WWII to GWOT, squads and even fire teams are not sacrosanct. For daily routines and overall supervision the squad and team leaders certain have their roles. But in combat it seems that three forces contribute to a more realistic or flexible approach to small unit leadership:

1. weapon role means that troops are often task-organized across squad and team boundaries. This often means putting all of the heavier, automatic weapons together as a base of fire while lighter weapons and the bulk of the troops are used in an assault group.

2. the chaos of small unit actions often means that teams within a squad get separated from one another. As one combat veteran on the Small Wars Council forum stated, he could barely keep track of four men, let alone an entire squad, in combat.

3. because of the chaos it's extra important to keep things simple to avoid shooting each other. trying to maneuver 4 squads, or 6 fire teams and 3 MG teams, in an intricate ballet, works on the wargames table but gets people killed IRL.

Jack – yes, we changed callsigns, freqs, etc. every 24hrs, even though we had secure devises and a secure net … As the secure devises/systems became better … we usually kept the same callsign … mine in the ROK was Legion 4, BTW … And I too ran ops in jungle, urban, desert, etc. … and generally the less terrain features to block the radio signals the better … Hence two frequent radio messages come to mind; "You're broken and distorted, I'm moving to higher ground, over …" And, "Any station on this push, this is Legion 4 … Commo check … over … "

As far as formations, we were trained in the techinques of the day, Travelling, Travelling Overwatch, Overwatch and Bounding Overwatch, and generally very useful. But at always like many things it's terrain dependent. In thick woods/jungle the column/Ranger File was more useful. And in urban terrain, troops "hug" the terrain and that can be said the same for any terrain … troops stay under cover and concealment. And move/bound from cover to cover … Regardless Overwatch was always used if the terrain permitted it. But sometimes in the thick bush, you can only see a few feet let alone a few yards … You adapt to get the job done …

"I have a hard time with the idea that you can't teach a conscript "this group moves while this one shoots, then that one shoots while this one moves.""

You certainly can teach people to do this (which was the point of the battle schools), it is whether they do it in small groups under fire without a senior NCO to encourage them.

In Sicily, Wigram found men taking cover who weren't even being shot at, just the sound of firing was enough to make them stop and hit the dirt. Rowlands came across cases of AT gunners who simply abandoned their guns when an enemy tank came into view and the more general point that the vast bulk of the killing (be it by infantry, tanks or AT weapons) was done by a very small minority of people/crews (which chimes with other studies).

I don't think we are disagreeing really, it is all about training, motivation and leadership, but sometimes you need a lot of the latter to overcome shortcomings it the former and end up operating in bigger groups.

Legion – Read ya lima charlie.

Wartopia and Martin – You're right, I think we are all agreeing :) From reading your two posts, I think I haven't made my point, or at the very least I haven't done so clearly. First, throw out my comments about squads/fireteam bounds with Sergeants/Corporals 'running' the fight, and let's have a starting point I think we all agree on.

1st Plt is the assault element in a company attack with a cluster to 3 buildings as its objective. 2nd Plt and elements (MGs) of Wpns Plt are on a hill to the right pouring fire into the three buildings.

1st Plt begins the assault 500 yards away, with two known 'factors' as leaders (IABSM-style "Big Men"), the Plt Commander (Lt) and Plt Sgt. Of course we have squad leaders, but they're non-entities as far as combat goes.

As the assault begins, 1st Plt is in a 'V' formation w/Lt in the center and Plt Sgt darting from flank to flank trying to keep the three squads in formation despite the undulations of the ground and unfriendly terrain.

300 yards to go and we start receiving fire. The formation starts to squish together and the Lt remains in the center, but the Plt Sgt is even more frantic in darting back and forth. 1st Plt's movement rate begins to decrease and it's getting harder to hold it together as a platoon.

200 yards and fire increases. Someone's hit, men start going to ground. Now the Lt is effectively in charge of half the platoon and the Plt Sgt the other half. They must see to the wounded and fearful, but the driving concept now is a series of bounds by one 'group' while the other provides fire. All the movement could come by one group, with the other providing fire the whole way (i.e., the Lt grabs all the rifles and SMGs for the 'actual' assault, while the Plt Sgt grabs all the LMGs and A-gunners for the base of fire), or the two groups could alternate bounds. 1st Plt's movement had really slowed down, and is moving ahead only 10 yards at a time ("I'm up, he sees me, I'm down!"). It is no longer operating as a platoon but two different group dependent upon two different leaders hopefully of like mind.

1st Plt is now 100 yards from the objective. Fire is hot, casualties are racking up, we've pretty much lost all forward movement. Now is when we either 1) drop smoke to cover our withdrawal, or 2) resolve to come to grips with the enemy (assuming we can't simply call a tank over to blast the three buildings out of existence).

If we're going to close assault the objective, we're probably going to have three distinctly different groups of people. First, we have the steely-eyed Lt and a handful of men that will (when he kicks them in the butt) hop up, one at a time, and charge forward 10 yards while the rest pour fire onto the objective, then the next guy goes, then the next, until we're at the buildings and tossing grenades in.

The next group is the Plt Sgt and an LMG w/a couple riflemen, who are no longer moving but are dedicated to pouring fire into the objective so the Lt's handful of men can close the distance. Once the Lt's group is on the target he shifts fire and/or joins the Lt's group on the objective.

The last group, and this is the vast majority of the platoon, are tending to the wounded, milling about, trying to establish comms, running messages back and forth, trying to repair a weapon, taking cover, or drifting to the rear. As a group it's not doing anything more productive than loosing the occasional rifle shot in the general direction of the objective.

The Lt and Plt Sgt prefer to have something better happening with our last group of men, but the focus on closing with the objective combined with the enemy's fire conspired to 'shrink' the effective command and control radius of the Lt and Plt Sgt so that they could only effectively influence the couple men directly to their left and right.

The higher the number of more capable leaders present in the platoon directly equates (in my mind) to the more 'bayonets' able to be brought to bear in the moment of decision, whether that leader's rank is Lt, Sgt, Cpl, LCpl, etc… I do believe battle drill helps 'lubricate' this process, i.e., constant rehearsal has shown to inspire more confidence in the leader's own abilities as well as of his subordinates' in him, and it gives the individual soldier a sense that he knows what is supposed to be happening, which helps to overcome the chaos/confusion of battle.

Most of the citations for valor in (infantry) combat are for one of the leaders LEADING the last push of an assault (as part of what I term "individual rushes"), or a lower ranking soldier stepping up to fill the void caused by a fallen leader, or of a soldier (regardless of rank) that closed the distance and eliminated the enemy strongpoint.

The whole point was that (many/most) rules will have three stands of infantry (one per squad) advancing on the objective, and so long as they are not 'pinned' they will continue to receive orders, move, and fire as if nothing happened, whereas we know from historical accounts that almost never was supporting fire so effective that a platoon walked onto a contested objective as a platoon, that instead its combat effectiveness degraded as it got closer to the enemy (fire intensity), as we described above.

If someone cracks that code in a simple manner, please let me know.

V/R,
Jack

Grossmans interviews of many vietnam veterans are relevent.
People assume there is a natural inclination to return fire.
I certainly used to.
The primary reason for firing given was being ordered to fire.

One might think in a combat situation conscripts will just naturally react effectively without leadership.
Grossman says no.
He has evidence supports this.
Not 99% of em.
The exception being one or two men out a company who are unusually effective.

AONeill,
Does this mean we're agreeing? ;)

With regards to the firing of weapons, killing, etc…, there's quite a bit of literature out now suggesting the US military has gotten over that hump (post-Vietnam). For what's it's worth, I tend to agree. Anecdotally, I didn't see anyone who had a problem firing (moving forward was a different story, but that's the whole idea of combat leadership, i.e., someone has to get them moving).

The psychiatrists point out the "all-volunteer, professional" military, making training better, longer, more emphasis on combat, and more realistic. More professionalism in terms of battle drill (specifically endless rehearsal designed to overcome the shock of combat), frank discussions of combat stress, continuity of operations (next man up), and increased esprit de corps via focus on the service's traditions and history (i.e., wanting to live up to previous glories, not let your buddies down) also.

Some, typically on the civilian side, have also brought up desensitization to killing via various aspects of popular culture (movie violence, video games, etc…). Some have pointed to the decline of religion as well.

Again, for what it's worth, I tend to agree with all those. As a kid I can remember discussions and (even at the time, "old") movies like The Red Badge of Courage and Sergeant York that focused on the soldier overcoming fear and moral aversions to killing. Didn't see any of that in Iraq or Afghanistan. I'm not trying to sound 'hard' and I'm certainly not boasting, I'm just saying society and the U.S. military seem to have figured out that particular problem. Hell, I'd throw in that modern body armor (our Interceptor vests w/SAPI plates) had a lot of guys running around thinking they were Superman.

One last point of clarification. I am not saying music, TV, and/or video games make someone kill people. But I do believe that they help to desensitize humans to the act, so that when the human is placed in a situation in which (in this case) the military is asking him to kill he doesn't seem to have anywhere near the problems his forebears did.

Just my opinion.
Jack

Fire and manouvre can be carried out with anything from a bow and arrow to Main Battle tanks. The principle is to suppress the enemy with one element whilst another element moves.

Theoretically true of course, but historically I'm sure we all agree that F&M only dominated small unit tactical thought from the advent of the machine gun, and the impossiblity of advancing against MG fire depending only on a stiff upper lip and impressively waxed mustaches…Though only codified into drills mid WW1

That's roughly what I was taught at the School of Infantry in 1985, anyway…

"If someone cracks that code in a simple manner, please let me know."

I have actually seen and taken part in the very sequence you describe, but only when dressing up as soldiers and playing with toy guns. Not very practical for the average club night:)

Funny how you start out with 20 blokes across the field and there are ony four of you on the objective at the end while an awful lot of people are busy doing 'something' in the rear.

wrt rules covering key people dragging ever decreasing numbers of troops forward, I was always rather fond of Andy Graingers old 'Bocage Battle' rules where motivation was key and the role of junior leaders, supporting fire etc was to boost the troops motivation such that they would actually advance under fire. There were only so many leaders to go around though and as platoons advanced they would leave bits behind.

The originals were published way back in the late 80s but live on in Aaron Longbottoms 'Skirmish 90', or at least the leadership/motivation model.

link

but frankly, IABSM does a good job with this sort of thing and it looks like Fireball Forward does too although I have yet to actually play a game of that rather than just read the rules.

At a higher the battalion attack and street fighting games included in Phil Sabins 'Simulating War' do a nice job of modelling unit exhaustion in the attack and the importance of depth as well as fire & movement. Somewhat higher level and less focus on leadership though.

Fire and movement ww2 infantry platoon style.

Three legged beast.
One section moves, two cover/fire.
At least in the British army training.

Wigram found that in practice this was too sophisticated for many units.
It seems a bit unlikely that he got it all wrong or was somehow biased. Arguing against a system he wrote would be a strange sort of bias.

Modern infantry tactics are more sophisticated.
I would hope there are a lot less men who are worse than useless.
Anyone who hasn't read it should read Wigram.

Then there's officer quality.
Dad had a pretty low opinion of some of his officers.
Here's an anecdote.
Dad volunteered in 1940.
Once they did training and things had settled down somewhat some odd behaviour became obvious.
One of the officers used to try and ingratiate himself with the men.
He carried a bag of sugar in his pocket.
Tea was and probably still is a big thing in the British army.
When the men were having tea he'd come round offering sugar from his bag.
Completely out his depth.

Sparker – I agree to stipulate that fire and movement came into being in WW1 with the advent of 'Stormtrooper' tactics devised by the British, made famous by the Germans, and put into action by both (to include the Brits trying to teach the Yanks, but the Yanks not listening and having to figure it out on their own).

The point of Stormtrooper tactics was the concept of "assault in depth," i.e., infiltration to counter "defense in depth," use of responsive supporting fires as opposed to pre-planned barrages, the implementation of LMGs for fire and movement, and pushing down of tactical control to lower levels (and training to increase individual initiative) necessitated by those tactics.

Martin – I haven't had the opportunity to see any of the rules you spoke of except IABSM, which I do like in general. However, while abstraction is necessary, I don't like where it's at, i.e., 'tea break' came up so these two platoons don't get to move (I know they can shoot if in 'x' range). Why? Because (fill in abstraction here). That is only my opinion.

AONeill – I can't speak to why Wigram changed his mind, so to speak, and I still don't think modern infantry tactics are really that different from the tactics from late WW1 on. There's not really any more for me to say on the subject of friction's effect on command and control with regards to closing with the enemy in order to assault through an objective.

I was really quite proud of my 19 Feb 2013 10:23 a.m. PST, in which I broke down, step by step, what I saw happen, and what I believe is sort of universal in terms of how infantry attacks shake out (from late WWI onward), regardless of the fact the doctrinal manual says all men of a squad/section will do the same thing at the same time. I suppose we'll just have to disagree.

"I would hope there are a lot less men who are worse than useless." While there certainly are 'worthless' men, that wasn't the point of my example with the ever-dwindling number of troops in the assault. I was probably a bit crass in the way I wrote, but most of those guys are doing something productive; and it's constantly shifting. The guy that stopped to clear a jam eventually gets back in the fight, as does the guy providing first aid to his wounded buddy until the Corpsman gets there. Once comms get reestablished, three of the guys helping run slash wire up on the roof get back in the game. As I mentioned previously, the biggest factor in the number of men in the final push to close on the objective (aside from casualties) is the number of effective leaders, and how many men they can effectively control. A 2nd Lieutenant is in charge of a ~40 man platoon, but under fire like that he can only effectively control the three to five men right next to him, Plt Sgt, squad leaders, and fireteam leaders likewise (assuming each of those are 'effective' combat leaders).

I will say that the luxury of not having largely conscript forces and an extended peacetime era prior to 9/11 allowed for a greater emphasis on small unit leadership at increasingly lower levels, which undoubtedly sets modern forces apart from late-war WW2 elements. What this means is that a modern platoon could, for example, have five effective combat leaders, allowing you to effectively employ about 20 men in the close assault, and a (given the Wigram example) WW2 Brit platoon with two effective leaders, was ultimately able to control only about another 8 bodies in the close assault (leaving the line of departure w/~40 men divided into two large sections).

Jack

I think the Tea Break does add to the game, not take it away as some here will say. You have to see the game not as a series of turns , but rather as rolling time, and for THAT 30secs the men just didn't act, they were ducking/trying to work out the most covered line of advance/trying to identify something/etc.

Jack, I haven't touched these in almost 4 years – I discovered TW&T then IABSM, but there are some ideas I particularly like in there. I have a more complete set somewhere- these are very much a Work in progress. The later set has lots of tank stats.

link

EDIT
Bear in mind when I wrote these I hadn't seen TFL games, some of it is spookily co-incidental!

Martin you have a credit in the Intro.

"Martin you have a credit in the Intro."

Thank you, I am flattered:)

wrt card activation systems in general, they are one way of modelling friction, but individuals tastes as to the level of both abstraction and randomness will vary. I usually like to give players some ability to influence the degree of randomness (by e.g. positioning of leaders) but generally my group is pretty OK with very random activation systems as we are usually tired after work and it is one less set of things to think about. For many years I used random movement for units, some people really hate that, but I was amused to see in the recent declassified 1978 British Army Desert Wargame that random movement is what they use (for battlegroup size actions). If is good enough for the MOD, it is good enough for me.

Probably why we mainly seem to play Command & Colours type games these days:)

Just Jack wrote:

I broke down, step by step, what I saw happen, and what I believe is sort of universal in terms of how infantry attacks shake out (from late WWI onward), regardless of the fact the doctrinal manual says all men of a squad/section will do the same thing at the same time. I suppose we'll just have to disagree.

One of the great things to remember is that fireteams, bricks, sections, squads, blobs, trinomes or whatever else you want to call Army organizations have no physical reality -- they are just an idea in the mind of God (and, we hope, the men forming them). Each is a collection of some number of individuals. Old World anthropoids such as ourselves fight in groups, rather than as individuals, and so soldiers in acton rely on the psychological support of their friends nearby, but whether one calls this a fireteam or a section or a granfalloon hardly matters. SLAM nicely illustrated this in his "Men Against Fire" with the example of four men hiding in foxholes, unaware of each others presence, and therefore four powerless and ineffecrtual individuals; when they call out and become aware of each other's presence, they become a pyschologically unified and effective combat element, which Marshall didn't call a fireteam because the US Army didn't yet use the term (though the USMC had previously borrowed the idea from the Chinese, Fry's "Combat Battle Drill" did not appear for another couple of years.

One of the things Marshall never emphasised sufficiently, but which is one of the decisive factors in direct-fire combat, is the effect of terain. Sine the invention of nitrocellulose propellants and high explosives in the 19th century, Infantry who wish to survive on the battlefield take every advantage of terrain to do so, but this means that, to a close approximation, they can't see a darned thing. Consequently, the bunch of friends a soldier finds himself sharing a funk-hole with may, in an untidy battle, not be the rest of his section. Dave Rowland's "Stress of Battle" presents convincing evidence, based on instrumented TESEXes such as Chinese Eye and King's Ride, that the way direct-fire battles tend to develop is as a series of tiny few-on-few encounters, rather than as serried ranks on each side blasting away at each other. This, again, is thanks to the way the micro-terrain works -- there are even fewer opportunities to see the enemy than there are to see firends. It also explains why noise is an important factor on the battlefield, as acoustic detection is not limited by line-of-sight in the way visual detection is.

Wargames tend not to pay much attention to modelling noise, have difficulty portraying the psychological as distinct from organisational links that make fighting groups, and cannot possibly model the micro-terrain with any degree of fidelity. They do, however, make the attempt, and often do much better than professional military simulations.

I will say that the luxury of not having largely conscript forces and an extended peacetime era prior to 9/11 allowed for a greater emphasis on small unit leadership at increasingly lower levels, which undoubtedly sets modern forces apart from late-war WW2 elements.

I think this is the natural continuation of capabilities and responsibilities being pushed down to lower and lower tactical levels. At the end of WW1, a platoon organised on the British model would have had two sections armed with Lewis guns, and two with rifles only. Obviously, fire was supposed to be provided mainly by the Lewis sections, movement by the rifle sections. By WW2, most first-class armies had got an LMG in every section, so any of them could provide either fire or movement (Andy O'Neill's "three-legged beast") or, on those rare occasions such a small dose of force would be suficient, conduct a section attack with LMG group firing and rifle group moving. By the 1980s, many Western armies had the section organised as two equal fire teams, each with its own LMG (or inferior heavy-barrelled assault rifle equivalent). Whether for reasons of treasury parsimony or otherwise, the British Army has also tended to operate lately in "multiples", a "multiple" being roughly speaking a half platoon. A multiple of four bricks, each with its own LMG, is difficulty to distinguish conceptually from a platoon of four sections, each with its own LMG, except that the numerical stregnth of each element is about half.

I see in the latest RUSI Journal Jim Storr has reminded eveybody of his very successful "Sea Wall" experiment, where he trialled a new platoon organisation based on five-man sections.

Me, I think military oranisations are reflections of our monkey-brain's limits on maintaining social links; we have a small group of indimate friends (the section), a wider group of friends (the platoon), and a bunch of acquaintances we all know by name (the company). In close combat these social groups are scattered broadly over intensely crinkly terrain being criss-crossed with bullets and fragments moving noisily at alarming speeds, and their members are invited to go and compel some similar but opposing social groups to behave nicely; and in order to make it a bit more of a challenge, everyone will probably have had to go without proper sleep for quite a long time beforehand.

No wonder everyone doesn't arrive neatly at the objective all at the same time.

All the best,

John.

Last Hussar – I'll have to take a look.

John – I think the idea behind smaller elements is perhaps due to leaders' realization that (as you pointed out with the 'empty battlefield) that level of group is the one that will actually conduct the fighting, regardless of organization and doctrine. If you can come up with sufficient leaders in quality and quantity you could theoretically have have a platoon of 9 four-man fireteams (where each has its own leader motivating them) employ more men in combat than 3 12-13 man squads (i.e., three leaders who still can only really exert control over 3-5 men each, thus really only employing ~15 men).

Jack

I always thought of bunching as being a comfort blanket thing.
I'll be safe with Sergeant rock. He's tough. Best stick with him.

Maybe that comfort is more soldiers want to hear orders and you simply can't from further away.

Recent studies show that not only do environmental factors alter your genes, this can be handed down.
You might actually be hard wired in the number of people you can work with and trust. Close family, extended family, tribe. Section, platoon, company.

"British Army has also tended to operate lately in "multiples""

The use of Bricks and Multiples was developed in the 70s/80s for patrolling in NI,

Tally Ho!

John Salt also gets a thanks in the rules, as do some others who I haven't yet seen on this thread.

The reason I linked to them isn't shameless self promotion (unusually)- they were only play tested twice, so need tightening and tweaking, but rather the concept I used to try and take control out of players hands: Delayed fire resolution.

Rather than roll the dice when you shoot, you mark the firepower used on the target. When they activate they declare what they are going to do – move, fire, rally or hunker down, and you resolve the fire at that point, with a hit number that depends on the action called.

Examples
Unit has 1 hit on it. It will MOVE. The target number for MOVE is 4+. Roll one die. If it is 4, 5, 6 then a hit is scored

Unit has 4 hits on it. It HUNKERS DOWN- Hit on 6. Roll 4 dice, and any 6s are hits.

Roll once on the hit table for each hit
(from memory)
1- Miss
2-3 Pin (can't move)
4-5 Suppress (No fire or Move)
6 Kill; Suppress plus 1 'kill marker'. 2 Kills destroy the base
(Kills are 'mission kills' – men too scared to carry on, o helping wounded, not necessarily deaths/bad wounds)

Only after attacks are resolved does the unit act.

The idea is to take away the 'He's suppressed so charge' or units doing exactly what their told no matter the amount of fire around. Basically if a section is under effective fire there is a good chance it won't move if ordered to: a SUPPRESS chance is 0.25 per fire point if ordered to move.

The use of Bricks and Multiples was developed in the 70s/80s for patrolling in NI,

That it was, but back in BAOR the old "rifle group/gun group" combination was still in use.

I think 'Fire Teams', 2 per section, came in 1984-5, as the SA80 and the LSW were starting to be issued to Regular Bns….Lots of extra LMG's started appearing in GR Bns, and we were expected to implement it with 2 of these per section. Hard work!

Indeed Sparks, the advent of the new weapon systems led to a re-design of general tactics and mourning of the loss of that rifle!

Tally Ho!

Jack -
Was discussing the whole 'charge a machine gun' thing with my regular IABSM opponent. He made the point that those 'x' dice don't have to be the whole section. Think of the casualties as being against the 7 men who went to ground in the charge, and all the casualties caused by the attacker as being the one guy/loonie/VC who gets close and tosses grenades in.

John D. Salt wrote: … that the way direct-fire battles tend to develop is as a series of tiny few-on-few encounters, rather than as serried ranks on each side blasting away at each other.

John,

Clearly you haven't played 40K or Flames of War.

:-)

Just picked this up on ARRSE:

"The Falkland aftermath saw the introduction of 'Fire Teams' within the section and some brand new 'Lessons learned' tactics. Though using a Large Pack as Cover from View / Fire is not one I remember being taught at Brecon."

Tally Ho!

"Though using a Large Pack as Cover from View / Fire is not one I remember being taught at Brecon."

But it works so well when you aren't firing real bullets…

More on the subject:

link

Tally Ho!

Another good quote!

"I suppose it all boils down to the nature of the opposition, as usual.

I asked one old boy how he'd used platoon/section tactics to deal with the MG42s he'd come up against in NW Europe in '45; he said:

"gun group, rifle group, and divisional artillery group!".

Tally Ho!

Yes, that was a great quote.

Great Thread, why I enjoy TMP!

With regard to Wigram, one of the reasons why he wanted to go to two groups is, that he mentions in practice, British platoons were only 20 to 22 men strong during the campaign, not the authorised strength.