"Insurgents in divisional level rules" Topic

How would one go about creating a scenario with insurgents/jihadists in an operational game (Panzer Korps supplement OPFOR)? As far as I know most of the fighting against Taliban and other groups like them are guerrilla actions against the "peace-keeping" forces like the US/UK etc. My imagery comes from the news and random AARs I've read on wargaming sites.

Running battalions of suicide trucks against infantry battalions seems kind of funny. That's just one thought that passed my mind.

What kind of heavy equipment COULD an insurgent force field? Old tanks, mortars, machine-guns, the above-mentioned suicide trucks, IEDs (minefields) come to mind. Just give them an imagi-nation financed by heroin trade.

Giving insurgents high morale and easy victory conditions would be a viable route I think. Causing a US Marine battalion to retreat would be a major victory or something like that.

That's just a couple of ideas.

I don't think insurgents have any place in divisional level rules.

No place at all.

I think you could, but it would be very abstract, for example, a section of road could be designated as full of IEDs and have to be treated like a minefield. At a Divisional level their effects would be played as friction in various way: perhaps lower movement rates in specific areas, not everywhere. But in terms of insurgent brigades conducting deliberate attacks, my answer would be no.

I'll probably look into other rulesets for insurgents. I'll reserve the army actions for PK and such rules.

Given them one card to play, which shows up randomly out of a stack, for a minor victory, if/when it turns up.

I agree with pretty much everything said. At this level, insurgents are basically terrain, not combatants.

In Brigade Commander, you can use a "Partisan" asset.

It places a light infantry (mostly defensive) company somewhere on the table and pins down the nearest enemy within a certain range.

There's also a Commando asset which can stop enemies from approaching a spot, for one turn.

It depends what you mean by "insurgent", relatively small groups of guerrillas (in which case treating them as terrain is the way to go), or more organised groups of partisans/insurrectionists/militias. Soviet ww2 partisans approached corps strength in some areas and fought as such, as did the forces of the Arab revolt in ww1, and arguably so do their modern militia counterparts engaged in various current unpleasantness. At that point they are essentially just more flags stuck in the map.

My Large scale rules are Modern Spearhead, so this is framed in that reference.

I don't feel like I would make a OPFOR be comprised of insurgents entirely. I also don't think I would play Vietnam or the like any larger than company, battalion at very most.

as for using them, I would give them as support assets to the OPFOR player. a few hidden minefields to represent IED as previously mentioned, and either a few stands of low quality infantry that start off hidden in town centers and the like that "pop up" when a BLUEFOR unit enters, or just have a roll on a table any time a BLUEFOR unit enters a concealing terrain area such as towns, forests, valleys, and so on, to see what pops up and ambushes them. It may seem a bit like wack-a-mole, but I feel like to a division commander it would be about the same

Might require the attacker to station troops near objectives to retain control over them.

Move off, and the enemy seizes them back over a few turns.

This way, the attacker is stuck trying to either garrison things or leave them behind and have them essentially revert back.