Timbo W | 26 Mar 2016 3:00 a.m. PST |
Hi all, 'What Ifs' in my mind are events that could have happened historically, but didn't for whatever reason. The classic wargamers' example is Grouchy turning up at Waterloo. Which what-if? scenarios have you played or do you think would be interesting? A couple of examples from the ECW: One I've not yet tried is Naseby where Goring does what he's told and brings back the old Oxford army horse from the West Country to rejoin the King. One I have tried is Nantwich. In reality a bridge was washed away by floods which meant that the Royalist cavalry had to find another crossing, arriving too late to support the foot. In our game the cavalry was available but interestingly Fairfax still won. |
Mako11 | 26 Mar 2016 3:31 a.m. PST |
French Cav outflanking the English at Agincourt. |
Herkybird | 26 Mar 2016 3:33 a.m. PST |
French Cav outflanking the English at Agincourt. They did! – and promptly started beating up the baggage! |
Timmo uk | 26 Mar 2016 4:00 a.m. PST |
I've played various what if's around the Bismarck campaign adding more ships to both sides. Generally the German navy comes out on top. ECW Rupert drills the Royalist horse into a disciplined force over any winter between '42 – 44. What if the Royalists hadn't out of ammunition/powder at First Newbury and Essex is cut off from retreating on London. |
cavcrazy | 26 Mar 2016 4:46 a.m. PST |
Did a "what-if" game where Benteen did make it with the packs…..they all got wiped out too! |
Frederick | 26 Mar 2016 5:29 a.m. PST |
Try a What If when the Rebs manage to take Cemetery Hill the first day – makes the second day a lot less pleasant for the Union |
David Manley | 26 Mar 2016 6:36 a.m. PST |
Jutland with proper magazine handling procedures on British BCs (not fun for the Germans) WwW2 Med campaigns without Italian fuel and command limitations – much more fun for the Axis players The Falklands campaign assuming a more active Argentinean naval involvement |
Yellow Admiral | 26 Mar 2016 8:42 a.m. PST |
Most of the wargames I organize are "what ifs", and that's been a lot of games over the years. I admit that some of them are really stretching, like my current project, the "what if" war between the US and France in Mexico… There's some kind of wide, gray, fuzzy line delineating "real" from "fantasy", and games which go too far into the fantasy zone lose my interest. - Ix |
steamingdave47 | 26 Mar 2016 8:51 a.m. PST |
In my experience, as soon as you add a couple of wargamers to an "historical refight", it becomes a "what if" immediately. No matter how tightly you frame the scenario, there's always someone (usually me) who decides to try something different or has such lousy luck with the dice that things go completely differently. How could the Allies lose at Ramilies? Easy, just give your cavalry to the two least experienced players of the rules! |
138SquadronRAF | 26 Mar 2016 10:07 a.m. PST |
Here's one from Murat's 1815 Campaign. It's the Waterloo Campaign on a smaller scale: PDF link
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Coyotepunc and Hatshepsuut | 26 Mar 2016 11:44 a.m. PST |
What if Alexander did not have a romantic evening with the Amazon Queen and they led their armies against each other? |
rmaker | 26 Mar 2016 11:52 a.m. PST |
The classic wargamers' example is Grouchy turning up at Waterloo. Of course only valid if the rest of the Prussians come on right behind him. the "what if" war between the US and France in Mexico… I like that one, too. Very rough on the French. |
pzivh43 | 26 Mar 2016 12:41 p.m. PST |
WW2 Kursk, if the Panthers didn't break down every 5 minutes! |
KTravlos | 26 Mar 2016 1:15 p.m. PST |
After reading Erickson's "Defeat in Detail" I would like to re-run Sarantaporo with the regular forces that had been assigned against the Greek Army of Thessaly. Historically those were stranded in Syria by the dominance of the Greek Navy in the Agean, and Hasan Tahsin Pasha had to fight with a mixed reserve-regular force. Also the Greek-Ottoman Naval War of 1914, which was averted by the start of the WW1. A big what if is how WW1 would had gone in 1914 if the Germans had thrown their weight against Russia rather than France, or if the Russians had thrown their weight on Austria. |
Sudwind | 26 Mar 2016 3:00 p.m. PST |
We had the Aztecs wiping out Cortez and at the Bengal Club, the colonial British virtually never won a battle of TSATF. |
AGamer | 26 Mar 2016 4:32 p.m. PST |
Jackson doesn't die at Chancellorsville, so the A.N.V. is composed of two corps at Gettysburg, Jackson's and Longstreet's. Burnside's pontoons arrive at Fredericksburg, two weeks earlier. In a Fog of War Antietam re-fight, Fifth and Sixth Corp are released – with Sixth Corp and A.P. Hill counter charging at the area of the burning Dunker Church. |
JimSelzer | 26 Mar 2016 5:09 p.m. PST |
Custer bringing his gatling guns would be a nice what if |
21eRegt | 26 Mar 2016 6:58 p.m. PST |
That's odd; I've run a lot of carefully researched "what if" games and I can't remember a single example. What does that say about the quality of the game? |
GarrisonMiniatures | 27 Mar 2016 1:49 p.m. PST |
The Germans did throw their weight against Russia in 1914 – think Tannenburg: 'The Battle of Tannenberg was fought between Russia and Germany from 26-30 August 1914, during the first month of World War I. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles (First Masurian Lakes) destroyed most of the First Army as well and kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915.' link |
coolyork | 30 Mar 2016 3:50 p.m. PST |
On the flip side GM ! What if the other Russian Armies and the Czar had supported Gen. Brusilovs Offensive of 1916 before the German could bring troops from the Western Front to support the crumbling Austrians ? |
Great War Ace | 31 Mar 2016 7:28 p.m. PST |
One of the most decisive what ifs is the first decade of Frankish Jerusalem following the First Crusade. What if the crusaders lost those battles that they unaccountably won against huge odds? There would have been no defense of the kingdom possible. (Just a note on @herkybird's post: The French cavalry did not outflank the English at Agincourt, they routed. What did the outflanking was the lord of Agincourt with a bunch of his peasants.) |
B6GOBOS | 01 Apr 2016 10:40 a.m. PST |
In late April 1781 Cornwallis and his rested and refitted Guilford courthouse veterans returned to South Carolina to confront Greene's army? |
demiurgex | 03 Apr 2016 5:12 a.m. PST |
Almost endless possibilities. For exampple, naval warfare in WWII, one of my favorite topics: What ifs – the Japanese don't attack Pearl Harbor but instead draw the US pacific fleet to decisive battle in the Phillipines? What if Langsdorff hadn't been convinced by British intelligence that the Ark Royal and Renown were nearby and brought the Graff Spee to break out of Montevido? Spain joins the Axis and takes Gibraltar – imagine a scenario where the Royal Navy attempts to force the passage against Spanish, German and Italian forces. The Bismark is struck by Ark Royal's Swordfish but the lucky hit that jams the rudder doesn't go home. You have several possible engagements after that depending on the ship's speed and the captain's decisions. The Royal Navy has better intelligence and sorties succesfuly against the Kido Butai near the Andaman Islands. Any number of differences could have happened if the Poles hadn't got their hands on Enigma early in the war. Cape Matapan, one of the largest battles in the Mediterranean, was informed by Enigma transmissions the Italians were using being intercepted and broken. An attack against a more lightly defended convoy (instead of running into a CV and 3 BBs) could have made a significant differnece to the war in North Africa. Or single deaths can become important – the Regia Aeronautica might have been more effective without the accidental death of their air marshall Italo Balbo in the early stages of the war, shot down by his own AA. Anyway, fun topic, looking forward to hearing other ideas, especially those from eras I'm less conversant in. |
Old Contemptibles | 07 Apr 2016 2:35 p.m. PST |
Little Mac throws everything he has, all at once at Lee at Antietam. Ewell attacks Culp's Hill on the first day of Gettysburg. Bragg allows Breckinridge to fully develop his attack at Chickamauga. The Graf Spee comes out of the River Platte with all guns blazing before the RN battle wagons showed up. The Germans had destroyed or captured the entire BEF at Dunkirk. The Luftwaffe would have concentrated more on radar towers, command centers, aircraft factories and airfields during the Battle of Britain. The British had attacked and finished off the American Army at New York, instead of allowing them to escape. If Hitler had somehow died in 1942. German all out attack at Jutland. The Kriegsmarine started WW2 with 300 or more submarines. The atomic bombs didn't work or could not be ready for several more years. If the Allies had not broken any enemy codes in either World War. Lee abandons Gettysburg on the second day and moves towards Washington, choosing the ground to fight on. |
Old Contemptibles | 07 Apr 2016 2:49 p.m. PST |
You should post this on the poll suggestion board. I would do it for you except that some people get their nose out of joint when someone does that. |
John Thomas8 | 16 Apr 2016 9:06 p.m. PST |
I'm doing my "what if", Antietam with the Union commander not such a tactical incompetent. |
Mad Guru | 18 Apr 2016 2:19 p.m. PST |
Great topic, with many excellent poss already! I am in midst of preparing terrain & troops for a lesser known, but still very compelling -- at least IMHO -- What If?" Scenario… Around Christmas of 1841, what if Lord Elphinstone & General Shelton -- senior leaders of the 4,500 strong Anglo-Indian Army & its 12,000 camp followers outside Kabul -- had accepted the advice of the younger, sharper, & more energetic officers under their command and attempted to fight their way from their Cantonments to the Bala Hissar fortress, roughly a mile-&-a-half away, which at the time was still held by their ally Shah Sujah and his army, rather than accepting a guarantee of "Safe Conduct" from the Afghans and proceeding on a 90 mile March South to Jalalabad and the border of British India… from which virtually no one survived. |