"Battlegroup Kursk" Topic

We played a game of Battlegroup last night – well, we started one. One thing I was struck by was how incredibly brittle crew served weapons are. In the first turn we lost our howitzer, AT Gun, and MMG becasue they have such small crews that one or two hits and gone. The rules do not allow you to recrew (at least according to our GM). Once learned everyone was sniping at them and they died in droves.

And ours were in cover!

Just struck me as kinda odd.

I don't know why you could not man the gun with other members of the crew. You only need a loader and gunner to fire. The gun crew commander as spotter would make the gun more efficient at identifying targets and overall situational awareness, but he is not necessary to actually fire the gun. The other members of the crew are not just standing alongside the gun they would be under cover. A look at the plan of the 45mm prepared gun position shows the crew area was more deeply dug in than that of the gun itself and that the ammunition area was too, both of which were provided with overhead protection.

What protection was being dug in provide in the rules? Does the gun shield provide protection from small arms fire? After all that was the purpose for the gun shield. Do average riflemen get to act as snipers under the rules? Not every infantryman is an expert rifleman. I know I was a US Marine which had very extensive rifle marksmanship training. I did not shoot expert every time I went to the range. Snipers are better than the average rifleman, even those who are expert riflemen.

Finally how easy was it for the gun to be discovered and then targeted? If dug in, the dug in gun would have been only about two feet higher than the ground level. If you add in brush and tall grasses etc. I would think that it would be pretty well concealed.

Did they roll to spot every time they used aimed fire to target them?

An MMG team that hasn't fired would need a 5+ to be spotted in cover before rolling to hit.

Also odd you'd have such weapons in small arms range on turn one. All my guns and mortars tend to be off table for that reason and I rarely want an AT gun in a position to come under sustained small arms fire.

But yes, if you have a small crewed weapon in front of blokes with guns at a range close enough to spot and hit them, it won't end well.

Extra Crispy, sounds as if somebody did not roll spotting as Piers stated (gotta enforce that and the ammo rules ruthlessly).

Also, be careful with scenario distances..small arms can range up to 30" and once the hits begin to pile up….I am not sure about the recrewing thing..sounds a bit fishy to me. But then again, it's also why you pay them points for the extra three man loader team.

ExtraCrispy, there is an awesome BattleGroup forum on the Guild website. We'd love to have you.

guildwargamers.com

Nope we rolled spotting. In general you shoot twice. First you shoot area to get a pin. Then you roll aimed and get them on the morale table. That's where they disappear.

We've had this problem before. We'll be adding a house rule allowing you to soak off nearby troops to recrew I think.

I looked on the BG forum but didn't see a board for questions about the rules – didn't see any posts on the AAR forum either – but I only glanced.

Play balance was definitely an issue. We set up expecting the Brits to "enter" on the edge of the table. Instead they were ON the table at about 20" distance.

Game played very, very slow. Lots of new players and IMHO way too many units on the table. So we went slow and did the spotting, etc.

One downside to the non-linear turn sequence is you can't say "okay time to move – here's how." Instead you;ve fot one guy moving, one shooting, one calling in arty so the GM is putting out a lot of fires.

We'll get there – it's a good crew.

They are in the sub folders for the various books, ExtraCrispy.

Ah. That sub link looks like an ad. I thought it would just take me to the publisher's home page. Got it.

Ammo rules? Other than Ap versus HE we didn't have any – other than the chit pull for a low ammo….

Yeah, that's basically it ExtraCrispy..tried not using them once…big imbslancer…

Yer… infantry arriving that close to support weapons will see them getting cut to pieces. Id suggest trying 400 point games using Meeting Encounter scenario as a good teaching format. Small games are just as good, if not better alot of the time.

But yes… at that range support weapons will get chewed up and spat out as it negates their longer range advantage. To be honest, they kinda should if a ton of infantry get the drop on them.

What you coukd do with recrewing, especially MGs, is call it an action for an infantry unit within 5" to send boys over. But thats really what Loader Teams are there for to give some extra cannon fodder.

Yeah well, not my circus, not my monkeys.

We had 8 players each with a couple platoons or equivalent. Playing on a 6x12 table. A friend set up the game. We're trying to hold the town but frankly we there was not much to do other than shoot as fast as you can and hold on til the Germans arrive….

That's a hell of a lot of troops on that size table. 32 platoons on a 12' table is crammed to me. Im running a big game in October for 12 players and they have one platoon plus support each on an 18' table and its still using a staggered arrival.

Im really not surprised lots died if that amount of stuff was put on table at such close quarters.

Sounds more an issue with the scenario design than the rules to be honest… Unless that maximum instant carnage was what he was going for. Its not really what our scenarios aim at though.

Games with new rules should always start small.

I do not allow recrewing in my rules (a copy should be with you soon Extra Crispy). I reckon you need to be trained to fire the weapon – and the idea of having squads of infantry behind the support weapons ready to man the weapons would be wacky.

I can see that grunts may not be able to serve on a howitzer, but I'd expect they could operate a machine gun or light At gun.

@Piers: Well, go big or go home! Yeah, ti was a lot of stuff.

Yep artillery pieces, mortars I reckon you need to know what you are doing. MG well what about jams. German not a problem (unless you are using something non-standard but a Vickers compared to a Bren?

So if in doubt, no don't let them do it. And as I say the idea of squads of infantry being kept near by to replace losses on the support weapon crew just seems to be silly.

…and that's why you can't do it in Battlegroup. :)

Lovely terrain!

Extra crispy:

In BG, deployed guns have the worst morale table of all. The crew can rout even without being pinned beforehand. I also found this weakness a litlle too harsh for them. I can suggest you 3 things:

1) As Piers said, guns should not be in small arms range of the enemy. If they are, they surely will get cut to pieces sooner or later, no matter what high morale or improved cover they have. If enemmy infantry is too close, it is time to withdraw… For extra surviveability, just buy them loader teams.
2) if, on top of that, you want to make them more resistant, make them roll on the infantry table morale instead of the deployed gun table. That way they would only abandon the gun if they became pinned first, making them much more resilient.
3) as a last addition to protect guns more, you can make the gun shields offer hard cover for the crew. It used to be that way in KGN, but was delete d in BG.

That's ujst my 2 cents. We play the rules as written, not feeling necessary going for 1) or 2) above.

Regards,

Diego

In retrospect, knowing how the rules work we would definitely have deployed differently.

The gun did get the benefit of cover for the gun shield.

But our players have learned – concentrate fire on small teams first. They are much easier to kill and when you do, they force you to draw a morale chit. Just use area fire on the bigger units. Pin, pin, pin and force more chits for rallying.