"Encounter battles in 1/76(ish)" Topic

I've gamed in 1/300 and in 1/76 (and closely related scales obvs) but tend to prefer the latter because the vehicle sizes are appealing and I've always liked building them. I'm in the process of reacquiring 1/76 stuff.
I've never had more than the usual sort of size table to play on though. This has meant that while one might have a collection of several dozen 1/76 tanks, SPGs etc, they're never all going to feature in the same game, because space constraints. This is even when they're for the same theatre.
So typically you're looking at battles with 3 to 5 vehicles per side. Fewer than 10 for sure.
Now there are some encounter-battle-type scenarios where that resembles the real world. Recon platoon for example. Are there any others though? How often did small fights on that scale occur, whether standalone or as bits of a bigger action?
One instance is the 1941 KV-1-stops-a-whole-Corps scenario, but those were rare. Given that armour was not normally used in penny packets, is there any real world justification for fighting small armoured encounters?

Have you considered attack defence rather than encounter?

As to justifying small forces.

Units started out full strength and took losses.

As a rule small actions are the norm rather than the rarity, each soldier thinks about himself and his mates and not what's happening even in the next field or house :)

Easy to write too, recce actions, section/platoon assaults, delaying actions (as the KV1 action above was); ambushes, patrols.

Check out the Skirmish campaigns books or scenario books by Toofatlardies or others :)

1. A rifle platoon attacking with the support of one or two tanks -- or a platoon of 5 at most? (Soviet mdm. tank platoons had 3 tanks, heavy platoons 2.)

2. A delaying action -- tank or AC platoon trying to delay an enemy advance … perhaps by trying to blow a small bridge?

3. Counter-attacking a tank platoon (or reduced company) that has broken through the lines?

I've gamed in 1/300 and in 1/76 …

I have gamed mostly in 1/285 – 1/300 – 6mm.

But at one point, mumble-mumble years back, I played a couple games at 1/72 – 1/76 – 20mm, and I thought it was fun, and started acquiring … reading rule sets and painting figures and building models and thinking about game scenarios.

Alas, I never did a whole lot of gaming at that scale. Only planning for gaming. So my thoughts expressed below are ideas that have never been proven in experience.

When I started collecting I too thought about recce and small unit action scenarios.

I acquired recce vehicles. The good news is, a lot of recce in WW2 involved infantry and vehicles. Outposts were infantry. Recce tried to find them and then get past them, and they tried to stop the recce from getting past to find the main lines. So opportunities for combat occur there.

But this line of thinking lead me to outposts as a focal point, rather than recce. "Outposts" warfare can be a fertile ground for scenarios. An outpost might be an MG nest or a bunker of some sort in some key terrain, or an AOP in some advantageous terrain, with a couple squads (understrength, or if you prefer full strength, platoon) in support. They must be winkled out, but are not the main vector of an attack. So a platoon with support (engineers, tanks, whatever) is detailed off to handle the outpost.

It is a reasonably rich approach -- you can take that formula and create probably a dozen different scenarios.

That was about where I was when I gave it up and went back to my micro-scale full time.

But in reading so many good larger scale gaming AARs in recent years (mostly here on TMP) I have also come to recognize what RB aludes to:

…each soldier thinks about himself and his mates and not what's happening even in the next field or house

It seems to me that the core of "skirmish" scale games is the fraction of a battle. The wargaming scenario is the portion of a larger battle that occurs within the experience of the forces engaged on the table. Yes, a battalion of tanks were involved, but the 3rd platoon of B company was on the right, and fought its way into the village. All the other stuff that happened in the battle happened outside of their experience.

This is the dominant structure of the scenarios that I see here. I have come to understand it. Others have described it as basically the cinematic approach -- it's about as much of the battle as would make a good scene in Combat! or some other TV program or movie. Maybe the movie does or doesn't tell the grand sweep, but even with that it will always drop down to see what is happening in detail to a few guys. That's your game.

For me that is interesting, but somehow I would probably find it unsatisfying. I want to know and play how the few guys happened to be there and then, not just have it as my scenario. I crave at least some measure of maneuver, of allocation of forces to each sub-mission as the battle is orchestrated, not just the combat at the pointy end.

But that may just be because 99%+ of my gaming has been at micro scale, and I've found that's what makes the best games at that scale. If I had more experience with 1/72 scale gaming I might well have a different view.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I see anything over Plt or even Co level should be gamed at 6mm …

We play exclusively in 20mm (1/76, 1/72nd, etc) so I have a great deal of playing/rule writing/scenario design time in at this size.

We use Charles Grant´s old "Battle" rules (with long time mods) roughly 10 figs is a platoon, 3 platoons plus a small HQ is a company, 3 companies plus AT, mortars, MMGs, transport and staff is a battalion.

So we can without messing about play section level OR platoon level OR company/battalion level games without messing about with different scales :)

Works for us, but as I said I´ve done this for 40+ yrs :)

For me that is interesting, but somehow I would probably find it unsatisfying. I want to know and play how the few guys happened to be there and then, not just have it as my scenario. I crave at least some measure of maneuver, of allocation of forces to each sub-mission as the battle is orchestrated, not just the combat at the pointy end.

Then you should play campaigns. Give each side a map and have them allocate their allotted forces to different areas on the map, either to hold or to attack, or to attack and then hold and/or break through into the rear.

A lot of actions which were ostensibly company or even battalion scale really hinged around the actions of just a few people or one tank.

One 2nd lieut grabs a couple of guys and some grenades and his motivational sphere enables them to take the initiative. They roll up a platoon and take the surrender of a company. Or more.

The same percentages that apply to flying aces fairly clearly apply to tanks and there are strong indications they also apply to infantry. 80% are just targets. They do nothing much useful really. 20% do something. .4% are the aces who do the important stuff, they are the decisive combatants.

It's not just hollywood.

In real life it's that one section or tank or plane that does things decide the important part of a larger battle.

Training and inherent motivation skew things a fair bit.
Conscripts are just plain bad.
Professionals are volunteers and self selecting.
Special forces tend to be composed largely of those .4% super effectives.

apply to tanks and there are strong indications they also apply to infantry. 80% are just targets.

70-75% of all losses in any conflict generally is the Infantry. Albeit with the type of warfare we currently are engaged in, primarily insurgencies. Those figures may have shifted somewhat. However, the Infantry and tanks spend a lot of training & time trying to avoid being a target, hence avoid being hit by flying objects on the battlefield.

In real life it's that one section or tank or plane that does things decide the important part of a larger battle.

E.g. at Normandy, small groups of troops rallied, etc., and broke out of the beaches. Mostly Infantrymen and CEs … And those troops made a very big difference. In the overall victory.

Training and inherent motivation skew things a fair bit.
Conscripts are just plain bad.
Professionals are volunteers and self selecting.
Special forces tend to be composed largely of those .4% super effectives.

I generally agree with all those comments …

May I add IMO the "best" thing the USA did was end the Draft in '72-'73 …

Then you should play campaigns. Give each side a map and have them allocate their allotted forces to different areas on the map, either to hold or to attack, or to attack and then hold and/or break through into the rear.

I have often considered this.

For the first part: "Then you should play campaigns."
This is not likely to work for me. I do not have the luxury of a regular schedule of gaming with a regular bunch of gamers. I might, at some point in my life, get to that mini-nirvana. But alas I have not yet.

But I have often posited that the second part of the statement might work just as well for the one-off battle as for the series of battles in a campaign.

Give the players a map and a set of units. Have them deploy or lay out their scheme of maneuver. Then, as an umpire, examine with each side has submitted and pick the most interesting place to actually set up your battle.

I've even imagined doing it with nested games. Like a board game (Panzerblitz anyone?) to push the companies and platoons around, and then micro-armor to set up the engagements where 2 platoons face off against a company with a battery in support, as was indicated by the board game.

But alas, I've never managed to get far enough ahead in setting up a game, to give enough advanced information to participants to let them give me the inputs in time for me to then put the game itself together.

Maybe in my next life…

A lot of actions which were ostensibly company or even battalion scale really hinged around the actions of just a few people or one tank.

I have often seen this in my own gaming. But, if I may, allow me to point out the shortcomings (as I see them) of using small units with this as your motif …

It may well be that only a few guys, or one tank, or one AT gun, will make the critical contribution at the right place at the right moment. But I, as the commander (pick whatever level above that illustrious Jr. Butterbar that you want to play) face a real challenge knowing where to put Lt. Stoneballs to ensure he is at the right place at the right time. Far more likely, as the company, battalion, regiment or even division CO I am far more likely to get lucky that I had some good "gutfull" men at the place where they were needed, than that I was clever enough to put my "gutfull" men in exactly the right place.

That's all something that can be a part of the game. But not if you set up your scenario as "Lt. Stoneballs at the bridge". Then, all that tension of "OMG they're going for the bridge, I hope I put the right guys there" is assumed away before turn 1.

Not criticizing, mind you. Just exploring and thinking and considering. I was told, years ago, by a gamer that put on some very good games, that he saw me as searching for the perfect wargame, and considered it a bit of a fool's errand. But it's my windmill, and I'll tilt if I want to.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Give the players a map and a set of units. Have them deploy or lay out their scheme of maneuver. Then, as an umpire, examine with each side has submitted and pick the most interesting place to actually set up your battle.

If you don't have an umpire, you could just randomly select one of the sectors to game out.

We ran a small Stolberg Corridor type mini campaign yrs back (it was published in Miniature Wargames I think?), where movement was determined on map and only encounters actually played out.

This allowed the Germans (Volksgrenadiers, Luftwaffe fortress troops plus odd armour and armoured recce groups), to ambush or withdraw or counter-attack the Americans without the "all seeing eyes" above the tabletop spoiling the effects.

It got quite complicated sometimes with two or three actions having to be decided before further moves could be worked out. Sometimes the US players would have to react to an action and in the process create yet another which then had to played out.

Needs planning and time (and willing players), but I had lots of feedback after publication, so some people obviously liked the ideas. :)

My thinking really was that small actions tend to have to be the same all the time – patrol stumbles into ambush, etc – and was this even realistic.

I like 1/76th (well all larger scales actually) but I do wonder whether battles between one Tiger II and three Panthers versus 10 Shermans (or whatever) have any basis. There's Villers Bocage but that is a known outlier.

It's actually not a just a WW2 issue. A few Salutes ago I was watching a Napoleonic demo game of Sharpe Practice which seemed to feature half a company of infantry, a troop of cavalry, and one gun per side. This resembles no action I can imagine – you didn't get micro-all-arms-actions, so there's no real world justification for it. It is clearly just a reflection of players' wish to have some cool stuff on the table. Nothing wrong with that of course….

Years ago half a dozen of us had a 1/76th game in someone's back garden on a sunny day. It is probably the biggest such game I've played. It went jolly well except that I had the most mismatched force and was able to defeat the guys opposite me without difficulty (no tactical skill on my part, I add, just dispositions luck and brute force). Because things were moving at different speeds in different places, we found ourselves playing each sector as a separate game. When my guys started to wheel to roll up the rest of the enemy at about turn 10, it became apparent that the adjacent sector was still somewhere around turn 6.

It sort of demonstrated why giving yourself more space doesn't make the issues recede…

Villers Bocage isn't an outlier. Otto Carius recounts many actions where his Tiger operated alone or with just his platoon as does Herman Bix with Panthers and Jagdpanthers.