"Bursk Part 1 development of a scenario" Topic

Bursk Invasion Part 1

First, an advisory, this scenario us unsuitable for beginners and based on my experience not suitable for multiple players simply as the forces are too small and it needs very capable players or else analysis paralysis will ensue which is no fun for any involved in the game as the decisions are challenging.

I have been watching the Ukraine invasion and been fascinated by the extremely low numbers of troops involved on both side relative to the ground covered. This looked an interesting problem with the invaders being very able troops and more mobile but fewer in number. The invasion is against originally very sparse very poorly trained troops, poorly equipped and only gradually getting more of the same with a limited number of better quality troops.
So that is the very basic start for the scenario, there is no intention whatsoever to reproduce any part of the real invasion, it was just a bit of inspiration on what a scenario might vaguely look like. I have not even decided who the protagonists are, save one side will be Russian; we don't have many armies anyway so one will have to be Russian.
So the next question is how you scale that down to make some similar problems in a tactical game. Well not being miniature fans per se we are happy to play skirmish games at very low level, especially when our fighting miniatures are 1/144 and our ground scale is 1mm to 1m. So given that we have a 6ft by 6ft board available, we can effectively, by "adding Board edges in the centre of a board create a relatively complex tactical scale game representing an interconnected set of very small (500m by 500 to 700m) engagement areas, separated by sight blockers say a wood or a hill. Based on previous experience it will take several evenings to play the game and the forces at the front will have to be replaced several times as they degrade in combat. The continuous paths means that there are opportunities for counter attacks if an enemy fails to replace its forces in a timely manner. The length of the routes may mean that at some point short range weapons like mortars may have to locate onto the map to stay in range of the action, all part of the fun.
The picture is the 3rd draft of the proposed table layout. The thick black line are "table edges and may not be shot or moved through. The red lines represent a 1 contour hill line and the Brown dotted lines indicate a raised mound about a further contour high. Roads and water features are black and blue respectively. The invader will enter on the bottom left hand section.
Currently there are no buildings on the map. I will add a few but given the small numbers of troops involved our typical 10+ house village may slow the game down to an unacceptable level as troops may need to be shipped in from afar for the assault due to the small numbers that will be involved.

Bursk scenario PART 2
This was turning the map into a table. This begs an interesting question, how accurate should a map be? In terms of rivers and bridges I thing pretty much dead on. For rivers and Forest edges I am happy to wander a bit for convenience, as to where exactly is the wood edge and the same with a river as to where the bank is, as it often shelves over a few yards which even at our scale is measured in millimetres. This leaves a small level of uncertainty which is never a bad thing in any game. In terms of the map the only change we added in the end was a small swamp and wood sown on the middle end of the "table" edge on the right of the picture. This just softens the effect of the end of the table edge.
We did however decide to define the roads as ditched, classing the ditch as a minor difficult obstacle. This means the ditches are impassable to normal civilian vehicles (cars and vans). Crossable by more able vehicles with wheels but a risk of getting temporarily stuck, while representing a speed limitation only on tracked vehicles as they cross. Not perfect but again KISS is the key.
Forces
The intent was to fight at more like the troop density of Ukraine forces about a Company to 1500m frontage even in attack. On this basis we gave the defenders (I am using Russians) a foot company for the static front line infantry, that is 3 small platoons armed with just small arms and a Single RPG 7 for each section of the platoon, these are low quality troops so fragile and not that easy to control. The Russians static units in defensive positions do not have the capability to blow the bridges. It is not anticipated that engineering resources or time would be available to rig a bridge in the few hours this scenario is expected to represent. They have a platoon of Mortars to Supply FDF only but they have to request the fire from the platoon commander, then to the company commander who then allocates the fire mission In addition the defenders get a full mechanised company of typical competence.
The attackers represented by German kit, only get an armoured company but adjusted to more represent Ukraine, 4 tanks per Platoons and 4 Marders each for the infantry platoons and a back up of 1 M113 platoon to give a bit more infantry for serious assaults. They are supported by a virtual battery of M109's with unlimited ammunition i.e in reality more batteries but on shoot and scoot so we do not have that as an extra complication. The artillery have a Battery commander as FOO and the attached reconnaissance section of Luch's also have been allowed to call for artillery strikes if the battery is uncommitted at the time.
The photo shows the situation at the end of bound 6, we only had an odd hour as we were agreeing forces and planning most of the evening. One of the German Luch recon vehicles is struggling having taken a hit from an RPG 7, not too bad but damage to the radios and some sight gear so not in a good way. However it has exposed troops on the ridge and they have been hit by German artillery so are somewhat worse for ware and one section is not ready yet to get back into the fight. Worse for the Germans the RPG 7 team ran off sharpish so escaped the artillery barrage.

I don't know what they are called, but I like your railroad type horizon markers.

Thsnks, They are called N Gauge Backdrops. Cut up and passed onto card one each side and mounted using some 3D printed clips. Might as well look good and do the job.