Spring 1970 Having just completed an all expenses PAID tour of lovely Southeast Asia on Uncle Sam. I wanted to find out just what the heck I had been involved in! So off I went to look for books and histories on this conflict, but it would be a while yet before any really good information was available. I did find some really interesting games that had Generals on the front (France 1940) and one with neat tanks in orange and black (Panzerblitz). Since most of my youth had been spent watching John Wayne movies on the Million Dollar Movie and reading about Savo Island, Guadalcanal and other military topics, I thought 'wow this is for me'. So I plunked down my $8.00 (they were marked down from $12.00 each) and off I went to start one of the most interesting hobbies I've ever seen. Twenty six years later and still going strong, I've been involved in mostly tactical gaming. Panzerblitz, Panzerleader, Combat, Panzer 44, all Yaquinto games and my favorite the original Squad Leader and Cross of Iron. When Battalions in Crisis came out I saw many of my questions about tactical gaming answered. Infantry had a role to play and sound tactics worked. 95% of our group's arguments are answered in Mike Kelly's and Mike Pula's rules. Michael Whitman's Tiger attack at Villers Bocage and the tremendous losses on the Russian front that I've read about are almost impossible to recreate on any table or with any rule set, but "BIC" will give you a lot of fun and you'll recognize a challenging game. This column will be a forum of tactics to use in "BIC" that will come from World War II manuals, years of gaming, our opinions (both yours and mine) and reader input. Research materials will come from my library of books and magazines (some long gone). I'm no expert and my column will reflect my love of tactical gaming. How to attack a fortified position "Any fortification can be breached by an attacker who has the means to do so and is willing to pay the price in men and material." So states an official ARMY RESTRICTED DOCUMENT written for the Infantry school after World War II. This column will discuss the makeup of an assault platoon and the tactics it will take to accomplish your mission as a platoon commander. TOE is easily applicable to Battalions in Crisis and shows how the system works in small units with logical play and that the dice don't always rule in every situation. A fortified position contains numerous steel and concrete positions covered by wire, mines, machine guns, anti-tank guns and obstacles, usually mutually supporting and in depth. Our situation is concerned with a small portion of this defense. Your platoon has been given two pillboxes to isolate and capture or knock out. (Fig. 1, pillboxes A & B) In the larger scale of things the area may be under artillery bombardment and air strikes, but it is out of the scope of this discussion. The positions are sited to cover one or more approaches and leave one or more blind sides to be covered by an adjacent position, indirect fire or mines/wire. The frontage assigned to your platoon is approximately 100-200 meters. The platoon has been reinforced with a direct fire cannon or tank/assault gun and the necessary equipment. One assault team (squad) is included in your force. Fig 2 shows the composition of this force. The platoon's 60mm mortars are used in the role intended, firing direct smoke missions and taking any exposed enemy positions under H.E. fire. Many of us wonder why it's so hard to penetrate fortifications, pillboxes, etc. with H.E. and in some cases A.P. shots. The following chart (Figure 3) shows the penetration for some weapons that would be available to a rifle platoon. H.E. is directed against embrasure. Bazookas & panzerfaust/schrecks also will be used to give the defenders a bad day. BIC is played over a significant number of turns and the attack is drawn out. If your looking to slam, bang, your way through in a few tums then this just won't happen. Lets face it, we all want to kill tanks right away and we want to close with the enemy quickly, but BIC lets you develop some real life TACTICS. Just to show what I mean the 75mm doesn't do much damage on our tables to these structures. The 90mm on a M26 tank will penetrate in 8 to 10 rounds fired at the walls of these structures. ( The walls were usually 5 feet thick) 105mm firing HEAT rounds against thin concrete is good but isn't going to do much against 5 foot thick walls. In fact it will take 25 to 35 rounds to penetrate. The point of all this is to show you that the authors of BIC just aren't out to frustrate us when we want to blow down all that is in our path. In a game of such short time span, we can see why it takes so much to eradicate a postion. Back to our field problem. The terrain you will jump off from is a copse of woods about 100 meters from an anti-tank ditch followed by wire then pillbox A and B with some open top emplacement. The supporting organic weapons place smoke (yes 50-60 mm mortars are used for this mission. We give them a duration of two turns.) to screen your assault squad and other rifle squads. The article in the Infantry Journal stresses that you concentrate your forces and not try to attack all over your frontage. Getting your assault squad up top effective range is your main goal. Attack the pillbox A first then use it as a Jumping off point to attack pillbox B. The weapons carried by your men are all addressed in BIC, and the rules for these weapons will allow you to make your assault by using sound tactics. Your supporting direct fire weapon (tank, cannon, Priest, "Conquering Beast" Stug III, 105 etc.) should be out of direct fire of these positions as long as possible but be able to fire on your targets. Decisions, decisions. Limited objectives are what will work here. Try breaching the line and leapfrogging your squads through. (Figure 4). Well I hope this gets you started on the road to small unit tactics. Remember for this scenario you will be using small pillboxes (no Maginot Line Stuff) that BIC gives you some guidelines for. The defenders have two squads and mortar support and one anti-tank gun. This makes for an enjoyable game with many a bitten nail or two. What's nice is the variation you can get. Good Gaming. Back to Table of Contents -- Combat Simulation Vol 2 No. 3 Back to Combat Simulation List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1996 by Mike Vogell and Phoenix Military Simulations. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com