To avoid the "slugging match" type of wargame that ends with a couple of vehicles standing triumphantly amid a welter of smashed and burning equipment, the wargamer turns to campaigns so that the table-top battle is the culmination of manoeuvre on maps. Here a commander who is losing will seek to preserve as much as possible of his force for the next battle while his opponent takes calculated risks in attacking to destroy him. Providing an objective (a much neglected wargames factor) the campaign is often a fight to cut communications. The mechanisation of World War Two allowed attacking forces to carry sufficient supplies to be able to out-flank defenders, disrupt their supply lines and to capture large quantities of men and materials. The attacker's accompanying aircraft disrupted the supply system of the defenders and, when total air supremacy was achieved, the attacker's mobility increased as forward troops could be kept supplied by aircraft drops.
Air power remains the dominant factor on the battlefield and agreed principles apply although, where the air force of both sides can be neutralised (as in the 1973 Arab/Israeli conflict) the blitzkrieg tactics can be disrupted by a defence in depth.
Ingenuity and adaptability is required when planning a table-top campaign, where the "manipulation" of historical disparity in men and equipment provide campaign settings which make up in table-top interest what they might lack in historical accuracy. For example, during the Russo-German fighting of World War Two, the vast numbers of men and vehicles involved and the sweeping expanses over which they were fought make their reproduction extremely difficult but a purely "local" action involving a few battalions of infantry and tank squadrons can be built up into an excellent campaign.
Going back to World War One, the campaign in Palestine against the Turks provides excellent material for a campaign providing the Turkish commandeer is allowed to re-order his distribution and there is a balance of forces covering air power and artillery. Historical disparities can be utilised to provide a campaign setting where the force which is outnumbered in a technological sense by having less tanks and aircraft can be given the task of covering an infantry retreat from an ambush or a pincer movement. With both sides complying with the rules of supply and with the stronger force shackled by breakdown and wear and tear rules, this disparity levels out.
The Spanish Civil War was a campaign where both sides employed armour, with Franco's army equipped with relatively poor quality Italian tanks and German Panzer I's whereas their Communist opponents were supplied with Russian BT7 tanks which was such a superior vehicle that a bounty was offered for the capture of one of these vehicles in an operable condition. To plan a workable campaign under these circumstances it is necessary to balance the superiority of the Communist tanks by greater numbers of Italian and German armoured AFV's.
World War II
One aspect of World War Two that provides extremely promising campaign possibilities was the American amphibious invasion of the Japanese held Pacific Islands. In the battle for Tarawa, the Americans employed Sherman and Stuart tanks against Japanese T95 tanks. The Japanese infantry and artillery were well dug-in with their tanks forming a mobile reserve; the American forces, coming ashore off various types of landing craft, consisted of tanks and infantry supported by air strikes and artillery fire from naval guns. An essential aspect of such a campaign would be the provision of morale rules that permitted the Japanese infantry to fight literally to the last man.
A campaign involving a water borne assault requires a knowledge of the capacity of the various craft. There are various sizes of landing craft and Janes Fighting Ships for the appropriate date will give capacities of each type, for example, an Landing Craft Tank (LCT) can only carry one medium tank. Smaller vehicles such as amphibious armoured personnel carriers carry 9 to 10 persons and the Buffalo or Weasel were only capable of carrying Jeeps.
The wargame campaigner, when preparing his campaign assault, must allow sufficient amphibious vehicles to enable him to land adequate first-strike forces. Such craft can travel at about 4 miles per hour and the initial wave will come in single line-abreast to present a multiplicity of targets to the defending artillery. This slow speed coupled with the time taken to load / unload causes the campaigning wargamer problems in building up his forces before the enemy can counter-attack. All this must be represented by moves on the campaign map or on the table.
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