Fred Haub recently explained his thoughts on a large scale Barbarossa-type game using 15mm armor, and employing the maps given in the COMMAND DECISION (CD) campaign system. Fred spoke of a huge double-blind affair… The Germans would have their strategic staff set up on one of the CD 8-foot by 8-foot maps, hidden from a similar set-up by the Russians. An umpire would coordinate the movement of troops on both strategic tables… The Germans would see only those Russian troops that the umpire deemed visible to them, as would the Russians.
If two opposing forces met, the action would be gamed at the tactical level on a third table, and this, too, would be a double-blind set-up. Forces moving on the strategic maps would be about a division in size, resulting in fairly large and long-term battles on the tactical table. Gaming on this scale might require several days of effort, and, if it could be realized, would result in a most interesting affair.
Fred’s description triggered my own much-smaller-scale thoughts on a strategic/tactical affair.
On my ping pong table, I set aside one half of it (an area about 4-feet by 5-feet) for the strategic section, and the other half for the tactical section. I then drew up two identical area maps for the strategic side, each about 21/2 feet in width by 5 feet long, and placed them so that the commanders each had the same view of the battlefield.
That was as far as I got, when Jeff Wiltrout arrived. "Let’s test out the system." I said. "What system?" said Jeff. In truth, Jeff was right… only the maps existed… no rules, no scale, and most important of all, no umpire to adjudicate hidden movement.
Dummies
Not to worry. "Dummies!", sez I. And we each set out on our strategic map baselines, 9 tokens, each purportedly representing a division of troops. Of the 9, 5 of them were "real", representing actual field units, while the remaining 4 were the "dummies", representing nothing.
There were 10 towns on the field, and capture of 7 of them meant victory.
A division token could move 3 areas. But on a strategic turn, not all divisions could be moved. The active side diced, and determined the number… either 6 or 7 or 8 divisions would move.
I set out all my dummy divisions on my right flank. Occasionally, I moved a dummy, but for the most part, I concentrated on my left flank, where the "real" guys were.
After some 3 or 4 strategic movement sessions, two of our divisions crossed paths, and we moved to the tactical half of the table. The defending side was permitted to set up in cover… in a town, in woods, etc. The attacking side would advance onto the field from his baseline.
The intent was to have a short battle, and immediately return to the strategic map. To this effect, we defined a division as 3 infantry stands, which could be accompanied by one or two tanks.
An infantry stand had 3 men on it, and when it was hit, we "made change", i.e., replaced it with a 2-man stand. In essence, for "change making", I had stands with 3-men, 2-men, and 1-man on them. Which meant that 3 hits took out a stand. In similar fashion, 3 hits knocked out a tank.
There were a couple of trade-offs that could be made. Infantry itself had no anti-tank capability, and one of the infantry stands could be replaced with a single stand representing a tank-hunter team. If the tank-hunters accompanied an infantry stand, the infantry would absorb any hits fired at the tank-hunters. And then, if all the infantry were gone, it took only one shot to dispose of the tank-hunter team. A very brittle unit.
In similar fashion, one of the infantry stands could be replaced with a machine gun stand, also fairly brittle, but giving the unit a bigger bang against infantry.
As the attacking side advanced, the 4-phase sequence we employed was (a) Side A move all units, (b) Side B fire all units, (c) Side A could select and return fire with one unit, and then (d) resolve any melees resulting from Side A’s movement.
Melee, or close assault, was stand-on-stand, and for the melee resolution, we referred to a "Melee Deck", 7 cards, each annotated with such items as "Defender fire", "Attacker fire", or "Attacker test morale", and so on. Two of the cards said "Determine winner", and when one of these appeared, the melee was over.
Each side tossed a 10-sided die, added the number of remaining troops on the stand, and the high total was the winner. Quick and dirty. Our tactical encounters took only 15 minutes.
Then back to the strategic table, where the losing division retreated two areas, and the next strategic move would be made.
For the life of me, when we went to the tactical table, I could not produce any impact on Jeff’s troops. In contrast, every time he tossed his hit dice… BOOM!… one of my men fell over.
At battle’s end, I had only one viable division left, and while Jeff’s divisions were shot up, he still had his whole force intact. A rather sad ending to this first outing, but we’ll keep working on the 2-table concept.
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© Copyright 2001 Wally Simon
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