Don Bailey drew up a fairly simple set of WW2 campaign rules… just as in 1944, the Americans and British are landing on the beach and fighting their way inland. Don is the commander of the British forces, I command the Americans. Don is in Colorado, I’m in Maryland, and we e-mail each other whatever data we need to exchange notes on what’s going on. In our early communications via the internet, I noted that he referred to himself as “Field Marshal Bailey”, while I was just plain vanilla “General Simon”. This did not sit well with me, and there suddenly appeared a special bulletin from Washington, DC, in which the president announced the creation of an additional army rank, and bestowed it upon me. I was now “Marshal General” Simon, worthy of standing alongside of a Field Marshal. We each had number of forces… several light groups of infantry only, and larger groups of both infantry and armor. At the company level, in the rules I used, each company block in the organizational chart, is a single stand, which means that I had 10 stands to manipulate in 1st Brigade. I had 4 such brigades, and I chose, as my first action, to implement Operation CLEAR FLANK, to have the 1st Brigade smash into the port town of La Guerre. La Guerre was on my right flank, and it contained 2 light German infantry units… no armor, but a couple of anti-tank guns. To clear my flank, I intended to “winkle” the Germans out, thus securing my right flank. In the past, in my visits to England, in setting up scenarios with my British friends, I always seem to be assigned the task of winkling out a smaller, dug-in force. I must state, however, that my “winkling out” expertise leaves much to be desired, as these well-dug-in forces always seem to make mince-meat of my own troops. I proved true-to-form in Operation CLEAR FLANK. No “winkler”, I. I set up the town of La Guerre on my table, encompassing an area of some 6 feet by 6 feet… lots of houses, woods, streets, etc. I used 25mm figures, with, as I said, a company being represented by a single stand measuring 2 inches by 2 inches. There were 10 stands per side, and I kept data sheets for all of them, recording the losses incurred by each company. The sequence was a simple you-go/I-go affair, and when a side was activated, it diced for the number of actions each unit was assigned… either 4 or 5 actions. I termed these actions “Time Increments” (TI)… and a unit could perform certain functions, with each function taking up a number of actions, i.e., using up a period of time. Fire, for a maximum of 3 TI Move for all TI (5 inches per action) Morale test, requiring using up 2 TI Resupplying ammunition, requiring 2 TI Note that unit out of ammunition, required 2 TI to replenish. The out-of-ammo ploy occurred when the unit fired for more than a single TI. If it fired for 2 TI, there was a 40 percent chance it ran out of ammo, and if it fired for all 3 TI, there was a 70 percent chance it ran out. Another mandated usage of TI occurred when a unit was fired at. First, I’d note down a certain number of Loss Points on the unit’s data sheet, and then place a casualty figure next to the targeted unit. When it was next activated, the casualty figure reminded me that it had to take a mandatory morale test, using up 2 of its TI. At one point in the battle, the advancing Americans had every one of its 7 front rank companies, infantry and tanks, each blast away for 2 TI. With a 40 percent probability of running out of ammo… sure enough… each unit ran out, and had to replenish next time out. The savings factor was that the targeted German units, when they were next activated, had to take the requisite morale test, and several of them fell back when they failed. A unit that failed a morale test fell back 10 inches, and lost all of its remaining TI for that half-bound. The defending German force, mostly infantry, had 2 attached anti-tank guns, and they concentrated on the advancing American tank battalion. Loss Points mounted rapidly, and at the end of the battle, 3 of the 4 American tanks in the 1st Tank Battalion were belly-up, a poor showing for Marshal General Simon, eager to display his martial prowess… perhaps too eager. But the Americans finally drove the German infantry back, and the final result was that, at high cost, la Guerre fell into American hands. This battle was fought solo, as will be most of the campaign encounters. And, as is usual with my own development of a rules system, I kept making changes as I went along. For example, I decided to distinguish between Temporary Loss Points (TLP) and Permanent Loss Points (PLP). When a unit fired for a given number of TI, I automatically noted a number of TLP on the target’s data sheet. Here’s a sampling of TLP losses: Rifle coy firing on rifle coy target loses 4 TLP for every TI Tank coy firing on tank coy target loses 6 TLP for every TI Anti-tank firing on tank coy target loses 8 TLP for every TI As I indicated, TLP totals accumulated rapidly. If an anti-tank gun wished to fire for all 3 TI, it could zap the target with a total of 24 TLP (the gun, of course, would run the risk… 70 percent chance… of running out of ammo). But it was the permanent losses, the PLPs, that knocked out a unit, and so at the beginning of every half-bound, I diced to see if the listed TLP were to be converted to PLP. The chance of doing so was 25 percent cumulative… which meant that at the first half-bound, there was 25 percent chance of conversion, at the second half-bound, there was a 50 percent chance, and so on. When the conversion occurred, the cycle would start anew. And when TLP were transformed into PLP, I used the following chart, dicing for the conversion factor Dice Toss Result 01 to 50 Half the TLP are converted to PLP 51 to 100 All TLP are converted to PLP A unit, i.e., a company, was destroyed when it accumulated 30 PLP. Note that for my purposes, in this solo effort, I made no differentiation between light and heavy tanks… a tank was a tank was a tank. Back to PW Review May 2002 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com