Fred Haub and I faced each other across the Schnagel River. The sides were fairly even: we each had about 16 stands of infantry (each stand of 5 figures termed a "company"), and a couple of heavier armor tokens.
Looking at the map, you'll note there are 8 towns on the field. The victory point value of the towns decreased in proportion to the distance each town was from the bridge, ranging from Ussel and Schissel... way out on the fringes at 4 points each... to Achfurt and Mainfurt, each of which was worth 10 points.
This was the third outing for the WWII rules... essentially the same set as the one I described in the Blenheim battle. One key change was the probability-of-hit (POH) assigned an infantry stand. The original rules used a base of 70 percent, from which several deductions (cover, hasty fire, etc.) were taken. I thought the 70 percent figure proved too devastating, and I changed the basic POH to 40, just about halving the casualty rate.
Fred's thought was that the 40 percent figure was too low... the next edition will probably use a base of 50... somewhere out there, lies perfection.
Fred immediately launched an attack across the Schnagel on the western side of the field, aiming for Ussel. Crossing the river required a dice toss of 70 percent or lower for an infantry stand, a toss of 50 percent or lower for a tank. Fortunately for me, a number of the infantry companies, together with Fred's tanks, got hung up at riverside. The rough terrain fairly broke up what was to be a consolidated attack.
What made matters worse was that the field was dotted with wooded areas. Here, too, a toss of 70 percent or less was required to zip though the woods. In all, therefore, the terrain features were of no help to an attacking force.
I had distributed my troops across the field in even fashion; in the west, therefore, as Fred massed his units, my defending infantry was outnumbered.
I had placed an anti-tank gun in the middle of the field, pointing it directly at Schnagel Bridge... if I had my druthers, no enemy force was going to cross that bridge.
But Fred's western assault forced me to move the gun in that direction. The gun, when limbered up, moved 10 inches, and I was deprived of its firepower for several turns as it moved cross-field. I had one tank, and this, fortunately, had been placed near Ussel, almost, but not quite, taking up the slack as the gun moved out.
Each tank represented a platoon of tanks, and the anti-tank gun represented several (??) guns. The total armor force on the field consisted of only five pieces... Fred had 2 tanks, and an armored car, and I had a tank and the anti-tank gun.
Since there were so few armor tokens on the field, I didn't want a single hit to completely destroy a tank, and so all of these armored units were given longer 'lives' by tracking them on a data sheet. Each sheet contained three parameters; one of the tanks, for example, had the following listing:
| POH Vulnerability Manpower |
55 3 7 |
50 6 7 |
45 9 6 |
40 12 5 |
40 15 4 |
35 18 4 |
The undamaged tank token fired at a target with an initial probability-of-hit, POH, of 55 percent. If the tank took a hit , an entire column was crossed out, hence the "tank platoon's firepower" diminished as the unit incurred losses.
The second row, Vulnerability, was the probability that the unit completely disintegrated, i.e., routed or was destroyed, as the result of a hit. Note that as the unit took hits, the probability of this, although remaining low, increased.
The third parameter, Manpower, dealt with the close-assault calculations. Infantry stands initially had five men on them... the number of infantry figures remaining on the stand was used in the determination of who won the close-assault phase. Similarly, the current Manpower figure on the tank's data sheet gave the tank a corresponding 'strength' number to be used in the calculations.
Despite the holdups produced by the unfriendly terrain, Fred's main force finally crossed the Schnagel, and close-assaulted the town of Ussel. Close-assault procedures essentially follow those used in firing... each engaged stand fires at the enemy, and two parameters are used to determine the winner:
| S H |
The number of your own survivors (here's where the tank's Manpower figure comes into play) The number of hits you inflicted on the enemy |
Both sides toss a 10-sided die, and the winner is the greater product, P, of:
- P = 10-sided die x (S + H)
The assault on Ussel was successful... my troops retreated, and Fred's entered the town. While the Ussel business was going on, I had gathered several infantry units in the middle of the field, readying them for a direct assault across the Schnagel Bridge into the town of Achfurt. There were not-too-many infantry opposing my troops, and it looked as if I had a good chance at success.
But Fred had placed an armored car near the town, and this unit, firing each turn at a POH of 50 percent, made mincemeat of my infantry. The result was that only one infantry stand, down to 2 men out of the original 5, actually made contact with the town's defenders. This was my "high water mark"... it didn't last too long as my attacking troops fled back across the river.
The game lasted three "battle days". As I described in the Blenheim article, each 6-hour battle period was composed of 8 phases:
Phase #1 starts at 0600 in the morning, and the first complete cycle works its way around to noon. The second cycle then goes from noon to 6:00 PM, and the day's battle ceases, night falls, and there's a logistics phase in which to bring up reserves. I must admit that I 'borrowed' this idea of a daily cycle from Bruce McFarlane's set of WWII rules.
At noon, and at 6:00 PM, there's a chance of an airstrike; we use a deck of 7 cards, drawing one at random. There are 2 airstrike cards for one side, 2 for the other, and the other 3 produce 'no airstrike'.
Aircraft can strafe or bomb; each plane carries 3 "strafes" and 2 "bombs", the plane must be tracked on a data sheet... 4 hits destroy it. Damage inflicted by the aircraft, together with the hits produced by anti-aircraft fire, all use the following table, tossing percentage dice:
| 01 to 33 34 to 66 67 to 100 |
No hits 1 hit 2 hits |
With the game lasting three battle days, we went around the sequence chart 6 times... in effect, we played a 6-bound game, interspersed with the airstrikes. The battle lasted no longer than 21/2 hours, at the end of which we tallied our victory points. Fred had captured Ussel, while I had captured Schissel... all fringe towns worth only 4 points each... we were even. Neither of us made any headway against the key towns of Achfurt or Mainfurt.
I have to admit, however, that the battle couldn't really be called a draw. A large contingent of the Haubian forces had a secure foothold in Ussel, and if we had gone through one more "days worth" of battle, i.e., two full cycles of the sequence, I'm sure that Fred's troops would have easily rolled up my forces.
Some notes on the rules. You'll note that in this preliminary testing phase, there are several elements of modern warfare which I haven't mentioned... either I glossed over them, or they were completely left out.
First, there's no artillery, either onboard or offboard. I have never discovered a satisfactory method (satisfactory to my mind) of implementing the effect of artillery fire. I've noted that most of the recently published sets have shied away from use of the artillery template. You simply designate the target and dice to see if it's hit.
The template method appeals to me more than the simple dicing procedure. With the template, it's possible to hit something other than the target at which you were aiming. Anyway, we're working on it.
Second, there's no provision for defensive armor for the tanks. Thus, when a tank fires, you simply use its current POH of 55 percent, or 50, or whatever, dicing for that percentage. There's no deduction for the target's armor.
My rationalization for this is that I've already made the armor POH fairly low, hence the POH of the firing weapon already reflects target armor. And besides that, it eliminates the need to look up the armor value of the target, a small saving of time.
Third, although I didn't mention it in the article, there's an anti4ank capability given to each infantry company stand. Bazookas or panzerfausts only fire on the close-assault phase, when armor close with infantry. In other words, when looking at the scale of the game, these weapons have 'zero' range.
As the tanks close with the infantry, each infantry company's anti-tank weapon gets one shot at a 40 percent chance of success. If the enemy tank is hit, it follows the normal firing procedure (first, see if it blows up completely, and second, takes a morale test). If the tank is still around, it closes and the close-assault melee occurs.
Fourth, the airstrike phase. Here, all ground units remain in place... only the one strike aircraft moves. It is permitted to move a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 10 inches in a forward direction, after which it may make a 90 degree turn.
Before a plane can strafe or bomb, all in-range anti-aircraft weapons fire at it. If hit, the pilot takes a "morale test" at an 85 percent level... if he fails, he can't strafe or bomb, and he's forced to make an immediate right angle turn to avoid the ground fire.
Each side is given three anti-aircraft guns, which are set up just before the plane makes its appearance. Thus the guns are mobile, they are not fixed in place over the course of the battle, and their location changes from bound to bound as the defending player shifts them to protect various sites.
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