In the April and May issues of the REVIEW, I described a series of WW II battles, in effect, a small campaign, guided by what I termed the 'Orr Chart'. I found the basics of this chart in a 1985 issue of the LONE WARRIOR... my final version of the chart was published in both the April and May issues. Under the auspices of the Orr Chart, I've had some five battles now (this present article describes the fifth). At the beginning, I first set out four objectives for the aggressors, the Alphans: a. Take the town of Charsk. It took two encounters, Battles 1 and 2, before the defenders, the Deltans, were driven out of Charsk. b. Secure the bridge across the River Andros just south of the town of Andros. Battles 3 and 4 were fought here. In both engagements, the attacking Alphans were driven off. In the fifth battle, the Alphans, finally, were victorious as detailed in this article. c. Take the Shorlap Ridge. With five battles necessary to win the first two objectives, the fight for Shorlap Ridge is scheduled for sometime in the future. d. Take the town of Korl. Here, too, at the rate we're going, we're looking at an engagement, or engagements, which may be fought later in 1997. The map at the River Andros is sketched below. Having been beaten back twice before at this site, the Orr Chart indicates that 'Headquarters', whoever they may be, sent in reinforcements to the advancing Alphans, sufficient to overcome the defending Deltans. In looking at the below listed order of battle, note that a battalion of infantry is composed of 5 stands of troops, each stand representing a company, and an armored battalion is composed of 3 tank models, each representing a platoon. Alphans: 3 infantry btns, 4 armor btns Deltans: 2 infantry btns, 2 armor btns In essence, the sequence for the entire bound looked like: Phase #1 (first check for artillery and airstrike) Side A fires and moves Side B fires Resolve close assault Damage assessment for both sides. Phase #2 (first check for artillery and airstrike) Side B fires and moves Side A fires Resolve close assault Damage assessment for both sides The above complete cycle was defined to be 6 hours of battle-time. The battle commenced at 0600 on the first day, the first cycle took it up to 1200, and a second cycle completed the first days fighting, ending at 1800. I should note that I fought this as a solo game, using Simon's Advanced World War (SAWW) rules. In particular, the SAWW rules were termed 'advanced' because they had undergone more than a dozen iterations, changes, adjustments, modifications, etc. To my mind, therefore, these were now absolutely perfect WW II rules, the end-all and the be-all of fighting WW II battles. Watch out COMMAND DECISION, look out SPEARHEAD, here comes the SAWW! Back to Battle But back to the battle. Since this was a solo affair, I used the dice to randomly set out the defending Deltan forces. Their armored units turned out to be north of the town of Krask, and they had one infantry company and an anti-tank gun in Noburg, the same in Andros, while the remainder of the infantry were scattered on the north side of the river. With the battle starting at 0600, nothing happened on the first complete cycle (Phases 1 and 2) of 6 hours as the Alphan forces showed themselves on the southern baseline. Movement distances on the field are 10 inches for both armor and infantry... I assumed that during a battle, tanks wouldn't zip around at their maximum speed, but cut it down somewhat so that the foot troops could keep up with them. It's now 1200 on Day #1, and the defending Deltans get an airstrike. I draw from a deck of 8 cards... 2 cards are for the Alphan airstrike, 2 for the Deltans, and 4 simply state "No airstrike at this time". And so onto the field flies a Deltan F77, whilst the Alphan force holds its collective breath. When an airstrike occurs, all ground forces are frozen in place... only the aircraft moves. The F77 moves 10 inches, the Alphan anti-aircraft batteries fire, the plane bombs and strafes, the F77 moves another 10 inches, the Alphan anti-aircraft batteries fire, the plane bombs and strafes, and so on and so on, until either the plane is shot down (takes 5 hits, or the aircraft runs out of its "3 strafes and 2 bombs" ands returns home. During this aircraft phase, all damage, whether by the aircraft itself, or by the anti-aircraft batteries, is decided by a percentage dice throw... a low toss (below 25) places 2 hits on the target, while a high dice toss (above 50) results in no hits. In the middle region, 26 to 50, one hit is scored. As I remember, the F77, on its first flight, placed a hit on each of each of two different Alphan tanks, before the Alphan AA shot it down (placed 5 hits on it). On this second half of Day #1, the sides blast away at each other, using a chart which gives results similar to that described for the aircraft phase: Above POH: No effect 1/2 POH to POH: 1 hit on target Under 1/2 POH: 2 hits on target The POH factor stands for Probability-of-Hit, it ranges around 50% for most weapons, and goes up to 80% for an infantry HMG. One unique ploy in SAWW concerns the POH when armor fires. A single tank model starts out with a POH of 50%, and it gets modified as follows: a. +10 for every tank firing (including the reference tank) at the same target b. -10 if it fires all by its lonesome This means that if a battalion of 3 tanks fire together, their cumulative POH goes up to 80%. If, however, a single tank fires "all alone", its POH reduces to 40%. The reason for this is that I want to promote 'volley fire'... have an entire unit firing as an entity, instead of each token on the field tossing separate dice. To my mind, this speeds up the game, reducing the number of required dice tosses. The second half of Day #2 passed with both sides scoring hits on each other, and we come to Damage Assessment, the last phase of Day #2. Here, every tank with a hit on it (I use smoke puffs) tests to see if it survives, recovers, etc. Damage The Damage Assessment Chart looks like: Over DF: Remove all hit markers but 1 1/2 DF to DF: Place 1 additional marker on target Under 1/2 DF: Vehicle blows up. On this damage assessment phase, one of the oncoming Alphan tanks had 4 markers on it. The Damage Factor (DF) starts out as a basic 40%, and each hit adds 10% to this. The tank with 4 hits on it had a DF, therefore, of 40 + (4x10), or 80%. A low toss of 34, and WHAMMO!, the tank was no more. Rubbing salt on the wound, another Alphan tank was destroyed. It crossed my mind that this was going to be yet another Deltan victory at the Andros River crossing. But as the first sequence cycle for Day #3 began, things looked better for the Alphans. Due to concentrated fire on the town of Noburg, the defending Deltan troops tried to evacuate, to cross the bridge and go north. They moved their 10 inch distance, and found themselves a wee bit short of available cover. The Deltan defending troops on the western side of the field, in the South Woods, were luckier... they left the woods, successfully crossed the river (70% chance to ford the river), and took up positions in the North Woods. At 1200 on Day #3, the cards decreed that the defenders get a second airstrike. Here comes another of the dreaded F77's... it moves its 10 inches, and takes one hit from an anti-aircraft battery. The pilot fails his morale test (85% less 10% for the hit), and for that 10-inch increment of movement, the pilot can neither strafe nor bomb. Another 10 inch move, another 2 hits on the plane by the defending anti-aircraft batteries, and this time the pilot passes his morale test He strafes an infantry company (stand)... the stand takes a morale test, fails and falls back 10 inches. Another 10 inch move, and this time the plane takes another 2 hits, 5 in all... it goes down in flames. Day #3 ends, a damage assessment phase occurs, defending Deltan tanks blow up. Day #4 begins, and the attacking Alphans get an airstrike. A very effective one. In comes an Alphan F999, and produces lots of hit markers on the defenders. Unfortunately, the F999 pilot can't collect his medals... the defenders shot him down. By noon on Day #4, the Deltans have only two of their original 6 tank force left. Their infantry has also been badly battered, especially on the western half of the field where, the Alphans are massing 2 full battalions (10 stands) for a river crossing. In truth, the attacking Alphans have a lot of hit marker on their own tanks, but they've been extremely lucky during the damage assessment phases. The Alphans have been tossing phenomenally high dice during these phases. Looking at the Damage Assessment Chart, you'll note that high dice throws are "good ones", i.e., the vehicle in question doesn't blow up, but either removes all but one hit marker or receives another marker. In either case, it lives to fight on. The Alphans have a total of 5 tanks left... they started with 4 armor battalions, or 12 tanks, hence half their force is just about gone. But their real strength is in their infantry, relatively unhurt until now. One Alphan infantry battalion of 5 stands dashes across the bridge, and there's no way the Deltans can drive them back. On the Deltan part of the sequence, the morning of Day #4, they try to retreat to the north. But the carnage resembles that displayed during the Iraqi rout along the road north out of Kuwait during Desert Storm. It took three battles, but the Alphans finally achieved their river crossing. Back to PW Review September 1997 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com