This started out to be a solo affair, and it seemed to grow. I laid out an 'island' on the ping pong table, about 4 feet long by 2 feet wide, set up a lot of 6mm tank units (defined as 'divisions') for both defender and attacker, a couple of aircraft for both (each token defined as a 'squadron'), and gave the attacking force a couple of carriers, battleships, and landing craft. The island itself was composed of areas, each around 6-inches by 6-inches... units moved from area to area, and combat occurred when one force invaded an already occupied area. Note on the map that, external to the island, the region surrounding the island was divided into five sea sectors, labelled A through E. Each sea sector had an inner and an outer region. The carriers and battleships stayed in the outer sectors. Planes could be launched here, and off-shore bombardments initiated. The carriers and the battleships could move from one outer sector to another, the better to position themselves. The defending force had a couple of anti-aircraft (A/A) installations, and each beach region on the island had a coastal gun, capable of reaching out to either the inner or outer sea sectors. The coastal guns could, therefore, reach out to either the battleships or carriers in the outer sectors, or the approaching landing craft in the inner sectors. There were 6 divisions scheduled to land, and I diced to see the sea sector from which they'd start out. It turned out that the troop transports for 3 of the divisions commenced operations from the same area... Outer Sector D. This meant that the landing troops would pass through Outer D, and then Inner D, before hitting the beach. The coastal gun defending Sector D would, therefore, have a couple of shots at the approaching troops. All firing was done via 10-sided dice. The fire power of the different types of units differed... each aircraft, for example, received 2 dice, the coastal guns received 3 dice, the battleships 3 dice, an A/A installation 2 dice, and so on. A hit was always registered on the target by a toss of 1, 2, or 3. I should note that I simply cannot stand 6mm, i.e. microarmor, infantry units. The armor itself is just about bearable to me, and in this game, I used a quantity of 6mm science fiction tanks which, over the years, I had accumulated at various flea markets. I call these tokens 'li'l tankies', and I've sufficient resources to gather together units of variable sizes. The designer did a good job with these tokens... there are big '2-gun' tanks and little '1-gun' tanks, and other tanks that can be set up on end to furnish anti-aircraft cover, and missile tanks, etc., etc. In my game, a tank was a tank... there was no attempt to give any type of unit special capabilities. Three 'divisions' landed in the land areas covered by Sector D, and made their way inland. In combat, each division fought on its own... I made no provisions for support units being brought up. Instead, I tried something I had toyed with some time ago... combat via 'waves' of troops. As each division landed, I diced for the number of l'il tankies (tokens) it contained: 01 to 33 : 8 33 to 66 : 7 67 to 100 : 6 When a force entered an already enemy-occupied area, each side chose a number of tanks to be in the 'first wave', and the remaining tanks in the 'second wave'. Each tank was given a 10-sided Hit Die (HD): a. First wave attack. The tanks in the first wave tossed their dice and hits were inflicted on tosses of 1, 2, and 3. Casualties were recorded on the division data sheets and every 3 hits on a unit removed one first wave stand from battle. b. Second wave attack. (i) The surviving first wave tanks struck again. Having been in combat, they were defined to be a wee bit exhausted, and this time, they struck with tosses of only 1, or 2. (ii) Now the second wave tanks struck. These fresh unit struck on dice tosses of 1, 2, 3, or 4. (iii) Casualties from the second wave encounter were removed. c. Determination of the winner The winner of the combat was decided by comparing the size of the remaining forces and the casualties they had inflicted to the opposition. Note that at first, the tendency might be to place most of your units up front, i.e., all in the first wave so as to profit from their initial dice tosses of 1, 2, or 3, and forget that they'd be penalized by being in the second wave where only a toss of 1 or 2 scores. What this does, however, is to limit the number of fresh tanks in the second wave, and forego the additional striking power the second wave units possess, with their tosses of 1, 2, 3, or 4. Conversely, by placing most of the tanks in the second wave, you limit the striking power of the first wave tanks, each of which gets two tosses in the combat. In short, we have a command decision to be made (I was thinking of publishing these rules under the title of 'Command Decision', but I think someone beat me to it). Solo In my first invasion scenario, played solo, the defenders consistently beat back the invading amphibious forces, driving them back to their transports. In each of these battles, since they were solo affairs, I diced for the number of tanks that each division placed in the first and second waves. After several bounds, it appeared that the landing forces were going nowhere, and the troops boarded their ships, and the entire flotilla of transports and battleships and carriers went home. This was on a Saturday morning, and in the afternoon, there appeared Fred Haub, who volunteered to run the island's defensive forces. Under the guidance of General Haub, we expanded the rules a wee bit. For example, my original thoughts concerning the coastal gun installations were that the only thing the gun could do was to go 'BOOM!' and fire out to sea. If the invaders captured an area in which a gun was located, than the gun was assumed to be captured and destroyed. General Haub suggested that the coastal gun installations should not be automaticaly overrun, but should have a capability to defend themselves with a small intrinsic force. As I mentioned before, every division had its own data sheet, and every 3 hits on a division destroyed one token. The bound itself contained separate fire phases for both the defender and the attacker... the types of firing tokens included battleships, coastal guns, aircraft, anti-aircraft installations... there was no shortage of fire phases. And there was even more firing when two divisions encountered one another. As the commander of the invading forces, I had a couple of divisions forced back to their ships by the counter-attacking defenders, but I managed to establish a beach-head with 3 divisions. It was interesting to note the make-up of the first and second waves in a division in combat. Most of the time, I tried to place half my tanks in the first wave, and the others in the second wave. Fred, on the other hand, tended to place a minimum of tanks (perhaps 2 or 3) in his first wave, prefering to have the majority of his force in the second wave with their additional hitting power. I contacted Professor E. Coli at the Centre For Provocative Wargaming Analysis, who looked at the simple situation for a basic 2-tank unit... should you place both tanks in the first wave, or both in the second wave, or one tank in each. Both tanks in the first wave: Average casualties equal .87 One tank in each wave: Average casualties equal .82 Both tanks in the second wave: Average casualties equal .64 Back to PW Review June 1998 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 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