This scenario was an attempt to re-create a little known WW II episode, which took place in the Carpathian Mountains. Here, the Tchubblan forces, completely surrounded by Tschivvan troops, tried to break their way out of the Tschivvan pocket. I first described the Tchubblan-Tschivvan battles in the October, 1997 REVIEW, and noted that these two nationalities had been massacring each other for centuries, and that, for them, WW II was just another excuse to continue the killing. Surely, this bit of historical gloss should satisfy even the most obnoxious historically-minded wargamer.
Now to the nitty-gritty. On the ping pong table were my 20mm WW II troops, termed the Lannigan Brigade (I purchased the entire collection from Gerry Lannigan some years ago). I took the part of the Tschivvans, trying to hold the oncoming Tchubblans and keep them from breaking through and out of the pocket.
In essence, this was a solo 'pop up' game. As Tschivvan commander, I placed my troops across the field, forming a defensive line. In your regular, usual, every-day, run-of-the-mill, normal solo 'pop up' game, you take your own force of several units, and commence to work your way across the table, encountering the enemy as its forces ('pop up' units) are revealed by a set of charts or table or cards.
In other words, your own troops are the active ones, and enemy positions are static, and they are fought for and occupied and your force continues on. But in this scenario, the roles were reversed. Here, my own Tschivvan positions were essentially the static ones, and the 'pop up' Tchubblan forces were the moving ones. They appeared on their own baseline and made straight for my side of the table, trying to pierce my line of defending troops, exit on my baseline, and go home to Tchubbla for a hot meal.
Each bound, I diced for the Tchubblan forces that would appear... there was a never-ending stream of them. I had created a 4x4 matrix, listing 16 possibilities for the oncoming Tchubblans. But 5 of the 16 selections were annotated "none", indicating that, for that bound at least, no new Tchubblans would show up. Two percentage dice throws (one for column, one for row) were needed to pinpoint the exact nature of the force.
| Dice Throw | Dice Throw | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01-25 | 26-50 | 51-75 | 76-100 | |
| 01-25 | 1 inf w/MG, 1 A/T | 1 inf, 1 armor | None | 2 armor |
| 26-50 | None | 2 inf w/MG, 1 A/T | 1 inf, 1 armor, 1 A/T | None |
| 51-75 | 2 armor | 1 inf w/MG, 1 A/T | None | 1 armor |
| 76-100 | 1 inf w/MG | None | 2 inf, 1 armor | 1 inf w/MG |
I defined my basic unit as a company, and each company (armor or infantry) had 2 stands in it. For example, if you tossed a 43 for column, and a 15 for the row, then you'd see a Tchubblan force of "1 inf, 1 armor" appear. The "1 inf" indicated that an infantry company of 2 stands would appear, accompanied by an armored company ("1 armor") of 2 tank stands.
If "1 A/T" showed up, that was a single-stand anti-tank gun. And if the chart denoted "MG", then a machine gun stand accompanied the regular infantry.
In the battle, my dicing for the first half-dozen bounds was interesting... it resulted only in Tchubblan infantry appearing... no Tchubblan armor. Evidently, the tanks were fighting a fierce rear-guard action somewhere off table in the pocket, and were holding the pursuers back while the infantry got away. Clever tactics on the part of the Tchubblans.
The sequence consisted of 8 basic phases:
- First, all existing on-board Tchubblan units would fire
Second, the Tchubblan troops would advance 10 inches toward my baseline. If there was a defending Tschivvan force within 6 inches of their line of advance, they'd head directly for it.
Third, defending Tschivvan forces would fire.
Fourth, I'd dice for new Tchubblan forces.
Fifth, defending Tschivvan units would move 10 inches.
Sixth, the Tchubblans had a 40 percent chance to call in a mortar barrage.
Seventh, the Tschivvans had a 40 percent chance to call in an artillery strike.
Eighth, resolve close assault
I started out with 5 defending Tschivvan infantry companies, a couple of anti-tank guns, and 3 armor companies. There was no attempt to define the different types of tanks (heavy, medium, light)... a tank was a tank was a tank.
Looking at my Tschivvan defenses, they looked pretty thin, spread across some 9 feet of table. A 2-stand infantry company had 5 men per stand, 10 men in all. Each man firing contributed 5 percent to the probability of hit (POH), and an attached machine gun added another 30 percent. When an infantry company took a hit, one man was removed, effectively reducing the unit's combat power.
Each tank in a 2-tank company fired with a 50 percent POH, and an anti-tank gun fired with a 70 percent POH. A record was kept of all the hits incurred by a tank... each hit increased the probability of the tank blowing up by 5 percent. Thus, by the time a tank had received, say, 6 hits, it's probability of being destroyed was 30 percent.
Infantry rifle range was 20 inches, and tank and anti-tank weapons fired line-of-sight.
In the sequence, note that I was dicing for only one Tchubblan force per bound. On the first bound, when the first unit showed up, as the only target available, the poor guys got blasted. It took a couple of bounds, as more and more Tchubblan troops appeared, to 'dilute' the Tschivvan defensive fire. But by this time, the defensive fire itself began to thin out as the Tchivvans took losses.
I terminated the battle after 14 bounds.
As more and more Tchubblan troops poured onto the field, my defending units got weaker and weaker... they were gradually being beaten into the ground, but, up to that point, I had still blocked any of the advancing forces from breaking through to my baseline.
In theory, there was virtually no limit to the oncoming Tchubblans, and the only relief occurred when, in dicing for new forces to appear, the result of the combination of row-and-column tosses turned out to be "none". In fact, this was the key savings feature for the Tschivvans, permitting them to last as long as they did. In dicing each bound for 14 bounds, the "none" factor had shown up five times. The "none" factor should have showed up only 5/16, or 31 percent of the time (5 "nones" out of the 16 positions in the matrix.
Which meant that there were fewer Tchubblan forces on the field, for over the course of 14 turns, they could have numbered 14.
The other saving factor, as I mentioned above, was that the majority of forces that appeared were infantry, and not armor.
You'll note that in the 8-phase sequence I've listed, there's no provision for the defending Tschivvans to bring on reinforcements. Eventually, therefore, the oncoming Tchubblans will wear down the defenders and break through. Nothing wrong with that. As a solo effort, one of the victory conditions for the player, the Tschivvan commander, can be based on the number of Tchubblan units that get off-board within a certain number of bounds.
For Subsequent Battles...
For subsequent battles, I will change the procedures a wee bit, hoping to make the game more 'bloody'.
First, on the pop-up table, instead of the "none" factor showing up 5 times, I'll reduce that to 4. This will mean that, statistically speaking, more Tchubblan forces will appear.
Second, to counter the potential appearance of more Tchubblan forces, I'll introduce a phase in the sequence wherein the defending Tschivvans will get reinforcements. Not too many reinforcements, not an entire unit at a time... but just a couple of figures, or a small chance of an anti-tank gun or a tank itself. This way, the thinning Tschivvan lines can be bolstered by the appearance of an infantryman or so.
Third, I'll increase the probability of a mortar barrage for the Tchubblans and an artillery barrage for the Tschivvans. In this first run-through, each side had only a 40 percent chance of calling in a supporting barrage. I think that throughout the battle, off-table barrages were successfully called in only twice.
To my mind, 'pop up' games, whether the regular game, or as in this one, the 'breakthrough' game, should be structured to last about two hours. I've noted that my interest will flag if the solo affair lasts longer than this basic time period.
Here on this first cut, everything proved out in fairly good fashion. When Tchubblan forces appeared, they could do so anywhere on their own baseline (decided by a dice throw). This meant that I had to jockey my ever-decreasing defenders around to fill the ever-increasing gaps.
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© Copyright 1999 Wally Simon
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