In early '99, I visited Bob Hurst's home in Kerrville, Texas, and we played several games, including a couple of connected WW II 15mm efforts which we defined as part of a Barbarossa campaign. Using the computer game PANZER GENERAL as our guide for both the forces and the maps, we set up a series of battles, and had the Germans, commanded by Von Hurst, advance east from Warsaw to Moscow, against the Russian forces of General Simonsky.
I hate to admit it, but our first Barbarossa battle set-up was slightly skewed¼ and Von Hurst got the short end of the stick. On the PANZER GENERAL game map, we counted about 24 German units, and over 60 Russian units. Therefore, we reasoned, the odds, in terms of the forces involved in each battle, should be well in favor of the Russians. And so, for the first battle, we gave the Germans 9 battalions, while the Russians were given 12 battalions, a force ratio of 4-to-3 in favor of the Russians.
We forgot to account for the fact that the Russians forces on the campaign map were not clustered together. They were all over the map of Russia, stretched out from Warsaw to Smolensk. Which meant that, in any given battle, it was the Germans that should have superiority, and not the Russians.
But Von Hurst took all of this in good stead. And to make the battle easier for the outnumbered Germans, we used a data sheet for each unit that gave the German battalions a slight advantage. Each data sheet looked like:
Casualty Points: ________________________________________
Losses: ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
For each unit, each time it incurred casualties, the points lost were tracked as indicated on the first line of the sheet. When sufficient points were lost, a box on the second line was crossed out. Seven boxes crossed out and the unit was no more.
For the Germans, 30 points were required to cross off one box. For the Russians, only 20 points were required to cross off a box. This meant that the Russian units were slightly more vulnerable in terms of being destroyed (having all their boxes crossed out) than were the Germans.
In our first battle, The Germans started near the River Narew in Poland, and immediately struck out to the east, attempting to take two key towns, Brest and Grodno.
The 12 battalions of Von Hurst's force were divided into 4 brigades, with 3 battalions per brigade. The battalions were of three types:
- Armored Btn 4 tank stands, plus 1 artillery stand
Infantry Btn 4 infantry stands, plus 1 artillery stand
Reinforced Infantry Btn 3 infantry stands, 1 tank stand, plus 1 artillery stand.
A battalion, therefore, consisted of about 5 or 6 stands, and the entire 3-battalion brigade around 15 stands. Digression. I'm not sure how you'd define the scale of the game. With 5 stands per battalion, it certainly wasn't tactical. On the other hand, it wasn't strategic. Perhaps it could be termed 'slightly-less-than-grand-tactical'. Which brings up the question¼ what does each token represent? As an example, consider what I defined as a reinforced infantry battalion, with one tank token, one artillery token, and four infantry tokens¼ do the tokens (stands) represent platoons? companies? All I know is that I tried to show that the infantry were 'supported' by their own intrinsic artillery unit and armored unit, but as to how much support was provided¼ I'll pass up the chance to elaborate. End of digression.
The German armored brigade was located on their right flank, and they easily rode over the defending forces in Brest, which consisted solely of Russian infantry units. Von Hurst's men took the town in 6 hours battle-time, half-a-day's fighting. A full bound, wherein both sides each went through their routines of move, fire, close assault, etc., was considered to be 6 hours of battle-time. And so, after only one bound, Brest belonged to the Germans.
The entire battle lasted only 4 bounds, 2 days of battle-time. At that time, the Russian units, because of their decreased vulnerability (they required 20 casualty points to cross out each box on the data sheets, contrasted with 30 points for the Germans), had been severely whomped to the point where it was obvious they'd withdraw to the east and set up a new battle line.
Generating the casualty points during the firing and close assault phases, was a 3-step affair:
- (a) First, the Attack Points (AP) of the offensive battalion were tallied. Each type of stand had its own AP
- Infantry 1 AP
Tank 2 AP
Artillery 3 AP
As an example, consider an armor battalion, with 4 tanks (8 AP) and 1 artillery (3 AP). This battalion totaled 11 AP. These AP will eventually be transformed into losses on the target unit.
(b) Second, convert the total AP to a percentage by multiplying by 10. In the example, the 11 AP of the armored battalion converts to 110 percent.
(c) Third, reference the total AP to the Loss Chart
| . | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| . | Each AP = 1 casualty point |
| Total AP | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| . | Each AP = 2 casualty points |
| 1/2 AP | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| . | Each AP = 3 casualty points |
| . | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
Here, in the example, with a percentage of 110%, a toss below 55 (half of the 110%) would equate each of the 11 AP of the firing tank battalion to 3 casualty points, and a total of 33 points would be scored on the target's data sheet.
Remember that the Russian units, for their data sheets, needed only 20 points to cross out a box, versus the German's 30, and you can see how the Russian losses quickly mounted.
There were two ways in which stands were removed from the field. The first, of course, was when all 7 loss boxes were crossed out. Here, the entire battalion was taken off the field.
A second method involved removal of individual stands. At the end of every half-bound, all units that had had boxes crossed off their data sheets during the half-bound, would test¼ each box contributed 20 percent toward the probability that one stand would be removed.
Note that the rules mandated that all the units in a battalion fire at once, at one target, instead of having individual stands firing separately. This, to me, is infinitely more preferable than having each and every stand on the field toss dice, as required by such epics as COMMAND DECISION, SPEAR HEAD, etc.
Second Battle
Now we come to the second battle in our Barbarossa campaign. We placed Von Hurst's Germans further east on the PANZER GENERAL map, and this time we had equal forces on each side¼ 12 battalions divided into 4 brigades, each of 3 battalions.
And, of course, a different set of rules. Why in the world would anyone want to play the same set of rules twice?
This time, we used a deck of cards to determine the number of brigades that the active side called on for his half of the turn. The number of brigades that were annotated on the cards varied from 2 to 6¼ I had drawn up the deck for a slightly larger game (using 6 brigades instead of the 4 we had) than the one in which we were engaged.
To bring out the Russian lack of command/control of their units, each time a card was drawn for Simonsky's troops, I diced to see if all the brigades on the card could be activated. Fifty percent of the time, I'd have to reduce the number of brigades by one.
When a card was drawn, it could be designated either as an Offensive Card, or a Readjustment Card:
- Offensive Designated units could move or fire.
Readjustment No firing. Side may rally stands, and use Victory Points (VP) to remove enemy units
The use of Victory Points to remove opposing units was one of two methods of temporarily getting rid of enemy battalions. When a battalion fired, it tossed a number of 10-sided dice and a 1 or a 2 produced a hit, and two things happened.
- Each hit caused one stand in the target unit to go off the field to the rally zone.
Each hit was also a VP. These VP were recorded and a total of 10 VP permitted a percentage dice toss which could result in an entire enemy battalion, or large chunks of it, going to the rally zone.
Note, therefore, that the decision concerning whether to use a card as an offensive one or a readjusting one was critical. When enough VP were tallied, it was usually worth it to forego an offensive move and try to knock off an enemy battalion.
But this could backfire. At one time during the battle, Von Hurst decided to use his drawn card as one for readjustment, and in dicing, discovered that (a) he had rallied only a single stand out of a possible 4, and (b) when he diced using his VP (having accumulated 20 VP, giving him two bites at the apple), only 2 enemy stands were swept off the field. And for this he had given up an entire fire phase, during which several of his units could have fired.
There were a number of towns and airfields on the field. Each town was worth 10 points, and each airfield 15 points. If the Germans could amass a total of 80 points, they would be declared the winner and the Russians would withdraw.
At the start of each half-bound, the active player diced to see if his aircraft would support him. There was a 40 percent chance that he'd get an air strike.
In truth, the aircraft didn't do too much, but they could, by bombing and strafing, send a couple of target stands to the rally zone. A plane could bomb a target over which it had just passed during its 10-inch move, or it could strafe a target 10-inches ahead of it. A plane tossed 3 dice, and each 1 or 2 that showed up sent one target stand to the rally zone.
The reason that the aircraft didn't have too great an effect, was that they were usually shot down before they did too much damage. Every battalion had an anti-aircraft capability¼ each diced to see the damage points scored on the plane¼ they could score either 10 or 15 or 20 damage points. A total of 50 points and the plane was downed.
It was fairly difficult for a plane to thread its way across the field and continually keep out of the 15-inch range of the A/A guns. Usually, it hit one, maybe two targets before it went down in smoke.
Von Hurst's 3 armored battalions of his armored brigade were decisive. As Russian commander, I tried to concentrate my VP on his armor, but seemed always to suffer from too few VP. Remember, I needed 10 VP to enable the VP rule.
This meant that most of the time, when a card was drawn, I chose it to be an offensive one, and moved and fired. And the other factor that held the Russian force back was that every time an offensive card was drawn, I had to dice to see if all the units designated on the card could actively function¼ half the time, I'd have to reduce the active units by 1, due to the poor Russian command/control capability as previously explained. This made the Russian force less mobile than the German's.
Battle #2 ended with a German victory, and we went on to #3... and yet another set of rules!
This rules set started out as an attempt to graft CROSS FIRE procedures on to a large-unit game. It didn't work, and as we played, Bob and I gradually developed our own system, based on winning the initiative (as is done in CROSS FIRE), but using a completely different approach from that employed in CROSS FIRE.
Again we set up the map from the PANZER GENERAL game, complete with towns and airfields. The advancing Germans had 12 platoons (4 brigades of 3 platoons each), while the Russians had only 3 brigades (9 platoons).
The Germans started out from their base towns, moving all their units. Infantry moved a distance of 10 inches, while vehicles diced to see if they could get an additional 10 inch movement (70 percent).
After the movement phase came the firing phase, and Von Hurst's German platoons each selected a target. Each type of platoon had a different Probability-Of-Hit (POH)... for example, a heavy weapons platoon scored on a percentage dice toss of 70 or under, while regular infantry hit on a toss of 50 or under.
If any of the German units fired unsuccessfully... failed to hit its target... the firing phase stopped, and I, as the Russian commander, immediately gained the initiative and could start to move my own troops. This was followed by a firing phase for the Russians, and if any Russian platoons failed to score, back would go the initiative to the Germans.
Interspersed in these procedures were provisions for winning victory points, essential in the determination of who won the battle. I should note that, as the battle drew to a close, Von Hurst's forces had accumulated 32 victory points, contrasting with my own 14, and so, once again, Von Hurst's troops penetrated further into Mother Russia.
The victory point routine followed these guidelines:
- (a) During the fire phase, when a unit successfully hit its target, the target was given a casualty marker.
(b) The target was then permitted to immediately fire back. Two possibilities could then occur:
- (i) If the target was successful in its attempt to return fire, it gained victory points and drew a card on which was annotated a number of victory points, ranging from 2 to 5. Even if successful, the target side did not gain initiative, but the initiative remained with the original firing side.
(ii) If the target didn't succeed in its return fire, then its opponent, the side firing first, received victory points, by drawing a card.
In this manner, units fired, targets returned fire, and the initiative switched back and forth, but not so rapidly as to cause chaos in the sequence. Note that there are no fixed bounds, because the initiative could change whenever one of the units on the active side failed to hit its target.
Back to PW Review January 1999 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