This was a game I termed to be on a division-versus-division scale. I set up the scenario with my 15mm WW II figures, with the basic 'battle element' defined as a battalion of 5 stands. Each 2 or 3 battalions were assigned to a brigade, and each side had 3 brigades, comprising a small division. My 15mm stands each measure about an inch by an inch, and each side, therefore, had about 40 stands to move each turn. There were several types of battalions: Infantry 5 stands of infantry Armor 5 tank stands Reinforced Infantry 2 tank stands, 3 infantry stands Artillery 5 artillery stands I wanted the rules adaptable for solo play, and this mandated that the procedures be as basic and simple as possible. Since the sequence was to be an alternate one, with one side active with the other side merely 'standing there', I wanted to provide some sort of reaction capability to the non-active side, permitting it to strike back at the moving side's forces. There are 7 towns stretched across the map, but the two key ones were Simgrad and Plasdorf. The defending German force had a battalion in every town except Glotsk (too far to the east) and Shehem (too far forward to properly defend). There were 8 defending battalions in all. The German artillery battalion, consisting of 5 stands, was placed on the ridge just to the northwest of Simgrad, where it commanded the entire valley. In any game, especially a solo game, there's nothing more boring than repeatedly tossing the dice during the firing and melee procedures and, because of low hit percentages, having nothing happen. And so I purposely made the probability of hit (POH) rather high, ensuring lots of casualties. Each infantry stand was given a POH of 10 percent, so that the 5-stand infantry battalion had a total POH of 50 percent. Tanks and artillery stands were each assigned POH's of 15 percent, and adding up the components for each battalion as described above, the resultant total POH's for the various types of battalions were: Infantry 50% Armor 75% Reinforced Infantry 60% Artillery 75% The above values were, of course, for a full strength battalion; as the battalion took losses, its POH went down. Each hit on a battalion did not destroy a stand... it removed one stand to a "repair" or "rally" zone", where the stand waited patiently, hoping to eventually come back on the field. Battles In the first battle I somewhat overdid the reaction capability of the non-active side... the non-active side's units were permitted to immediately fire back at full strength when they were fired upon. As noted above, I had kept the probability of hit (POH) fairly high, and the result was that the repair zones for both sides had a lot of customers... business was booming. In the second run-through, I pared down the non-active side's reaction... it was still permitted to immediately fire back when fired upon, but, this time, the POH of the return fire was halved. Looking at the sequence, examining in particular the phases associated with the Allied advance on Turn #3 (the Allies were the active side) of the second battle, the following phases occurred: (1) The first phase is a basic movement phase... all of the Allied units moved forward 10 inches. One armored battalion, the 4th, made contact with a German armored battalion just north of Omsk. Moving up to support the 4th's close assault was the 12th Infantry Battalion. (2) Next is a defensive artillery fire phase, and here, the German artillery, with a POH of 75 percent, fired and easily took out its target, a tank in the Allied 8th Armored Battalion. I should note that all of my units had identifying battalion markers on them, since many times I have to track the record of casualties of specific units. In this case, there was no such requirement, and one of the 8th Armored Battalion's tanks was placed in the Allied Repair Zone. (3) The third phase is a multi-function one. Here, the active side (in this case the Allies) diced to see how many 'special actions' (SA) it received. If the number of battalions on a side is defined as "N", then the number of SA actions is either "N", or "N-2", or "N-4". The Allies had 9 battalions in the encounter, and the dicing result gave them 9-2, or 7 special actions. a. 2 of the 7 SA actions were immediately assigned. First, the close assault attack of the 4th Armored Battalion, and second, an action for the support of the 12th Infantry. Even though an action had been reserved for the 12th, its support was not automatic. b. The 12th had a 70 percent chance to support, and it passed successfully. c. This left 5 SA actions, and 2 were assigned: 1 to each of 2 Allied armored battalions to fire. Their targets were German armored units, and their POH, 15 percent for each of their 5 stands, totaled 75 percent. One unit was successful, and the target unit returned fire, but the other Allied unit failed to hit. d. When the targeted German battalion was hit, it immediately placed one stand in the German repair zone, and then returned fire. With only 4 stands remaining out of 5, the basic POH of the German unit was 4 x 15, or 60 percent, but remember that I had decreed that all return fire was to be at 'half value', hence the German POH was 30 percent. The German unit missed. e. Now the Allies had 3 SA actions left, and these were assigned to try to rally 3 tanks sitting in the repair zone. There were several infantry stands also in the zone, but the tanks were deemed of greater importance. Each tank had a 70 percent chance to come back on the field... two did, but one failed to rally and remained in the repair zone. (4) Each time a unit was placed in the repair zone, the opposition received victory points, and in this phase, both sides diced to use them. When a total of 10 victory points was reached, dice were tossed, and one enemy battalion, or pieces of it, could be placed in the repair zone. Note in the 3rd phase of the sequence, that the Allies had to make several decisions. Their SA actions were limited in number, and a priority had to be established as to how to assign them. I've mentioned three special actions (close assault, fire and rally), but there were two others... a unit could be assigned an action to move, and an off-board reserve unit could come onto the field. Note that the only way for a side to fire was to assign a special action to a unit. At times, that conflicted with the need to rally the ever increasing number of stands in the repair zone. Going back to the assault of the 4th Armored Battalion, supported by the 12th Infantry, it turned out that when a nearby (within 5 inches) German unit tested to come in as a support, it failed, and the Allied 4th Armor and the 12th Infantry took on a sole German armored battalion. Both sides fired. The 4th had a POH of 75 percent, while the 12th had a POH of 50 percent. Both units hit, and the German 5-stand unit was down to 3 stands. Before it was reduced, however, it, too, fired with a POH of 75, taking out one tank of the 4th. The total number of stands left for the Allies were 4 for the 4th Armored, and 5 for the 12th Infantry, 9 in all. The Germans had only 3 stands left. These numbers were combined as follows: Allies: Die x (9 surviving stands plus 2 German losses) = Die x 11 German Die x (3 surviving stands plus zero Allied losses) = Die x 3 No surprise when the Allies won the die rolls, and the German battalion lost yet another stand and retreated 10 inches. This was the decisive victory for the Allies, for it cleared the way for a 2-pronged attack on Plasdorf, one from the east, one from the north. Back to PW Review May 1999 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 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