In most of my games, I always try to get everyone on a side moving at once, in contrast to the gaming systems in which only groups of units are "activated" at one time. Purportedly, this business of piece-meal activation portrays the difficulties of the command-and-control process on the battlefield wherein not all the commanders on a side properly receive their orders and can get their troops in motion.
To replicate this situation, some rules systems give officer figures are given a 'command radius'... units within the radius move as ordered, while units beyond the radius are disadvantaged... there are several options... they must take a test to see if they get their orders, or they move at half-speed, or they are completely immobile.
This piece-meal control procedure initially appeared in boardgames... each commander had a number of hexes within which he could control his troops... and the miniatures players adopted the procedure and continually refined it.
One weekday afternoon, I tried out a solo version of the piece-meal activation process. This was a WW II scenario set up with a number of 25mm figures. A couple of years ago, I purchased what I term the "Lannigan Brigade'... a quantity of 20mm WW II figures which have served as a flexible test-bed for a number of rules sets. These figures are mounted on washers, and set out on magnetic stands, hence casualties are denoted by simply removing a figure from its base.
With my interest in 20mm WW II gaming now perked up, I acquired the slightly larger figures used in this game (25mm) to see what I could generate with a fixed number of figures per stand. The scenario described in this article is one of the results.
There are 3 infantrymen per base, which measures 2-inches by 2-inches. Each base is defined as... ?... I'm not really sure... but it's smaller than a battalion. One of the stands... let's simply call it a 'unit'... can be reinforced by one MG stand, adding to the firepower.
The command-and-control process works at 2 levels. The lowest level concerns 'fire coordination', i.e., an officer can coordinate the fire of 2 units. The procedure is adopted from Arty Conliffe's CROSS FIRE. Coordinative fire requires that
- (a) An officer must be co-located with one of the units
(b) The second stand must be within 5 inches of the first
(c) Both of the firing units must see the target, and be within range
(d) The officer must see both the target and the adjacent unit
First the officer must pass a 70 percent 'control' test, and if the above requirements are met, both units may fire in unison... in this game, if they both hit, the target is given an additional casualty marker.
The highest level of the command-and-control procedure works at the multi-unit level. In this age of radios, walkie-talkies, and so on, I assume that when orders are issued, all units receive them at the same time. The question arises as to how efficient the field commanders are in implementing their orders.
My thought was that the distance, or 'command radius' of the unit from its commanding officer, was not the governing factor. If the distance is crucial, then we're back to the silly situation in which a unit receives its orders on one turn, moves beyond the 'command control radius' on the next turn, and finds itself in limbo... it is beyond the 'range' of its commanding officer, even though, several minutes before, he had just finished explaining the orders to the unit.
Each single stand unit is given one of two officer gradings... from Quite Efficient (QE... the highest) down to Not-So Efficient (NSE). The grade has nothing to do with the unit's fire power, or its melee capability, or its morale level... it is reflected solely in how quickly the officer can bring his men into action.
In the sequence, when the Active Side (AS) goes, all of its units are given 3 actions. Each action permits the units to fire or move (5 inches per action). Inefficient units are penalized because they cannot coordinate with better quality troops as shown in the sequence below. While the NSE units receive their 3 actions, the actions are broken up... only the first 2 actions can be immediately 'energized', while the third action is somewhat delayed, and will be executed on the subsequent half-bound.
- (a) All the Active Side's units receive 3 actions:
- QE units move and fire for all 3 actions
NSE units move and fire for only 2 actions
(c) The Active Side has opportunity fire with certain selected units
(d) The Non-Active Side's NSE units, the least efficient ones, which, on the last half-bound received only 2 actions, receive 1 action (their third action) for movement or firing. They cannot close assault on this action.
(e) Close Assault is resolved
(f) Assess casualties
I set up a scenario in which 6 defending units faced 10 attackers. This took place deep in the Balkans... the defenders were the Tchublans, the attackers were the Tchivans. I've written of these two forces before... on the slightest pretext, the two nationalities have been massacring each others peoples for centuries... WW II provided only another excuse to continue the slaughter.
The Tchublan defenders, 6 stands, were placed in 2 towns, some 20 inches apart, and were thus strung out in a fairly thin line. On Turn 4, the right flank Tchivan attackers, as the Active Side, moved up to within firing range and blasted away. There were 4 units on the right flank, and we can track the sequence for the half-bound in terms of the above phases, (a) through (e), as follows:
- (a)
- (1) Two of the Tchivan units were QE units... they each had 3 actions, and moved up for one of them and then fired for the remaining 2.
(2) Two of the units were NSE, Not-So Efficient, and because they were given only 2 actions on this phase, they had, after moving, only 1 action left.
(3) The Tchivan fire produced one casualty figure on the targeted defenders.
(b) Now the Tchublans, as the Non-Active Side, returned fire with all units... on
this phase, all firing units, regardless of quality, are each given 2
firing actions, regardless of efficiency
(c) Back to the Active Side, the Tchivans. They returned fire with certain selected units.
- 01 to 33 4 units may fire
34 to 66 3 units may fire 67 to 100 2 units may fire
2 units fired, but produced no casualties.
(d) All the Tchublan units which had been given only 2 actions during the last half-bound (because they were NSE units) were now given one action. They could move or fire.
(e) There was no close assault, and so we go on to the next phase
(f) This is casualty assessment, and as explained below, the effect of the casualty markers received during the fire and close assault phases is determined.
(g) We're now starting the last half of the bound with Phase (a) and the Active Side is the defending Tchublans. Their QE units have 3 actions, and their NSE units have 2 actions.
And so the sequence goes on.
Note that there are 4 potential fire phases in succession... (a), (b), (c), and (d). Lots of bullets in the air, and every time a unit was hit, it received a casualty marker... lots of casualty markers on the ground. At the end of each half-bound, I inserted a casualty assessment phase, which determined how hard a unit had actually been hit during the preceding phases. Each unit was tracked on a data sheet, and was given 10 Efficiency Loss Points (ELP). When the 10 ELP were crossed out, the unit was effectively destroyed. Each side tossed percentage dice:
- 01 to 33 Unit loses only 1 ELP, regardless of number of casualty markers
34 to 66 Each casualty marker results in 2 ELP losses
67 to 100 Each casualty marker results in 3 ELP losses
The defending Tchublans didn't stand a chance. They gave tit-for-tat in the firing phases, but they proved to be extremely unlucky when converting their casualty markers into ELP on the above table. For example, with 4 casualty markers, a high toss (over 67) meant that the testing unit had lost 12 ELP... instant destruction. Several such high dice tosses on the conversion table resulted in the destruction of 3 separate units... half of their force. In contrast, on one half-bound, the Tchivans had three separate units literally buried under casualty markers, and proceeded to toss low for all three... as a look at the conversion table indicates, this resulted in only one ELP lost for each of the three units.
How did the unit ratings of QE and NSE affect the game? It turned out that, after a while, I called on the QE units more than the NSE ones. With the NSE unit actions divided into both halves of the bound, NSE response was naturally less effective than that of the more efficient units. And I found that the single action given to an NSE unit on the opposing side's half-bound made the unit fairly impotent... which is what I started out to do.
About half the units of both sides were of QE quality, and half were of NSE quality.
The firing procedures were quite simple, taking into account the Fire Power (FP) of a stand, and the Number of Actions (NA) for which a stand would fire. Each infantry rifle stand had an FP of 10, which was then multiplied by the NA. Note that this product ranged from
- Fire for 1 action FP x NA = 10x1 = 10
Fire for 3 actions FP x NA = 10x3 = 30
The firing unit then added a percentage dice throw to its product and looked at the total. When firing at a target in the open, the total had to be at least 50... which meant that it was fairly easy to hit a unit that was not under cover.
Hitting a target under cover was slightly more difficult, but not very.
When firing at a target under cover, the total had to be at least 70. Looking at the statistics when firing for one action, the unit started with 10, and then had to toss its dice to get a total of 70, i.e., it had to roll at least 60 on the percentage dice toss. That's a 40 percent chance of success.
When firing for 3 actions, and starting with 30, the unit had to add 40 points to obtain the total of 70. Here, therefore, the chance of getting a hit rose to 60 percent.
And note that if an officer coordinated the fire of two units, the target would receive yet another casualty marker.
This 'liberal' fire procedure was the reason that there were lots of casualty figures on the table. In other rules sets, I've instituted a 'clocking procedure'... a 10-sided die was tossed each half-bound, and only after the accumulated dice total reached 12 were casualties assessed. But here, so quickly did the casualty rate build up, that the assessment phase was performed each half-bound.
In the second encounter... the same sides... 6 defending Tchublans versus 10 attacking Tchivans. But this time, I added an administrative phase after the casualty assessment. This sort of opened up the game, for each side diced for the number of 'administrative battlefield functions' it could perform. It could bring on a reserve stand, it could bring up an officer, it could snipe at enemy officers, and so on.
The Tchivans, slightly wiser after the first encounter, attacked in three columns. Two bounds later, and the Tchublans were driven back... 2 of their 6 stands destroyed, and 2 more in dire straits (they each had about 7 of their 10 Ell's crossed out).
During the administrative phases, both sides had brought on reserves, and on Bound #6, the Tchivans had 13 units on the field, and had successfully flanked the defending force. The Tchublan defenders, despite losing a couple of units, still had 6 stands, but a couple of these were badly wounded (lots of ELP losses).
And so, once again, the Tchublans flew the white flag and asked for terms.
The NSE classification definitely puts a negative qualifier on the capabilities of these units. Splitting their actions between two half-bounds renders them unreliable. More later on this type of game.
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© Copyright 1999 Wally Simon
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