Campaigns of Napoleon The 1796 campaign is proving to be the least documented of any of Napleon's campaigns. Long hours and a trip to the national archives have alleviated that somewhat, and a solid order of battle has emerged, along with a map. To conduct a siege requires siege artillery units and the physical presence of supply (purchaseable with APs) for both parties. Without supply, the besieging forces cannot reduce the fortress, nor can the besieged camp continue to hold out without them. Given the geographical characteristics of Northern Italy, the map will introduce several additional terrain features: most notably mountains and fortresses. Garrisons will have further abilities, such as delaying, particularly in the mountains. Forage rules will reflect an area's capabilities to support troops. This was especially a factor in the campaign of 1796 when the army had to break into the fertile Po Valley or face starvation. While working on this project it has become evident that we should attempt to resaerch the remaining games in the Campaigns of Napoleon series while working on the present game. This would hopefully allow us to isolate the distinguishing characteristics of each campaign and increase the time available to devote to the unique qualities of each campaign. This is how I have been justifying my efforts to compile the relevant orders of battle (actually I have not restricted my efforts to these campaigns -- I am a compulsive and undiscriminating collector of Napoleonic statistics). Anyone feeling that they have access to authoritative OBs useful to any games contained in the Campaigns of Napoleon series should contact us. Air Cobra It's been well over a year since I designed Air Cav for SPI; a year that has seen the game go through many changes but somehow, never quite make it into production. One hates to see several months of labor go to waste. A quick note of thanks to OSG; this time a game of modern airmobile warfare will be completed, but with a new, and I think, better system. One that is more in line with the actual reality of flying and fighting helicopters on the modern, high- intensity battlefield. Also, this version will include all the things ahout hardware and tactics that I've managed to learn since doing the original game. The new game is called Air Cobra and employs individual helicopters, ground vehicles and infantry squads. The scale has heen set at 100 meters per hex with one minute Game Turns. There are several phases within the Game-Turn, one for ground movement and combat (though they may fire at the helicopters during any helicopter phase) and six Helicopter Phases of 10 seconds each. Target Acquisition and Combat are given as probahilities of 36 using 2 six-sided dice, on a table much like Air War:s. There is also a Multiple-Shot Table, used when more than one round or burst impacts on the same target at the same time. Both ground and air units in this game are able to perform evasive maneuvers (like Sagger-Dodge), employ ECM (electroniccounter measures), use crossfires and fire various types of munitions and weapons. They can also run out of ammunition (totally, or of a particular type) since the Player has to keep track of how much ammo has been expended for each weapons system. The American tanks even carry a certain number of Beehive rounds, used for suppression or destruction of anti-tank missles and crews. All major weapons projected within the next five years are shown. Tere will he helicopter-laid minefields and flying and fighting under adverse light conditions, and night-fighting equipment. The full range of tactical systems. Terrain is being given special treatment. We are attempting to solve (finally) the nagging question and arguments about Back to Wargame Design Vol. 1 Nr. 2 Table of Contents Back to Wargame Design List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1979 by Operational Studies Group. 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