Foy-Noville 1945 (with less snow...)

Using the next level down of the Field of Battle hack (Goose Green had bases as platoons) - where one base is a squad, and maneuver elements are platoons/companies, we tackled the 'Foy-Noville' scenario - free at the 'Little Wars TV' website - written for Crossfire and of course featuring the famous attack on Foy, made famous by 'Band of Brothers' - both book and TV adaptation.

...some unexpected close assault action in Foy

   Great rules - sequencing and covering fire that gives a real ebb and flow of battle, with many surprises and a tight narrative.

German defences: 9th SS with armour in the centre of town, with Volksgrenadiers...and yes, not snowy enough

Easy company make a direct approach - and interestingly, I Company make a flanking move to their right (not a big company - more a platoon strength unit - but manages to do very well...and not around the back of the village this time...)

I Company flanks the 'building with the caved in roof'

Easy take plenty of casualties, stumbling into a minefield

Intense fire from the buildings, with heavy HMG assets

The flanking move by I Company works! ...initially

Easy Company start getting pushed back, quickly reduced in strength in the open...some make it to their right flank to support I Company

That Panzer IV has its engines revving for something - adding to infantry fire from the Volksgrenadiers - who have managed to flank Easy Company!

Remnants of Easy and I Company close assault the right of the village...

...in a fairly bloody action...

They manage to take it ...but

...a turn of initiative and close assault comes across the street from the German units straight into the shattered remnants of Easy 

with armour in support

Outside Foy - both sides are now deploying reinforcements - the side that gets to the town first will win the battle...

...as I Company retreat to the churchyard - after having been forced out of the town sector

US reinforcements however, have not only managed to move more quickly, G Company have ambushed the advancing German reinforcements in the flank, and in the open...hitting their morale deck hard"!

REmnants of Easy Company seize their chance, and ambush the German armour

..and it's all over - as the German's morale deck is tipped, and they fail their morale roll when it comes...another great game...except...more snow needed.

Goose Green 1982

 This is a scenario that I have been wanting to do, at an appropriate scale, for quite a few years. 

 It is very closely based upon that scenario appearing in the 'Command Post Quarterly' - the old Command Decision magazine, in the 'Compendium 1-3' edition of 1995, edited by GDW's Greg Novak. Command Decision however, would not be my rules of choice in this regard. 

Mid-battle, with British Paras having taken multiple Argentinean positions on the crest lines

The scenario is superbly written however, with all sorts of nuances (including provision for British Recce unit, armed with Stirling SMGs, who swapped them for Argentinean SLRs at first opportunity, during the battle, amongst other British units who preferred the auto-fire variant).

 The article/scenario ' Goose Green - New Orleans with Assault Rifles' was penned by none other than Frank Chadwick.

The scenario is of course based upon the assault by 2 Para at Goose Green on May 28th 1982, during the Falkland Islands campaign (with notice of the advance given out rashly, by BBC Radio, the night before). 

I used a very exciting variant of my favourite 'Field of Battle: WW2' - of which more to say in later posts. 

I mean yes, they look good - but these bloody hexes literally took 'years' to sort out...Airfield and Goose Green at far left of picture - but most of the fighting will be on the ridges in the centre.

A great scenario, with asset management being a key feature of this variant - including choosing when to use mortars and HMGs - and the difficult assaults on Argentine positions, becoming a key feature of the battle. 

Having laid out some 'water feature' for the Shipwreck game, I planted my hexes along it to illustrate the coast along Goose Green

Features included Goose Green, Darwin and Bocca house, with Argentinean companies both emplaced and acting later as reinforcements from the south in terms of 'walk-ons' and airborne (via helicopter but staying well away from British movements). 

A view looking south-east across the Argentine defensive foxholes, toward the airfield and Goose Green itself

Determined progress, punctuated by defenders' MG assets

B Company makes its way toward Darwin, whilst A and C Cos take the ridgeline on the British right

The battle develops into a full battalion attack

Argentine reinforcements arrive at the airfield. The cardboard was lovingly cut to suit at the last minute, when I discovered my old airfield model, with authentic tarmac, had been lost...

Attempts to reinforce the hill positions will be for naught - the British are moving too fast, and making early gains, despite heavy casualties

Part of Argentine 12th Infantry Regt - well ensconced along the ridgeline

B Company, on the move toward Darwin

Savage close assaults all along the Argentine defensive positions

Argentinian infantry makes it to Darwin, but is likely to be outnumbered unless they re-take the hills

Multiple close assaults go in

A bloody affair...

the battle for Darwin - 2 Para takes the well defended heights, at great cost. Luckily, a turn of dedicated infantry close assaults really paid off for them, as Argentinean defences simply caved in.

By the time Argentine morale runs out, the British are ready to move, rallied, and intent upon moving straight into the airfield...it's all over.

 A great little scenario, with many ways it can play out...

Operation Goodwood - Day 3, July 1944, with Field of Battle WW2

 Another great FoBww2 game - introducing my nephew to the rules this time (he won as usual), and with the result that he wants to use the rules for every theater of WW2. Who am I to argue with that?

this scenario was based on that appearing in the 1996 'Clash of Armor' scenario book: 'Rommel's Battles', and represents day 3 of Operation Goodwood with the British drive toward Vimont.

German armour lies in wait for the Irish Guards

 I still keep coming back to these; each element on the table representing a company allows large battles to be fought, and though Brent Oman is working on a new set which allows the two levels below this to be fought (units as platoons, then squads in three variants of the same rules), the mechanisms will be consistent and exquisite.

To summarise :

• Card draws dictate the turn sequence. A British unit might be held up in getting to the point where it is needed with poor command rolls re. movement - as the turn sequence is not rigid - but 'fluid', which we read about in accounts, where confusion reigns and time is 'elastic'. This is not a random dice roll that has units 'sitting pretty' (BP, I am looking at you) - the card deck is engineered to describe the command superiority or otherwise, with movement only  rarely stymied, or sometimes enhanced dependent upon the opposed roll mechanism. 
• Unlike other rules, where the designer reads historical accounts, then attempts to distill that experience into a 'rule'...here the mechanism is key to everything that follows: an opposed roll of multi-sided dice - e.g. a d6 vs a d10 - with the result dependent upon the difference between the two, AND whether ODD or EVEN, dictating push-backs, hits, disorder...all in a single opposed roll between the players. Elegant does not begin to describe how fast and intuitive this is. It removes the need for mods, results tables, more mods, and stupid little dice mechanisms that lie outside the core of the rules.

There may be an issue with the Typhoon/Tempest's roundels ;)

 

• Hence, that mechanism comes first, and distilling the historical account into that mechanism is key - so there are no side rules, few separate systems, and no requirement to 'squeeze every last piece of innovation from what you can do with a bunch of d6'. Multi sided dice combine all the provability and all the odds into single rolls with no bs. d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 etc.each with its own probability curve.
• Morale works off hits taken, and morale card tests when army morale is breached...this can make for tense moments. Today, both sides reached army morale around the same time, with leadership rolls for card draws, and morale swinging many times in tense action. The swing of  this initiative is key to the game, and very reminiscent of battle accounts in terms of  'narrative'. A word which we all love now , it seems, but rarely understand.
• Combining the cards, the nature of command into the deck, the dice mechanisms, and modifiers based upon moving dice types 'up' or 'down' and you quickly realise that the simplest concept designs are invariably the best, making for 'simple not simplistic' and truly 'playing the period, not the rules'...in this case.  Genius.

British Infantry moving early on the left flank at Emieville

An attack on the centre early on, which would last all day

Bitter fighting in the woods

Laying smoke on the left flank to allow Guards' armour to move up

Panzers are waiting

The British centre and right. Armoured casualties on the British left at the Chateau St Pierre Oursin, where the British hung on, and eventually forced the panzers back on Vimont

At last, British air offers some respite, eliminating two companies in the open.

Troops surge through the gap on the British left, but matters are very tense as morale starts to dwindle. Flanks breached, bit not broken

Another German counter attack against the weakened British right

...armour pours toward Vimont - but it's too late, as the British fail their first army morale roll...

...and finally withdraw.

There is some rumour, that the next game...might be Prochorovka...