Neil Thomas "Wargaming: An Introduction" WWII rules hit Ruweisat Ridge

Forces laid out for playtest: Italians to South, Brits to North.

Well, after reading and re-reading them, I realized there is a lot of potential to these rules and that they aren't as different from the other rulesets in "Wargaming: An Introduction" as I thought at first. That, and Steve from "Sound Officer's Call" is constantly extolling their virtues. So without further delay, I played around with the rules a few times.

The first time, I tried them using OHW Scenario 28: Botched Relief, with three British squads attacking a town supported by two Crusadres and one Crusader CS. The Italian defenders had a squad in the town supported by an ATG outside the town to the left. On the hill to the left were an M113 tank a 75/18 gun, and two more squads of infantry:

This went badly for the defenders. Then I realized that I had put three tanks on the board for a Unit and the rules call for 1 per Unit! But the play was fun despite plenty of dice rolling. 

Here's some visual cues to see how shooting occurs:

A squad of 9 men puts out 12 dice at close range: 7 riflemen dice [green], 3 for the LMG [yellow] and 2 for the SMG [white]. You hit infantry in the open on a 2+ for a murderous 10 Hits on average!
At long range you lose the SMG dice, and hit 2 worse or 4+ [but that's still 5 hits per shot!].
If you move full you only get rifle & SMG dice, so 7 or 9 dice depending on range.  
If you move half you get the LMG dice, so 10-12 dice.

BUT any movement at all and you are -2 to hit, so can't hit at long range at all [you'd need an 8+!] and at short range you hit on a 6+.

You can see how the shooting mechanic emphasizes important factors like Range and Movement, while ignoring the many trivial factors that creep into wargame rules...

Tanks roll to hit with one dice [black above] and then roll one dice to kill a tank [red]. On 1-2 No Effect, a 3-4 tank is immobilized [a second Immobilized kills it] and a 5-6 destroys it.
Against Infantry, tanks roll to hit then get ten dice [green] against infantry, who then get saves. They also have an LMG they can fire at the same target if they move half or less - worth three dice [yellow]. So against Infantry - IF you hit with your main gun which varies from 2+ to 6+ depending on Range - you're rolling 14 dice, total. 
Even if they are entrenched and only hit on a '6', you are still getting about 2 Hits per shot.


ATGs are the same as a tank main gun against a tank or anti-personnel.
Artillery Barrages and Mortars roll for the number of rounds they'll put on the ground [black dice], getting 0-10 [green], and then you roll those to get hits and again the infantry get saves.

One's wrist can get fatigued from all this, especially in solo play!

Anyway, I played again immediately with the proper ratios of tanks and guns [1/Unit, not 3] and switched the infantry in the town to entrenched. This time, the Brits got a punch in the nose with their tanks getting knocked out and the infantry getting trashed by the 75/18 Barrage. I didn't see any way for them to counter, since a Barrage is off-table and there's no counter-battery fire. Still, the feel the rules give for infantry fighting is quite good.

So finally I decided I had to play it rules as written - "RAW" - and chose the "Frontal Assault" scenario. This took place at Ruweisat Ridge in N.Africa, 1942. The Italians are attacking with 12 Units from the West [bottom] with the evening sun behind them giving them the cover benefit due to the glare blinding the Brit gunners [a common Axis tactic]. Defending 3 objectives is 6 British units [substituted by Italian figs] at the top of the pic:


Italian attackers: 6 squads of Italian infantry [2 bases each] and one Elite Bersaglieri with a halftrack [substituted by a truck], three tanks [2xM13/40, 1xSemovente AG] a light ATG and a Barrage.


Brit defenders: three entrenched infantry squads, a mortar [top] /HMG and ATR [middle] a barrage and a Crusader. Three objecives are FoW ones on the big bases behind the three infantry units. With no guidance from the rules, I placed the objectives - 1 in board center, and 2 centered in two back quarters of the board. This has them pretty forward, overall.


Turn 1 Brits. Rolled off and Defenders rolled higher so took the first turn. They fired what they had for some effect [RED DICE are dead infantry, red POW! marker means they just got hit and will check morale start of their turn. The black '6' is on the FO stand [which reminds me to use the barrage each turn!] The killers were the mortar, barrage and forward squad for 9 dead Italians. The HMG missed completely.


Turn 1 Italians. They started the turn just passing all the morale checks -no problems there! The tanks pound on the Brit squad holding the objective, and then they move a squad into contact against the 2 remaining infantrymen. In the Assault, the Brits roll a '1' x 3 for the remaining man, x 2 for entrenched for a total of 6. The Italians had four guys x 3 for 12 so they won and killed the last Brit in the squad. Still holding the objective is the ATR and HMG.


Turn 1 Italians. Infantry roll a '6' and have no problem with their 2 dead. They advance.


Turn 2 Brits. More fire results in wiping out the Italian squad on the objective, and putting a few more hits here and there. The Crud missed the M13/40. The barrage rolled a '6' for 8 dice and got a lot of hits, but the Italians saved them all despite a measly 5+ save!


Turn 2 Italians. Infantry fail two checks [red crosshairs means no actions, green one means move or shoot half] but the rest push forward at the objectives. Crusader gets knocked out by Italian armor. The HMG gets knocked out as well, finally failing its 2+ save. Only the ATR is on the objective, and it keeps missing the Italian tanks! If it is contacted by an assault, it is automatically destroyed...not much to hold an objective with!


Turn 3. Brits keep up the fire, but it's not looking good so they shift over a squad to try and hold the ridge. The Italian horde keeps closing in despite losses. The Italian tanks have very little to stop them at this point, and the far Brit infantry is suppressed with one guy left!


Turn 4. Italians assault. The Brits roll a '1' giving them a total of 3x2=6. Italians roll a '5' for 15 and the last Brit is killed on the run.


Turn 4. Italians Assault the center objective, and auto-kill the ATR.


Whew, that was a smackdown, and I think the Brits left their kettle behind - what a loss! Obviously giving the Italians "cover" the whole time for light conditions was a bit too much. I also should switch a unit to an ATG or something to deal with the Italian armor. Tactically, it was pretty straightforward, with a simple advance with supporting fire from the tanks. Overall the rules were very straightforward and clean. I did have to check them regularly for the little modifiers and such, but it wasn't too burdensome.

A few deficiencies in the rules:

1. There's no guide as to who has the first turn. All things being equal, I rolled off.
2. There's no line of sight rules, including firing thru Units. I can take such things either way - depending on scale and historical training and what Units represent on the table one could fire "thru" a unit or not.
3. 2+ Heavy Weapons Save. This means HMG / ATR / Mortars. Pretty tough any time, but especially when in cover as they're only being hit on a '6' [the need for a Natural '1' followed by a natural '6' is a 1/36 chance, the classic DBA 1-6 disaster]. This is balanced out a bit by the crews being small, usually about 3 people. However, the purpose of heavier support weapons and assault guns was historically to take out HMG nests, and they did this pretty well, usually being a 75mm gun firing HE.
4. No guide for Terrain amount, placement. The extreme difference between shooting at a unit in open [2+] in cover [4+] or entrenched [6+] means that terrain is absolutely critical. It needs to be both well-defined and there has to be a competitive way to put it on the table.
5. Targeting Restrictions unclear. It wasn't 100% clear to me if Artillery could fire at Armor, and ATGs fire at infantry. It doesn't appear so from the rules, altho of course it did happen historically. Since the results are usually pretty marginal [even in a game like Flames of War which permits both] it doesn't seem like a big deal if it is eliminated altogether in these rules.
6. It wasn't clear that a barrage fired every turn, but I figure it has to be or it is almost useless. Plus, Steve said so!
7. Ditto on the three objectives. No system given, altho there are many out there to steal.
8. And hey, how about a time limit for the scenario???

I think these are a clean set of rules to fight platoon-level encounters at the same scale as the Battlegroup games, so a big skirmish with support weapons. I think these would be even better with a bit less firepower in the colonial era of the 1870-1930 time. Less support weapons would keep the focus on infantry, and even cavalry [there are rules for cavalry, of course!]. 

Tactically the WWII timeframe is mostly about firepower concentration. Tanks don't last long but can be useful to shoot up infantry. The real infantry killers are artillery Barrages and Mortars, which are effective but quite variable generating zero to 10 hits. The maneuver decisions were very clear. The scenarios and terrain and objective placement have a lot of impact on how interesting the game is and they are very weak.

Some ideas for improvements:

1. A rally action to remove hits for Infantry [maybe only if they've failed morale?].
2. A "Take Cover" option for infantry or lots of detailed terrain pieces.
3. Formation and frontage rules - I favor simple "front and rear" arcs for this period.
4. A Hull Down benefit for Tanks.
5. A Tank Assault [not permitted now], and shooting ATGs at infantry [if they did in fact have HE historically] perhaps Artillery at armor.
6. Infantry support weapons using morale like infantry squads so they can be suppressed half or fully, and perhaps attaching them to an infantry squad would be the easiest way to do that?
7. Scenario rules, or adapting the OHW scenarios [probably by putting cover into the "open" spaces on the table and tweaking the ratio of tun limit to infantry move rate].
8.  I don't like that infantry squads use a mechanic that appears to wipe out the squad. I prefer hits that show reduced effectiveness but few actual casualties. I'd like to try reducing the 9 "hits" for infantry squads to 6 or 3 instead, and reduce the amount of dice for shooting proportionately.

But overall these are relatively small things - the core mechanics are solid.

These have me very interested in my 15mm French Foreign Legion v. Arab figs that I rediscovered quite forgotten in an old box. Must try them very soon!