"Up the Blue!" for modern warfare? Absolutely!

Steve over at "Sound Officer's Call" just can't stop gaming these holidays! After throwing us all out of his house he had another throw-down with micro-armor; but then again, it's something you can do with "One-Hour Wargames".

He banged out Scenario #27 "Disordered Defense" which is an asymmetric sort of scenario in that the Blue *Attacker* has only 4 Units with which to seize the crossroads at the top, while the Red *Defender* has 6 Units. However, Red starts with only 3 and then on Turn 8, halfway thru the game, he gets the other 3 Units. Thus it is 4-3 at the beginning, not much of an edge but Blue does get to set up second and go first. It is thus possible to gang up all three Blue Units on one Red, and get to 4-2 pretty quickly - with some skill and luck, of course!

I really enjoy these 4 v. 6 scenarios, as they get to the heart of the qualitative edge some armies have. I imagine the Blue team as the Germans and the Red as the Russians, for example, or the Blue being the British and the Red the Americans in AWI, or Confederates and Union, etc. A great challenge for both sides.

The start points for the 3 Red Units is as below, one on the Crossroads and two out in front, offset from the road, in Zones 1 and 2. Blue sets up second within 6" of the Southern table edge, and gets moving.


Below is the faithful setup by our Demonstration Officer, Steve. Looks like the Arabs are fielding some, uhm, tan rectangular shapes on a 3-4" base. Well, tanks anyway, I'm sure.

Turn 8, the Isrealis have beat up the Arabs holding the zone, altho one tank Unit of, well, Green Rectangular shapes, has 6 Hits including 2 Permanent Hits, so it is almost dead. Another tank unit has only two Hits. so 21 Hits on Arabs went down for 8 Hits on Isrealis. I'm guessing that the Green Arab Unit is mech infantry, and the two others tanks.

End of Game. The Arabs have headed to Damascus while the Isrealis hold the field - seems the base with 3 Hits is actually dead and awaiting the recovery crews to arrive.

OK, enough kidding around in the briefing, we will now turn it over to CPT Steve - my commentary is in A. BLUE Italics interspersed. and Steve's responses in S. Grey Italics.

"i played a game of scenario 27 and it was quick brutal and fun." The Israeli Magach MBTs (m48s) are good tanks with excellent optics and superior crews. From the OHW standards:

• long range was extended to 24". 
• advanced stabilization = move /shoot or shoot / move at half movement.

The egyptian T55s are a first line tank in 1967 at least:.

• have a standard 12” range and 3+ Hit so are at a disadvantage against m48s in the open desert
• A. thought: double range is a big advantage, and it is frustrating for a gamer to be shot at helplessly. I suggest checking the history on the effective ranges and considering allowing the same range but at 1 spot worse to Hit on the D6.
• That being said, I’ve no problem for German 88s to outrange a 2pdr – it would just have to be a scenario consideration for the mission – sometimes gamers have to show some emotional fortitude!
• The clash between a 4+ v. 5+ shot at long range makes for interesting gaming. Isrealis could be 12” @3+, 24” at 4+ [if they’ve a longer, flatter gun trajectory] while Egyptians could be 8”@ 3+, 16”@ 4+ and 24@ 5+ for example, depending on the quality of their gun, optics and shooting – easy!

The arab infantry have dedicated ATGM units allowing them a 3+ vehicle attack against anything within 48" [A. again, could be 3+ to 24” and 4+ to 48”, etc]

Theyre mechanized so i played it basically that they move as armor and if attacked by a "ready" unit during movement they're defending as light armor.  Stationary they defend as infantry.  [A: slick! again, great rule, would show a “dismounting to fight” doctrine and raises the great design question of “are they like ACW cavalry in that they fight mounted or dismounted?” or strictly "mounted infantry”? ]

The Israelis trashed the egyptians by the way.  4 units of magachs against a mixed bag of Egyptian armor and infantry.  Israelis ended losing a platoon with 3 still on table (one permanent on one platoon).  Egyptians left having their mortar/ada/HQs unit on table.

A: As long as you feel like both sides had a chance and the decisions created an outcome with a likely different outcome with different decisions and average dice then it’s a good game!

My immediate thoughts are that the scenario should play well into both sides strengths / weaknesses – three Arab infantry on the board at start should give the Isrealis a hard time. I’d see them losing a unit in the first couple turns while gobbling up two Arab infantry. The T55s could enter Turn 8, or two T55s plus off-board artillery could enter / be available T8.

Also, you could go with strict NT rules ranges, and say that 1” = 200m, so that the 12” range is 2400m, in which case you’ve made the table twice as big. So your micro-armor base would be about 3-400m x 200m, which seems like a good spread for a tank platoon in the open [v. artillery, etc]. Overall, sounds like the design is halfway there already!

These are very rudimentary ideas [A: and for more ideas, consider NT’s in both OHW and AMW/Nap books, see if they inspire anything] i thought id share but there is great potential for bringing these into the modern era.  Game was decided in half the time.

After this exchange via email, Steve returned with:
S: Thought about this more.  I'd also offer a suggestion to "ease in" to modern era with the 1967 war vrs the 1973 war,  that way we can playtest modern stuff before adding ATGM to the battlefield. 

A: sure – we’re still playtesting WWII stuff for that matter.

No reason to change things too much for tank guns and gunnery.  For the better guns and training I offer the following:

- L7 105mm tank gun on the Israeli tanks you could just say that israeli armored units armed w L7 gun ignore long range modifier.  So any tank unit armed w an L7 or OQF 20 lb gets to ignore the "up one" rule for long range.
- Hence long range still 24 inches for tanks.  But Israeli tanks hit on 3+ Arab tanks at 4+ at long range.

A: nice thinking. historical question [cause I know nada about this period] does the gun give improved performance at long range compared to the Arab gun? Or is it superior performance at all ranges?

S: Tough question about the gun.  Technically at close range a tank gun is a tank gun is a tank gun and performance issues are less of a question.  Both guns could range targets farther away but the Israelis and the L7 gun certainly had an edge in respect to optics, stabilization, and accuracy at long range.  The Arab strategy was to race in to close the range as swiftly as possible. That's why i like the simple ignore long range modifier of up one for tanks armed with this gun.  It's subtle and forces the Arab player to close the range quickly, but the Arab player can still engage targets at long range if he so wishes.

With units squarely divided into armor or mech companies I'd also offer the following players choice:

- After you roll up your force composition, choose an Infantry command or armor command.

Meaning a player who chooses an armored command must field at least 3 armor platoons (switch INF with armor and armor w infantry  on the force structure table).
- A player who has a mech Infantry command must field at least 3 infantry platoons .  In a sense you are switching tanks and infantry in the force structure but it would look and feel right for a modern battlefield. A: This is what I am doing for WWII, also, altho I was going to start with the switch of armor and infantry, then roll the force up.
- Mechanized infantry become 2 units when dismounted and may not rejoin their carriers.  The carriers become a light armor unit and the inf are dismounts just like the ww2 rules. A: sounds good.

- Radio net. ANY Israeli units may call for fire.  Don't need designated spotter for off board arty. A: Roger

- Arab units can call on a shed load of artillery (18-gun battalions, and lots of them.  Arab artillery was bigger caliber than Israeli in 1967, but not very responsive or accurate.  Arabs fielded ww2 Soviet 122mm and 152mm guns.  Israeli fielded 105mm guns and 25 lbers.

A: So give the Arabs a lower priority for guns to arrive, but if they show up they are “very heavy” as opposed to just “heavy”? Or just more of them? From what I understand of gunnery, the weight of the shell isn’t the only factor in how hard they hit, it has to do with how many rounds they put down, etc., right?

One possibility would be to have all Mortars go “UP” one hit number [for standard medium mortars, 75mm field guns, etc]. Then Artillery in the 100+ category would be where the Hit numbers are now, and heavy guns would get the bonus die. What do you think?

S: Arabs are soviet artillery in almost all respects.  Same guns same emphasis on pre planning and same poor response time.  In terms of advantages, yes their calibers are bigger, but they have a hard time coordinating and massing guns "on the fly" like a western army.  I like your suggestion for artillery.  My thoughts are similar:    artillery coordination roll is 4+ or even 5+ but the hit numbers are 3+ if youre lucky enough to get the big guns off table.  Personally soviet styled armies love mortars so id keep the mortar values the same.
Tank movement is d6+6 for all sides owed to better engines wide tracks. A:   possible.

Infantry have auto rifles like AK47 and FN FAL so there should be standard assault rules now.

A: I’m considering making it possible for any infantry, and certain tanks – as long as they really did it.

S: They did. 
Not dramatic changes although the Arabs had huge numerical superiority in tanks that was offset by israeli crew quality, morale, training and of course good gunnery.

A: So the game design question is do the Arabs have bigger game units, or more game units that aren’t as good?

S: More game units that arent as good.

Finally:

S: One characteristic of modern warfare that was noted by the US army observers of the 67 and 73 wars is that it is very very fast.  Units outshoot their onboard ammo quick they run out of gas quick and they sprint and run very fast.  Speeding up mech units might play havoc on the scenarios but if you want it to play out like a modern battle, gear moves fast.  Or at the end of the day yo could just chalk it up to a tank is a tank is a tank.  In which case you could say d6+4.  

A. It would be possible to change nothing, but say that turns represent a shorter amount of time. Therefore instead of speeding up some units [which would affect a lot of the scenarios] you can slow down some Units [which hopefully would affect fewer scenarios] and there has to be a point where the default "slowness" is represented by a fixed standard like leg infantry walking.  

OK, so now you can witness not only two wargame design geniuses at work, but see how one adapts an elegant, straightforward wargame from one period into another similar period. There will definitely be more of this coming, as you can see from my posts on micro-armor preparations!