Category Archives: History

alternative, CLWG, design, games

Invasion of the West – Onside Report

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Invasion of the West was a Cold War turned hot alternative history game that I ran at the March meeting of Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG). 

Having cast around for someone to do a plan for Invasion of the West Mukul volunteered, even though he wasn’t able to turn up on Saturday. Mukul’s plan is at the end of this report along with the umpire briefings, but in essence it was for a pre-emptive chemical strike on 1 British Corps near Hanover followed by a mad dash for Antwerp.

Division of Europe during the Cold War. Blue =...
Division of Europe during the Cold War. Blue = US led NATO, Red = USSR led Warsaw pact. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the day Andy Reeve, John Rutherford, Dave Boundy, Terry Martin and Brian Cameron turned up. Andy and John played the Soviets/Warsaw Pact forces with Dave Boundy as their LU. Terry controlled the NATO forces with Brian joining in when he arrived.

The players weren’t entirely happy with the chemical strike but did it anyway. The results were disappointing as the combat capacity of the NATO forces wasn’t degraded terribly as had been hoped, although the civilian casualties were horrendous. (As a game fudge I deemed that the chemical strike would take a step loss when it hit and also inflict a step loss on any units remaining in the area. Fighting in an afflicted zone would be twice as deadly and all combat factors would be reduced to one). The main game effect of the chemicals was to stiffen the resolve of the German territorial forces to fight.

The Warsaw Pact advance hit the slightly softened NATO forces and punched their way past them with a few casualties. NATO correctly guessed the main axis of Warsaw Pact attack and concentrated their air effort, reserves and logs support on the thrust. In a bloody second day the Warsaw Pact air were swept from the sky. At the same time the West German Northern Corps counter-attacked and inflicted a serious stop to the follow-on forces. The forward Soviet thrust bypassed Hanover and almost reached the Ruhr before being annihilated by a British counter-attack heavily supported by aircraft and LSPs. The West Germans died with the Soviet follow-on force in a bitter slogging match.

Down south all was quiet, relatively speaking. The Czechs having been given no orders decided not to play. NATO forces dug in and fortified their positions waiting to see what happened. In the meantime the all the reserve formations were diverted north. The arrival of the Reforger air-deployed division tipped the balance. Although arguably the lack of activity in the South allowed the LSPs that might have been used there to be used in the North. As my mechanism translates LSP use directly into combat step losses this was disastrous as the forces involved very quickly lost all their offensive combat power.

I was reasonably happy with how the mechanisms worked, although I still have one or two reservations. Given that this was the second outing for the game this doesn’t surprise me. The main thing that I got from it was a few ideas on scenario generation. In the post-game discussion it was reckoned that there was some mileage in a political game set in the final throes of the Soviet Union which would provide the background for a game like this.

A Short Victorious War – Forthcoming Game

Given that everyone there seemed keen on this I intend to try and run an invitation game at the June meeting of CLWG, possibly in John Rutherford’s house. The game will need 15-20 people, which means that I need to go further than CLWG for players. The main teams will be NATO, Warsaw Pact and a few other key states to represent the UN Security Council in a time of crisis. I’ll also need a few umpires as well.

Each team will have 4-5 members which means I need around 15 players, 3 Liaison Umpires, a military umpire and myself as Game Control.

Scenario

The background to the game is that the Soviet Union has realised that its collapse is imminent unless it can do something to relieve its economic position. The choices open are either reform, which has a risk of getting out of hand, foreign aid or a relief from the pressures of the Cold War and the level of funding that the Arms Race requires.

Teams

NATO This will have representatives from Britain, USA, a European state and one of the peripheral members. Their role will be to try and resolve the tension by bringing the Cold War to an end and negotiating market reforms with the Soviet Union and other WP countries.

Warsaw Pact This will have a Soviet Union, East German, Polish & Czech players. They will be looking for ways to relief the economic pressures that they are under.

UN members To bring some sense to things I want to have a few unaligned states to represent the UN and the peaceful influence that it may have on the events. This is likely to have 5 players.

Umpires Each of the three teams will have an LU umpire to advise and also to relay orders to map control. The game will also use the telephone system for communications between teams (although letters and face to face will also be allowed).

This means I need a total of 17 people to play the game. If you are interested, or know anyone who is then please let me know as soon as possible.

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CLWG, design, figure, games, WW2

Chaos, Confusion, Cowardice & Incompetence (C3I) – Onside Report

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One of the things you missed [at February’s CLWG meeting] was C3I which actually turned up and was played in the afternoon (because I always turn up at lunchtime and much prefer twice as many half-day meetings).

Although this was a figure game it was scenery light and what was used was pretty abstract and flat, despite the original scenario being set on a hill. C3I is really a morale-based system for infantry combat which is intended to show how everything goes for a ball of chalk once the shooting starts. The outcomes it produced appeared to be reasonably realistic based on the reading I’ve done on infantry actions.

My aim was to produce a very simple quick system that used morale as its key attribute and would give a realistic result for infantry actions. Most of the psychology of warfare stuff I’ve read (e.g. John Keegan – Face of Battle) suggests that only a small proportion of those in a unit actually cause the battle to be progressed, these few motivate others to do their bit and generally perform well. These individuals are rarely the actual commanders of a force. The first-hand accounts I’ve read of battles in the Falklands back this theory up a little.

I was hoping that I could produce a mechanism that could be used for a number of actions and especially some of the larger company or battalion sized ones. This would mean something quick and easy to run. What I came up with fits onto one A4 sheet in 12 point with space for some of the rationale behind the system, although I need to add a couple of things to it which will probably bump the rationale off the page (and possibly add an umpire page as well).

A couple of the mechanisms need cleaned a bit. Artillery was too devastating (it ought to neutralise totally while being fired but not permanently, this should be easy to fix though). I also need to fix movement in order to make it a bit more consistent, either to speed up the non-tactical movement or to somehow slow down the tactical movement (although in part there is a mechanism that should do this, but the players didn’t try to maintain unit integrity).

Either way I am more or less happy with the system which, with minor modifications, could be used repeatedly. If anyone wants a copy of it I can supply them with a WordPerfect 6.1 document (or a hard-copy if they are coming to a meeting).

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History, Scottish

Cameronians

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This was originally posted on the Command Decision mailing list (now defunct).

The Cameronians, aka Poisoned Dwarfs, were an infantry regiment in the British Army from 1689-1968. The 2ic of my UOTC carried the Regimental Colour in their disbandment parade.

Our RQMS used to tell a story of his worst time on duty was when, in the early 1950s, the Cameronians were taking over a barracks from the Highland Light Infantry (HLI) and he was on the rear party for the HLI. He was assigned to guard the armoury and the Cameronian officer told them that on no account were they to open the armoury for anyone, and if they broke in they were to shoot them.

Colonel Duncan Carter-Campbell and HM Queen El...
Colonel Duncan Carter-Campbell and HM Queen Elizabeth II inspecting the guard of honour of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) during the Queen’s visit to Lanark in June 1953 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The officer then proceeded to issue them with several hundred rounds of belted ammo as well as two magazines worth for their sten guns. Our RQMS and his mates thought the officer was a bit touched and stowed the ammo away as soon as he had gone. (NB ammo isn’t usually kept in the armoury with the weapons).

A few hours later, just after midnight and the closure of the pubs/NAAFI, the guard was woken up by someone banging on the door shouting rather vehemently that they wanted to be let in. The Corporal told him to go away. No effect. In fact several more Cameronians turned up and started banging on the door and pleading either to be let in or to have bayonets passed out to them. When this was refused they started to look for other ways in and surrounded the armoury banging on the door and barred windows. The situation was grim and the guard had no way of getting help.

After the banging on the door got a bit more co-ordinated the guard set up a Vickers Medium Machine Gun facing the door and made loud noises about doing this. The Cameronians finally got the hint and left just as the outside component of the guard turned up threatening to shoot them too.

The only Cameronians left now are a TA Company. (No.4 Company 1/52 Lowland Brigade). Rangers is also probably the right name too as they are all very staunch protestants (but not religiously of course). The Cameronians were originally formed to support William of Orange by fighting against the loyal forces of King James VII in Scotland, their first battle was at Dunkeld in 1689.

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alternative, Ancient, games, History, megagames

AD69 Megagame of the Year of Four Emperors

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The AD69 megagame was held in Eardley School, Streatham on Saturday 14th June 1997.

712px-Vespasianus01_pushkin_edit
“Bust of Emperor Vespasian” Originally uploaded to wikipedia by user:shakko – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

As all historians know, primary sources are often good for giving you an idea of what was going on, but are often biased by the perceptions of the people involved. For megagames this is even more so, since the players will have you believe that they personally triumphed over all the others. AD 69 is particularly prone to this phenomenon. To this end I collected the papers of Glitius Decianus, the Procurator of Belgica after the game. I also collected a number of papers from the ruins of the Senate including some of the letters from Fabius Fabullus the legate of Legio V, Alaudae and Defender of Belgica.

The recovered papers are:

  • About Glitius Decianus
  • The Belgican Treasury accounts showing (the official version of) where all the money went to.
  • Glitius Decianus’ letters to Rome. These give a chronological account to the Imperial Treasury & the Senate of events in the Belgica/Germania region.
  • Other’s letters found on the floor of the Senate after it had been sacked. These give an idea of what the other players were telling the Senate.
  • Fabius Fabullus wrote home to his Mother & Father regularly describing what was going on at the front in Belgica. When the other German Legions marched on Rome he bravely stayed and defended the frontier from the barbarian hordes which attempted to exploit the reduced garrisons. His deeds in defence of the empire should be rembered always…
  • Glitius’ Story. Events during the year A.D. 69 (as represented in the game) as experienced by Glitius Decianus, the Procurator of Belgica. It focuses on the West and tends to ignore all but the most monumentous events in other parts of the Empire.
  • Glitius Decianus’ eventual fate as the paymaster of the German Legions.
A full write up is on my games wiki

 

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CLWG, design, games, Government, History, megagames, Strategy, WW2

Design Session for "The Lion Comes Home" – Onside report

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This CLWG session yesterday was a very loose and rambling affair with myself and three (or perhaps four) others in John Rutherford’s living room.

Despite the great number of digressions I managed to get quite a few useful pointers about structure, level of detail, team composition and, importantly, how much more research I had to do.

With luck the game will appear some time during 1996 for a first showing, but until I’m nearer completion I won’t go as far as putting a date on it. For those potentially interested in playing the probable format is along the lines of:

Start Point – July 1945

The Labour Government has just come to power and the war is continuing against the Japanese. The basic agenda is to

  • get the war ended,
  • demobilise the armed forces,
  • implement their policies to create a welfare state,
  • rebuild Britain,
  • bring order to British occupied areas after the European war,
  • honour commitments to give independence to colonial states and
  • ensure the security of Britain and British interests abroad.

Game turns

Each game turn will represent one year and will last about 30 minutes.

The only mandatory part of the turn will be the setting of the budget for the following turn at the very beginning of the current turn. This will allow for some of the nature of Government Accounting (GA) to show through.

Other events will be conducted as the players feel it necessary – anything missed will be slipped into the next year (or lost completely as appropriate).

Public Opinion

After each event an opinion poll will be conducted and the Government/Opposition ratings given. This should help the Government of the day decide how effective the people think it is and should give an indication to when elections are best held.

Given that the electorate are a fickle lot, and opinion pollsters not necessarily unbiased, the ratings are at best only a general guide to the trend rather than an absolute.

Other feedback will be provided in the form of press cuttings (i.e. as a headline or suitable ‘printbite’ from the editorial). I hope to have a few of these made up before the game and will dish them out as appropriate.

Changes of Government

As our democratic system requires the Government to hold a General Election within at least five years of the last one I expect that there will be at least two elections during the course of the game.

In the event that the Government loses the election then all those holding Ministerial rank will be reshuffled, this may also coincide with the retirement or resignation of senior officials or commissioned officers.

Teams

Cabinet

The main decision making team consisting of the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary (FCO) and Secretary of State for War (WO).

War Office (WO)

Responsible for allocation of manpower, spending the Defence budget and protecting Britain and her interests abroad.

The team will have three players each representing one of the forces, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) will have the casting vote and will be responsible for reporting to the Secretary of State.

Foreign & Colonial Office (FCO)

The FCO will co-ordinate all external relations and dealings with colonies. One of the main sources of information about the local conditions and factions, also the key negotiators with colonial governments in the run-up to independence.

All major decisions will have to be referred to Cabinet through the Foreign Secretary.

The team will comprise the Head of the Diplomatic Service, two senior diplomats and one junior minister (the Colonial Office).

Cabinet Office

A small team looking after the Machinery of Government (MOG) and domestic policy issues.

This team will have as members the head of the Home Civil Service, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury and the PM’s Private Secretary.

Umpires

Apart from myself I expect that three other umpires will be required. Two to keep the War Office and FCO busy with information from afar and one other to deal with domestic issues.

I intend that the information provided to the players will come from three distinct sources, from Diplomatic sources (embassies, experts & espionage), military sources (patrols & photo-reconnaissance) and from news media (print and radio).

These sources may not always agree and may have exclusive coverage of certain events – news media may also be prone to disinformation, political bias or censorship.

Things to tell

As the potential for information overload is very high the majority of colonies will be ignored for a variety of reasons, size, strategic importance/unimportance, lack of conflict, timescale for independence et cetera.

The main thrust of the game will concentrate on not more than half a dozen colonies – probably India, Palestine/Israel (a mandate), Kenya, Malaya and one or two other smaller areas where things could have gone wrong.

I intend to produce a compendium of colonies. This will represent the distilled wisdom of the FCO in the form of:

  • a brief history of the colony,
  • its political/religious/tribal factions
  • faction attitudes to the British, independence, the other factions, communism, and the economy.
  • The economic implications of withdrawal
  • an estimated timetable for establishing a stable native government.
  • The relative strategic importance of each colony
  • projected consequences of its loss for the viability of other colonies.

Although the compendium can be relied on absolutely for history it only represents the belief at the time it was prepared for projected future outcomes and attitudes of factions given are those perceived by local diplomats and colonial civil servants.

Cold War Perspectives

At the start of the game the hot war is still in progress. The Americans have developed the Atomic Bomb, but have not yet used it.

As we depart from history before the Bomb is dropped it may not be, or it could be a bit earlier or later. One major point of focus for the latter part of the game (from around the third turn) is relations with the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

Although I intend to fudge history a little to prevent hindsight from being 20/20 the general attitudes of the superpowers will remain as they are.

One of the drivers of the British decolonisation must be to reduce Defence spending whilst maintaining sufficient forces in Europe to fight World War Three. In the race to go home the government must do its utmost to ensure that none of the colonies fall into communist hands.

This should have a major influence on policy and put a brake on the speed of decolonisation.

Also worth considering is the effect that the cold war has on defence spending. Britain will have to consider its independent nuclear deterrent and the method of its delivery to the target. It will also have to consider the type of conventional forces to be deployed. A list of unit types and costs will be given to the War Office and will be updated as new technology becomes available.

Military Operations

A level of commander competence will be assumed for all military operations. All that the War Office/Cabinet will be expected to provide are

  • rules of engagement,
  • directions for operations (e.g. low intensity counter revolutionary warfare, aggressive patrolling, high profile guarding of government & commercial assets),
  • the level of manpower and any extra funds necessary to conduct operations.

Obviously many of these will be dependent upon the funds and total manpower available to the armed forces. Too many conflicts breaking out in the same year will quickly drain the treasury.

Government Accounting (GA)

GA is a very horrible area to deal with. I intend to produce a simple chart for both expenditure and income.

The income chart will show probable yields for a number of taxes at several rates – these may not fit any economic models anyone has ever studied but should give a reasonable indication for the Chancellor to plan his budget.

The expenditure chart will show Public Spending as a series of categories – some controllable and others immutable. For the controllable areas, Defence, Welfare State and Foreign & Colonial spending a chart will give approximate costs of certain activities, programmes and military units.

This should give the three planning teams a chance to tailor their activities to the funds available. It is my intention to have a laptop available to do the number crunching – a bit out of period but rather necessary given the number of factors that can be altered.

Like real GA there will be no requirement to balance the budget, nor to stick with it if it is insufficient. There is also the contingencies fund to play with as well as the ability to take supplementary estimates during the year. The only constraint that will be applied is that the original budget be delivered at the very start of the previous turn.

The first action in turn 1 (1945) will be a post-election budget setting the turn 2 (1946) budget. This introduces a time lag between setting a budget and starting to work with it of one whole turn, not that far from real GA where the budget is set in the Autumn for the following April.

Mechanisms

I have deliberately not mentioned any mechanisms for two reasons, the first is that they will remain hidden on the day and the second is that I haven’t yet worked them out well enough to explain.

I do have some very useful ideas which were supplied from the design session and I will happily explain them after the event. It is a bit of a cop-out but then we are not necessarily aware of what drives real political events and I would rather keep those playing much in the dark regarding detail of the opinion polls etc. Anyone with a burning curiosity should talk to me about it quietly and I will explain so long as they promise to umpire.

Conclusions

I am aware that I have rambled a bit about what I hope the game will look like and have in its details and mechanisms. This is because I am typing this immediately from memory and a few incoherent, illegible notes the evening after the session.

All this detail is fresh and if not typed now will doubtless be forgotten, hence the stream of consciousness style of narration. Hopefully by the time of the game it will have coalesced into a more coherent whole and the details will all be readily available for my compendium of colonies.

If all goes smoothly I hope to put the first version on at an all day venue sometime in late Spring/early Summer. The game will require around 20 people to run, of which around three or four will have to be umpires.

If you are interested in playing or umpiring then please let me know and I will try and give you plenty of advance warning of the intended date and your probable role.

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games, History

A Young Officer’s Guide to Fighting in Built Up Areas (FIBUA)

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Belgian soldiers during an exercise
Belgian soldiers during an exercise (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I promised that I would do a bit on Fighting In Built-Up Areas (FIBUA) because I thought that I would be able to add one or two bits of my experience to the pool. Because of laziness I thought that I would just provide the following extract from an Aide Memoire I acquired whilst an Officer Cadet.

There is much more from where this comes. Also possible is the section on Counter-Revolutionary Warfare (CRW), the chapter on use of artillery and the ever-useful Close Quarters Battle (“Fix Bayonets!”) chapter useful for those awkward occasions when you wake up to find that you’ve accidentally dug-in in the middle of an enemy position.

Chapter 11 – Fighting in Built Up Areas (FIBUA)

Following lessons learnt in the latter part of WWII where many young officers were killed, maimed, or lost the confidence of their men in house to house fighting it was decided that all officers had to be trained in the techniques of surviving FIBUA with their reputations intact. The following points should always be borne firmly in the front of your mind every time you and your men enter a Built Up Area (BUA).

Entering Buildings

MILES simulation (note the laser emitters atta...
MILES simulation (note the laser emitters attached to the rifles’ barrels, and the laser receptors on the soldiers’ helmets and harnesses). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. Don’t run at a plywood door and then try to open it by giving it a good kick right in the middle. It is highly probable that your foot will go straight through the door. Not only is this uncomfortable it will not inspire confidence in your men. Let your platoon fool do this instead, it will be very good for morale.

2. When someone suggests that you stand atop a ladder while four of your men hold it and run at a first floor window remind them that you cannot adequately control the battle from atop a ladder and that your platoon sergeant would be a better candidate.

3. Don’t go in first, or second, third, fourth or fifth, in fact if possible wait until the building has been declared clear before going anywhere near it. Best of all is to sit a couple of hundred metres back and ask to have the village shelled flat for an hour or so before going in.

4. If you must go into a building avoid using holes anyone else has made – this includes doors and windows, especially doors. Always do it quickly with full auto selected, along with a nervous paranoiac disposition if you can manage it. (It must be stated that this cannot ever be real paranoia because the people in the building will be out to get you.)

5. Avoid windows with wire across them – wire tangles – the less said about this the better.

In the Building

1. Remember to give whoever is in the room you are about to enter the respect they deserve – at least one grenade and the contents of your magazine. This is where plenty of practice at the game “I bet I can empty my magazine faster than you” really pays off.

2. When you’re in a fortified house always remember that your helmet makes your head bigger (or your beret if you’re a Para) and avoid all those beams and ammo-box sangars inside the building. Especially worth remembering if your command post is set up under a table.

3. Whatever you do remember not to brew up with your hexy stove on wooden floorboards! If you need smoke then it’s much more effective to pop a signal grenade.

4. Keep all your smoke grenades inside your jacket, or at least securely taped up with the pins bent. Smoke indoors is an absolute bitch and the little buggers tend to catch on doorways, wire, etc and go off. If they do you need to wear a respirator or get out fast, neither is to be recommended.

5. When the building is safe stay in it, any excuse will do – local defence, protecting a flank, establishing an OP, setting up a Command Post, organising resupply, guarding prisoners, treating the wounded. All good officers should be able to think up something original and appropriate in order to let their men carry on without them. Besides, everyone knows what soldiers think of their officers and they would far rather they weren’t there. If all else fails a simple “Well done Sergeant – Carry on” will do the trick. It’s worked for generations, there is no reason why it should fail now for you. (Possible exception here being lack of intelligence on the part of Paras requiring their officers to actually lead them and thus risk their lives. Not a recommended course of action – but then anyone foolish enough to leave a perfectly serviceable aeroplane when it isn’t on the ground must be rather suspect.)

Leaving the Building

fibua1. Avoid if possible, if not use the back door. This is the only circumstance in which you should lead from the front. Make sure that you have identified some good cover within five metres or so of the door or window you intend to leave from. Once you have get up and run as fast as you can and dive for the cover rolling into it to present the smallest possible target. This will undoubtably have alerted the enemy and any poor sod that follows you will almost certainly get shot at, the more that follow you the higher their chance of being hit. Hence the advisability of leaving first.

2. When making your mad, frantic dash for cover remember that bushes can conceal barbed wire. Also watch out for loose cartridge cases, they tend to be very destabilising on concrete/roads. Going arse over tit will not do your reputation much good.

3. Remember to take all your kit with you, and tie it down so that you don’t lose it on the way out either. It can be rather frustrating to find that you have left your hip-flask behind, and one does not want to have to risk one’s life more than is necessary. If you leave something behind send a soldier back for it – they are expendable, you are not.

Being Outside

1. Don’t do it – unless you’re a few hundred metres back and have access to artillery. If you do then you can have some good fun – especially if you mix White Phosphorous (WP) with delay High Explosive (HE). The WP sets the buildings on fire and the delay either explodes inside them or weakens/collapses drains and cellars. It should be borne in mind that using WP for anti-personnel or incendiary purposes is against the Geneva Convention.

2. If you must be outside get in cover. Nowhere is truly open and if you can’t find cover you’re not scared enough. Puddles always lie in low ground. Gutters provide decent cover if you are being mortared or shelled, but bugger-all if it’s a sniper. Cars are okay, but most high-velocity rounds will go straight through them – although they’ll stop 9mm quite happily (at least on the way out). As high-velocity rounds go there is not much you can hide behind – an old fashioned stone built wall or building is your best bet. If it’s a fifty calibre machine-gun don’t bother hiding, just pray that he’s a lousy shot and none of the rounds come anywhere near you.

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