Showing posts with label Wargames. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wargames. Show all posts

Monday, July 16, 2018

REPOST: What if they gave a war and nobody came?

This blog has been around for a while. Some of the posts were and are more popular than others. It would be a pity for some of the new readers not to get a chance to read those posts. In that spirit, time by time, I'm going to be re-posting some of the oldies. Be advised, some of them are quite old and may contain inaccuracies, grammar and spelling errors.

I learnt the names of every wood and all the villages, I knew the contours of the hills and the shapes of the lakes in the valley. To see so much and to see nothing. We might have been the only men alive, my two signalers and I. And yet I knew there were thousands of hidden men in front of me ... but no one moved, and everyone was waiting for the safety of darkness.

P. J. Campbell. British artillery officer during World War I.

After 40 minutes of Combat Mission PBEM simulated combat against my friend Olav, I feel the quote above puts it very well.

This is all I knew about the enemy during good part of the battle. Red question marks are suspected enemy positions. The absence of enemy icons reflects that no contact has been made. Click the image for an expanded view.

The modern battlefield is a very empty one.

Cheers,

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Air Assault Task Force - Mini Thunder Run

The game: Air Assault Task Force
The scenario: a US Cavalry company reinforced with engineer assets is pushing into Baghdad and trying to spoil an ongoing Iraqi Army withdrawal.
What I want to share: fire and maneuver while on the run with a platoon of M1A2 Abrams tanks.

Click the image for an expanded view. The graphics are a bit dated (this scenario is quite old), but you have to give it to me that ProSimCo games rock when it comes to immersive military command decision making. The white slashed areas are urban terrain of different densities. Our axis of attack (Warrior) is a nightmare: obstacles (not depicted since I don't know where they are) and AT missile ambushes along the roads (white lines) leading to the bridge south of objective Fox.
Click the image for a better view. Black grids on the map are squares of 1 km.  Our order of battle is shown in the right pane of the user interface. I'm going to advance towards phase line Falaise with the First Platoon (4 M1A2 Abrams) up front and the Second Platoon (4 M2A2 Bradleys) in a follow and assume posture/mission. I'm going to avoid the main road on axis Warrior because it is likely that the AT missiles are aimed directly to them. The edge of the urban terrain south-west of the main road is particularly good for AT positions and I plan to clean it up with the tank platoon.

I know, I know ... urban terrain and tanks do not mix well. But I'm claiming extreme time constrains. An infantry platoon with a "clear" order would take no less than two hours to clear that amount of terrain.

Click the image for an expanded view. First Platoon is in the center of the map, just a few hundred meters before entering the hot zone. The First Platoon will move northeast but keeping itself southwest of the axis Warrior. Selecting a "staggered column" formation for this platoon would result in each individual tank too separated from each other and this would generate mutual support issues.
Click the image for an expanded view. To make sure each tank can support by fire the rest of the platoon I select "none" as the formation and drag the tanks very close to each other.
Click the image for an expanded view. The First Platoon is selected (note the green squares/outlines on each icon in the map) and ready to move (the little green arrows are the waypoints for the Platoon). Most important: the "suppress" order (blue cross with a surrounding green circle): whatever hostile unit is detected within that circle will be fired upon by the tanks. 
Suppression is the name of this game, folks!

Click the image for an expanded view. We made contact right away. The range is close and murderous. In the screen above, the Platoon fires and suppress the enemy position. Note the "S" marker, for suppressed. 
Click the image for an expanded view. I had to move the Platoon really close to identify the enemy position. Now with the unit identified, I can issue a "TRP" order to the platoon so they use their fires to destroy the enemy unit. This AT-5 team, if un-suppressed, would kick our asses from 3 kilometers away. So watch it.

The first AT-5 team is destroyed and I move my units right away. Very important: re-issue a "suppress" order in front of the First Platoon, so they fire away against any hostiles they find on their way.

Click the image for a better view. We are moving and kicking butt. The red "X"s are enemy AT-5 positions destroyed. In the screen shot above, the First Platoon has just encountered another one and I'm issuing a TRP order. It's quite a pleasure to hear the sound of the main guns blasting the enemy position at point blank range.

Click the image for an expanded view. The First Platoon (red and white flag with a number 1) has cleared 3 km worth of AT ambushes (7 of them, marked as red "X"s in the map) and stops short of phase line Falaise. Unfortunately, we lost a tank right at the end (blue "X" in the map) of the run. 
Cheers,

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Squad Battles Moder War - The Taliban Who Wouldn't Die

The Game: Squad Battles Modern War
The Scenario: Dahaneh (Scenario A)
The Mission: An un-supported heliborne insertion to investigate a suspected Taliban compound. Forces available are one US Marines Rifle Platoon plus a US Marines Weapons Platoon (-). No indirect fire support, no close air support available. Forces to be inserted with three CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters armed with .50 cals. Time available for the mission is one hour of simulated time or 12 turns.
What's up? An assault on a single sniper position by a US Marine squad came at the expense of one grunt.

Enough to make nervous even the toughest Marine, this mission has a lot to comment about and learn from. Just to mention two:

  1. Unsecured, non-prepped by fire helicopter landing zones. During the Russo-Afghan War, the Russians developed a knack for surprise heliborne insertions damn close to suspected enemy held towns. Many times the surprise turned out to be that the Mujahideen were ready and waiting in ambush. In this scenario, given the lack of reasonable fire support and the meager forces available, I had to land just 200 meters outside Dahaneh because landing away from the town and thus approaching through the open ground would be time consuming and the enemy would be on alert by the time we set up a scheme of fire and maneuver.
  2. The slugfest of advancing through built up areas.  How demanding on time, sweat and blood urban combat is. We landed in the southeast corner of our sector and quickly moved west to gain a foothold within the protection of the built-up area. Plan was then to gain our way north, advancing in a left-leaning wedge to provide some sort of support on our west flank.


Please click the image for an expanded view. Blue lines and icons were added with MilSketch. The objectives are marked with brown squares containing a number (victory points) within them. The landing has begun. Note the northmost helicopter icon with a white bar in its bottom: the helicopter is in the ground now.
And early on during our advance towards the compound, a pesky Taliban sniper that took a whole ten minutes to pin down before assaulting his position.

Please click the image for an expanded view. The orange icon near the Marines is a single Taliban sniper. In this screenshot I'm choosing the right ammunition to suppress this guy ... Even after fires from three US Marines squads, the Taliban wouldn't get suppressed and continued to fire.

Please click the image for an expanded view. After pinning down the Taliban sniper, a Marines squad assaults his position (hex highlighted red). Unfortunately one of them fell during the action (numbers in the highlighted hex indicate losses: 1 attacker, one defender). 
Assaults in the Squad Battles series is one of those things I never got a good hold on. Maybe I should have assaulted with two squads?

We just started the fight, and we have only 30 minutes left for the whole mission!

Cheers,

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Gary Grigsby's War in the East - AAR(eview) - Pskov and Beyond

This is an AAR of an scenario of the game Gary Grigsby's War in the East. I have included some comments and screenshots as a supplement of a review that will be published in the near future.


Continuing from the previous entry, 4th PzGrp has advanced towards the Western Dvina. It is still well within reach of the supply network, but as I mentioned before the bulk of the supplies are distributed from a rail head and the supply issue needs to be thought of from early on. The Russian rail lines had a different gauge than the ones in Western Europe and need to be converted. This task is accomplished by construction units like the one shown below.


Outlined fucsia in the map, a construction unit that can convert railroad lines into the Western gauge. To convert railroads, the user has to click on the acronym RRC (railroad conversion) in the right panel. 
The status of the railroad lines is visualized by clicking F2.
The railroad map overlay. Green icons indicate usable railroad and red icons indicate ... you know. In the previous turn, a construction unit has converted a total of 3 hexes from the border (yellow dotted line in the map). Note the shading of the hexes: clear for areas where supplies can be delivered directly from the rail head, shaded grey for areas where a subordinate unit will have to pull supplies from a HQ unit and red for areas where supplies can't be delivered because they are under enemy control. 


During the second week of operations, 4th PzGrp routs the Russian paratroopers near the rail road crossing on the Western Dvina and upon crossing the river splits its lines of operations in two: (i) the decisive operation/main thrust by the XLI Pz Corp pushing northeast towards Pskov and (ii) a shaping operation/secondary envelopment move by LVI Pz Corp towards Riga to cut off Russian troops withdrawing in the northeast direction.


Despite a lightning advance by the 8th PzDiv, which arrives at Riga virtually unopposed, the envelopment by LVI Pz Corps ends up being a fiasco. With just two divisions separated along the Western Dvina, the LVI Pz Corps fails to even spot retreating or routing Russian troops. As in real life, achieving an hermetically closed kesselschlacht in the game is extremely difficult.


XLI Pz Corps is having troubles of its own. The spearhead of the XLI Corps is the 6th Pz. Div. and is just 50 miles short of Pskov. The advance of XLI Corps has bought us some 200 miles worth of unprotected flanks and this is something that I don't take lightly. To cover the extended flanks of XLI Corps I experimented with splitting the 36th Mot. Div. and the 1st Pz. Div. into three regiments each. This is done by selecting the unit and then clicking the "b" (for breakdown into smaller units). Each division was split into three equal regiments that I later reinforced with support units from the XLI Corps HQ.


Splitting the 1st Pz. Div. into three regiments.
At the end of the second week of operations the situation looks like shown below.


Situation after two weeks of operations. Yellow graphics were added with an image editing software. The shape of the yellow lines do not reflect the in-game orientation of the units (the game engine does not feature unit's facing) but rather the intended path of movement or the direction of future combat operations. 9th Army had it's share of combat south of Riga and now is advancing towards the city. 16th Army is slogging through difficult terrain, it will be difficult to catch up with 4th Pz. Grp. and protect its eastern flank.


Following the fruitless dispersion of forces during the previous week, I intend to consolidate the lines of operation of 4th Pz. Grp. for an assault on Pskov. This regrouping of the 4th Pz. Grp took one whole week. The Russians appear to be converging towards Pskov from the east and northeast.


Situation at the start of week 5. Yellow graphics were added with an image editing software. 9th Army is past Riga advancing north. 4th Pz Grp is approaching Pskov in a very wide front.


The relatively wide deployment of the Russians near Pskov means that if I concentrate 4th Pz. Grp. for a final assault on the city, I will be leaving this formation vulnerable to outflanking and envelopment by the Russians. I hope that a successful assault on Pskov will shock the Russians enough to force them to move northeast.


Pskov must fall. Stacked in a couple of hexes, the best combat units of 4th Pz. Grp. get ready for an all-out on Pskov. Note the Russian infantry units on our east flank: not a pretty sight.
Pskov has fallen and our right flank is clear now. The Russians likely withdrew northeast or moved north of Pskov to put a plug into our advance. 


We are now clear to consolidate Pskov as a base of supplies and combat operations and bring up the whole Army Group North for an attack on Leningrad.




Lines of operation for the second phase. Note Luftflotte 1: although I moved all of its assets north weeks before, it is time now to move it again closer to the battle lines.


16th Army's slow advance through that marshy terrain slows down the whole Army Group plans. The prospect of battling in the woods north of Pskov with the 4th Pz. Grp. made me anxious at the beginning but the Pz. Divs. are so powerful that manage to rout and push back every Russian formation in their path of advance. This heavy combat came at a price, though: time. I arrive at the end of the scenario (10 turns/weeks) with my eyes on Leningrad, but my men and tanks not quite ready yet to break through the formidable defenses in front of the city. 


Final situation: not quite ready for the final push. Image is clickeable. 
This concludes the AAR. The purpose was not show operational savviness but rather some of War in the East's features and gameplay. Stay tuned for a review of this game.


Cheers, 

Monday, January 3, 2011

Gary Grigsby's War in the East - AAR(eview) - To the Western Dvina!

This is an AAR of an scenario of the game Gary Grigsby's War in the East. I have included some comments and screenshots as a supplement of a review that will be published by the end of this week.



Continuing from the previous entry, welcome back to the line of departure of Army Group North. A short refresher of the plan of operations follows.
Please click the image for a more detailed view.
The most pivotal event in the next one or two weeks (truly hoping one week!), will be the 4th Panzer Group (4th PzGrp) securing a railroad crossing over the Western Dvina river in order to establish a future railroad supply line that will reach Pskov. Upon crossing the Western Dvina river, a detachment of 4th PzGrp will pivot northwest to encircle Russian forces south of the river. 18th Army is to push northeast in the direction of Riga and destroy Russian forces trapped south of the Western Dvina River. 16th Army is to advance in the general direction of Velikie Luki through the fortified city of Kaunas.


The next screenshot offers a close up of the area of operations just beyond the line of departure of the Army Group North. The yellow arrows were added with an image processing software.




To truly enjoy this game, I suggest you keep your order of battle in mind. Depending on which side you are playing and the time period of the scenario, your operational "atom" formation (smallest formation to be tasked with a mission within the operational realm) is the Corps (German side) or the Army (Russian side). Keep these formations together and task them with missions that are coherent with the ones of Armies, Fronts or Army Groups. Careless "counter pushing" will most likely lead you to failure. Just a reminder, in the game, units belonging to the same army have the same color. Purple for the 9th Army, fucsia for the 4th PzGrp and pink for the 16th Army. In the image above, the yellow arrows represent the planned axis of advance for every army. Note how the 4th PzGrp axis of advance coincides with a railroad line that runs west-east towards the Western Dvina river (AKA Daugava river). Railroads play a crucial role in this game as they transport the bulk of supplies, ammo and fuel needed for your operations. So, you better have railroads thought of when you make plans.

The hour of battle has come, let's wake the Juggernaut!


In the game, attacking is a simple matter of selecting the attacking unit(s) and left clicking in an adjacent enemy unit. There are two types of attack: hasty and deliberate (you have to hold the shift key besides the right mouse click to activate it). Your unit(s) in a hasty attack will use only a fraction of its/their assets, but its/their mobility after the attack will be bigger than after a deliberate attack in which all the unit(s) assets will be used. In the image below, all infantry divisions in the I Corps/16th Army (12th, 32nd and 121st Inf Div.) are conducting a hasty attack on a hapless Russian infantry division. The decision of conducting a hasty or deliberate attack is upon your shoulders and you should consider the defending forces, their fortification levels and the terrain. More or less, the borders battles are a cakewalk and the Russian defenders retreat, rout or surrender in mass. So all my attacks on the border were hasty. And successful. 


I Corps, 16th Army hasty attack. Note the circular icon over the defending unit.
The tactical battle results are shown in an overlay that automatically appears on the screen. In the image below, units from the 4th PzGrp have started their hasty attacks.


4th PzGrp units start rolling. The black and red lines indicate air support. The green line represents the route of enemy airplanes arriving to the battlefield. Click the image for an expanded view.
Note the details in the battle report. At this moment, the battle is still unfolding (Ju-88s are bombing the Russian 5th Rifle Division).  In the left panel of the battle report there is a list of the friendly forces engaged. Besides the aircraft (dude! do we really need 100+ Bf109 fighters?) there is one land unit that came from the Corps HQ to support the attack (846th Howitzer Bn). This automatic assignment of combat support units from HQ units is tunable (your can adjust the level of support a HQ unit gives away) and can be turned off if you want to manually assign combat support units to specific combat units. This lack of counters for combat support units is really convenient as it takes away from the player the tedious task of moving additional counters and (as seen in other games) the shock of seeing an enemy division overrun that artillery battalion somebody forgot to move out of harms way. But, keep in mind that HQ units will provide combat support units only in proximity of the subordinate combat units (within a distance of 5 hexes). That's why, I insist, you need to watch for your forces' deployment carefully.


And before we continue rolling up the frontier defenses one more word about air support and the air war in general. The air warfare aspect of the game is handled almost automatically. There is a an "air doctrine" page in the game in which you can specify how much of your assets will be devoted to ground combat support, enemy airbases and cities bombing, interdiction escorting, and air superiority.
The air campaign is for the most part in the hands of the computer.
Air bases and air fleets have their own counters, which you should move up close to the front line as your land forces advance because your airplanes eventually will not be able to reach their targets (this is a big country!). Individual, user-driven by "click on target" aerial operations are also available: air recon (F5 key), bomb a specific unit (F6 key), bomb a specific airfield (F7 key), bomb a specific city (F7 key), aerial resupply of a friendly unit (F8 key) and transfer of air groups between air units (F9 key). Be advised that in the middle of your ground combat operations is very easy to loose track of how many aircraft you have ready (they may have used up all their available miles per turn) at a certain point. I myself cringed in frustration when I found out there were no more aircraft available to bomb a specific Russian division entrenched in a swamp. I'm sure there has to be a screen with that information consolidated, but I just couldn't find it.


By a series of front-wide hasty attacks with units from all my armies, the front is ruptured and the flood gates are open for my troops. Time to move on those boots, wheels and tracks! 


This is a turn based (IGOYOUGO) game with turns that simulate one week of operations. It also uses hexes that represent 10 miles of terrain.
Military geography. Click the image for an expanded view.
In a pretty much standard way, every unit in the game has a movement points allowance per turn.
These movement points are specified in the right side number at each unit counter.
This is the counter of a German infantry division. It has a total of 16 movement points. The number in the left is the total combat power of the unit.

For comparison purposes, this is the counter of a German panzer division. It has a total of 50 movement points. The number in the left is the total combat power of the unit.
The previous counter images are intended to give an idea about the mobility and firepower these two types of combat units have. Each unit will loose movement points as they move through different types of terrain or hexes that are enemy-controlled. All of these mechanics and design are pretty much standard in turn/hexagon based war games. The question is: how it works for a theater of war like Barbarossa?


In the screenshot below, the 6th Panzer Division (XLI Corps, 4th PzGrp) is attacking a Russian infantry division. Through a combination of combat (combat uses movement points) and movement (of course movement uses movement points, meh!), the 6th Panzer Division has advanced some 70 miles from the line of departure and still has 31 movement points (out of 50) left. Lots of punch left in this unit and in my opinion this kind of in-game mobility simulates the real life one pretty well.


Click the image for a better view. The 6th Panzer Division (highlighted yellow) is halfway towards its objective. Note the advance of 18th Army (purple counters) and how the 16th Army is knocking the door of Kaunas.
At the end of the week the 4th PzGrp has succeeded in brushing aside any opposition found on its route but failed in securing a crossing over the Western Dvina river (Daugava river). The railroad crossing appears to be defended by an airborne brigade. 16th Army has advanced some 40 miles after the initial break-through attacks and now has to conduct a cross-river assault into the fortified city of Kaunas. 19th Army has eliminated or routed all units it faced in the border and now is slowing its pace despite the clear terrain ahead: note the Russian armored division on its right flank.


End of first week of operations.
To be continued. Stay tuned. 

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Gary Grigsby's War in the East - AAR(eview) - Setting the Stage

This is an AAR of an scenario of the game Gary Grigsby's War in the East. I have included some comments and screenshots as a supplement of a review that will be published next week.

This is an hex and turn-based wargame with complex inner workings that becomes surprisingly approachable thanks to a well-thought and intuitive interface. There is no way around to the massiveness of it though, and it is recommended elsewhere that you cut your teeth on scenarios smaller than the "big one" that covers the whole war. I followed that advice and I can speak of cutting teeth but also of breaking molars while trying to chew Russian Armies in vast expanses of territory. Emphasis on fighting the Russians and not the game, which is good news.

You may need to click the image to read the text. The scenario I chose is "Road to Leningrad"
Army Group North was the least powerful formation of Operation Barbarossa. With two infantry armies and one so-called "Panzer Group" (by this time emotions ran high in the Wehrmacht against dignifying tank formations, no matter how big, with the "Army" name), this formation had so many valuable strategic targets within its area of operations that the original Hitler's plan (Directive No.21,  18 December 1940) specifically instructed that, after dealing with Russian forces in Belarus, Army Group Center would pivot north leaving Moscow un-touched and support Army Group North until Leningrad is captured. This north-bound pivot of Army Group Center was later slashed in a new directive, but Army Group North was still left with strategic objectives including the Russian Baltic Fleet bases, a sizeable amount of Russian Air Force bases and the Bolshevic-boss-city Leningrad.

All the above objectives would be worth if I would be playing the big scenario covering the whole war. However, this is a small subset of the start of the war and the scenario designer has made his picks. In the screen below, the scenario objectives are labeled with flags. In the game the map can be zoomed in or out with the mouse wheel.

The game features four zoom levels that can switched with the mouse wheel. The level of detail and area covered by each zoom level is more than adequate to plan an operation. Note the grey-shaded hexagons: they mark areas not reachable for the current scenario. 
 This is a game that simulates the biggest military campaign in history. Being put at the helm of it may be shocking to the beginner and one of my concerns was how accessible would be to grasp your own order of battle. First thing I liked: color-coding by armies (every unit of the same army has a unique color in its icon), as this helps to visualize your troops deployment. Once you click a unit icon, a side bar appears (it will include also other units located in the same terrain hexagon) showing more details about that unit. The icons in the side bar can be right-clicked to deliver even more information about the unit. In the image below, I clicked on the 6th Panzer Division on the map, then on the side bar and once I saw the info screen for the division I clicked on a specific type of equipment. Bam! Information about any type of individual equipment. I told you, the level of detail of this game is deep.

Although not unique to this game, clickeable informational panels and windows are a great asset. In this animation, I went from visualizing a whole army group deployment through the armor details of a single type of tank in just three clicks. 
But don't panic, the deep level of detail of this game doesn't mean that you will have to think or manually address issues like the correct size of sprockets for the threads of your tanks. More on this later when we deal with supplies.

Coming back to the order of battle, the game also features a traditional informational window that allows you to see your armies in a single page. The text on these windows is also clickeable.

You may need to click this image to read the text. von Leeb's forces, ready for action.
I'm a very visual type of fellow, and I prefer to grasp the organization of my forces on the map. This game features a color-coded highlighting system that may take some time to get acquainted with. In the image below I clicked on the 11th Infantry Division (highlighted  purple in the map) and immediately all command-chain-wise related units were also highlighted. The 11th Infantry Division's boss is I Corps, which was highlighted orange. The 11th Infantry Division's sister formations (also under the command of I Corps) were highlighted yellow. Very convenient, but I have to admit this highlighting system took me some time to assimilate.

Who is your boss, schutzen?
Almost ready to move onto the Baltic States? Not so fast, commander! What's the enemy intel?

This is an area where the game surprised me good and bad. Fog of war is affected by the so-called "detection levels" of every specific unit. The higher the "detection level" the easier the unit will be detected. The "detection level" of a unit is computed by its distance to the enemy and covering terrain. Although it is not stated in the manual, I have the suspicion that the composition of the unit also affects its "detection level" because I usually can see more armored units than infantry units behind the fence of  the forward line of troops. Units with high "detection levels" are more likely to be plotted in the map compared with units with lower ones. I'm not so thrilled about the AI not being held to the same fog of war restrictions than me: according to the manual, the AI "knows" every hexagon in the map as having enemy troops or not with the only restriction being not knowing the enemy unit's arm or strength unless the enemy unit has a "detection level" that warrants such knowledge. This computer opponent design will surely raise some eyebrows and I'm anxious to see how it works overall.

Let's do some operational reconnaissance with our luxurious air assets. F5 is the key to switch your cursor into the aerial reconnaissance mode. Once the air reconnaissance mode is activated, one has to right click on the location/hexagon of interest. The game engine handles the specific aircrafts and squadrons from which your pilots will fly the mission and the enemy units spotted will be plotted in the map according to their "detection levels". In general, the beauty of the intel gathered lies in the eye of the officer as you will have to deduce what the AI is up to. In my experience, every time I spot an enemy headquarters unit by aerial reconnaissance makes me want a sound mod that says "bingo!" because the AI tends to keep its ducks in a row (i.e. a properly echeloned formation).

Click the image for an expanded view. The blue, white and red icon in the center of the screen represents an aerial recon mission. Note the Russian HQ units (brown icons): the farther they are from the front line, the more likely they are higher in rank.

Armed with dubious information it is time now to think of a plan that brings certain victory to our forces. Such is the life of the S2 and S3 officers, ain't it?

Let's talk a bit about operational art. For an army that had not a single paragraph in its military doctrine about operational art (as we know it today), it is somewhat ironic that the Wehrmacht cleaned up western Europe during 1939 and 1940 with sharp, clean and decisive ... Ummmm ... Master pieces of operational art (?!). At the onset of WWII, the German Army believed in one thing and one thing only: the battle of annihilation. Not that they didn't believe in it before, this belief comes from times as far as the times of Frederick the Great. Kurz und vives (short and lively), the warrior king used to say about his preferred way of waging wars. Germany could never afford to wage long wars and thus the need to destroy the enemy in a short and decisive battle. To achieve a battle of annihilation, Moltke was very influential with his belief in encirclement by troops moving fast towards the enemy's rear, supplemented with forward pressure by front line troops. The enemy would then be forced to fight a battle with a reversed front. To keep my game in tune with the historical counterpart, playing as the Germans I will try to keep a strong focus in the destruction of the enemy.

Invading Russia is like entering a funnel through its narrow extreme. At the line of departure you are squeezing your forces to enter the fight and some 80 miles later you are diluting your troop density beyond recognition. It is hard to encircle anything with one regiment every other 20 miles or so. But in this particular scenario I have the benefit of a closed flank (the Baltic Sea) and only one encircling pincer arm is needed. Based on the intel I could gather so far, south of the Dvina River-Riga line I am facing at least two Soviet Armies and I will try to destroy them before moving to where most of the Soviet forces are likely to be: defending Leningrad.

Click the image for an expanded view. Plan for the initial operations in Army Group North's sector.
It will be impossible to sustain an offensive at Leningrad without controlling the forests and establishing a good supply chain near Pskov. Gaining control of the city of Pskov will mark the first phase of the operation. I will spearhead with the 4th PzGrp moving in the general direction of Pskov. One of the two corps of 4th PzGrp will be pivoting northwest as to cut off the Soviets retreat from the regions south of the Dvina river-Riga line. 18th Army will keep pressing the Russians in the general direction of Riga and 16th Army will cover the 4th PzGrp's right flank Only God knows what the situation will be after we establish a foothold a Pskov, and only after that I am willing to formulate a plan for the follow up operations.

In the next installment, the start of the offensive.

Cheers,

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Gary Grigsby's War in the East - Shaping Operations Against the AI, Intentional and Not

I was playing as the Germans in the "Road to Leningrad" scenario of Gary Grigsby's War in the East and after enjoying the breakthrough cakewalk (should we call it "breakthrough"?) things start to get interesting once I sink the threads of my panzers in the hugeness of the theater of operations.

Under my command, Army Group North, the least powerful of all German army groups at the onset of the Russo-German War. Our objective is to capture Leningrad. Army Group North is composed of two Armies (16th and 18th, infantry), and the 4th Panzer Group (4th PzGrp, armored). The schwerpunkt for the first part of this operation is the 4th PzGrp, which will conduct a deep penetration to capture the intermediate objective Pskov, some 230+ miles beyond the start line. Because Army Group North as a whole has very limited operational mobility (too much infantry), the 4th PzGrp will capture and pause at Pskov and this city will be the springboard for the final Army Group North's attack on Leningrad.

4th PzGrp cut through the Soviets like a knife, crossed the Daugava river and now is preparing to capture Pskov.

Click the image for a better view. With the infantry hundreds of miles behind, the 4th PzGrp approaches Pskov through the east (LVI Pz. Corps) and the south (XXXXI Pz. Corps).  I wanted to approach Pskov with XXXXI Pz. Corps moving west of the Velikaya river, but as seen here, but the 6thPzDiv (outlined fucsia) has bumped into two Soviet infantry divisions. 
Click the image for a better view. Annoyed at the perspective of conducting an corps-sized attack across a river, I instead move the XXXXI PzCorp (counters outlined fucsia and yellow) towards Pskov but east of the Velikaya river (black arrow was added with an image editing software).

Click the image for a better view. Following my XXXXI Pz Corps move north, the two Soviet infantry divisions moved out. Their move was not east because the Totenkopf Motorized Division (counter highlighted fucsia) has moved through that terrain (black arrow) and didn't find them. It is likely that at least one of the Soviet infantry divisions has moved to reinforce Pskov.

Pskov fell during the week of July 10, 1941 amid substantial loss of lives and equipment. It was not wise to attack the city from a single direction and across a river. But the war gamer here is happy to see the AI in this game reacting in this way to his moves. In other opportunities I've noticed also that the AI tends to retreat when there is a threat of encirclement. Besides of an interesting opponent, the AI in War in the East offers the solo player the possibility to conduct the so-called "decisive" and "shaping" operations.

Cheers,

Gary Grigsby's War in the East - Screenshots


I finally got to try War in the East, the monster Eastern Front from 2by3 Games and published by Matrix Games.

War in the East is massive in both scale and depth. It feels like you could be playing this game for a whole year and yet find something new. There are some game design features that I am liking, like a not so restrictive fog of war that is adequate for an operational level war game, the detailed but easy to manage logistics and the flexibility to reorganize/shuffle formations.

I was a bit reluctant about how a 2 weeks turn would work (it sounded a bit too long), but all the game mechanics seem to be finely tuned for a 2 week pulse of action. EDIT: Turns are one week. Thanks anonymous for the correction.

Not so enthused about the general feel of working in the map (it feels a bit clunky) and the on-map highlighting  of formations above the corps level.

Images below are clickeable.








Cheers,

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Panzer Campaigns Kharkov 43 - Keep the Infantry Moving

Operational and strategic mobility is are usually bound to the road network.

In PzC's Kharkov 43, the winter weather conditions are forcing me to conduct a good portion of the tactical maneuvers near the roads. In particular, infantry. Not that they can't move through the open ... It's just too taxiing for them to do so.

This company from the 320th Inf. Div. will be walking roads until it makes contact. The highlighted hexes are the reachable ones. Note how mobility is double if the grunts keep their feet in the road. Any movement aside the road will reduce their mobility to half. From the "Gross Deutschland leads the way" scenario.
Cheers,

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Clash of Armor - Battlefield Academy AAR by MikeAP

One of the best things of blogging is getting e-mails from people who read your blog. Mike A. P. (savvy wargamer/active duty Capt. in the U.S. Army) and I have exchanged e-mails from some time and I always enjoy discussing wargames, simulations and whatnot with him. Mike has written this fantastic AAR and was kind enough to let me share it with you. Battlefield Academy was recently released by Matrix/Slitherine games and is receiving great critique from both casual and hardcore wargaming venues. Without further ado ... Mike and his tanks in the Bulge.



Battlefield Academy
Clash of Armor
By MikeAP

This was my first multiplayer experience with Battlefield Academy and the good spirit that I am, decided that I would enjoy it much more if I actually won it. Keeping that in mind, I decided to approach the game like I would a real life situation, through the painful process of military planning.

For those of you not familiar with Battlefield Academy, it is a World War Two turn based strategy game that combines the realistic combat gameplay of Close Combat with the fun and graphics of Battlefield Heroes. Yes, I just compared a beloved and classic realistic combat-crushing strategy game with a comical first person shooter made by DICE. Before you stop reading this, I can assure you the game is fun and exciting. The graphics are set in a vintage comic book style and the combat is preserved through realistic values based on vehicles, guns ranges, and many more variables.

I thought I’d try my hand at multiplayer; but Battlefield Academy’s multiplayer aspect is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Instead of playing a real time, turn based game, much like Combat Mission, players take their turns, then complete them through the game’s built in module. It’s something sort of like an email sent through your game to your opponent. Your opponent will receive your game, see your turn, make his turn, then return it to you. It sounds complicated, but it’s not. It allows players to take their time, think out their moves, and still have enough time to do the dishes and go shopping with the wife. The only drawback that I observed was that even four or five moves can take nearly a week, depending on you or your opponent’s real life schedule. No biggie.


So here’s the map we’re playing. It is set during the Battle of the Bulge and is called Clash or Armor, which features nothing but US and German tanks. The actual description of this map is ‘leave your infantry behind’. The map is very standard; It has two larger villages on the East and West sides of the map with patches of tree’s and shrub lines throughout it. The US forces start in the upper left hand corner, or for your regular grunts, the Northwest corner. The Germans (my team) will start in the Southeast corner.



As I mentioned, I enjoy a challenge. What I enjoy more than a challenge, is winning a challenge. So I decided to use some of the military planning that Uncle Sam has smashed into my brain. Why not, it worked for Patton, right?

I first look at my map and create something called an Obstacle Overlay. It shows me how limited my movement will be through the area and helps me visualize how this will affect my enemy as well.

I start with the red, or ‘no go’ terrain. The red marks areas that cannot be traversed by my vehicles. The red areas help me understand my maneuver limitations and therefore give me an idea of what my avenues of approach will be (black arrowed lines). From there I work on built up areas (marked in orange). These are areas that will funnel me in, or choke points that I need to be aware of in my advance. Finally, the large K’s that you see on the map represent Key Terrain. Key terrain is defined as areas that greatly benefit the person holding the ground. In this case, I marked key terrain as the major intersections on the map. From these areas you can control the roads and main access in and around the towns. Every mark I make on this map will help me understand my advance toward the enemy and what my limitations will be for maneuver. It will also help me try to understand how the enemy will approach. After all, my opponent is only human and faces the same challenges that I do.




So here’s how I see things going. I’ve identified three major avenues of approach for the enemy. I don’t know what kind of vehicles he has, but I can guess they are similar to what I have: a mix of medium tanks with tank destroyers and reconnaissance vehicles.

In the above plan, I will send recon vehicles forward to establish overwatch on the most likely avenues of approach. I will position my tanks along the flanks of these avenues in order to achieve a flanking shot.
I don’t think the enemy will come along all three avenues, so I will be ready to flex one of my hunter killer teams around the enemy’s flank in order to surround him. Once I’ve identified the enemy’s main effort I can find, fix, and flank them.

Let’s see what happens…




Here’s how things actually went down.

I moved my reconnaissance forces north to establish observation. I was able to establish positions to the west, but the enemy kept me on my feet in the Northeast. I wasn’t able to get very comfortable before the enemy started lobbing 76mm shells at me.

1 – As I set my recon vehicles in, I was immediately engaged by much heavier forces. My Puma vehicles were no match for M18’s and M4 Sherman’s with their 76mm high velocity cannons. My reconnaissance vehicles were immediately destroyed and positions were overrun.

2 – Again, my recon vehicles didn’t have much time to set their positions before being engaged by enemy tanks. I watched my vehicles be destroyed piecemeal, but knew that I had the upper hand because I had understood the enemy’s plan.

3 - I realized that the enemy main effort was approaching from the Northeast. Immediately, I dispatched tanks due north to stop the enemy advance, so I would not be surrounded. Simultaneously, I advanced my forces in the west. My original overwatch reconnaissance turned into a movement to contact, as I attempted to move on the enemy flank.



I sent a Panther, PZIV and Marder III north to stop the enemy advance on the village. It was a rough fight. The enemy had good vehicles; a slew of Sherman 76’s, M36’s and M24’s. The PZIVH and Marder III didn’t make it, but went down fighting. In the end, my detachment accomplished its mission and more by stopping the enemy advance and clearing North through the village.


In the meantime, my forces in the west were making good progress; killing the enemy and pushing their advance around the Northwest flank. As seen above, I’ve been able to maneuver a Panther and two Panzer IV’s around the Northern flank. The enemy exchanges blows with my Marder III’s, who are acting as a base of fire for my maneuver forces.


My flanking force advances forward. Keep in mind, engagements are still deadly. M36’s lurk with their vicious 90mm high velocity cannons. It’s best to work in packs for this one. I decide to suppress my targets with my PZIV’s and flank with my Panther. It worked well on this unfortunate M36. This is a risky tactic; the M36 has no problem cracking the armor on the PZIV. It is a risk is working, only because the numbers advantage is on my side.



Meanwhile in the East …

My Panther completes its sweep through the village and begins clearing to the West as my tank destroyers exchange shots with the enemy. Most of the enemy vehicles we encounter are facing the West, waiting for the bulk of my advance. They must have realized something was going on when they saw the smoke coming from the horizon. I use the confusion to my advantage and batter the enemy vehicles from their flanks.




So here’s the current SITREP:

In the East, I have cleared the village and my Panther has begun clearing to the West.

In the center, my Marder III’s duel it out with M18’s and Sherman’s.

In the West, my flanking force has been successful pushing forward and killing enemy armor.

My forces have eliminated a significant number of enemy vehicles. There are still more remaining on the battlefield, and I will remember that as I advance forward. Now is not the time to let my guard down. Victory is on the horizon, but a few well placed shots can allow the enemy the chance to break through the envelopment.



The match ended with the enemy attempting to break the encirclement by driving East. I had my Panther in a good position to interdict the enemy, and that is just what he did.

In reality this engagement would’ve lasted maybe an hour. In real life the turns took almost a full week (thank you, real life). Fun, none the less.

If you’ve never heard of Battlefield Academy or are looking for a good World War Two strategy game, I suggest trying it out. It is a simple game, in a time where games have become so complex that most forget the fun aspect.