Mega-Memoir part 2

Continuing in our exploration of merging aspects from both Megablitz and Memoir 44 last time we examined the French defense of a streamline in 1940 with the 18th Division d'Infantrie deployed and awaiting the enemy.  One feature that we like about Megablitz is the SMART orders system.  The acronym covers Static, Mobile, Attack, Retreat and Transit options and the movement allowance for each is covered by a simple table.  It does bear some close examination but in effect if you want to run away you will move faster than your pursuers in the long haul (nice feature) and in order to engage in combat you have to move from a Mobile mode to a Attack mode which causes you to slow slightly and prepare a planned assault.

Since all movement is simultaneous (a very liked feature) it does behoove you to work alongside your opponent as you work each turn on the table because troops with different orders will move at different speeds and con not contact each other unless there is a Attack order in place on one side or the other.  I find that moving through the narrative of the game begins with a close attention to the movement phase.

Now our German attackers come from the 2d Panzer Division supported by the 13 Infantry Division (Motorized) and in the first shot below you see their first movement under a Mobile order chit for the whole division.  The recon units (with a green r on the base) screen the troops and seek to find the enemy while the rest advance on a narrow front along the road network at the 5kph rate in the table.

The 13th I.D. also advanced to the right on a Mobile order to secure the flank of 2d Pz. Div. and prevent any sorties by the French on that flank.

On the second turn (hours 3 and 4 of the daylight turns) the 2d Pz. Div closes towards the bridge and crossing over the stream, but is still in M for Mobile mode.  The French artillery now had range but not visibility to strike at any but the very lead elements but decided to withhold fire until the base of the thrust by the Germans was confirmed (or as I forgot to fire them)...

Our French General decided on this turn to place his reserves onto a Mobile order sensing that he would need to bulk up his forward defense at some point.

And on daylight turn 3 (hours 5 and 6 of daylight), the 2d Pz. Div. advanced into a hasty attack on the French forces primarily from the village at the bridge and to their left, thus opposite the heights along the stream.

The French General divided his reserves, sending 1 battalion to cover his right flank on the heights (which was a totally unfounded need since the Germans could not cross there) and two battalions to extend his line along the stream to the left of his position (again a somewhat poor choice since they were not supporting the existing front, merely extending its length and the Germans could not cross there either). 

So one of the things commanders need to do is hold onto their reserves and be able to exchange troops who have been shot up with the reserves.  More of that in another installment perhaps?

The 2 advancing battalions of motorized infantry came across the minefields leading to the bridge with only one infantry hit (each unit crossing gets attacked with one die while transiting the minefield until it is cleared by engineering personnel).

Then the French infantry fired out causing 2 hits (grenade and a infantry symbol) on one unit.

And then the other infantry caused two hits and a retreat result on the other unit.  Not a promising beginning to this hasty attack by the Germans.

Here is the view of the initial thrust from the German side

On the French side note the extended line but no loses to either side since the German recon units can not be 'hit' they must be driven away by forward motion of troops.

Here are two views from the French side of the situation

The French artillery now fire and one unit rolls 3 hits and a retreat, basically destroying one of the German motorized infantry battalions

And then the other unit makes 3 infantry hits....tough going for the Germans.

The German return fire due to tactical doctrine, allows them to shoot with not only the infantry in contact, but also the tank units directly behind them and supporting them get to fire.  This is a German training specialty at this stage of the war.  The French tank doctrine requires the tank stands to be in contact before being able to fire.  The losses are serious killing 2, 2 and 3 his on the three French infantry defending the area near the bridge.  Since they only take 4 hits to be destroyed  it would have been nice to have the reserve battalions nearby to exchange them with the front line troops...

So after three turns or the game and 6 hours of movement to combat and combat the Germans have lost half of their motorized infantry component and have not secured the bridge or the town.  The French defenders have been hurt but not devastated by the assault and still have their artillery and AT support in hand.  Time for a rethink by both sides.

Options available to both sides include calling up reserve and Corps level artillery assets (easier for the French perhaps since they are static).  Both sides could call for air support (probably favors the Germans due to doctrine, they have better and more direct support arrangements and FAOs). 

But the issue I see is that the German structural organization only gives them 4 battalions of motorized infantry and four battalions of tanks in these 1940 Panzer Divisions.  They pack a nice punch but are fragile if their infantry gets thrown in too soon as happened here.  Better perhaps for the Germans to call in air and artillery while they advanced upon the town, causing some hits to weaken the French before sticking their nose in?  I have alluded to the French mistake in premature commitment of their reserves already.

If the Germans can quickly push through the bridge/town the supporting elements of the 9 battalion strong French infantry division could not stop them.

Perhaps time for a second stab at this scenario?

Combining game ideas from different systems into a playable game

A buddy and I purchased Memoir 44 some time ago because it was an easy stepping off point into WWII gaming that required no other work than un-boxing and playing out games from the scenarios (and there a huge bunch of them available on line).

Setting out a set of the terrain tokens on my 12 x 4 foot table with the 2" hex that I got showed that you could really get a lot of depth to the battlefield and play several days of a mini-campaign out by simply adding further terrain behind the existing setup.

In my situation I wanted to try blending Memoir 44 terrain tokens and battle dice system onto a larger scale megablitz type campaign.  So I brought out one of my 1940 French Infantry Divisions (in this case the 18th Infantry Division).  These are organized roughly into Megablitz units with each stand representing a battalion of troops or a specialized company of engineers, reconnaissance elements, signal and AA units, etc...

Each stand is based on a hex base 2" across so fit right into the table grid system and onto the Memoir 44 tokens pretty well also.  Each hex is taken to represent one kilometer of ground so this position represents around 20 kilometers of front line as you measure along the stream.

You can then use the Memoir 44 extra pieces (like sandbags, wire entanglements, etc...) right on the stands.

Above you see the 1st Battalion of the 125th Regiment behind the sandbags (so get a -1 dice in Memoir 44 and ignore the first retreat die as well).    The second shot shows the same unit protected by barbed wire (not the best representation but it saves me a lot of fiddling with tiny stakes and wires).

The Division HQ stand beside the battalion shows the General de Division smoking his cigar and considering why he hadn't retired back in 1938 when the opportunity arose!

I have now placed the 18th Infantry Division onto the table in positions that it might have taken up when it received its mission to deny the passage of this section of the front to the enemy.  The mild stream is a tributary of the Dyle River and at this scale I don't actually try to mark roads or small terrain areas.  

The division in its box at the top, and deployed onto the tabletop below.  We see two of the three infantry regiments deployed along the stream line.  Where there isn't a terrain tile that would provide defensive benefit, the troops are marked with sandbags as 'dug in'.  The third regiment is still in their transport group trucks (a French doctrine idea) near the Division HQ ready to move forward to support the 2 regiments in line if needed.

Around the Div HQ are clustered the 'administrative' functional stands for signals, engineering, anti-aircraft (guarding the HQ element is top priority here!) etc...

The 2 artillery battalions are forward, one in direct support of each of the regiments deployed.  You will also notice that the 2 anti-tank stands in the division (one of 25mm guns and one of 47mm guns) are both placed directly behind dug in infantry.  In our game this is allowed, they also count as dug in and can fire in support of the infantry if they are attacked.  All countries' units in the 1940s time frame have this tactical feature of direct A-T support (although most have small numbers and weak A-T armaments that will not destroy the enemy mobile forces as it turns out). 

Here is where a good question comes up around treatment of terrain in gaming.  At this level we basically state that the area of each hex is representative of either open rolling terrain, or we stick a marker on it to show woods, marshes, ponds, hedgerows, etc...  Now Memoir 44 has done a decent job in providing all manner of terrain type tiles (although we will need MANY of them in the long run) and they tie the effects of each pretty simply to the number of dice you reduce your firing by and/or whether you get to ignore any retreat results on their own dicing system.  Quick, clear and simple, just what I think is needed in a game where a player would handle a Corps perhaps.

So if you are on a 'defensible' terrain tile you get the advantage, there is no multiple benefit (being in a town on a hill with barbed wired and a river running through it is all the same -1 die and 1 free retreat pass).  Again simple but elegant to my mind.

Readers will quickly note that our General has not placed troops along the rest of the river past the right handed turn it takes in the photo.  Rightly so because that area has been entrusted to that cad who commands the 1st Division Legere de Cavalerie who you were forced to room with at the advanced general staff course back in the day.  Let him and his horsemen dabble at war, your division has been given the most important assignment and you will not expect any support from that source.  Hopefully the enemy will divert forces against them and your job will be easier.

Now nothing takes place in modern war in a vacuum, and the 18th Infantry Division can expect support from the Corp Artillery, Engineering and Air Support elements at Corps or even Army level (there are many rungs in the ladder of the French forces).  There might even be a spare Battalion de Chars Cuirassiere (independent tank battalions) lurking nearby if things get really sticky.  So our General is pretty confident that his deployment will last past the initial shots of the campaign.

Our next session will show the enemy forces preparing to attack this position and how their organization ad structure may or may not assist them in their attack!

How Many Samurai does it take to field a DBA-RRR army?

I recently purchased up an old collection of various 15mm ancient and medieval figures at a collectors show in Woburn, Massachusetts that were likely someones prized wargaming units back in the day.  A review of the DBA 3.0 list showed that by and large there were enough stands to meet any combinations a couple of times over, but there were some questions to be resolved.

Like, how come there were 16 stands of 4Bw present and all the spear/pike were 3Sp? I recall that 3.0 made a number of new distinctions between Solid and Fast troop types and that Fast Spears didn't provide side support but 4Sp (Solid) did.  So, okay the Ashiguru types at 3Sp moved faster, since I had 10 stands of them I could always rebase a few stands to 4Sp if that made sense someday.

The Samurai are 4Bd, except most of what I got were 3Bd, so again Fast as opposed to solid.

Here is the mess of stands that came with the acquisition representing one faction (the 'black' army)

When reviewing the DBA-RRR lists (since we generally use these for renaissance period games) I noticed that many alternatives were available (like 5 more 4Bd, or 5 3Bd, or 5, 5Wb, or 4 Sh).  Not clear if the shot should eventually be 3Sh (Fast) or 4Sh(Solid) since DBA-RRR hasn't been officially upgraded to 3.0 yet, I left the 10 stands of Ashiguru Spear/Pike as 3Pk and the 5 stands on 4Sh as 4 to a base.  Again I can always recombine a couple of stands as required in the future and I recall that Samurai armies at one time were thought to be fast in deployment and attack?

I have a similar question about the excess Samurai 4Bw stands, were some of them like to be 3Bw (Fast) types as well?  For now the 6 stands are in the waiting drawer awaiting some future decision on deployment.

I also added from some unpainted figures three more cavalry stands (3Cav) but did not try to go to double deep 6Cav since it wasn't clear if the back rank would be more cavalry figures or more likely some type of Ashiguru blade or spear types.

Finally I painted and added five stands of 5Wb to cover the options for crazed Monks, Sohei irregulars or similar.  By basing them 30mm deep I can use them as Warbands or even as Hordes (more common in 3.0 as I see from the lists) but I think the Wb is a better fit with fast everything else?

So an interesting mix of all sorts of Samurai types, but will they actually be able to fight well?  With blade armies on foot most people seem to do well but we will see.

In the box I obtained there was still another force (a 'red' army) with most of the 4Bd and 3Bd stands already completed.  These will go out to a friend to finish off for his own take on Samurai warfare.  Perhaps an AAR will be in the future of their meeting together?

Fontenoy Test Game 1 - Decision Time

We have reached the end pulse of turn four and the Anglo/Hanoverian line has exchanged fire and combat with the first French line (Gardes and Aubterre brigades) while the Dutch have assaulted Fontenoy twice to no great effect yet.  A possible decision point?  No, neither side had yet achieved any real advantage but here is what the lines looked like at the end of turn 4:

Before Fontenoy the Dutch can not gain any traction and are taking losses at around two to one.  Their artillery is screened so not of use to them and the French get saving throws on any hits (saving about half of the time with a 4,5, or 6) and the Dutch have to simply take the hits as they are out in the open killing ground.  The Dutch can not force their second line battalions into the fight yet as some of their first line units though damaged are still in the front.

The allowance of one die for artillery impact from each of the three redoubts may have been too small, perhaps a 2 dice (or half of what we allow a regular battery firing) would have been a better approximation of how well these small guns could have fired when in a protected area and closely supported by fresh forces.  As it is their occasional hit is not making a large impact.

On the top edge of the plateau the first British line has not yet breached the sunken road although most of the French Garde battalions and their Aubterre Brigade units have taken 3-4 hits and are close to being removed.  The British Guards are almost shot away but they have a strong number of line battalions closer to Fontenoy along this line so may be able to continue the advance.

Turn Five and the French roll 24 control dice to the British 12.  So the French can add command dice and re-roll combat result dice all day without fear of falling out of dice.  The British will have to struggle to save wherever they can to counter.

But the British win the Initiative for the turn and make two decisions.  The first is to storm ahead with their British troops and try to break into the French position.  The second is to call off the attack on Fontenoy and try to rebuild the Dutch forces after they retire beyond three base widths.

The situation in Fontenoy shows this is the best that the Dutch could have done, they lost nine of 21 battalions outright and the few still in the close contact zone all have some casualties. They are a base 6 strength (like their French neighbors) but taking a minus 2 trying to club their way forward in combat is too much to expect of them.  Here are the respective casualty piles for the Dutch and the French:  9 Dutch to 2 French battalions plus the 2 batteries lost earlier in the game.

The British do surge forward and taking advantage of a couple of breaks in the French line and the fact that they had the initiative which allows them to pick the direction to move across the table in combats, allows them to erase the remainder of the French Gardes and the Aubterre brigade with little cost to their units. 

Here is the picture of the line at that point.

The British crown the sunken road and move their second line forward to cover it in its entirety.  But, you can see there are no reserves to the second line and the cavalry is weak and far away.  The French second line (the wild geese of the Irish Brigade) are ready to continue the fight and the French still have a complete second line behind them and then three lines of cavalry as yet untouched.

The village of Fontenoy will soon be taking enfilade shots across the British line as will the redoubts d'Eu which are still manned and ready for the fight.  One can see why Cumberland had to make the best of a bad situation and retire before the strength of the position and de Saxe's deployments.  Our Cumberland similarly decides to withdraw while still strong enough to hold off any French counter attack.

Total losses for both sides is heavily weighted down by the loss ratio at Fontenoy.  Elsewhere both sides killed at about a 1 to 1 ratio.  The first French line of 10 battalions is gone, but so are the British in their front line of 9 battalions.  There is not enough time left in the day to redeploy artillery to the threatened areas and if the French cavalry are able to break into and through the British second infantry line the entire Anglo/Allied army would be at risk of losing their retreat route back through Vezon.

Interesting replay with some things to consider about weather Might & Reason really shows that it can provide a good and simple rules solution to this period.  I'll have more to add to that in the next posting.

Fontenoy Test Game 1 till first contact

The first time test game we will run with the rules out of the box as regards command, combat and victory conditions just to see if the rules end up providing a reasonable approximation of what transpired historically or even if the result makes sense given the situation.

The Allied side with a 'Good' General (Cumberland) only gets 2 command dice per turn but given the largish commands (all the British/Hanoverian foot is in one command for example).  They are able to get BOTH the Anglo/Hanoverian and the Dutch contingents to advance at the same time so as to make a concerted attack on the French position.

Here are some shots as they close the gap and into close musket range:

The effects of long range artillery are minimal as an occasional hit here and there do not slow down either of the main lines closing.  In fact once they get within long range musketry range (2 base widths per the rules) they are able to shoot and then assault the exposed artillery and force it to make an emergency evade roll.  This resulted in 2 French batteries being destroyed, one in front of the French Guards line and one in the fortified village of Fontenoy itself.  Surprisingly there is no benefit to the artillery to being behind works when taking this check that we could find.  It also is typical of what we have seen in M&R games, nobody even attempts to re-deploy their guns when the enemy line approaches so the guns are going to be lost but they are left in place in the hopes of causing close range hits.

If you place your guns in your line of troops it is almost a guarantee of opening an exploitable gap  when the guns run away.  If you place them in front (as was the almost universal practice during the period) they are simply removed via the artillery reaction check or pass through the line in an evade and are lost to you for a few turns.

In our test game 1 the French ended up with the initiative on the turn after the British and Dutch had advanced into long range musketry fire distance (2 BW) and promptly fired all along their line with scant results.  The Dutch troops assaulting Fontenoy took a few hits the British line hardly any so when they in turn fired they were replying with one die per every 2 strength points PLUS another 2 dice for the British/Hanoverian volley rule.  Fortunately for the French their shooting was equally bad causing only a few total casualties.

In the next turn the Anglo/Dutch troops climbed the slope and into close range musketry range (1 BW) and fired first with similar effect.  The French returned fire with equal ineffectiveness.  So unlike the reported battle results where the first French line was almost destroyed in the allied initial volleys, here both sides were shooting into the air for all intents and purposes.

In the following pulse the allies tried a direct assault across the front.  This was a mistake and it seems they should have spent another turn at volleying since none of the French units opposite them had suffered more than a random hit or two.  By going in with the assault the British especially squandered their volley extra dice and got nothing for 'charging in' that might lead them to double the scores on the awaiting French.

I should also point out that the troops in Fontenoy were getting a saving throw on a 4,5,or 6 for any hits made by the Dutch as they were protected by the works there.  In the turn the allies charged in the Dutch lost four units by being doubled by the French and only got one unit over the works when they charged the French battery and destroyed it on the artillery reaction roll.

Here is the cluttered view of the situation at Fontenoy.

The one Dutch unit that made it over the works is in the center of the right of the picture and they are already stopped by the French reserves stationed in the town.  They will also count as flanked if the French attack to drive them out.  But, they also will count as flanking the French foot on either side on them if the Dutch have the strength to charge in again with the remains of their first line.

I should point out that we did not allow units in the second line to advance into gaps in the first line as units were removed.  While this is the common action most wargamers would take, it runs counter to the principal that the commander of the second line was there to ensure his troops were kept in hand and serve as a reserve for the first line (and in M&R to keep them from possibly becoming 'flanked' by the enemy).  It is another example of what we expect to do as gamers that dosen't have a lot of historical justification in our opinion...

Next posting will see the further exchange of fire and combat as the Allies try to force their way into the French position on the slopes and in the town.

Preparing to play Fontenoy - the Allied forces

My buddy finally got together with me an brought with him a further large box of French forces for the battle and I was able to finish the French deployment by adding in the five stands of Carabineers to the last line of cavalry plus make a couple of slight modifications to the French setup around Anthoing - specifically placing the foot brigade and the dragoons directly behind and supporting the three small redoubts between Anthoing and Fontenoy.

Next the allies are deployed, the Anglo-Hanoverian in two lines of foot with all the cavalry (both British and Hanoverian) massed to their rear around Vezon village.  The Dutch also in 2 lines of foot with all its cavalry massed to the left facing the Anthoing to Fontenoy line.  There is little the cavalry can do at this stage until the infantry clear the towns or the redoubt lines so they have to sit outside artillery range and watch.

Above is the British deployment in two lines that just about match the French deployment between Fontenoy and the Bois de Barri.  The Hanoverian battalions (4) are on the left of the second line.  The cavalry massed to the rear.

The Dutch facing Fontenoy with their cavalry closest to the camera.

The leaders for the Anglo-Dutch army were selected as for the French so that major commands have an associated General, often commanding 12-20 stands.

Duke of Cumberland	FM Konigsegg	Sir John Ligonier	Prince Waldeck	Cronstrom	Ingoldsby
AVG	POOR	GOOD	POOR	AVG	POOR
-1	-1	+2	-2	-2	-2

Earl of Rothes	Hessen-Philipstahl	General Bland	General Launay	Sir James Campbell
AVG	AVG	AVG	AVG	AVG
0	-1	0	-1	0

Sir James Campbell ended up as a 'spare' Lieutenant General who accompanied Cumberland and the figures for Konigsegg and Waldeck served merely as convenience markers since the CinC (Cumberland in this case) is the leader who rolls for command dice and distributes them directly to commanders of forces.  I don't see this as an issue in the rules since even in polygot armies with multiple nations providing contingents some one was supposedly 'In Charge' and that general's ratings (Great, Good, Average or Poor) determines how many Command Dice they are awarded in the rules.

In our game de Saxe is rated Great and gets four dice each turn for command dice rolling, while Cumberland gets only two as Good.  Bad enough for the allies but if Cumberland follows the historical record and accompanies the British contingent, the allies gets shorted on activation rolls due to the distance away Cumberland gets....

Here is the panoramic view from them French side as their five lines of troops await the battle.

And here in our first test battle is the advance of both the British and Dutch contingents over the first few 'Pulses'.  In our next posting we will discuss the advance into combat and the results that came out of them as per the use of the Might & Reason rules.

Preparing to play Fontenoy using Might & Reason part 2

One of the many issues with playing a fairly large battle with individual units all being present is at what level should Leaders be introduced?  While many rules these days have 'Brigadiers' for every 2-3 base units this is partly because they have typically less than a dozen battalions present to move on the table.  These might be called 'Brigades' or 'Divisions' or some such but they seem too artificial for me.

The French army of the period expected Generals commanding brigades to oversee somewhere around six battalions or a dozen or so squadrons.  These are often not to be confused as tactical commands (as in you bunch go over there and do this) but rather simply administrative groupings to keep the line of battle in order.  At Fontenoy the French entrusted the command of tactical groupings to the various Lieutenant Generals who were held at Headquarters and directly assigned troops for a particular action.  The Obscure Battles map shows clearly the commanders assigned out for the French army.  The Comte de la Mark, for example was tasked with the defense of Antoing and was assigned a mere five battalions and a number of light guns.  The LTG Chabannes, by contrast was assigned the French Guard of six battalions plus the brigade Aubeterre of four more battalions (1 Aubeterre and 3 from the Swiss Regiment Courten), to cover the gap between Fontenoy and the Barri Woods.

Going with the Order of Battle we have come up with the following commanders for the French at the start of the battle:

Comte de Saxe	Marquis d’Herouville	Comte de Clermont	Marshal d’Estrees	LTG Chabannes	LTG Lutteaux	LTG Vauguyon
GREAT	AVG	POOR	POOR	AVG	AVG	AVG
+2	0	-1	-1	0	0	0

LTG Montagne	Duc de Richelieu	Comte de la Mark
AVG	POOR	AVG
0	0	0

These are shown with purported values for their skill level and abilities but most have been 'written in' as Average and no plus or minus since the listing in the M&R rules simply doesn't include a lot of French leaders of the War of the Austrian Succession.  The author admits that there is a lot of scholarship still to be done to try to identify and rate many of the French generals of the period but that is a separate thread altogether.

So, having determined where to place leaders and their ratings we can see how the battle field might look with the French army deployed for battle on the morning of 11 May (New Style).

Hopefully you can click to enlarge the photo.  The river Scheldt would be to the top left (just off the table) with Antoing at the top left, Fontenoy in the center of the French deployment and the Barri woods on the left.