Issue 2 June 93 'Command Post Quarterly Review'
by Jim Trappitt
Issue 4 August 93 'Fire and Fury Amendments'
By Ross Rigby.
Issue 5 September 93'WW2 and Later Wargaming - A Personal History Part
1'
By Howard Brady
Issue 5 September 93'Western Gunfight report'
by Neil Morris
Issue 6 November 93 'WW2 and Later Wargaming - A Personal History Part 2'
By Howard Brady
No matter where your interest lies in post 1900 land warfare there is something here for you: there are scenarios ranging from Villers Brettoreux in 1918 through the British/Vichy French conflict in Syria in 1941, Corregidor and Kursk 1942 to Vietnam in 1965 and the Golan Heights in 1974. The organisation articles cover T. E. Lawrence's Arab army of 1917, US Forces in the Philippines 1941, 1943 Soviet Rifle Brigades, the Inter-Allied Special Service Force 1943-45 and the modern South Korean and Panamanian armies. The South Koreans are useful for creating scenarios suggested by Larry Bonds Red Phoenix, the Panamanians are less useful unless you're sick enough to want to refight Operation Just Cause (as in "just cause it was there").
Even if you use a different set of rules, the magazine
is worth having for the scenarios alone. It is fairly easy to
convert the orders of battle from the Command Decision scale of
1:5 to 1:1 eg for use with Firefly. One major criticism is the
usual rash of typos found in GDW products due to a lack of proofreading.
This can be overcome but is still annoying. Another fault is the
lack of a table of contents which means you have to search the
entire magazine for the article you want. Hopefully both these
faults will be rectified in later issues.
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MAWS For Thought
Issue 4 August 93
Fire and Fury Amendments
By Ross Rigby.
Fire and Fury has probably become the most popular
set of American Civil War rules on the market at present. Whilst
being fairly simple to understand and play with, they never the
less capture the feel of the period. For myself, and possibly
many others, whilst the rules allow games on a grand scale to
be
played fairly quickly they have been abstracted somewhat. The rules themselves being simple allow players to experiment with "in house" amendments, included here are some mechanisms which whilst adding more realism to the game, hopefully do not detract from it. The ACW was a time of innovation not only on terms of new, more powerful weapons on land and sea but was also a new era in tactics. Whilst many land battles on the land were fairly fluid, later in the war trenches were utilised as the armies fought themselves to a standstill in certain parts of America.
The most important criteria that the gamer should
consider when playing F & F is in what year is the game set
- depending on the year certain weapons may be included or precluded,
as may certain tactics.
THE INFANTRY
Before 1862 I would recommend that both armies only field muskets, which the normal F & F rules assume units to use.
Between 1862-64, I would recommend that up to 40% of Confederates and 70% of Union Infantry may be armed with rifles
From 1864 up to 90% of Confederates may be armed with rifles whilst 98% of Union Infantry may be so armed.
WEAPON RANGE
| Musket | |||
| Rifle |
The number in brackets is the modifier to make to the die result as per normal modifier rules.
A couple of new tactics I have provided for are an
infantry unit to attack in waves/rushes and/or charging with unloaded
guns. For a unit to attack in rushes it must comply with the following
criteria: it must not be disordered, it may not include a separate
unit as support, the unit itself may be in a supported line. Provided
the charge distance is not greater than 9" away the charging
unit may fire the second supported line as well. Otherwise all
other F & F rules apply. If a unit charges with unloaded guns
it may charge 15" instead of the normal 12". To do this
it must not be disordered at the start of the charge and the unit
may not fire during the charge. If the charge is successful the
unit may gain a +2 modifier in combat. this tactic tries to recreate
officers encouraging their units to get to grips with the enemy,
due to the fact that units when under fire would often go to ground
and return fire themselves. When trenches and entrenchment's are
used I would suggest a unit charging out of entrenchment's suffer
a -1 modifier to represent reluctance to leave their protection.
THE ARTILLERY
Prior to 1862 up to 25% of Union artillery may be rifled guns.
From 1862, 25% of Confederate artillery may also have rifled guns.
From 1863 up to 50% of Union artillery may have rifled guns.
WEAPON RANGE
| Smoothbore | |||||
| Rifled Guns |
MODIFIERS [to die roll]
Very Heavy/siege guns +3 Medium guns 0
Heavy guns +1 Light guns -1
One artillery tactic that was occasionally employed was the charge. This is only applicable to horse artillery and allows the unit to move its full distance, unlimber and fire. [3 actions] It may not limber, move, unlimber and fire. The only criteria for the battery is that it is not silenced or damaged and is within command control radius.
THE CAVALRY
Up to 1862 Union cavalry may only be armed with sabres and pistol, a unit was fortunate if it was armed with carbines.
Up until 1863 the Union cavalry was utilised in small units and never concentrated into brigades.
Confederate cavalry may only use carbines, shotguns, pistols and swords. [Shotguns or carbines only]
From 1862 the Union cavalry was armed with carbines of poor quality therefore suffer a -1 die modifier.
From 1863 the Union cavalry was equal to the Confederates who by now phased out the sabre, with notable exceptions - Stuart's cavalry at Brandy Station.
WEAPON RANGE
| Pistol | ||||
| Shotgun | ||||
| Carbine | ||||
| Musketoon |
Union cavalry may not fire when mounted, except to use pistols. Confederate cavalry may fire mounted but only pistols or shotguns. Any unit armed with a firearm which elects to fire when mounted automatically counts as low on ammunition. If a unit elects to charge it may fire using the procedure above. If the unit does not fire before the charge is made, it may use a hand weapon in the subsequent combat but must receive a low on ammo marker after the combat. All F & F modifiers apply with the following additions.
Lance [first round only] +1 Pistol +1
Cavalry not armed with sabres -1 Shotgun +2
Dismounted cavalry may never charge. Dismounted infantry
may charge with no detrimental factors, but -1 when charging mounted
against infantry, -2 against cavalry. Forrest's cavalry should
be treated as infantry when dismounted and normal cavalry when
mounted.
Stragglers
Units that are in good order, within command radius, out of enemy charge distance and not fired on in the previous turn may attempt to regain losses. Therefore for every 3 stands a unit has lost 1 stand may be regained. The following score [equal or higher] must be obtained. Also to do this a predetermined rally point on or behind the units own lines must be determined at the start of the battle. The unit must be within 6" of this point.
Throw 1D10:
Crack 7+ Veteran 8+ Green 9+
Ammunition
Each division or corps should have 1 ammo wagon.
When a unit is marked low on ammunition it must move within 6"
of the wagon to be resupplied. The wagon counts as horse artillery
for movement and as artillery for targeting purposes. If destroyed
the owner must roll D10, this is the number of fire points each
unit within 8" must dice damage for. [use normal table]
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MAWS For Thought
Issue 5 September 93
WW2 AND LATER WARGAMING - A PERSONAL HISTORY Part
1
By Howard Brady
Introduction
I have now been involved in wargaming for nearly 30 years. During this time I have had an enduring interest in the modern period ie circa 1939 to date. The last 30 years have seen wargaming grow from an almost unknown pursuit to a hobby with its own national press and international links and the aim of my series of articles will be to record one gamer's involvement in playing games in one period. I will comment on rules, figures and accessories, etc. Whilst not intending to be controversial, I will be presenting a sort of potted history of MAWS involvement. I would therefore welcome comments and observations or even attempts to fill in the gaps in my record through, of course, the pages of our newsletter.
The Early Days
Like most of my generation of wargamers I was initially inspired by Don Featherstone's book "Wargames" Published in 1962. The book included a chapter on WW2 games titled "Tank and Infantry Action on the St. James road". The chapter included an account of the wargame and also, not one, but two sets of rules for gaming the period. One set of rules was Don's own, and like all his rules
they were intended to result in an enjoyable game. Compared to later rules they were very basic. A tank was a tank and all were equally vulnerable to anti-tank weapons. Considering my later failings when faced with Tiger tanks, perhaps I should have stuck with these rules. The other set of rules were attributed to a Mr. Lionel Tarr, who was reputedly fighting the whole of the war on the Russian front. Although not as complicated as later rules they were remarkably comprehensive. The rules did recognise the differences in armoured vehicles and anti-tank guns. Each item of equipment was given a strike value and a defence value. Dice were thrown, the result added to the total and compared with the defence value of the target. If the modified strike value exceeded the defence value, you had scored a kill.
The other great enabler for WW2 games in the early 1960's was the availability of the initial AIRFIX range. The only two tank kits were the Sherman and the Panther. Infantry was available in the boxes of British and German infantry combat groups. All t he figures were basically riflemen, although the German box contained a nice 28/20mm cone bore anti-tank gun. For machine guns, mortars or other weapons one had to scratch build or convert figures. In 1962 the cost of any of the above infantry sets or tank kits was two shillings, 10 pence in our money.
The literature of the hobby consisted of a monthly "Wargamers Newsletter" published by Don Featherstone and occasional items in the AIRFIX magazine. I remember the Airfix articles on conversion of ACW artillery cannon to Japanese and Russian artillery of WW2. That is the sort of thing you needed to do in those days if you wanted a balanced army.
Through the Newsletter I learnt of the London Wargames Section of the British Model Soldier Society [LWS]. The LWS published sets of rules for several periods. The WW2 set, with amendments for
later equipment, was written by Bish Iwasko. Novelties introduced by Bish's rules were:-
Differing effect of anti-tank fire as it became less effective at longer ranges. Small arms fire and automatic weapons fire was calculated by the amount of firepower falling into a beaten zone.
A logarithmic ground scale, which enabled long range artillery pieces to be positioned on the table.
The effect of supply on the troops ability to continue the fight.
I fought my first wargame using the LWS rules where I commanded a British battalion supported by 3 Sherman tanks. My opponent had a German infantry force supported by a single Tiger. One by one the Tiger picked off my Shermans, leaving me to contemplate how the British tank commanders must have felt at the end of the first day of Operation Goodwood. Also launching the Tiger phobia I have suffered from ever since.
Having mentioned the above battalion, a word about
how we used to organise our armies for use with any of the above
rules. It was necessary to blur the organisation below company
level. A battalion of infantry would have the correct number of
companies, each company consisting of 10-20 figures, including
1/2 light machine guns. The battalion headquarters would probably
have a mortar and a light anti-tank gun. Tank squadrons would
have 3/4 models, not necessarily all the same type of tank. Artillery
units would have 2 guns and a forward observation team. However,
Tiger phobia and all, I had played my first WW2 game. I had been
bitten by the bug and am happy to report I am still not cured.
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STOP PRESS: MASSACRE AT DRY GULCH
Western gunfight report by Neil Morris
In the morning of Sunday 15th August 1883 the peaceful
town of Dry Gulch was awakened to a vicious gun battle which eventually
raged throughout the town. The battle is believed to have started
when a group of unscrupulous gunmen hired by the railroad ambushed
some of the Sheriffs' deputies leaving the Sheriff's office to
investigate disturbances in the Hoffman Bar area. The Sheriff
responded by killing at least 2 of the gunmen and arresting the
remainder. Meanwhile the Hoffman Bar group were attempting to
put the Memphis Belle paddlesteamer out of action, but instead
got involved in a 3 way fight with the Memphis Belle crew and
the Mexican clientele of the nearby Tough Nut saloon. The arrival
of a group of Apache Indians caused further confusion at the other
end of town as one Indian chief, who shall remain nameless [No.6],
attempted to broker a deal with the Sheriff to kill the railroad
men incarcerated in jail. One brave Hoffman Bar employee [well
done Howard] set the town cannon off demolishing the store and
lawyers office, but missing the Memphis Belle! Overall the fight
was awarded on points to the Indians as they came closest to fulfilling
their objectives. [Yes, the groups did have objectives although
they did not always follow them!].
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MAWS For Thought
Issue 6 November 93
WW2 AND LATER WARGAMING - A PERSONAL HISTORY
By Howard Brady
Part 2 Campaigns in East Lancashire
By 1969 the hobby had taken root. At this time I was living and working in Blackburn, where the local model shop was run by a Mrs. Tatton. Largely through Mrs Tattons efforts several wargamers, including myself, had started to meet in a room above the shop, to play ACW and WWII games. it followed naturally that we went on to from a wargames club. Starting with 5 or 6 members we rapidly grew to over 20, far too many to crowd into the room above the shop. We moved the club into a room that is now the Red Cross office in Blackburn town centre and started to play some serious games. A real WWII buff, Ed Roberts, joined the club and was to become a prime mover in our involvement in WWII games.
The largest project the club undertook in its first year of existence was to re-fight Operation Market Garden. We were not content to juts re-fight Arnhem, we did the whole campaign over a period of several meetings. I still can't quite believe how we managed to provide enough trees, buildings, bridges, etc to cover the area gamed over. Besides three 6' by 4' tables we used the whole of the stage area, about 12' by 24', to layout the terrain. The three tables represented the area between the British front line and Nijmegen to Arnhem. The main bridges themselves, and they were reasonable representations, were built by a couple of guys we had "converted" from railway modelers.
The general theme was that British and American airborne forces were dropped throughout the area. The ground forces advancing across table 1, onto table 2, onto table 3 and then the long haul across the stage. Rules used were the LWS ones mentioned previously. My role was as God, general co-ordinator and gofer. My records of the campaign are long ago lost or destroyed, however I do remember that when we counted up the figures involved, over 100 vehicles and guns and close to 1000 figures had been used.
By far the majority of the figures were Airfix with a few of the then new Hinchcliffe 20mm figures. The vehicles again were mainly Airfix with a good mixture of 1/87 scale Roco models. Just in time for the campaign I also obtained my first resin cast models, Daimler scout cars - Eric Clarke Models I think.
The result of the campaign? Almost exactly like the real thing, by the time the British captured Nijmegen the paras at Arnhem had been wiped out. The way we fought our wargames in those days was to the last man, or very nearly the last. Almost every player in the club had taken part in the campaign, which had a very positive effect on how the club operated in the future. My own future with the club proved to be limited, for in 1971 I changed jobs and came to work in Manchester.
In 1972 I found out about MAWS and joined our club. In those days we met at the old Pendlebury Town Hall - now demolished. For some time however I was still involved with the Blackburn club. Blackburn's next venture into WWII was nautical, that spacious stage area was just the right size for carrier task forces to deploy and face the combined assault of dive bombers and torpedo planes. The ships were 1/1200th scale, old Triang and Eaglewall models saved from boyhood days with some "Superior" metal models and of course scratch built models to fill in the gaps. The book "Sea Battle Games" by P. Dunn had been published in 1970. I think Don Featherstone also produced a book on naval games around the same time.
Having recovered from our exertions at Arnhem, Ed now organised another campaign in Northwest Europe circa 1944. To do the Arnhem campaign using the LWS rules we had made some alterations and added on some extras. We had generated a lot of debate on the rules and the general opinion was that we had to look for something new. Ed Roberts was given the job and finally plumped for a set titled "Wargames Rules for World War 2" by Chris Rogers of Birmingham. Chris was very helpful in giving us advice and explanations on what we found to be an enjoyable set of rules to use. The rules were written in an almost skirmish format but including armour, artillery and a comprehensive section on air support.
This campaign became notable for the amount of streetfighting we became involved in. Our expertise in this costly type of warfare increased and it became necessary to prepare floor plans of each building as we fought from room to room. We used mouseholing techniques, grenades, submachine guns, flamethrowers and bazooka type weapons in some of the most devious ways imaginable. A game of street fighting like the above could be laid out in a very small area and lent itself to mid-week games at one or other of the players homes.
With these rules every man equipped with a pistol or rifle fired individually. Automatic weapons fire used a triangle to denote the ground are swept by the fire. Differing dice throws were required at different ranges. The rules were ideal for a 1 to 1 representation of units so platoon or at most company level games became the norm. Our games were probably a little on the large side to be called skirmish games but they did have some of the same kind of feel to them.
In the early 1970's the move to smaller scales of
figures began. The first ones I cames across were the range of
1/150 card vehicles marketed by Marjorie Greening. Although fiddling
to make they were excellent models when completed. Printed on
green or sand coloured card no painting was necessary. Gun barrels
were of wire and the turrets rotated on a press stud which was
built in between the turret and hull. With these models the option
of fielding complete tank battalions and brigades was possible.
The Blackburn WWII fraternity went to work with a will constructing
cardboard armour. No sooner were large numbers of tanks amassed
than a true wargames revolution happened. The first of the 1/300
scale models hit the market.
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