First game of the year 2026

 Well its as much a play test as a full on game.  When I was playing around with the DBA derived rules Damn Battleships Again I got to wondering about using weight of shot as a measure of the attack value of the ships.  That in turn came from something I read a while back about how much incoming fire was needed to pin or suppress a squad of infantry and once sent to ground how much was required to keep them there.  This little nugget of information was filed away somewhere at the back of my mind until I got the World War Two bug again .I started to think about what I knew of infantry tactics in the Second World War and how to reflect that in a set of rules.  

I had already set the size of infantry combat units as being the components of a section, so a 'Gun Group' with light machine gun and loader plus one other with rifle or sub machine gun and a rifle group split into two elements.  This gives the flexibility to set up a base of fire with the gun group and manoeuvre with the two rifle elements. Each element is given a factor for the weight of fire they could lay down at various range bands based upon the weapon mix deployed on that stand.  Lets call them fire points. For each fire point the base could roll 1D6 plus or minus D6 for things like cover, movement and training.  any score of six or double fives having an effect thing then would then come into play to determine the impact of the incoming fire.  Results would escalate from pinned (can't move but can shoot) through suppressed (can't move or shoot) to neutralised (No longer combat effective and removed from play).  Ground scale is 1cm to 50 yards (this may change as my ideas develop).

So to test the basic concepts for infantry combat I laid a table out on Friday and set to pitching a platoon of German Fallschirmjager against a two rifle groups (four bases) of British Infantry plus a section of Home Guard.  All set in 1940 during the fictional operation Seelowe Nord.  The scenario is that German airborne forces are converging on an airfield they are tasked with capturing.  In the way of one platoon is a small village garrisoned by the British as a defensive island.  To make it interesting I gave the British a couple of improvised armoured vehicles, a Beaverette armoured car and an Armadillo mobile pillbox (well semi mobile is a better description).

1. Starting positions.  

You can see the central area of the table in this photo.  The British defence is set up in the village and the German assault is deployed at the bottom (with the pale blue ID tags), the groups of three represent a section and the group of two is the Platoon HQ.  Neither side has mortars or artillery support.

2.  Four turns in.  White markers are spotted units (see below)

The spotting rules were dropped pretty quickly as they added unnecessary complications as spotting should be specific to a single observing unit and one or more target units, showing that would be unwieldy.  Instead I switched to a simple combined  line of sight and spotting mechanism.  Scratch the white markers here after.

As you can see in the second photo the German attack is pushing out to the flanks and the British have advanced both the Beaverette and the Armadillo to provide fire support.  The armadillo is especially useful in this as it mounts twin Lewis Guns in a concrete bunker. Armadillo armoured fighting vehicle - Wikipedia if you want to know a bit more.  It gave a really useful base of fire over on the British left.  The Beaverette is less robust but more mobile Standard Beaverette - Wikipedia.

3. The shooting starts

First contact is on the British left.  The shooting rules seem to be working as intended (after a couple of tweaks) as the advancing Germans are accumulating pinned units (the yellow markers) no suppressed units as yet (those would show a red marker).  These can be removed or reduced via a morale check at the end of the turn.  So it is similar to a step loss system.  Shooting works by checking if Line of sight exists and if the target can be seen it can be fired upon.  This then moves onto calculating the fire points being applied and rolling 1D6 per fire point less one dice if the shooter is pinned, one if the target is in soft cover and two if in hard cover.  Any six or pair of fives causes a step loss.  Units who can't clear the effects are of course more vulnerable in the next turn.  Several units may mass fire on a single target subject to target priority rules (which are not finalised as yet).

4. Closing in

As the German Fallschirmjager move towards contact on their left the Armadillo shows it worth as it suppresses the MG34 team directly to it's front.  British rifle fire pins part of the rifle section as it crosses the open ground between the woods and the defended hedge line.  Movement and firing is simultaneous so Jerry gets to return fire but will be disadvantaged next turn if they can't clear the pin and suppression effects.  That said the MG team and rifle section killed one British rifle base opening a gap in the defence of the hedge.

5. Close assault preparation

The other flank is hotting up as well as can be seen in photo 5 above.  The Fallschirmjager's HQ anti tank rifle team has advanced on the Beaverette and managed a mobility kill (white marker).  The British defence is mostly in hard cover on the German left (a log bunker in the field corner and houses) but MG fire is to be used to pin them (reducing the number of fire dice generated) which will allow the rifle team's to close in on the bunker.  A close assault with rifles and grenades will follow up and clear the first defensive obstacle.  By the way the group of troops at the far end of the village sitting all forlorn in the field are casualties and are not really there).

The Germans cleared the bunker and swung around to laydown fire into the village from their left.  They finished off the beaverette but not before it had shot up a rifle group.  I did the morale tests at the end of the turn and the Germans rolled low and decided to withdraw.

I think I have some interesting concepts but I don't think it gives me anything above and beyond what Fistful of Tows (FFT3) provides.  So I will shelve the draft rules for the time being and give the slim line version of FFT3 (a fistful of T34s - a Little Wars TV variant) a go.  I will lift the force make ups from the full rules so I can use my 1940 stuff again.  So watch this space.