Company Attack; Indochina 1951

 So after my successful experiment with PBI combat with a Piquetesque sequence deck I decided to roll up a FFL company and try out a company attack to see how everything worked.  I kept the 1st platoon from the ambush from the previous post and rolled up the rest of the company per Platoon Forward.  

We have:

Capt Doucet the CO.  Obnoxiously brilliant.   Comes from wealth.  

SNCO Adj Fontaine   Average ldr.  Belgian businessman  who embezzled money.  

1st Platoon    Lt Carville   Also Brilliant.    Haughty so not popular at base but respected for his leadership during a battle.   Joined the army then legion to tick off his liberal parents.

1st Sq  Sgt Anderson  US

2nd Sq Sgt Dietz   Ger

3rd sq Sgt Loc  Viet   good leader

2nd Platoon  Lt Germain    Avg leader

3rd sq Sgt Hocher   German who father's was in the legion.  Avg leader

3rd Platoon  Lt Dupont.  Avg Leader

3rd sq  Sgt Adames English orphan avg leader but squad is veteran. 

Rather than roll up a mission I chose "Hammer Dawn" from Grunts Forward.  It is a surprise attack on a VM compound.  

Capt Doucet briefed his platoon leaders, "Intelligence thinks they have finally found something. A HQ is based in this small hamlet here. 

                                                      Small Hamlet

The three blue markers are where intel thinks the HQ comms/paperwork is located.  Tomorrow at dawn we are going to move in and capture as much as we can to disrupt these b*s*t*rds.  Speed is important.

We have got two medium tanks and one light tank as well.  Dupont, wake up!  You will take your platoon down the road from the north and search the two northern sites.  Don't stop!

Germain, you will come up from the south and drive into the village and search it.  Don't stop!  Carville, you will be in reserve since you had a brush up on the road several days ago.  You will be with me southwest with the mortars to provide support.  

Questions?  Don't stop!
 

French forces

 Battlefield with the enemy markers laid down per GF.  Even for company actions each represents a potential squad/ heavy weapon.  

From the north.  Lt Dupont starts to move.  1st squad up front.  [4 stand squad secondary to size of legion squads. see discussion previous post.]  We roll for opfor...

 Not good!

And a Chinese bazooka up the road!

 

1st squad quickly becomes pinned down.  Meanwhile down south with Lt Germain...

no infantry but a recoiless rifle in the jungle which misses!      Now we can start our sequence deck.

 

Your kidding!    First roll is tied even.  That means unexpected event.  This could be bad...

                                                                               It is!  

Now all that flat area down southwest that didn't have any VM?  Suddenly a hidden bunker opens up on Lt Germain.   Both attacks stalling first turn.

Lt Dupont takes stock of the situation and gets going.  He orders 2nd squad to the right to flank the VM.  He orders Sgt Adames to go down the left side of the road to clear it and get to the village and report back.  Adames will be unsupported but he needs legionaries in the village and 3rd squad is his best. 

2nd squad quickly takes the VM position with no casualties!  Meanwhile down south...

Lt Germain is pinned down.  The VM have moved a squad into the jungle to further flank the column.  Sgt Hocher moves the lead squad forward into the rice paddies.  He leaves the MMG to fire at the bunker.  The tank is slow to respond.  Capt Doucet may be obnoxious but doesn't want to see a rout.  He moves to the back of the column and orders 1st squad into the jungle to clear it.  

1st squad is ejected with heavy casualties.  Lt Germain rallies and remembers "Dont stop".  He has the tank suppress the bunker and moves forward to the patties.  

Up north 3rd platoon is rolling.  Sgt Adames has cleared his side of the road.  2nd squad is ready to search the first area.  Capt. Doucet isn't aware as Dupont doesn't have a radio.  

As second squad starts to search they disturb a hornets nest! [ 2 squads of VM plus an officer.]

Since Sgt Hocher can see the village from the rice paddies I roll up the other two sites.  The larger building on the north end has a squad plus HMG.  The smaller building contains a Battalion HQ.  

 

A closer look at HQ.  Note the 3 porters on the left.  Per the scenario guidelines the french now have 3 turns to capture this site before all the comms/documents/cadre  have been evacuated. 

   Now Capt Doucet has a dilemma.  Lt Dupont has sent word that the HQ is not in the jungle.  He can extricate 1 maybe 2 squads to move on the village.  Lt Germain has two squads across from the village but they are beat up.  They will have to cross open ground.  He does have a sherman but the RCL is still around.  He can fire smoke but the VM will continue to run.   Time to bring in Lt Carville!

He orders Lt Carville to go through the jungle south and enter the village.

1st platoon on the move!

 From the north 1st and 3rd squad try to enter the village.  3rd squad is pinned down by a sniper.  [ The main building has been demolished by the southern sherman.]

At the end of the turn the first porter leaves.   1st Platoon is moving through the jungle. [ a change to PBI each hex costs 2 to enter for white star forces] 2nd platoon is pinned down in the rice patties.  Mortars can't seem to find the range of the HMG.

 

 As time ticks by 3rd platoon makes inroads into the village.  3rd squad still pinned down by a sniper.  Lt Dupont comes over to help. 

The VM reposition the RCL as the sherman refuses to come up into view.  1st platoon battles into the high grass near the village.  Lt Germain manages to advance with 1 squad across the open ground.  Sgt Hocher can't get his men up against the HMG.  

The second porter manages to leave the HQ...

At the north end of town 1st platoon still fighting their way into the village.

At the south end Lt Carville moves adjacent to the HQ on his own card.  The french movement phase is still in the deck as are both sides fire phase.  But the next card up is french melee...   It's now or never!

Lt Carville sees the HQ and equipment being loaded on bikes.  He orders Sgt Dietz' squad to charge! 

[ it is an even match- 1 french squad vrs 1 VM squad plus an officer each.] 

The french take fire as they enter the village and 3 french go down!  [ PBI has very good "final fire" rules for assaults.  You really want the enemy pinned before you charge.  We didn't have time here.  Two bases were wiped out but I used my Tactical initiative card to restore one base.  Carville/Dietz were able to use cover effectively entering the village.  Now the battle swirls around as the french are outnumbered.  It ended up 16 dice vrs 12 dice for the VM.  Close combat is very deadly in PBI.  

As Sgt Anderson huffs into the village to help Lt Carville all the shooting dies down...

The dead, dying and wounded lay all over the HQ complex.  Lt Carville is surrounded by VM bodies but is alive and tells Anderson to report to Capt Doucet that the HQ complex is secure.  

Wow!  What an ending to the battle.  An exciting win for my french.

Obviously Lt Carville lived but Sgt Dietz wasn't so fortunate.  2 VM officers were present still but only one was captured.  

Post battle a great deal happened per PF/GF.  First, thanks to Brian Weathersby, medals were added to our campaign system through Grunts Forward.  If anyone deserved a medal it would be Lt Carville.  Capt Doucet put him in for a Croix de Guerre with a silver palm.   He was awarded the medal but it was downgraded to a bronze palm.  Still quite an honor.  

Second, Capt Doucet is pulled up to battalion.  Lt Carville is put in charge of the company after he recovers.  Adjutant Fontaine is placed in charge of 1st platoon.  

Third, Sgt Hocher's squad drops to poor.  [ He is the one that couldn't get them moving off the patty in the face of the HMG.]  I don't think the legion would promote someone who would be a poor combat leader but for some reason the men aren't responding to him.  Will be something Germain will need to keep an eye on.

Fourth, Sgt Adames makes his leadership roll and become a great leader. [ One who took his veteran squad and cleared the road north to the village for Lt Dupont.]  

This battle and my mixed system was a lot of fun.  It did take a lot longer to play with a company on the board.  There were really two games going on; one north and one south but I was having so much fun I didn't notice the time.  Each turn took close to 30 minutes and there were 5 turns in the game. 

For those of you that want to try this the system generated:

2 platoons + 1 squad of VM with 2 average officers.

1 RCL, 2 Bazookas, 1 Lt Mortar, 1 HMG

1 bunker with LMG

 Enjoy

 

Joe

 

 

Piquet Bloody Infantry: More musings on a perfect rule set

 I haven't posted in a while but that doesn't mean I haven't been playing games.  I am playtesting my bomber rules for Boom and Zoom and actually sent a one page "sell sheet" to Osprey games.  Fingers crossed.  I also am planning a game at Waterloo games in Richmond. 

Testing rules over Germany!

I have also been playing PBI.  

A Marder waits in ambush!

I have even pushed the system into Vietnam.  I haven't done Afghanistan as am unclear what to do with body armor.  [ I know there was body armor in vietnam but it was no where as effective as later!

I play all my games solo and something seemed to be missing with PBI.  Hence I started musing on my perfect ruleset again to see what it was.  [ I posted on my perfect ruleset last Sept.  Sorry I don't know how to link to it.]  As a quick recap my 6 criteria are:

1. Has to work with a company of troops per side

2. Command and control is paramount.  I have to feel like I am in command and that leadership makes a difference.

3. Has to have a smooth combat resolution that isn't fiddly

4. Has to be solo friendly

5. Battles have to be resolved in a relatively short amount of time.

6. Has to be flexible enough to cover WW II to Afghanistan. 

Now I freely admit that this list and my opinions are subjective.  Everyone has their own criteria.  What is fiddly and long to me might not be to you.  Fortunately we have many rule sets to choose from.

I reviewed PBI a couple posts back so I wont re review it here.  Suffice to say Martin set out to make a game where two chums  bring their armies to a table, roll up a battle that is fair and have a go in a couple of hours with reasonable history and results.  I think he has succeded very well.  

So as I reviewed my list with PBI:

#1?  Check.  It works well with a platoon up to company.

#2?  Check.  It has a simple command and control system that actually works very well. I tried to modify it a couple of times but kept coming back to the original.  It is simple but works well.

#3?  Check  I modified this a bit with two "5s" allowing you to also roll for a pin result but otherwise another simple system that works quite well.  The more I have played the infantry part the more I appreciate the anti-fiddly approach to combat.  You are either fine, pinned or killed.  I thought you also had to have disrupted; turns out you don't!  

#4?  Not sure here.  It isn't solo unfriendly.  But the Igo-Ugo sequence doesn't lend itself to many surprises.  

#5? Check.  Having a set number to roll towards does end the game.

#6? Not really.  But I don't think it would be that hard to transfer it to more modern settings.

So you can see that I was stuck on #4.  

So I thought about Piquet.  Piquet's sequence deck is very solo friendly.  The problem I have with the original Piquet: Blitzkrieg is 

#3   Combat is fiddly.  There are 4+ modifiers and you have to switch to different dice. 

#5   Sometimes battles flow well but other times all you need is an infantry move card and you have to burn through a whole deck to get to the last card.  Could I rationalize that I could never get that platoon to move; sure.  Was that fun; no.  

So after hearing about Brent Oman's latest project, Battle Command I thought I would try a Piquet Variant sequence with PBI--- Piquet Bloody Infantry.  If you are not interested in some of the details skip down to "How did it go" and go straight to the battle report.  Otherwise:

Both sides get an asymetrical seqence deck per Blitzkrieg [ or Forgotten Heroes] but there is only 1 card of each type except for two officer check cards.  Any star or dud leader gets his own card.  He can act [ or prevent action] on his card. Each deck ended up with 10 cards.  You still roll LD for impetus, ties even result in a event card draw.  Ties odd result in reshuffle of the deck.  If you win impetus by 1-2 you draw a card then your opponent.  If you win by 3+ you draw 2 cards then your opponent draws 1.  

Each card does have an alternate use such as amour fire-- Infantry move.  Only one unit can use the alternate use.  This is meant for those situations where, "The only thing I have to do is move this one unit."  To use the alternate use roll that units quality [ or LD ] vrs a D6.  Lose have to do primary action. Tie or win by 1,2- your unit can do the alternative action. Win by 3+ your unit can do the alternate action and everyone else can do the primary action.  

Dug out my old Piquet cards I made!

The rest of the game is played per PBI.   When you fire you roll a die, odd the unit fires twice, even the unit fires three times.  For movement, roll a D6, 1-2= 1 hex, 3-4= 2 hexes, 5-6 = 3 hexes.  You rally troops on officer check cards which is why there are two in the deck.  Pinned troops can't move closer to the enemy and have half firepower.  

How did it go?

For my playtest I chose to ambush a FFL platoon in Vietnam in 1950.  This doesn't stretch PBI.  The french actually had 15 man squads so two of my squads will have 4 bases not 3.  I already have a french platoon rolled up from grunts Forward.  I made a table up of why people joined the legion.  I really need to post it here.

Lt Carville is a brilliant officer who comes from wealth.  He joined the army and legion to get back at his liberal parents.

1st Sq Ld is Sgt Anderson An american veteran of WW II he got his girlfriend pregnant and never looked back.  He is an average leader but his squad is veteran.

2nd Sq is Sgt Dietz.  Also a WW II veteran but on the other side.  Needed a job and wanted to leave a devastated Germany.  He is an average leader

3rd Sq is Sgt Loc. A local boy who made good.  He struck an officer so joined the Legion.  He is a very good leader.

 

 My FFL platoon.  Two stars are identified. Each squad made up of a LMG and at least one SMG stand which can fire 2 hexes because each hex is 30 yards instead of 60 meter squares for PBI.  We have halftracks, a greyhound and 3 large trucks filled with cheese.  

As this was a test I did not roll up the enemy.  There is one platoon of VM + a recoiless rifle.  I gave them a mine on the road.  I rolled up quality and 1 squad was poor. 

French put the greyhound in the lead followed by 2 squads, the trucks and a squad.  Lt Carville is in the second halftrack.  VM dispositions as per picture.  Battle starts with the mine immobilizing the greyhound and the recoiless rifle missing the lead truck.  

Here is where the beauty of the card deck comes into play.  What happens next?  Who reacts first and how?

Even though Lt Carville is an above average leader (D8) vrs our VM Lt (D6) for the first turn I give both sides D6 due to surprise.  

 Not only do the french win the impetus but the first card drawn is armor move!  As rockets go off the legions driver's training kicks in and they immediately gun their tracks to move out of an ambush! 

Sgt Anderson, at the back of the line tells his driver to stop.  He wants to unload here and catch the VM from two sides. 

As they make there way across the road towards the RCL, gunfire erupts from the jungle.  Two men go down.  

 

Sgt Loc, at the head of the column, debusses and moves towards the ambush trying to protect the trucks which are caught in a jam.  They quickly become pinned down.  

In the center of the column VM swarm a truck, it is quickly destroyed!  

US satellite image 1 "turn" into the ambush.  To the right, Sgt Loc has forced the VM into the jungle. Lt Carville has finally debussed and is going to send Sgt Dietz against the RCL on the hill.  The RCL has destroyed the third truck.  Sgt Anderson is in the van trading fire with VM in the jungle across the road. A random event has improved the VM Lt's leadership.  He now matches Lt Carville which will make it harder to get inside the OODA loop and react faster than the VM.  On the third turn the legion will gain a tactical initiative card due to their training.  I don't know if we will have our last truck by then!

Here is a picture of Sgt Anderson's position.

 

3rd squad continues to move down the road trying to clear it of VM.  These poorly trained, pinned troops would be easy meat for Sgt Loc's SMG toting troops but he just can't seem to come to grips with them. Dietz if finding slow going towards the RCL.

For the VM this second turn changes from attacking trucks to battling well armed french troops.  As while it might seem slow to the french they have reacted very quickly to the situation.  

End of turn 2.  Both Sgt Anderson [left] and Sgt Loc [center] have managed to whittle away the squads they were facing.  The RCL escaped while Sgt Dietz climbed the hill. [top]   The last truck is safe [ right].  The greyhound [center] managed to move down the road after I drew a heroic event card followed by an armored car move card!  The 3rd VM squad [bottom jungle] withdraws.

Great battle that played in 20 minutes.  Operationally a draw as two out of three trucks destroyed but the VM lost two out of three squads while the french lost only the 2 men from Sgt Anderson's squad.  Tactically a french victory.

I really enjoyed the game; tense, fast and the combat was fast with no fiddle.  Could this be my perfect rules?  Will be interesting to see how it plays out with a company per side.  

I hope neither Brent nor Martin are offended by anything I have said.  I think both of their rules are great and have a lot to offer.  I freely admit as a solo gamer I am looking for some things quite specific.

Enjoy

Joe