DBA: Battle of the Standard (2)

Battle of the Standard (2)

As promised / threatened, this was the second refight I did of the Battle of the Standard (details of the first one are here). The forces and set-up are as before, so please refer to the linked post if you need refreshing!

The Battle

Missile fire from the standard guards drives back some of the Galwegians (centre)

This time the dismounted Norman knights make short work of the ferocious but lightly-equipped Galwegians (who were) in front of them.

The remaining Galwegians make another effort to advance and capture the standard...

But the standard's guards make short work of them, too!

Crossbow fire pushes back the flanking Scottish spearmen...

But the Scots reform whilst advancing...

...or not; that crossbow fire continues to drive back some of the Scots

The Anglo-Normans have nowhere near enough missile troops to do anything more than delay the Scots, who eventually do get their spears into action across the line

The Scots push back some of the Normans (note the gaps in the centre) but the Anglo-Norman line is broadly holding...

A closer look at the Scots pushing back some Normans

And again

Anglo-Norman light troops engage their Scottish opposite numbers, who they handily outnumber

Anglo-Norman spearmen on the right begin to move to outflank the Scottish left flank

The Scottish archers and javelinmen are quickly disposed of on the Anglo-Norman left

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A wider view

Melee combat continues to rage along the line, flowing around the Anglo-Norman's standard...

King Malcolm puts in a charge at the head of his Knights to prevent the Anglo-Norman's spearmen carrying out their flanking attack

The Scottish break through the Anglo-Norman spear line!  But the Anglo-Normand do have some reserves who may try and stem the gap

Things looking decidely shaky for the Anglo-Norman centre as the Scottish spearmen flow around the standard...

But battle is rejoined in earnest as the Anglo-Norman left executes a flank attack on the Scottish right (left)

The Anglo-Norman reserves restore the situation on the right of the line - at this point, the Scots' morale collapsed

But no victor ever suffered from a surfeit of victory! More Scots go down on the other flank too

The position at the end of the battle - the remaining Scots' strength in the cente must cut and run, covered by their mounted Knights.

Game Notes: Another enjoyable game of DBA, reversing the result of the first game but also providing a much more balanced game.  The Scottish pike elements with rear support are always going to be challenging to stop, but if they can be, then they must always be very vulnerable to flank attacks.  I have been meaning to do this battle for ages, so I was pleased to get it into the battle, with a proxy standard too!
I do enjoy DBA with all its virtues (simplicity, tightness, speed) although it will always be, by its nature, limited, particularly in terms to army organization - the model is a one-size fits no-one exactly, although I have never really seen too many clear alternatives to this.  To make my point clear, it might be worth explaining why I haven't played DBR.  I much prefer rulesets which deal with the units of Foot and Horse which are closer to those employed historically (tercios, battalia, troops whatever) than elements of 'Pike' and 'Shot' etc.  In that period there are alternatives I know about, and so use; in earlier periods, I don't know of any, so I stick with DBA.  Polemos: SPQR makes a decent stab at representing some of the differences.  I used to play Comitatus and that had a good stab at it too.  There are a couple of magazine rules which had some promising mechanisms also (there was a good one for the Stephen and Matilda civil war IIRC) but nothing I know of which means that I could play this particular battle with the troops organized in a particularly historically plausible way.  Anyway, I feel a longer blogpost about rulesets coming on, so I will leave this one here...

Figures by Baccus 6mm, except the standard which is by Irregular Miniatures.

KG Klink in Greece: The WRG Remix

As a tribute to Just Jack's blog and frankly to scratch a real itch to get some WW2 games played, I hope that he won't be offended that I have (again!) stolen borrowed a scenario that really appealed.  As a small mitigation of this, this was also in the interests of ludological science: although we are both interested in many of the same periods and elements of warfare, we tend to favour different rulesets: rather than using a modified version of Chain of Command, I wanted to see how the scenario would play out using one of my favoured rulesets for company-level WW2 combat: the venerable WW2 1925-2950 Armour and Infantry set.

Just Jack's original game is here, so I won't repeat all the details.  The game is basically a German advance against a junction held by a very scratch Commonwealth force.

The Forces:

Kampfgruppe Klink:

KG Comd: 1 x Rifle Grp (Comd), 1 x Kubelwagen

1st Platoon: 1 x Rifle Grp (Comd), 8 x Rifle Grps, 4 x LMG Grps
2nd Platoon: 1 x Rifle Grp (Comd), 8 x Rifle Grps, 4 x LMG Grps
Support Platoon: 1 x Rifle Grp (Comd), 2 x HMG, 2 x 81mm mortars

Stug Platoon: 3 x Stugs

3 x Stukas are also available for an air strike (either pre-plotted or on a 4-turn call)

Tomforce:

Tomforce Comd: 1 x Rifle Grp (Comd), 1 x Car

RE Platoon: 1 x Rifle Grp (Comd), 6 x Rifle Grps, 3 x LMG Grps
Support Platoon: 1 x Rifle Grp (Comd), 2 x HMG, 2 x 3" mortars

NZ Armed Car Platoon: 1 x Armd Car w/2pdr; 2 x Armd Car w/LMG

My figures are really for Northwest Europe 1944-45 rather than the Med in 1941, so a certain amount of proxying and squinting is required, particularly for the AFVs.  The Stugs are considered to have short 75mm guns, the Commonwealth armoured cars to be of an early war type (I should actually work out what they really would have been).

I did consider giving the RE platoon a -1 to reaction tests but decided against it, partly since they are going to be up against it anyway, partly because it is arguable in these conditions whether a -1 pip on the die is too severe a penalty.

KG Klink and Tomforce will follow the plan in Just Jack's original battle and I will only change their orders in reaction to subsequent events.

The Set-Up:

The Germans are approaching from the North (left); the Commonwealth are defending the village (centre) and the pass between the hills (right)

 

From the top-left going down, we have the support weapons platoon, the KG command group (the vehicle is following up), and then the two infantry platoons

 

The RE Platoon is defending the village

Another view

Whilst Tomforce commander and the British Support Weapons platoon is on the bottom-right hill, Vickers forward and 3" mortars at the back.

 The Battle:

The German heavy weapons set up on the high ground

Overwatching the advance of the two German infantry platoons

A platoon goes into all-round defence on the hillock

 

The Stug platoon arrives

 

One of the infantry platoons, using another hillock for cover, advances towards the hill to outflank the village

 

The Stug platoon advances in support

 

The flanking platoon approaches the base of the hill

Whilst a section from the other platoon gingerly advances towards the village: thus far, not a thing has been seen or heard of the Commonwealth defenders

 

The RE platoon fires when the German infantry is only 50m away!  Four of the Germans are cut down in seconds

An MG34 team is cut-down by the Vickers HMG on the flank; although many of the Germans are pinned, no further casualties are caused

Some surprisingly accurate return fire eliminates one of the Vickers HMG teams on the hill...

Supporting German fire proves quite effective, silencing most of the sappers facing North (i.e. left)

The NZ Armoured Car troop has taken up positions behind the hill to the East of the junction (centre-top)

Combined British mortar, MG and rifle fire suddenly takes a heavy toll of the German platoon on the flank: another 10 Germans fall, mainly hit by some accurate mortar fire

A brave group of German infantrymen get into the village after the supporting machineguns have wiped out one of the British sections, but the RE prove of surprisingly stern stuff and simply gun down the attackers

The German flanking platoon runs for it, unable to endure further minutes under the barrage!

The NZ troops moves into hull down positions...

Which does them little good...

Since a fine shot by one of the Stug gunners blows one of them up!

Further German fire eliminates the other Vickers HMG team on the hill

And more accurate fire from the Stug crews eliminates a second NZ armoured car

Mortar fire starts to pin some of the British commanders and mortar crew

Which is then switched onto the village: a combination of this plus Stug fire and accrued casualties persuades the surviving sappers to pull out!

The remaining armoured car tries to provide some kind of overwatch..

The surviving Germans reach the safety of the hillock, whilst the Stugs push slowly forward (top)

 

The remaining Brits run out of the village down the road

Klink orders his remaining infantry to advance

 

The RE platoon suffer more casualties from the Stugs as they retreat

A wider shot

The Germans complete their occupation

Major Tom and the surviving mortar crew retreat

As does the remnants of the RE platoon

Game Notes:
A very enjoyable game and scenario and not in the end differing too much from the result in Jack's original.  That said, it is quite a different game experience, since the games focus on quite different things.  Up to a point, Chain of Command focuses on overall commander effort and activity, whilst WRG concentrates on the effect of the decisions only.  It has a more laborious system of written orders and radio nets and so on to work out what can happen and when, rather than introduce systems based on dice (or cards, or whatever).  I think CoC works a lot better for this, especially two-player, since the system provides the friction.  In solitaire games, the WRG system works out just as well, I think.  One thing where CoC, and modern rules in general, are clearly better is in providing useful force morale rules, which don't really exist in these WRG rules.  Platoons can be routed, destroyed or captured, but technically you can fight until the last platoon: modern rules with their break points do this kind of thing much better.
One big difference is the spotting rules: infantry are not particularly strong in this game but they are almost entirely invisible.  The battlefield I used covers c.900m x 650m.  Firing infantry can only be spotted at a maximum of 500m, which might explain certain oddities of the battle above: the flanking platoon was being hit by stuff that their commanders and support platoon couldn't see.  I committed myself to following the original orders, but if I were playing from scratch, I would have used different tactics for this reason alone, with the supporting platoons pushed forward more and conversely more of the flanking platoon held back in support.
One shock I got: I hadn't realized that Stug IIIs are pretty much invulnerable to 2-pounder guns in this game!
Figures were mainly Baccus 6mm, with vehicles mainly GHQ I think.  Buildings by Total Battle Miniatures.