Commando and SAS scenarios

[Philippe]

I'm currently trying to make a selection of some of the more exotic units to put in the upcoming flag/sleeve mod.

There are a lot of these units, some of them really small, and they will all get published eventually. In the meantime I don't want to slow things down too much by having to write complex rules for company-sized units that have no corresponding scenarios. These units will be covered in later editions, however, especially if scenario designers actually come up with scenarios in which these units appear.

So, since I almost never play the game, and don't really have a good sense of what needs to be portrayed for Commando or SAS units, I would appreciate if everyone could write in the names of scenarios that they are aware of that need these types of units. I'm not just talking about scenarios where they are the dominant unit, I'm actually interested in any scenario where they put in an appearance.

I just want to make sure I haven't overlooked anything. So please mention any historical or semi-historical scenarios you are aware of that use Commando's or SAS. I'm particularly worried about 1945, because my notes don't seem to show anything. I also have a complete gap on Dutch and Belgian SAS scenarios.

And please don't be shy about mentioning scenarios that seem screamingly obvious. They may not be so obvious to me.

[Panther G]

I recently made a commando scenario: Bruneval-A Quick Visit. It's about a British Airborne detatchment attempting to snatch a radar in France. It is historical. Get it at the depot (see link in sig).

Ryan

[Stoffel]

one that comes into my mind is Quistreham

I did some testing for it

[Soddball]

I've just completed creation of a commando scenario and am about to begin playtesting.

[Firefly]

There's a St. Nazaire scenario out there somewhere and also the recent Commando Raid at Vaagso (semi-fictional - it's been reset to 1944), which has been getting some good reviews in the scenario section. From the German side there was a solo 'campaign' (i.e series of scenarios) featuring Skorzeny's mob.

[ August 25, 2002, 04:01 PM: Message edited by: Firefly ]

[Breakthrough]

I wasnt in to ASL but I used to get the General, and I recall several scenarios with Commandos and SAS. I remember a very good historical article about the ToO of British AB units too. Perhaps there was a similar article for these outfits. My 'British Army Handbook 1939-45' does not have ToO info for these outfits either. Perhaps the old ASL Grogs can enlighten us?

[Philippe]

Just to make sure this doesn't drift off topic, I'm making a CMMOS edition/mod that inolves applying Darknight's shoulder patches and collar tabs to uniforms.

So I'm only interested in CMBO historical scenarios that already exist or are about to exist. One of the reasons for this posting is that I am vaguely aware of some Commando (and that's British Commando and SAS, not small c commando) operations in 1945 and was wondering if there were scenarios covering them.

There seem to be two Ouistreham scenarios, one where the French Special Service Brigade Commandos speak french, and one where they speak english. I wonder which one is closer to history ?

And yes, we have St. Nazaire. (I may actually play it at some point. Never got around to buying the Avalon Hill wargame.) We had to go through some hoops to get the raiders into their uniforms (Engineers and Paras masquerading as commandos). What's causing a certain amount of hair loss is that British commandos tend to show up in mixed scenarios, that is, in the presence of other types of units... so I'm currently grappling with blanco webbing on one type not interfering with regular webbing on the other, and vice-versa.

[ August 25, 2002, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: Philippe ]

[JasonC]

Not an existing scenario, but one I have wanted to make and just haven't got around to - in the late summer of 1944, in support of the drive north from the Anvil-Dragoon beachhead in southern France, there were a number of special ops trying to seize bridges ahead of the advancing Allied columns. Which were US and French. The French SAS was involved, with about a battalion all told, typically running company sized ops. They were trained by the Brits, armed after the pattern of British airborne, but French. They also did liason work with the FFI (resistence), which supported some of these attempts.

[Philippe]

I'm pretty sure Darknight has already made the sleeves for those units. So if it doesn't go into this release it can go into the next one.

What I'm finding with these odd little specialist scenarios is that it is often hard to predict what units a designer will use for his protagonist. The nice thing about CMMOS is that you can easily accomodate some pretty weird combinations. There's a scenario that pits Milice against Maquis: the Milice are really Volkssturm and the Maquis are really French regulars. It won't happen this time round, but I'm thinking of making a CMMOS rule to switch the sound files so that, for this scenario only, the Volkssturm will speak french. [A big stretch for a single scenario, but quite possible in theory]. I've already made a set of Milice and Maquisard uniforms, and mchlstrt is working on two or three others.

So compared to that, getting French troops to wear British uniforms is trivial. The forthcoming Semiotics mod will show the 1ere DFL and the French contingent of No. 4 Commando in British uniforms, and of course everyone will be speaking french that is supposed to. The only problem is with the berets, and the only way around that is to make Brits speak french. Again, it can be done in theory, but I'd need to do a lot of sound mapping to make sure the correspondances work.

[Philippe]

If I understand correctly, the units in the Bruneval raid would just wear the uniforms of the appropriate battalion from the UK 1st Airborne. In which case it's aleady taken care of, you just have to remember to look for your unit under the 1st Airborne Division icon, and not under a Commando icon.

We seem to have sleeves for the 3rd and 4th Para bataillons, and the French SAS. I've put a few of them under an SAS icon provisionally. When a scenario gets written that could change, of course. I strongly encourage anyone planning on writing scenarios involving this kind of unit to get in touch with me.

[Next month I will look at the question of switching languages in more detail. At the risk of offending the Flemish-speaking CM community, I plan to try to get the Brigade Piron into French-speaking mode so that they don't show up in their only scenario speaking English. If someone wants to make a set of Flemish sound files (and knows which language the troops were actually speaking among themselves), I'll glady create an alternative to a purely Walloon Brigade Piron.

I'm afraid at the moment I can't do much for the Dutch Prinses Irene Brigade or the Czech 1st Armoured, but I'll give it more thought if someone actually writes a scenario for those last two units and comes up with Dutch and Czech speach files.]

This is probably the last call for pointing me at historical Commando or SAS scenarios. Apart from St. Nazaire, what I've focused the mod on is Lovat first sight and the Ouistreham scenario where the French actually speak French. If someone could tell me that the other Ouistreham scenario (the one with Ouistreham in the name) is closer to reality, I'll look into making some adjustments. Bruneval should work with 1st Airborne uniforms, but I'm still a little confused about historicity of the Vaasgo scenario.

But what really surprises me is the lack of historical Commando scenarios after D-Day, particularly in Holland and Germany.

[Michael Dorosh]

I think there is a commando scenario dealing with the British SS (Special Service) brigade at Walcheren Island, based on the Squad Leader scenario in GI: Anvil of Victory, I don't recall the name right now.

I have always wanted to do some of the Dieppe raids, but never found the time - would make a neat mini-campaign; the commando actions fought seperately and affectng at start forces in the main beach scenarios.

[ August 26, 2002, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Philippe]

The Dieppe Commando action (Lovat again, wasn't it ?) can already be accomodated with what is going into the edition.

You hit the nail on the head with Walcheren. I had been sure that there was a scenario about it, but hadn't been able to find it. Anybody know what it is called ?

[Michael Dorosh]

Infatuate II

[Philippe]

Thanks Michael. Got the scenario. The four battalions of the 4th Special Service Brigade will appear in the next CMMOS release, so I'm not quite as finished with the Brits as I thought I was.

I still wish I had an excuse to use the 1st and 4th Commando Brigades, but I would need some 1945 scenarios (it was either crossing the Rhine, or the Ruhr pocket, or the last big paratroop operation of the war, but I can't find anything with Commandos).

One question about that scenario, though. I've now decided to include the 4th Brigade no matter what, but is that map really historically accurate ? I noticed some artefacts of ASL write-ups in the introduction (as far as I know UK infantry can't make smoke, unless I've been missing something all along -- no wonder my squads keep getting killed...), and there seem to be some board numbers (!?!) clearly marked at each end of the map. There is also some very odd terrain that I don't understand...some huge piles of rubble along the riverbank that I guess are supposed to be dikes. It's been a while since I was in Holland, and I've never been to that part of Holland, but I remember having a picnic on one when I was a kid, and it was quite grassy, though rather steep. I suppose the rubble set you use makes a different. Have to get someone to write up a CMMOS rubble edition...