Rules for a solo QB campaign

[Wreck]

Jason, regarding artillery support. You are the best expert I know of on this, so let me ask: what percentage of the time in battle do you think that an average American company in WWII had arty support, and of what caliber?

I know of many incidents where a company would command amazing amounts of fire; these I am not interested in. Rather, grinding forward in the bocage on a daily basis, what did a company normally get? Would a company always have at least some fire on call? Would this be different in attack/probes/MEs/defenses?

Was 105mm support really more common than 81mm?

[Green Hornet]

Wreck,

I got a chance to pour over the rules and start my first battle last night. Great stuff so far.

I've also been following this thread so I have two points...one is a comment one is a question.

1. Question - I'm embarrassed to ask this and anyone else knowing this can chime in as well. In your rules you refer to the acronym TOE. What does this stand for?

2. This thread contains a lot of good ideas and constructive comments. I just want to give you some encouragement to be sure to work on the "patch" you mention without getting too discouraged. With all this good input, I can see this just getting better and better over time.

[Ruthless]

Hi, I'm Ruthless; longtime reader, firsttime poster...or something like that...

Wreck, you have a very creative idea here and there are a lot of good ideas being presented in this thread. I haven't tried your system (because I don't have that kind of time), but I did read through most of the rules.

First, a small comment that may be obvious:

Anyone who doesn't like Wrecks rules can, of course, modify them for their own use at their own discretion since it is 1-player anyway. (This comment just because your system surely won't leave everyone happy and I just wanted to point out that it certainly could be personalized. You know how grogs can be...

Secondly, anyone care to write a short program to run these calculations automatically? That would be my suggestion, just to speed things up a bit...although you'd probably want to wait until you've finalized it more. Surely it couldn't be more than a couple dozen lines of C code.

[Wreck]

I made a bunch of changes to the rules, to add things asked for here.

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• added artillery rules. Americans should now seem much more like Americans.
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• added defensive AT attachments
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• completely overhauled rules for computing size of battle. It's now more complicated (boo!) but much more general.
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• added rule allowing your own riflemen to serve as replacements for support weapons
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• increased cost of experienced HQ replacements to 2 favor
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• removed +5 experience for first casualty - seems unnecessary and encourages silly behavior.
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• added more detailed battle worksheet.
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[Wreck]

"TOE" stands for Table of Organization and Equipment. It's an army's official written idea of the what men and equipment make up each unit in the army, from the squad all the way up to divisions.

The American supply and replacement organization was excellent at getting new equipment and men into the front lines, so that usually American units were at their TOE. (Often after time in the rear they would be above it!) German units were not as fortunately, often fighting as more or less paper units with only a fraction of their men and weapons.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Wreck:

"TOE" stands for Table of Organization and Equipment. It's an army's official written idea of the what men and equipment make up each unit in the army, from the squad all the way up to divisions.

Well, not "an army's" but "the American Army's". The British and Canadians call it a War Establishment, or sometimes Order of Battle is used to refer to this concept also (abbrevited OB or OoB). The Germans quite naturally have some German terms for this...

I think most wargamers who speak English have come to use the US term "TO & E".

[JasonC]

By far the most common form of artillery support was 105mm from div arty. The second most common form of artillery fire was 155mm, especially from higher echelon artillery groups. Half of all US artillery fire by tonnage was just 105s, and most of the rest was 155s. 81s were almost always available within range, but could expend their ammo arbitarily fast and were not resupplied with anything like the thruput of the heavier tube artillery. These are order of magnitude differences, in CM module terms more like 2 orders of magnitude.

As for how often it was available, that varied somewhat over time and by location. There was an artillery ammo crunch related to filling the supply channel and unloading difficulties in October, just as there had been a gas crisis at the end of August and in early September. This was pretty absolute in Patton's 3rd Army, and effectively halted offensive operations. The Aachen and Hurtgen area was not seriously involved, however. In fact, overallocation to units in that area (hording by them, etc) was one aspect of the October crunch.

The rationing elsewhere in October rebuilt sufficient stocks for the artillery to be turned back on in November and early December. Then in the Bulge it went into high gear, by draining the supply channel as an emergency thing. In February the fighting got considerably easier and some of the measure taken in the fall had time to work, and the ammo situation cleared up, substantially. Demand for shells to fire can rise arbitarily high, however, and there was a long and lengthening channel (2 1/2 months from factory to gun crew) to stuff.

Obviously ammo is not expended uniformly. The rate of firing goes up for new offensives, to defeat major counterattacks, in active sectors vs. quiet ones, etc. Pursuit operations use very little because the dumps cannot all be moved and gas is the absolute transport priority. I will give some averages, but understand that mathematical averages is all they are.

What you see overall is high expenditure in Normandy, building as the force ashore rises, with a couple of relatively pauses - after the June 20 storm for about a week, and just before Cobra to build stocks for it. Then in August the rate falls due to pursuit ops, heads back up modestly in September, drops again for the October crunch except in the Aachen-Hurtgen area, high in November, highest yet in December to meet the Bulge, still high in January (south in particular), dropping after that as the fighting got easier.

Through all of that the armies in the field wanted to expend - 2 CM modules per day from all 105 batteries, 3 or 4 from 155 batteries. What they actually got was more like 1 and 2 respectively, though they went as high as 3 and 5 per battery-day in the Bulge. Understand, those averages include all the quiet sectors, batteries off the line, yada yada. In heavy action, single battalions (3 batteries) sometimes fired 50+ CM modules worth in one day.

In armor divisions there was literally a battery per armored infantry company, since there were only 9 of the latter in the whole division. In infantry divisions there were 27, with 15 batteries (9 div 105, 3 regimental 105, 3 div 155). In addition, there were on average 9 more arty batteries per division at higher echelons, mostly 155. So it was not scarce or rare for a single company to have a battery worth of support. Obviously only some of the companies were "up" on a given day. On the other hand there might be any number of CM level fights in one day for the same company.

The normal thing would be for an attacking company to have some form of div arty support, and a company being attacked to have even more - a battalion firing in support of one company under heavy attack being entirely common. Companies doing minor things - small probes, holding actions against little opposition, off the line obviously - could go without, or have just a little.

It would usually be 105 or 155, and usually not a mix but one or the other. With the amount varying with battle size and attack or defense, from 1-3 modules in CM terms being typical. No, it would not be ordinary to always have 81s as well, let alone exotica like 4.2s, 4.5s, or 8 inch. Those existed, but they did not have anything like the pure logistical presence of div and corp arty 105s and 155s.

I hope this helps.

[edgars]

Originally posted by Wreck:

Jason - interesting. You are worried about the campaign being too hard. I am worried about it being too easy! In fact I have some tentative rules thought up to make it harder, lol. As follows: the player should remove from the aux force the first one (or two) platoons of infantry generated.

Last night I played an attack into heavy woods, using that rule (removing two platoons). I still got a total victory, but I did take more casualties in my core than I had in the previous few fights (all total victories thus far).

Wreck,

you're a crack or elite player. I'd rate myself as, probably, a veteran one. I played three battles, in all of them casualties were "heavy", and the biggest victory was "major", others being "tactical". So the force balance IS pretty tough (i wonder, how "green" players are doing?).

[edgars]

O yes, one more question. What happens to the unit if it runs off the map?

I had one green squad rushing over 40 m of open ground, a distant MG fired un them from the flank, squad went to "Shaken" turned 90 degrees (no casualties), and insted of running to the house which was 20m ahead of them, they ran 100m to the edge of the map.

Shoud the unit be fully replaced?

[Marlow]

Originally posted by ciks:

Wreck,

you're a crack or elite player. I'd rate myself as, probably, a veteran one. I played three battles, in all of them casualties were "heavy", and the biggest victory was "major", others being "tactical". So the force balance IS pretty tough (i wonder, how "green" players are doing?).

I probably rate myself as a regular/vet, and I haven't had too many problems with the rules as they are in general. The only changes that I made was to add to the OOB one spotter of the next largest size in the battle. If I had no spotter, I added a 81mm, if I already had an 81, I added a 105. I did this for two reasons, first to give the U.S. a little more realistic level of fire support, and second to give myself a couple of extra points. Also, in the one battle where I was on the defense against a German armor attack, I added a 57mm AT gun platoon. This worked pretty well, as in the first three battles (two attacks and a defend) I had major victories with between 15 and 30% casualties. I like some of Wreck's new rules, and will probably use them instead, but I will likely adjust the force size multiplier up a little bit.

Up to this point, I fought the battles like any other QB, without too much thought to force preservation. The fourth was where the campaign idea had a big impact. It was a ME, where I had an combined arms auxilary force, (which netted me one M5A1 in the way of armor) and the AI had an armor force (lots of hetzers and StuGs. The map was flat farmland with very little cover. If it had been a normal QB, I would have fought it out, and probably had my hat handed to me with very high casualties. As it was, I decided to ignore the VLs, use what ambush tactics I could (given the sparse cover), and then withdraw well away from the VLs. I gave up the victory (took a loss), but I only had 21 casualies, and managed to dish out about 30 and a tank to the Germans. In the campaign setting, where you are trying to keep your men alive, as well as win the battle, this was a victory of sorts.

[ August 02, 2002, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: Marlow ]

[Wreck]

Jason - thank you very much for the detail. This mostly matches what I knew, as you can see by looking at the artillery tables I put up last night. Assuming you are fast enough - based on what I didn't know, I have revised the artillery tables a bit, and I am uploading it when I am done with this.

I had not known how little the mortars actually contributed. This is not something one would ever discover in wargames, since the small arty always tends to be overused because it is less variable.

With my revisions, it is now more likely that the player will get either one or two modules of 105mm or 155mm. He can certainly get allocations that probably are unhistoric, especially if he uses favor.

I also revised it to give defenses more arty. I hope the system deals with it correctly. I shall have to test this. The issue is simply can all that arty be bought in the QB generator without going over the line? I think so but I shall have to check.

This forum is a great resource. Imagine getting a mini-essay about an abstruse subject just by asking! Thanks again Jason.

[Wreck]

Marlow - a fascinating AAR there. That's exactly the sort of battle that I hope that the rules will generate; you made a hard choice but I am sure it was the right one. In a one-off QB, of course you would have charged the men into their deaths and won at huge cost. That's fun in its way but its not realistic/historical.

[Wreck]

ciks - yes a unit that makes it offmap should be fully there. (You should check for casualties just as it leaves, of course, and any casualties will require replacements as normal.) I am tempted to apply a penalty for cowardice, though, and to discourage edge hugging. Hmm. Perhaps a -5 like the other cowardice penalties is in order.

Yet another patch for the rules.

[JasonC]

I've now seen the added artillery rules. I have some suggested revisions or issues. On the die modifiers for amount available, I'd suggest +1 in August and September, if you like in November as well. October should be the +2 month, and maybe even +3. It was really a drought that month. Also, I'd suggest a -1 modifier when defending against a German attack - they really massed guns on the fly to blunt German counterattacks. That would also help address December, which might deserve a -1 of its own.

Your current modifiers put the shell crunch in November, but actually the US managed to fire 2.5 million rounds of 105 in November. It was October that was dry (half a million in the Aachen-Hurtgen, 5 digits elsewhere).

There is a more basic problem with the second portion, selecting the kind of support received. The procedure you have generates mixed gun types with some regularity, and realistically there would be far less mixing of forms of support. You might see one module of 75mm or 81mm mixed with the others, and when 8 inch shows up it might be by single battery. But the rest of the types were battalions and would not be mixed. (until you get up to 6-9 FOs, which you won't in your campaigns). I'd suggest something like -

1-3 105

4-5 155

6 Other

Other

1-2 4.2 inch mortar

3-4 4.5 inch gun

5-6 8 inch howitzer

Then only mix in the 75-81s in the case of 100 point "remainders". Those would be used as single batteries, so as lone FOs, added "if they fit", and 1 maximum. 81s would be more common there just because they often would fit and are worth more. Realistically, you'd see 75mm sometimes when working with TDs or Cavalry, and 81mm the rest of the time.

You would therefore see 1-3 big modules of a single type (with little arty support, 0 obviously possible too), and 0-1 light ones.

So, say you are greens with 600 as in your example. You roll 105s to start. Then you have not one module of 105s and keep rolling, but 3x105.

As for folding in VT, you might allow 1 module of 105 or 155 to be upgraded to VT after it becomes available and if there are the points for it, on an additional die roll like 1-2 out of 6 (it wasn't that common).

I am sure there are bugs in my suggestions above in terms of your system, and you will want to clean it up to fit the way you do things. The basic point is that you'd almost always see one uniform large tube size in a given battle, not a mix, with an occasional minor suppliment by one battery of lights.

I hope this helps.

[TSword]

Wreck,

Great idea ! Will try it out

If BTS would provide an API-set one could even generate a tool feeding CMxx directly.

Greets

Daniel

[Gpig]

Why don't you write up a program for us MACheads as well, while you're at it.

I wish I had the time to play one of these out, it sounds like my cup ah tea.

Good going, WRECK.

Gpig

[Wreck]

I like the new arty and defense rules. They make me feel very American when I play - always looking for ways to use the arty to spare the men, who always seem to be too few. Attacks used to be a russian feeling affair where you would swarm each position with 2 times the number. Now you have to go slower, softening positions up with arty before moving your few men, probably core, up to deal with the remainders.

I made a typo yesterday, now fixed, for Oct shell supply. Also I have added a rule to use small maps for German attacks - the maps used are much to large for the American force concentration.

I am afraid I may have given the American too much arty in defenses. I just got counterattacked twice in a row, ending up with very little infantry. But it did not matter much because the AI seems to like to form its attack into one or two specific lanes; if you hit the front of the lane with a bit of arty, it kills and slows them, and the rearmost ones continue to move forward into the beaten zone thereby creating amazingly dense targets.

I did a game last night which was basically 2 155mm observers against 3000 points of German infantry. AT guns and 60mm mortars killed a bit of armor, mostly halftracks, but otherwise all the killing was artillery. The arty won a total victory when the German surrendered, after taking some 500 casualties, all before the Germans even made it to the edge of the American setup.

Basically, defense with more than one module of heavy artillery seems to be a stupid AI trick. Not the point of the campaign.

I am thinking of putting a 300 point limit on defensive artillery. But perhaps I shall jigger the table to make that happen usually, but not always. Thoughts? Any experiences similar to mine?

[Juju]

Just to show that not everyone gets total victories all the time: I'm now starting battle 4. It's STILL frickin' June! I got two regular platoons, but the company is still green, so I'm buying at low quality. And I get these difficult assignments all the time. Oh well. Let's see what the next battle brings me.

[JasonC]

Wreck - you are right that the AI does not attack well, and in particular is poor at avoiding arty and avoiding clumping into dense targets. You can mitigate that somewhat with larger map sizes and more flags. But if in a QB you get bunched flags or the AI happens to home in on one major flag, it will get clobbered. Especially if you have anticipated the axis of advance, put a TRP i the right spot or capped the exit of the route with a few mines or wire.

But I don't think the solution is to artificially neuter the defending arty. The kind of messed up German infantry you recount did happen. That is what protective artillery fire was for. I can point you to many AARs where a battalion or even a regiment of German infantry was chopped to pieces by heavy arty trying to overwhelm a smaller US defending force. The real solution is to have some AFVs in the attacking force mix, because they at least are largely resistent to shell fire.

I'd suggest skewing German counterattack forces toward the "armor" force type, with combined arms middling common, if you find the AI counterattacks are too whimpy. Rather than cutting the defending arty. It will show the realistic problem, which is nasty but "strip-able" tanks. It won't show an unrealistic problem - mass automatic infantry rushes at US infantry artificially left without heavy artillery support.

[Wreck]

Jason, good point. I have revised the modifiers for german force type to make attacking infantry rarer. If one does get attacking infantry, it will probably be a turkey shoot. But as you mention, that did happen; I have read such accounts myself. So doling out a few easy ones to the players probably won't hurt 'em.

[hobo]

Wreck - Great system. During my first battle generation I had more arty points than the QB would allow. I also had -80 and thus no auxilary points to spend (cheap bastards). So instead of adding the 100 arty points that I must lose to the auxilary, I just increased the size of the battle one level and kept the arty. I am a little confused by the aux selection. Does this make more sense?

Regards,

Hobo

[Hensworth]

I must be doing something wrong...

For my first battle, I ended up with a 2000 point defense against Waffen SS armor with nothing but my company and 3 105 mm FO's. No armor, no AT guns.

I tried to set up my zooks in ambush (which is a waste of time with greenies, but I had to do SOMETHING to try and please the brass) and waited in trepidation.

The zooks all missed and died. I stayed on the map as long as I could to inflict maximum casualties with the arty but in the end had to pull everything off. -5 across the board, one squad captured due to the autosurrender. Needless to say no confirmed kills. -17 favor .

I'm confused about the auxiliary forces. The die decided that I would get an armor attachment. This inflated my current force size by having to add 200 pts, causing me not to receive any auxiliary forces at all !

Is this correct ?

[Juju]

Sgt_Kelly, I think the armor attachment (specifically for defense) and the aux force are two different things. Just like the way arty doesn't count as auxilary force either. I could be wrong though.

[ August 04, 2002, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: Juju ]

[ryddle]

I really like the looks of this and excellent work on hammering out the details. A small thing to consider...

I have many different opponents (via Ladders) but I have one fellow in town that I have been playing PBEM's solid against for the last year. We try out different tactics and theories on each other. What would have to be modified in order to play a campaign of this sort against another player? The idea of 'favour' is cool but I wonder how setting up the balance of the proportion of QB points would be unsettled by having a human opponent. I've looked at other larger campaign rulesets, however they seem to require 3rd party arbitration. btw, I'm not asking anyone to throw lots of work into this idea... but just wondering if you had any suggestions of what might need tweaking to balance it out.

Again, great work!

-R

[Wreck]

Hobo - unfortunately I am unable to determine exactly what your problem is. However, clearly these are solo rules so your making up a way out of your problem is, ultimately, the right solution.

Perhaps you had the version of the rules I briefly had up where there is no remedy for being unable to buy enough arty? If so please look again - now if you cannot get enough arty (because arty is restricted even on "unrestricted"), you get less arty but you get more auxiliary forces to make up for it.