Home Forums WWII Artillery Barrages

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  • #180264
    Avatar photoJim Webster
    Participant

    Not a set of rules, more something you can add to pretty much any rules as a way of bringing the pre-attack artillery barrage into the game. I’ve stuck it in WW2 but it’ll work from WW1 onwards.

    Artillery Barrages

     

     

    https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

    #180299
    Avatar photoTony S
    Participant

    A very simple and clever idea Jim.   A few weeks ago I dug out an old set of WW1 rules to reread (yes, in my life that’s what I sometimes do for entertainment) that I remember liking.   I’d forgotten about the artillery section.  My eyes glazed over at the sheer complexity of it.   Lots of charts and tables, and of course preplotting.

    Not only do I like yours better, but I suspect they are just as “realistic” with respect to the results.

    #180300
    Avatar photoJim Webster
    Participant

    I tried to keep them simple, but also reasonably quick when you’re playing the game. So both players arrive at the table knowing what their army points are (even if they didn’t use points to chose the force but are playing a scenario). Then hopefully you have a short pregame phase where the attacker tries get the ‘best value’ for the barrage and the defender does their best for damage limitation

     

    https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

    #180339
    Avatar photodeephorse
    Participant

    Thanks for this Jim.  The WWII rules that we use already incorporate a barrage system for set-piece attacks, but aside from various beach assault scenarios we just don’t play such attacks.  Where the rules fall down is in the area of F.O.O.s etc. calling in artillery fire during the course of a game. The mechanics are highly unrealistic, to the extent that I don’t bother incorporating artillery into any scenario that I create myself.  Which, of course, is highly unrealistic itself, especially for the Allies post D-Day.

    So I would like to find a better ‘spontaneous’ artillery fire system than the one our rules has.

    Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

    #180340
    Avatar photoJim Webster
    Participant

    Thanks for this Jim. The WWII rules that we use already incorporate a barrage system for set-piece attacks, but aside from various beach assault scenarios we just don’t play such attacks. Where the rules fall down is in the area of F.O.O.s etc. calling in artillery fire during the course of a game. The mechanics are highly unrealistic, to the extent that I don’t bother incorporating artillery into any scenario that I create myself. Which, of course, is highly unrealistic itself, especially for the Allies post D-Day. So I would like to find a better ‘spontaneous’ artillery fire system than the one our rules has.

    I think one problem with artillery rules is that the player has too much input, too much to do. Before the game, artillery might well be built into the plan, so comparatively junior officers could be left in charge of it. After all, a battalion commander doesn’t have to micromanage every squad or platoon. The government pays people to do that for him.
    I think that during the battle, artillery support should be on a basis of the player pointing at a target and saying (metaphorically at least), “Guns, take them out.”
    You are not responsible for fixing the telephone wires or radios, it shouldn’t be your job to decide whether and how the FOO gets through to the guns etc. (This is something I’ve got more insistent on over the years)

    For artillery during the game I think we might get away with a simple table with two or three columns which give the results depending on how competent your force is and how much it has been moving.
    You’d just roll a d6 against that table. The more mobile your force, the slower the reaction (they can to catch up) and the more competent your force, the better the response.
    So you’d roll your d6 and read off the result which might be, “Target hit in three moves time by artillery one grade lower than you asked for.”
    So your FOO couldn’t get through to the 4.5s but has at least got a 25pdr battery to come to your rescue.
    Your role is to say thank you, nicely, and say how many moves you want it for 🙂

    I confess I haven’t sat down and drawn up a table yet 🙂

    https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

    #180358
    Avatar photodeephorse
    Participant

    The rules that we use are commercially available and well known.  The artillery procedure is simple, but annoyingly (to me anyway) unrealistic.  So they don’t place any real burden on the player.

    I take your point about battalion commanders not getting involved in what’s happening at section level, but surely that’s what is happening in many rule sets involving miniatures?  You might have command of a brigade, but you’re moving and resolving combat with elements as small as an infantry company or troop of tanks in the rules we use.  So having the Brigadier throwing the dice to range in the fire mission is not ‘alien’ to the game over all.  Ultimately I suppose it comes down to how much ‘war’ and how much ‘game’ do you want in your wargame?

    Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

    #180359
    Avatar photoJim Webster
    Participant

    The rules that we use are commercially available and well known. The artillery procedure is simple, but annoyingly (to me anyway) unrealistic. So they don’t place any real burden on the player. I take your point about battalion commanders not getting involved in what’s happening at section level, but surely that’s what is happening in many rule sets involving miniatures? You might have command of a brigade, but you’re moving and resolving combat with elements as small as an infantry company or troop of tanks in the rules we use. So having the Brigadier throwing the dice to range in the fire mission is not ‘alien’ to the game over all. Ultimately I suppose it comes down to how much ‘war’ and how much ‘game’ do you want in your wargame?

    It’s a matter of degree, I once played a set of rules, where you deployed a reinforced company. If, when firing a light machinegun, you rolled a certain number and the gun jammed. This might have been accurate, (doubtless depending on a lot of factors) but what wasn’t accurate was that I, as company commander, had to roll each turn to unjam the gun.

     

    Now there is an argument that I’m the only person throwing dice so I have to do it. But I would suggest that you have to gear up the dice throwing for that which is relevant for the level of commander you’re trying to portray.
    So I might as a company commander note that there was a drop in the amount of fire coming from a certain squad, but before I really had time to do anything about it, it would have picked up as the crew unjammed the gun (or whatever was the cause. I might never find out because I might not remember to ask)

    There’s nothing to stop a Brigadier calling in fire missions. Indeed in Vietnam there was a spell where they had remarkably senior commanders riding in helicopters above quite small actions, sometimes giving orders to individual squads. Some times it was useful, sometimes it wasn’t.

    The Brigadier should certainly request artillery support, but once the request is made he is going to move on to his next problem 🙂

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