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The Great War is my interest. This stems from talking with my Grandfather when I was young. He served in the New Zealand Machine Gun Corps. Unlike many veterans, he was prepared to talk about his experiences but, interestingly, only in the third person. I wanted to understand more about the context in which he fought, including the German perspective. One of his mementos was a photograph of a German soldier and his young family. The soldier had passed it to my Grandfather as he lay dying in a captured trench.
My favourite ruleset is Great War Spearhead. It simulates division- and corps-size battles throughout WW1. One thing that I have enjoyed is the ability of the rules to scale easily for much larger engagements. A group of us replayed the First Battle of the Marne for example. More important is the insights I have gained from replaying historical actions. Being able to recreate the terrain was important. Here are the 20 metre contours being put in place with Hexon terrain pieces:
The Hexons are then covered with battlemats and representations of forests, rivers, main roads, etc. This photo is part of the trial run for creating the Battle of the Marne terrain:
And the final outcome, with all of the relevant terrain set up in the commemorative chapel in Dormans on the 100th anniversary of the battle (2014):
When setting up historical scenarios, it has been important (and really enjoyable) to research as much as possible. The rules have prompted this. I can access and read sources in other languages now, so a new set of skills acquired from that perspective.
Assembling the details of an historical action has another benefit. The results of a game(s) can be compared with the historical outcome(s). This has provided very important validation checks for the rules. There have been very few changes required in the rules over more than a decade, testament to the original Spearhead concepts and the work that Shawn Taylor put into the Great War variant. One example is the rule on the Mad Minute. British infantry companies (the company being the smallest unit represented on a stand) had a firing bonus in the first version of the rules, based on the British accounts of terrible casualties inflicted on the Germans in the Battle of Mons (August 1914) for example. Research showed, however, that the British version of the battle was incorrect. Yes, German attackers went down in large numbers under British rifle fire but the German soldiers were taking cover as trained. Casualties were relatively light overall; far fewer casualties than the British estimated. The Mad Minute ‘bonus’ was dropped from the second version of the rules, not least because research also showed that French and German soldiers were trained in the same technique of massed rifle fire known by the British as musketry.
Which brings me to the most interesting aspect of all, personally. Thanks to the rules, I can spot unexplained gaps in historical accounts. Three examples stand out. The first two relate to the development of Gallipoli scenarios. I modelled the Battle of Sari Bair. Historically, the New Zealanders managed to take Chunuk Bair. Here is a game of the battle:
After the failure to take the high ground during the previous day, the Ottoman forces were heavily reinforced on day 2. This can be seen from the density of infantry stands in the foreground. How on earth did the New Zealanders even get onto Chunuk Bair, which is located under the set of stands labelled ’64IR’ (Ottoman 64th Infantry Regiment) in the photo above? The terrain did not help; there was no defilade for the New Zealanders. The terrain set up helped to confirm this, as illustrated in this view along the Sari Bair ridge with the Battle of Lone Pine raging in the foreground:
One New Zealand account mentioned that the Ottoman machine gunners facing them were asleep. This did not seem like a plausible explanation. It was possible to get the Ottoman battle map, with the dispositions of the defensive forces and the set up on the table illustrated here:
The key to the successful assault was found in the Ottoman regimental accounts. The combined naval and land-based heavy howitzer bombardment preceded the New Zealand assault. The naval gunfire was direct observed fire and the effects can be seen in the game with the thinning of the Ottoman regiment and the suppression markers on two surviving infantry companies.
In a similar vein, it was hard to understand how the Ottoman defenders of the Cape Helles landings succeeded in holding up the British. The defenders were pounded with super-heavy naval shells for example. The game illustrated some of the factors at play. Here is V Beach landings, showing how the uncut wire contributed:
But the game pointed to other variables being at play to protect the heavily outnumbered Ottomans from the devastating naval gunfire support. Ottoman sources provided further insights. The Gallipoli peninsula had been subject to ‘modern’ naval gunfire before WW1 and the Ottomans had taken appropriate counter-measures in preparing the Cape Helles defences. I was even able to discover details of the forts that over-watched V-Beach and how these were designed to accommodate and protect the tenacious Ottoman defenders.
The final example relates to an action my Grandfather was involved in. It was the defensive battle on March 26th 1918. The Germans had broken through the British lines on March 21st and were about to exploit a gap in the hasty British defences between Hébuterne in the north and the Ancre river in the south. The New Zealanders arrived and, with the support of Whippet tanks, stopped the German advance and plugged the gap. I remember my Grandfather showing me the British battle map of the area that he had kept. I found all but one of the German regimental accounts for this action. Replaying the action pointed to the importance of understanding what happened to this regiment. I intensified the search for information and have been able to establish why the regiment failed to appear on the battlefield that day.
Historical wargaming has really helped direct my wider research efforts and to understand more thoroughly why the Great War played out as it did. The rules have been instrumental in driving these efforts.
Robert
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