African Wargame

Played a wargame at Larry's house recently.

COL Jim and Joe and I played with Larry and Keith.

Several small African villages tried to salvage a ship stranded on some rocks.

They were opposed by another village and government forces.

Sort of a four sided wargame.

Each group had to guard their village and send forces to grab the loot.

Tarawa Game

I scanned in a few old photographs of a wargame I played with some of my friends. This is the USMC raid on Tarawa in WWII. I read an article that had detailed maps and information on all the troops from both sides and we figured we had all the stuff we needed to play it as a game. They sent in Marine Raiders from two submarines. They went in by rubber raft, but they had trouble with the outboard motors and the reefs. The reef line is shown here by the little yellow string. Marines had to make a saving roll to get over the reef. Our Marines landed after taking several drowning casualties and then killed all but one or two of the Japanese on the island. Here you can see the Japanese reinforcements coming to the island in a landing craft. Coca-Cola is the wargamers choice of beverage at my house.

The B-17 represents a crashed aircraft that was in the lagoon. We had one Japanese sniper under the Airfix Bamboo House who sold his life dearly for the Emperor. He must have killed at least five Marines in the game. As in real life, the Japanese air support arrived and made several attacks on the ground. The Marines withdrew after having destroyed all the ground installations of consequence. As in real life a few of the Marines were left behind because they could not get to the rendezvous in time. They were killed by the Japanese in real life and in the game. We used Zulus! for the island natives as my collection of South Seas Islanders consists of Zulus. The terrain is Geo Hex with cake decoration palm trees for most of the trees, with a bit of lichen tossed in for scrub brush.

The roads were brown roofing shingles. Durable and cheap, cut them to shape and you are done. The aircraft are on wire coat hangers glued into wooden 2x4 blocks. We used a heavily modified Angriff! system using individually based troops firing individually. You can see the large poster we made for one of the firing charts. When using rules that require you to check charts over an over again, we found it helpful to make them into wall hangings and so we did not need to shuffle all that paper, and I can read them without my glasses. I made my own craters and cast them in resin for the artillery.

Wargame Scenarios

People always seem to want wargame scenarios so here are a few tips on how to generate some. There are several classic military maneuvers and wargame scenarios based on them are sure to please. These work for any era, any scale using the figures and terrain you have on hand.

Defend the bridge. Rivers have been barriers to military operations forever. Defending a bridge with whatever scratch force you can put together is always a good game. You can select any variety of troops and vehicles and place them on the "enemy" side of the river. They have to hold out for X number of turns or they lose. Typically such a force is composed of any solders that were able to be scrounged up and told to hold the bridge until some other forces could make their escape, then the holding force could cross over and get away. Attacking force can be any size, the larger they are less time the defenders should have to defend the bridge.

Coup de main, the attacking force is huge and has overwhelming numbers and firepower. They must capture the radio station, the bridge, the power plant, the telephone exchange, the gas works and the presidential palace as rapidly as possible. The game is all about speed. The defending force should be small and scattered all over the playing area in small outposts, but the longer they hold the longer the enemy will have to waste time fighting. Causalities are not relevant, but time is your enemy. Every turn the defenders hold is a loss to the attackers.

Meeting engagement, two sides of equal strength stretched out along a roadway that ends at each end of the board. Who can get their forces on the board and deployed the fastest and then attack the enemy in strength? A double ended meat grinder with forces fed in from each end. Race to the high ground, the bridge over the small stream, the small forest that blocks your view. Husband your forces at the entry point or move to capture key terrain? It is your call.

Mexican American War 2016

Newsmax.com - U.S. Military: Mexico Could Collapse Under Drug Violence



Wargame scenario, most of our military is in other countries or has been demobilized. All warnings are ignored and Mexican government collapses. Suddenly we have a Somalia right next door. A U.S. Military Intelligence report says that due to drug traffickers murdering police and corruption within the government, Mexico could actually collapse as a government. While Mexico has been fairly stable in the last fifty years, it was wracked by revolution and invasion in the 1800s and early 1900s. The slowdown of the US economy has also meant less money going into Mexico from Mexican citizens living and working here.



So a small town in the US near the border in rural Texas is being raided off and on by "revolutionaries" from Mexico. Just as in 1916 the US Army sends troops to the border to protect American citizens. This times the troops are nationalized members of the Texas National Guard. Set up a small American town, with six or eight buildings, including a bank and a supermarket, and a few others that are destroyed. The National Guard troops are set up some distance away from the town, with the town between them and the border.



Mexican revolutionaries, using American HumVees and other light American made armored and soft skinned vehicles, as well as perhaps a few foreign ones too. I would use a mixture of Caesar figures, the Terrorists, WWII Partisans, and some of the Special Forces troops too. For the TNG use HumVees as well as a platoon of Bradleys and perhaps even a platoon of Abrams. The town can be populated with Revell and other companies Cowboys and other civilians. The civilians have to delay the Mexican forces until the TNG can respond and drive them out. The goal of the Mexicans is to raid the supermarket for food and the bank for cash. They have to load a certain amount of supplies from the market, blow the safe, get the cash loaded and back across the border with only a reasonable number of causalities.



Both history and the news can provide great wargame scenarios, if you just think about if for a few moments.

Small Wargame Scenario

Wargame scenarios can be many things, they don't always have to recreate the Invasion of Normandy or some other large actual event, sometimes a good wargame can be a simple incident.

In 1944 a platoon of German infantry has to retreat over the bridge, take their two supply wagons with them and hold off the attacking Russian infantry for X number of turns. That will be enough for the supply wagons to get away.

The Germans get about 40 or 50 troops and two wagons. The Russians get at least 100 if not 200 troops to attack them. They start just outside of machine gun range. The Russians have to capture the bridge and destroy or capture the two wagons.

The bridge will create a choke point where the Germans will have to defend while the supply wagons get a reasonable distance away. They can only retreat when the wagons are far enough away that the Russians won't be able to catch them. The intent of the game is not that the Germans have to annihilate the Russians or even that the Russians have to destroy all the Germans. As long as the Germans can delay the Russians so they can get the wagons away, then they win. The Russian player has to move quickly or the wagons will escape. Good hunting to both!

Russians and UFOs

Britain Releases More UFO Sighting Files

Where can you get good scenarios for science fiction or modern Cold War wargames? How about the news? Reports of missiles being fired at aircraft. Reports of space ships landing. Reports of space ships crashing.

Change the word alien and substitute the word Spetznaz. The Japanese in WWII had aircraft that would fold up and fit into a pressurized cabin on the deck of a submarine. They would surface the sub and assemble the plane and fly missions to bomb places or scout for enemy fleets. How about a Soviet sub with a similar cabin, they assemble a helicopter, and send troops in ahead of a major attack. Maybe days or weeks before a real attack.

You tell your NATO player that he gets a call of a UFO and space aliens. Maybe the Spetznaz are wearing MOPP gear so they appear alien. Farmers can shoot at them, the police can respond, gunfire between the police and Spetznaz. It could take a long time for the military to respond. Russian player has to take out the nuclear power plant, or the missile defense system, or big radar array. After that they have to go to the airport and steal a helicopter since theirs crashed.

Scenarios are not too hard to put together, you just have to look at the news and then reconfigure the events to fit you time period and the troops you want to use. Instant scenario.