The Approach to Mutanchiang

Over the the last few days I've gradually played through my solo version of Bob Mackenzie's Mutanchiang scenario adapted for TacWWII.

The scenario has a Soviet combined-arms force attacking along a valley with the aim of capturing the village of Ssutaoling and clearing Japanese forces from the valley. 

We begin with most of the attacking Soviet rifle regiment deployed in the woods with a tank brigade arriving on their right flank. A somewhat reinforced Japanese infantry battalion opposes them.

A fierce firefight erupted in the woods as the Soviet infantry (green ovals) needed only to make a single move for their lead companies to close with their Japanese opposite numbers (red ovals) in the woods. These particular Japanese were dug in but had failed the Tac roll to start the game in Prepared Defence Mode. The result was both sides losing one platoon and the Japanese company and one of the two Soviet companies getting Halt morale results. Because the other Soviet company remained in Bold Attack, a Neutralised Japanese platoon surrendered.

On their extreme left flank, the Japanese regimental HQ's 75mm gun engaged the ongoing Soviet armour (green arrow) but to no effect. Return fire from an ISU-122 platoon destroyed the gun and the resulting morale check saw the Japanese RHQ forced to retire.

The second game turn began with the arrival of air support for both sides. First a flight of Soviet Il-2s attempted to bomb the Japanese company on the extreme right flank. The bombs missed but by chance they hit and neutralised the rightmost platoon of the neighbouring company in the woods.

Meanwhile a kamikaze attack by a Mitsubishi Zero occurred on the opposite flank. Tasked with taking out an ISU-122 platoon, the Japanese pilot failed badly! The Japanese regimental HQ was retreating down the road in the face of the Soviet armour and our pilot, though imbued with the spirit of Bushido, mistook the limbered gun platoon for tanks. 

I don't have a Japanese horse team so a generic wagon
model had to stand in. 

On game turn 3 the Soviet armour closed with and destroyed the Japanese company on the left flank. The Japanese had failed their rolls to deploy kamikaze tank killer teams.

By this stage the Japanese battalion's morale was such that all of its component companies had "Halt" morale results but this was no great problem as they were happy in their entrenchments.

Game turn 5 saw the Soviet armour swing round to fire upon Ssutaoling while the infantry continued slogging through the woods.

With two companies now lost (one to the tanks and the other in the woods) the Japanese battalion now received a "Retire" morale test result. At this point I thought the game was over but it was not to be.

Two game turns later (the soonest it could possibly have occurred) the Japanese regimental commander managed to transmit new orders to his remaining companies. "Retake Ssutaoling or die trying!" was the instruction.

On game turn 8 the 479th Guards SU Regiment (two ISU-122 platoons; Soviet self-propelled gun regiments were company-sized units at this point in the war) entered Ssutaoling at the same time as elements of both of the two remaining Japanese companies. 

The resulting exchange of grenades and HE shells saw one SU platoon destroyed and the other Neutralised and both Japanese units pinned down ("Halt" morale results). I'd have expected the remaining SU crews to surrender but because Halted companies go into Confused Mode, there were no suitable infantry to capture them and they remained somewhat incongruously parked in the built-up area.

On game turn 9 the Japanese 126th Raiding battalion arrived on the road alongside the railway line.

The situation in Ssutaoling remained unchanged with neither side's morale status allowing for the moves that might resolve matters.

Two Soviet tank companies were in a position to fire on the village but boggy ground to their front prevented them advancing while lack of space and Japanese fire made it difficult for the accompanying SMG troops to assault the position.

By game turn 12 the newly arrived raiding battalion (accompanied by a mixed tank company - one platoon each of Chi-Ha and Ha-Go) had fanned out to attack the right flank of the Soviets. The tanks were no match for T-34/85sthough and both platoons were quickly lost. Japanese morale held on this occasion.

With a whole Japanese battalion converging on them, the Soviet SMG companies were looking exposed. Sure enough they took sufficient casualties to trigger a cascade of morale tests that saw the whole tank battalion forced to retire.

With the tanks in retreat and Japanese heavy artillery interdicting the only route into the village that didn't require wading though flooded fields, I decided there was no chance of the Soviets achieving their objectives in the remaining five turns. The Battle of Ssutaoling was a Japanese victory on this occasion!

The end:
A - 126th Raiding Battalion advancing towards Ssutaoling
B - Japanese heavy guns interdict the road junction
C - Japanese infantry reoccupy Ssutaoling
D - A Soviet rifle company is checked by the artillery
while behind them ISUs and tank riders retire

In retrospect, the amount of woods and boggy ground on the valley floor makes it a bit of a slog for the Soviets to get their forces into position. This is not helped by the fact that in TacWWII MMG platoons move more slowly than their rifle-armed buddies and all of the Soviet rifle companies have a mixture of both. With the woods counting as Heavy Going, an MMG platoon in the woods moves 2.5cm per turn even in March Mode out of sight of the enemy.

Rules wise, I came away with a couple of additions:

I was happy with my draft Kamikaze Tank Killer rules (I'll post them here later). 

I'm going to make it a house rule that companies with mixed-speed platoons (e.g. fast and medium tanks, or rifle- and MMG platoons) can comply with the Modes' minimum move distances by electing to move at the speed of the slower elements. This will avoid having companies increasingly spread out as they advance.

Manchuria 1945

I'm planning on another game of TacWWII this weekend with a solo play-though of Bob Mackenzie's Approach to Mutanchiang scenario. Here's the setup.

Conversion from Bob's Command Decision scenario to TacWWII reduces the table size from 8'x4' to 4'x2'; small enough to fit on the plan chest in my workshop.

The village of Ssutaoling is the only built-up area on the map. I decided to represent it with a little homemade village module:

It's one of three I made from modelling clay when one of Mark Bevis's articles in the SOTCW Journal required some Korean villages. That must be about thirty years ago!

Tigers 3 and 4

The third of the Louisiana Tigers miniatures is somewhat different from the run-of-the-mill.

This is another in my series of miniatures-cobbled-together-from-bits. In this case Warlord Games Ancient Briton legs and War of the Spanish Succession torso, mated with Perry ACW arms, head and cartridge case.

The aim was to capture the feel of a Zouave who's discarded his blue jacket and is instead wearing his red undershirt and non-uniform trousers.

I'm going to revisit the paint job slightly. The stockings into which his trousers are tucked need to be in a slightly more contrasting colour.

Figure four started out as a stain-painting experiment. His flesh and blue jacket were painted with heavily watered-down acrylics over a white undercoat. 

I applied a mid-brown wash over the whole miniature.

I'm not particularly happy with the result but he'll look OK when ranked up with twenty-odd similar figures.

 

Tiger 2

The second of my Louisiana Tiger zouaves is done! 

This is similar to the first in painting style. I have actually done the jacket using a three-colour approach. The base colour is Vallejo Dark Blue with Intense Blue shadows and the highlights done by adding a little white to the Dark Blue. The result is quite subtle when seen in real life and even more so in photographs.

The trouser stripes are in Intense Blue and I'm quite pleased with the effect. I've used a brown wash on the gaiters and haversack.

Figure 3 was going to be an attempt at using the stain-painting technique (a predecessor to commercially available "speed paints") but the lack of large areas on single colour on these figures means it's not really achieving much. Look out for a significant departure from the approach so far in the next figure!

Sharp Practice Scenario Generator

Regular readers of this blog (I know there are a few of you) will know that I've been working towards  a mini-campaign set during the 1812 French invasion of Russia. Rather than going with the well-known march to and retreat from Moscow, the plan is to cover Marshal Macdonald's advance towards Riga with a corps made up almost entirely of German and Polish troops.

Inspired by the approach used in Osprey's Rogue Stars sci-fi skirmish rules, I decided to have a go at a random scenario generator for the campaign. The following system doesn't try to establish every single detail of a scenario. Instead treat it as a source of ideas; you'll still need to nail down some of the details by agreement (if you don't have an umpire).

To generate a Sharp Practice scenario, start out by rolling a D20 to get an idea of the general terrain on the table:

If a village shares the table with terrain that precludes farming, eg forest or boggy ground, the village is (or was) inhabited by Jewish traders and artisans. They are used to being attacked so their caches of food are well hidden. Add 5 to the foraging Task Values.

Next we need to roll twice (once for each side) to see what orders our respective detachments have been given:

Finally roll once on the Complications Table to find those unpredictable items that make life even more, well, complicated!

These tables reflect the Narrative Snippets I've captured while reading contemporary accounts of 1812 and other campaigns in Napoleonic Eastern Europe. I plan to treat this as a living document and add to or amend the plot elements as my reading continues.

There's no reason this approach can't be adapted for other campaigns in the Napoleonic era or at other times.