WWII Skirmish Campaign - Game 1- Setup..

OK...  we're off...

First, I guess I need a somewhat more 'snappy' name for this campaign than the title of this post, so we'll call it "Operation Cornichon" (which is French for pickled cucumber apparently..  😀)

Forces are now decided - I had a super enjoyable evening sorting through my old 15mm skirmish troops - it's been at least 5 or more years since I did this so I had no idea what I had, or how they were organised... the additional, and enjoyable, complication is that DG gave me his French some time ago, and I had even less of an idea how they were organised....

Either way, it transpires that DG and I decided on the section as our basic manoeuvre unit, and furthermore decided on an fairly arbitrary NCO/6 riflemen/LMG as the composition of these sections...  clearly this may well be a-historical but it works so please don't tell me that French sections were bigger, smaller, didn't exist, or whatever.. 😏

Next step was to decide OOB's..

The Teaser that starts my campaign is #9 "Attack on the Camp" (from Charles Grant's "Scenario's for Wargames"), and in it Charles indicates that the force in the camp needs to be slightly stronger than the attacking force... after much thought I decided to go with three sections for the French, and for the Germans I went with two sections - each side will also have a C-in-C figure representing a Lieutenant/Captain, who in turn have two or three riflemen attached as runners and such....

This is a bigger discrepancy than designed, but I intend balancing it by adjusting the morale of the two sides to see if that brings them more in line with the OOB's Charles originally designed; accordingly the Germans will be classed as veteran while the French will be regular/conscript.

By way of an answer to Mike's comments in the last post, the rules I'm using are a set that DG and I put together and automated (we used Visual Basic) years ago - I have no idea what the source was other than a healthy dose of Featherstone, and some other rule sets we had at the time that I can't remember the name of ("Two Up and Bags of Smoke" may be one??); they allow 5 morale classifications, so the Germans will be "A" and the French "D" (just one better than worse)

Next step was to grid the village and decide where everyone on the French side is being billeted..  so we have 7 habitable accommodations - it seemed likely to me that the C-in-C will have his own house - that's just the way it is so I diced for the house he has commandeered and rolled a "6".. that then leaves 6 available billets, or half a section per billet - it seemed likely to me that armies being what they are, sections would adopt a fairly hierarchical approach, so I've decided the section NCO's will bunk with the machine gunners, and the riflemen would form their own group....  accordingly...

Building #

1. 1st Section - Riflemen
2. 1st Section - NCO/LMG crew
3. 2nd Section - Riflemen
4. 2nd Section - NCO/LMG crew
5. 3rd Section - Riflemen
6. C-in-C
7.  3rd Section - NCO/LMG crew (upstairs)

For the actual game I'll print this out and place the actual figures in their relevant grid... makes it much easier to see where everyone is...

Scenario Specific Rules:

• All movement is at half distance because of the pre-dawn darkness.
• The German force enters in two halves from top left, and top right of the picture in the previous post - dice for which column the C-in-C is with
• The French deploy one riflemen from each of 1st and 2nd Sections as sentries - these are placed on the small hills NE and NW of the village (top of the picture is N)
• The French sentries throw 2D6 each move and will spot the enemy on a 7 (add 1 to the dice per turn) - once spotted the sentry needs to reach the village (I know that you're all thinking - "all they have to do is let off a shot" - I'm taking the view that this is quite an active area and there are shots going off all over, all night), and the alarm is triggered when he touches the edge of the camp.
• If a German section can reach the village without the sentry seeing them, the sentry is considered captured, and the alarm is triggered when the force touches the edge of the camp.
• Once the alarm is raised (for either reason) it may be considered to be light enough for all units to move at normal speed except when in the village which is always half speed.
• The alarm must be raised before any movement may begin in the village. From the point at which the outpost reaches the village, the warning spreads inwards through the village at the rate of 10 cm’s per period and units activate.As each grid is alerted, each element within the grid throws two dice which will decide its action as shown in the tables below. The LMG's count as a single element.

Slight change to the table layout (moved the river further towards the right hand edge) - sentry's are in position - Germany entry points bottom and top left..

French Reaction Tables:

2	Break and run, unarmed : cannot be rallied*
3	Break and run, armed. May rally when out of camp if not attacked.
4	Stand for three periods during which they will run if attacked, but may rally (basically, blind panic). Throw again after three periods.
5 & 6	Stand two periods then throw again. They may defend themselves if attacked.
7	Stand two periods, then deploy out of camp moving south
8 & 9	Stand two periods then deploy out of camp by the shortest route
10 & 11	Stand one period then deploy out of camp by the shortest route.
12	Deploy out of camp by the shortest route in the next period.

Any bolting or running moves are compulsory and are done before normal moving at the start of a period. In the case of running infantry, anyone in the way must throw a D6, three or more being required to avoid being swept up in the rout.

On with the game....!