NQM Stalingrad

 I've had various conversations with Chris over the years about NQM, and I've incorporated some of the concepts into my own rules. I'm always very interested in rules based on how real armies actually do things, rather than wargamers fantasies, and NQM as written, has a whole ton of sensible stuff about the practicalities of manouvering military formations and assaulting positions defended by modern weapons with a significant perspective on the importance of recce, resupply and casualty evacuation. 

Chris has recently been working on a grid based version of his rules, and an early iteration was used to fight El Alamein and Gazala, and more recently, various trips to Stalingrad. We arranged for me to visit NQM HQ in Wellingborough to push some toys around.

Stalingrad in full swing. Chris has reported extensively on the fighting to date on his blog. I arrived as November 1942 rolled around, so it was going to get cold.

The northern part of the city where the Russians have been compressed into a tight pocket around beneath the Mamyan Kurgev hill.

We were going to focus on the southern part in the morning, the struggle for Pavlovs House, the Grain Elevator and the Department Store, all still in Russian hands. The German starting forces were a (very) depleted infantry division left of the gully and a Panzer Division in rather better shape to the right. The Corps had a regiment of heavy artillery in support along with the Luftwaffe, but more importantly, the fresh 100th Jager Division was on the way.

The department store, hanging on. The German infantry here are largely fought out and have been reinforced by elements of the Panzer Division (24th?). Over the river are lots of boats loaded with Soviet troops, this is the last turn they can cross before the river becomes choked with ice floes. The Russians don't have any medical units this side of the river so are unable to remove losses.

The Corps boundary with the northern sector is the rail line. German infantry divisional HQ, artillery and logistics train. There is a recce company holding the 3km (!) square in front. The infantry in the city have been reduced to the equivalent of two battalions, but are supported by a battalion of panzergrenadiers.

The Luftwaffe focusses on bombing the Soviet reinforcements while the Panzers have a go at the Grain Silo. Russian AA downs some Heinkels. I figured out fairly quickly that concentration of effort was key, so focussed on one or two squares at a time.

The new combat system is very different to the old, there is no longer artillery suppression, there is no ammo tracking (just random ammo depletion), no fire superiority, no distribution of losses across elements in a unit and no risk style multi round close combat. Instead, there is recce, indirect fire, movement, then 'fighting' which rolls fire and assault together and then reorg/resupply.

Both artillery and 'fight' use Table 12 for losses (rolls of one result in ammo depletion), and then in assault both sides make an opposed roll, modified by current morale level and who inflicted the most casualties in the 'fight' phase. The winner of the dice roll pushes the other out. Hits accumulate on a single element, so whole bases get removed quite quickly, instead of being spread all over the unit. This produces very similar effects to the old system with morale throws etc but is much quicker and with less book keeping.

100th Jager Div marches on through Pitomnik Airfield. Infantry only move one square (3km at this scale) per turn. The division is at full strength, for a Jager Div, so two infantry regiments, artillery regiment, engineers, recce etc and they have brought a Stug battalion with them too. The HQ has a little dice with '3' on it. This is their morale, and is added to assault dice rolls, and it is also reduced by one for each regiment every time they reorg. So the individual regiments can reorg three times, becoming less effective each time until it hits zero at which point they have to withdraw. I rather like that idea. 

I unwisely attack both Pavlovs House and the Grain Elevator. Losses are heavy on both sides and the defenders of the elevator are destroyed.

The remains of the infantry in the north pull back to reorganise (that stand with all the hits is now stacked with a medical unit).

Two of the battalions of the panzer division also reorg with the divisional medical halftrack, this drops their regimental morale from four to three. Working out the cycle of fighting and reorganising is quite satisfying.

100th Jager approaches the outskirts of the city.

The enter the city and close in on the department store. The Russians are pushed back into a tight bunch. The river is choked with ice floes now and impassable to river traffic, so no more Russian reinforcements.

This isolated pocket of Russians is reduced by artillery.

The Grain Elevator is cleared by fire.

The department store is heavily bombed.

As the elevator is unoccupied, both sides move to occupy it. This time the German engineers win the race and finally take it.

The Panzers shift north (left) and mass against Pavlovs House.

The Jagers have cleared out pockets of resistance and focus on the Department Store. They have already suffered such heavy losses to Russian artillery that two battalions pull back to reorganise and resupply. Elements run out of ammo on a roll of '1' and lose their combat dice, then need to link up with the divisional logistic column to resupply. I'm sure I can incorporate something similar in my One Hour WW2 rules.

The combined might of the Jagers and Panzers push the Russians into the Volga. The Department Store and Pavlovs House have fallen! The superior morale and firepower of the Germans (most of the Russians are morale 2, whereas the Jagers are 3 and the Panzers 4) lets the Germans push the Russians out, although the opposed dice roll system makes this quite a crap shoot. The southern half of Stalingrad is now clear.

View from the Russian side.

We broke for lunch at that point. The plan for the afternoon was to run through the old combat system at regimental level (so the elements are companies and the units battalions).

The action switched to the Russians pocketed beneath Mamayev Kurgan Hill. 

Using the old Regimental level rules, there are combat stands, support stands etc and each stand is a company, grouped into battalions. To assault, the attackers need to win the firefight (inflict more losses). They can then close with the enemy. In this system hits are spread over the whole unit instead of accumulating on one element.

Close combat is resolved as a series of opposed dice rolls using the Risk system, limited by how many assaulting SP you have left on the stands. The number of rounds you fight is determined by the attackers morale, and each 'success' inflicts a hit and pushes an enemy base out of the position.

This works fine in more open battles, but in a high intensity urban environment, an awful lot of markers of various types accumulate quite quickly. It was a similar battle to this one in the El Alamein game which prompted Chris to switch to the newer system.

That was a great day out and many thanks to Chris for hosting, it was good to actually push stuff around as there is a big difference between doing it and just reading rules. I'm already reasonably happy with the various levels of rules I use but there were some mechanisms in the Corps level game which worked very well and I'll try to figure out how to incorporate them without breaking stuff or having a complete re-write.