Air War revisited

 There was a certain degree of chatter on the WhatsApp group about SPIs 'Air War'. I did play it a few times at the University wargames club in the early 1980s, but have little memory of it now. We agreed to set up a remote session to play through a few moves and remind ourselves of the joys (?!) of the game. At the time it was reputedly one of the most complex wargames ever designed, and long pre-dated decent computer flight simulators. 

As usual you can find the entire thing on https://www.spigames.net/ if you want to recreate that mid 1970s experience! You just need a few plain hex maps, a few aircraft counters and a printout of the aircraft control sheet and data sheets.

Half a dozen of us turned up (me, Nigel, Ian, Tim, Russell, John B) and we were also very fortunate to have the games original designer, David Isby, on the call. Along with working for SPI, David has written many books on military history and worked as a national security adviser on Afghanistan among other things. Amusingly he said he designed Air War when he was at Law School and before he actually learned to fly a plane.  

The others all set up their copies of the game, I just got out the aircraft data sheets and control sheets with the rules up on another monitor. The control sheets looked quite, familiar, this was coming back to me now. The idea was that we'd play through the introductory scenario side-by side as a play along (2 x Mig 15 vs 2 x F-86 in Korea). John B was lead pilot for the US and Ian D lead pilot for the North Koreans.

The fundamental premise of the game is that it tries to model the physics of flight through the application of forces in various dimensions, coupled with the flight characteristics of individual aircraft. The turns are short (2.5 seconds) so you can actually model the process of each manouvre eg you cant go into a steep climb without going into a shallow climb first, you bank before a turn, the degree of bank may result in loss of airspeed etc.

Along with the obvious things to track (altitude, speed, ammo etc) the critical track is the 'aircraft attitude' track, which is essentially a 2D representation of the different positions of the plane in three dimensions (climb,dive and bank) as well as some specific things to track the energy gained during a dive and degrees of turn accumulated. To turn one hex vertex requires you to accumulate 30 degrees of turn, and as these are jets doing 500mph through 500 foot hexes, it takes several hexes of movement to accumulate enough 'turn' to physically re-point the counter without tearing the wings off the plane.

So to pull any sort of manouvre, even just a 90 degree turn let alone an Immelman, requires a degree of forethought as it will take several (very short) moves.

The scenario starts with both flights of planes parallel (US blue, NK red), the MiGs are 1000 feet higher) and a few thousand feet apart. The MiGs have cannon, the F86s .50 cals, so the  MiGs have to get in close but hit hard, while the F86 have a much longer range, tons more ammo but dont land such heavy blows. The MiGs are more manouverable at lower altitude and the F86 superior higher up, but both planes turn much better than 1970s era jets. Neither of them is powerful enough to pull off a vertical climb though.

The aircraft data sheets list the energy costs and altitude and direction etc changes for various types of manouvre, and where appropriate, the differences any different altitiudes.  

Apologies for the blurry picture. Each plane resolves its move individually and fire is resolved at the end of all movement. There is an initiative system and a system for determining 'advantage' which allows a plane to go later in the turn. So ideally you want to have the advantage, wait for the enemy to move, and then skilfully fly your plane to within one hex of their tail and blow them out of the sky.

If only it was so easy! The US banked right and climbed gently (type I climb) to gain altitude, which cost them some speed. The NK banked left and dived to come down towards the US planes. The first turn took us about 30 minutes while we figured out how the various control settings actually moved the plane. After the first turn, things speeded up a lot as we just flicked through the rules or delved our memories as to how things worked.

We ended up with both sides at the same altitude and facing each other! Ian had obviously played this more recently than the others and showed a certain degree of competence in manouvering the MiGs, however as so often happens in this game, he slightly misjudged where the planes would end up and it was the US who got off the first shot! At medium range and maximum deflection (he'd at least planned that) they missed hopelessly though. Ideally you need to be within 2 hexes and on the targets tail and that clearly wasn't going to happen in any sensible length of time so we called it a day having exercised the major mechanisms over 90 minutes or so.

That was a lot of fun and nice to trawl through the depths of my brain for this stuff. It did remind me of the main issue I had with the game at the time, while it models the mechanics of flying very well within the limitations of carboard counters, is very hard indeed to actually fly the planes to get them where you want them to go without lots of practice in energy management and how the various numbers interact. Flying the same thing in a computer flight sim is a lot more intuitive once you understand the basic principles of powered flight. You can still mess up manouvres, overshoot, stall etc but it all happens much faster. Anyway there was a certain amount of enthusiasm to repeat the experience, but this time using planes armed with missiles, and it was great having David participate, even if he said he felt like a dinosaur talking to a load of paleontologists at times.

Unconditional Surrender France 1940

 Right, on to the third training scenario for Unconditional Surrender, France 1940 this time. This uses everything in the rules and the opening turn features in a blow-by-blow account in the players handbook which was very helpful. I'm fairly happy with the air and ground combat systems, but all the extra stuff like production and replacement, naval operations and even the operation of multi-country alliances needed a fair bit of reading up. Unusually this game also lasts several turns, so I had to read up on the turn end sequence, which is quite nuanced. 

The basic setup. There is a lot going on in this one, despite using Army sized counters. The standard scenario lasts from May to September 1940 and there are many scenario specific rules (eg the Germans cant mount an amphibious invasion or airdrop on Britain. Thankfully the British and German National (NW) Will and production is ignored, but it isn't for everyone else. The Germans need to conquer the Netherlands, Belgium and France by September 1940 or they lose. Conquering is done by reducing NW to zero by capturing cities and destroying field armies. the French start with 20 NW, so will be very tough to defeat. The Belgians and Dutch start with 2 NW, so won't be quite so hard....

The game control sheet has a ton of stuff on it, tracks for Will and Production and for the various events as well as weather and turns. The Allied events include strategic movement and two generic ground support events, while the French get 'tanks' and the British get both surprise attack and naval evacuation as well as 'tanks' of their own. The tank events temporarily add an armoured bonus to one combat.

The Germans get strategic movement, surprise attack and airdrop. Oddly these aren't available until August 1940, despite some of the most famous airborne operations of the war and the Ardennes surprise attack happening in May 1940. Perhaps it is for play balance? As usual there are various scenario options offered.

In May there is a 50:50 chance of Fair weather, and the Germans duly roll fair weather. That will greatly aid their initial attack.

The setup is much as you'd expect, the German Army massed to strike west with no less than three Air Fleets in support. The Allies have two air units (the RAF and French) but the RAF are restricted to base within three hexes of Britain. An extra French unit arrives at the end of May, but carrying 4 'sorties' aka hits with it. One of the German units starts with 2 sorties, presumably from the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April. The balance of airpower is nothing like that in Third Reich or AHGCs 'France 1940' where the Allies are outnumbered 3:1, although in this game the Germans do have a quality advantage.

The offensive opens in the fair weather in May, with waves of airstrikes on the French air force to write it down. The Germans rapidly exhaust the French in these initial attacks, leaving the air to the Germans apart from the RAF. 9th Army rolls over the Netherlands quite easily - the Dutch army is reduced strength to start with, and with air support the Germans knock it out straight away then roll into Amsterdam. The Dutch and Belgians aren't eligible for French or British air support.

The attack into Belgium is slower, the Belgian Army is stronger and the terrain worse (marshland behind a river). There isn't any Eban Emael fortress, so I assume its reduction by Fallschirmjager assault engineers was factored into the scenario. The Belgians are just pushed back to Brussels.

The Germans just keep coming in the Low Countries, the Belgians are pushed out of Brussels and with the loss of their capital, immediately surrender. Well, that is the diversionary attacks done!

The Germans smash French 2nd Army at Sedan with their Panzer groups and push 9th Army back over the Marne, then exploit west, taking Paris en route and surrounding French 1st Army southwest of Antwerp. Mon Dieu! The BEF and 7th Army are pushed back to Calais.

Finally the remaining German infantry armies stretch their line westwards to keep the Maginot Line in ZOC but also to protect the southern flank of the Panzers. With so many infantry in the north, they re looking rather thin! The German infantry in the north attack 1st Army, but even though it is isolated, it survives and retreats into Antwerp (ZOC don't extend into enemy controlled cities, and although Belgium has surrendered the Germans didn't have enough MP to take Antwerp).

The units in the Maginot fortresses don't have any ZOC, so the Germans can slip along the frontier.

That looks like a pretty successful offensive to me, particularly capturing Paris, although the BEF and 7th Army can draw supply from  Calais. The Germans burned all their air support getting this far.

Of course with all the German air used up, the situation is ripe for a counterattack. One of the armies comes out of the Maginot line and joins 9th Army supported by French tanks in a counterattack using 'assault' mode which allows units to combine. That pushes the Germans back and cuts the rail line west to Paris.

In the north 1st Army evacuates by sea from Antwerp to Le Havre (what a rotten trick!), 7th Army falls back to Calais  but the BEF, supported by the RAF and British tanks counterattacks Paris! The Germans are surrounded, unable to retreat and after two assaults are first reduced and then eliminated. 2nd Panzer Group has been destroyed! The BEF retake Paris and the French get four Will Points (WP) back.

Well, that is what happens when the 'sickle cut' offensive doesn't quite make it to the sea. What a disaster.

Naturally in June the weather turned bad, restricting the effectiveness of all units but particularly air and armour, while restricting all combat to assaults only. The Germans occupied the reduced Maginot Line hex SE of Sedan but Metz and Strasbourg were still solidly defended. They then assaulted Paris and pushed the BEF back out again.

In the north they assaulted Calais, but the French held them off.

In the Allied turn the BEF assaulted Paris, supported by all the adjacent French armies and the RAF (as the Allies had air parity now) and although they didn't destroy 1st Panzer Group, they reduced it a step. With 2nd Panzer Group still rebuilding in Germany, I called it at that point as I'd managed to wreck both the entire Panzer arm as well as the Luftwaffe in a reckless assault. A well deserved Allied victory, but at least I'd got more idea how things hung together in a longer game. I was too used the very short Poland and Norway games.

Armed with better knowledge and aware of the various bits of the rules I'd got wrong, time for a better go.

This time I rolled up bad weather for May, but in some ways it was a blessing as it forced a more measured approach. Once again I wrote down the French airforce, but launched a series of limited attacks to take Belgium and Holland. The French had availed themselves of the strategic move option to rail a unit into Antwerp, which was annoying. 

Restricted to just one attack per unit, it was slow going but the Germans got there in the end, although I was forced to commit one of the Panzer groups to take Brussels. I tried to keep as much air back as possible for future use (you can recover a maximum of two steps per unit in the production/mobilisation phase) but I took the opportunity to capture Sedan with infantry.

The Allies were content to deploy into a strong defensive line. Leg infantry in the front, with the mobile BEF and 1st Army in the second line as well as a garrison in Paris to provide extra ZOC and a counterattack force while the RAF staged to Calais. The French air reinforcements appeared in Paris - Calais and Paris being at  extreme range for German counter air missions.

The Allies went into June quietly confident that the Germans now faced a WW1 style slogging match.

Sadly they had reckoned without the power of the Blitzkrieg in clear weather. June rolled up clear weather, and the panzers and Luftwaffe swung into action. The Luftwaffe smashed the French airforce, then both Panzer groups pushed forward and set up a series of encirclements which allowed the following infantry armies to annihilate most of the French front line.

They didnt attack Paris this time as it was so exposed, and ignored the BEF entirely to avoid a battle with the RAF, instead they tore a huge hole in the French line along the Marne and poured south through the gap, taking Dijon and Vichy, and isolating the Maginot Line!

The western end of the Maginot Line held out however, so the German forces south of the Marne outran their supplies (2nd Panzer Group is under that low supply marker SE of Paris) as the rail line remained closed.

There wasn't a great deal the Allies could do about this catastrophe with several field armies now in the 'eliminated' box and waiting to be rebuilt (a two turn process). One of the French armies sallied from the Maginot Line to threaten Dijon, otherwise the rest just tried to form a line along the west to avoid losing more cities. I've put the air sortie markers on top of the air units so you can see the state of the air forces - I think you are supposed to do that anyway.

The Germans didn't have enough MP to take Lyons last turn so there is an Allied marker on it. Next turn the French will be able to put a replacement unit in there.

July to September is guaranteed Fair Weather, so in July the Germans took Paris while launching an assault on the western Maginot Line to open the rail line south led by Panzer Group 2. The attack managed to reduce the garrison but not eliminate it - forts are tough.  

They also managed to reduce the fort at Strasbourg but not take it - the writing was on the wall for the Maginot Line now. The fall of Paris also allowed the Germans to isolate the BEF east of Calais. If only they had retreated into the town when they had the chance. Instead they were surrounded, isolated and destroyed by a series of concentric attacks. Finally the starving Germans in Vichy stumbled southeast and captured Lyons - coupled with the fall of Paris and Calais, that was enough to reduce the French Will to zero and France surrendered.

Given the game length (May to September) I suspect France is always going to lose this one in the long run barring an early German disaster. The France 1941 scenario is more balanced, but this is excellent as a training scenario as it exercises all the mechanisms - I'm just sorry I never got to player the British 'naval evacuation' event. I actually felt like I was playing the game in that second run rather than just being buffeted by events and scratching my head, so I'm getting there I think. The Italy and France 1944 scenarios are both pretty big, so I need some more practice before then. The invasion of the Balkans beckons.

More ACW experimentation - Bakers Creek 1863

After my rather unsatisfactory experiment with various changes at Stones Creek, I toned the modifications to my ACW rules down a bit and reverted to units facing a hexside, not a hex vertex. What works really well for Napoleonics just seemed to break everything in the ACW, possibly because units are more mobile? Who knows, but I know a bad game when I see one. I kept the additional activation modifiers, tidied up the turn sequence and retained the more generous road movement and rallying near the  enemy distances as they work better with a hex grid. I also upped the Army break point to 66% of infantry bases as the rules are so bloody armies were breaking tooo quickly.

It turned out one of my regular blogging acquaintances was having an ACW month over at https://angrydackel.com/ and he made the brilliant suggestion to adopt the same fire/move sequence as I use in the Napoleonic set. So, with the latest set of revisions in place, off we go for another play test. Grant vs Pemberton.

This time we are at Bakers Creek in 1863 where US Grant faced off against JC Pemberton. There is a proper scenario for this in the V&B ACW scenario book, but I wanted a quick and decisive engagement, so instead modelled the scenario on OHW Scenario 7 'Flank Attack'. Grant had managed to outflank Pemberton, although in the real battle, it was more like a 50:50 split between the pinning force and the flanking force.

To win the Union needs exclusive control of the hill while the Confederates just need one unit left on it to win, but have the huge disadvantage of being surprised from their right flank.

I used Neil Thomas's ACW army generator for this. The CSA have seven infantry units and two guns, two of the infantry are Green and two are Veteran. I used Zouaves for the Veteran units and put the Green ones in a three base wide line with one base in support (you can see them both on the front edge of the ridge with the guns). The seasoned and veteran units I just put in double ranked supported line, the best formation in Fire and Fury.

The CSA units all have to set up on the hill and all facing south. Limits of real estate force them to set up in at least two lines. I stacked their left flank in expectation of the Union attack. Fortunately they make a very unattractive melee target, being uphill, despite being flanked. 

Grants pinning force is two green infantry units, deployed the same as the CSA green units, plus a gun. The US guns are rifled, so more effective at range than the CSA. The two ridges are at long cannon shot but out of rifle range.

The flanking force has four seasoned and one veteran unit plus another gun, so the CSA have the edge in quality and position and equal numbers too. Grants strike force has superiority at the decisive point however. Both sides have a leader (Grant and Pemberton), needed for activation and can help with rallying.

There is little point charging the CSA units as being uphill the attackers can only hit them on 5+, so I'm going to move into close range and get a free point blank shot while the enemy pivot to face. Five units against three should give the US significant fire superiority.

The Union guns roar out and completely miss, the rest of the Union troops move forward. I've reverted to the old move system, so infantry can move two hexes straight ahead, but if they pivot they can only move one, but can pivot multiple times.

The green units shuffle slowly forward, keeping out of rifle range. On the right, the unit in the woods fires at long range while the other four close up - one of the benefits of the fire then move sequence. Both the guns and the supporting unit are now masked as they have a friendly unit halfway to the hill. Hills are assumed to be twice as high as units or woods for LOF purposes. Grant has accompanied one of the assaulting units, and Pemberton is the middle of the units defending the east side of the ridge.

The CSA mostly pass their activation checks (all within LOS of the CinC so anything but a 1) and variously pivot to face the threats. Annoyingly one of the reserve veteran units fails to activate so can only pivot in place, but  turns to set up a two hex move next turn.

The CSA guns concentrate on the green US units and chip off a couple of hits (lucky!).

Both sides have identical breakpoints, 19 bases lost. No bases lost yet though.

Things hot up. Despite being out of LOS of Grant the two green units move up the ridge from the south, while almost everyone else opens up at point blank range. Ouch! I've removed the restriction that fire has to spread evenly. It may be more realisiic but it makes the game dull. The US inflict enough losses to remove some bases and two CSA units are forced to retreat.

They are now horribly stacked up and if unable to retreat any more lose extra bases instead. I do allow units to interpenetrate if they start the turn facing in the same direction, so some of them still have a retreat route, but others don't. 

The CSA suddenly realise that the units which just retreated are out of sight on the reverse slope! They rally in place and each recover a base. The US are now in a tricky position as if they advance onto the ridge it is they who will be on the wrong end of a 2:1 firepower ratio. Umm, perhaps the CSA should have defended one hex back to start with....

The Union shoot away at the CSA units they can still see. That CSA unit in the top right is a veteran and quite resilient.

The CSA have committed all their reserves now as a US unit braves the ridge. The CSA Zouaves in the top right are apparently bullet proof and hang on! Surprisingly the US green units are doing quite well and force one of their opposite numbers to retreat. The CSA leave the gun behind as it still requires a morale check to assault frontally.

Hard pounding gentlemen! Both sides bang away and now it is a union green unit which retreats. The retired CSA green unit is busy trying to rally (it lost two bases to concentrated fire) but it is hard to rally green units (5+). The CSA gun withdrew to join another unit as it was a bit exposed on its own.

A bad hour for the Confederacy. Not one but two units go down demoralised by close range fire and then unable to retreat due to friends blocking the way. The other CSA battery is now exposed on its own, and the breakpoint (BP) count is well in the Union favour.

Now the Union starts to crack and the division on the ridge falls back, as do the Zouaves in the northeast. The CSA still control the ridge but are now compressed into an arc facing southeast. Grant can dimly be seen in the northeast. 

The union now has a choice to make. Spend a couple of turns rallying or push on? Grant opts to be aggressive and three US units crest the ridge from the southeast.

Both green US units would have joined them but they are both dithering (the green counters) as is the unit in the wood. Grant has moved to the very southeast now to better control the army from a central position as his other wing was out of sight before. 

The Union managed to drive one CSA unit back and the unit in the woods manages to rally. Everyone else blazes away.

The CSA also blaze away and one Union unit breaks and runs with two bases lost.

The Union keeps plugging away however and pushes the CSA back into the northwest corner. While trying to steady his troops, Pemberton is hit and carried from the field.  

Despite one last big effort by the CSA which pushes back another union unit, US fire tips the Confederates over their break point. 

The CSA only hope is to do the same to the US. Most of their units dither (losing the CinC makes failing their activation far more likely) but although they chip some hits off the US, at the end of the turn the US are still in the field while the Confederates are pulling back exhausted. A US victory.

That went much better than Stones River, and while there were periods of intense slugging, (as in so many ACW battles), the revised mechanisms all worked fine. I'm particularly pleased with the fire/move sequence which worked really well, and the new Army breakpoints prevent the game becoming endless as units rally, which was always a problem with the older system. The players will have to get used to managing the pace of combat though, as if they just chuck everything in, they are going to get burned out very quickly. I've got a couple of scenarios (Chickamauge and Chancellorsville) which I've only ever soloed, so I'd like to try them real players. They will be appearing in due course.

Operation Battleaxe with Megablitz

 Many years ago when Megablitz was still relatively new, I wrote up Operation Battleaxe as a training scenario with a detailed description of how to design an operational game, point up the units, sort out the terrain, logistics etc. I think it ended up on the old Megablitz yahoo group, and who knows if it survived the transition to groups.io.

Battleaxe is a great operational game as the forces and area involved are quite limited, and the real engagement only lasted a few days, but it contains scope for both broad manouvre and formal assault and obstacle clearance, reinforcements, supply, air power etc etc. It is the training scenario in Sam Mustafas 'Rommel' and regular readers will recall I also ran it using NQM when that was published last year.

 I first ran this scenario with Megablitz decades ago at the Sheffield club with my 6mm stuff and we got through the entire thing in a couple of hours, I'd planned to resurrect it for COW in 2025, partly for historical interest and partly as an introduction for people who'd never had a chance to play it. Sadly I couldn't go to COW last year, so I put it on at CALF 2026 instead.

At 1" = 1km my planned layout was something like this (one foot squares). I didn't bother to include Tobruk and Bardia as the battle was mainly fought around and west of Halfaya and Sollum. The battle starts on 15th June 1941 with Axis frontier defences at Halfaya, Sollum, Capuzzo, Point 206 and Hafid Ridge and 8th Panzer Regiment and a mixed battlegroup from 15th Panzer Division in reserve around Sidi Aziz in the north west. One of 15th Panzers rifle regiments (the 104th) had been distributed around the defences, along with various Italian units, and the divisional recce battalion was in a screen from Halfaya down to Bir el Khireigat along the frontier with Egypt.

Western Desert force had committed 4th Indian Division and 7th Armoured Division to write down the frontier defences and armour in the immediate vicinity although both divisions were still understrength after Operation Brevity. 4th Indian could only commit one brigade (!) and was reinforced with both 22nd Guards Brigade and 4th Armoured Brigade, somewhat improbably equipped with Matildas. 7th Armoured Division only fielded a single Armoured Brigade (4th) with just two Regiments of cruisers, although one had brand new Crusaders. between them they outnumbered 8th Panzer Regiment though.

This is how it ended up on the table. 7th Armoured division is down in the desert on the left. Half of 4th Indian is up on and behind the escarpment (Escarpment Force) while the rest are wending their way along the coats road in a huge traffic jam (Coast Force).

On the day I had four players for the game, Chris and Ian took the British, while Alex and Rob took the Axis. Only Chris had any experience of the game before, so I treated it very much as a tutorial session showing how the various mechanisms interacted.

View from the northwest. 8th panzer Regiment is around Sidi Azis with bits of 15th Motorcycle battalion and 33rd AT battalion. I left most of the Axis units offtable so the Allies could try and find them using their recce units.

The players soon got the hang of manouvering and 7th Armoured Div set off across the desert, being bombed occasionally by the Italian airforce while the various armoured car units probed and clashed with each other.

At Halfaya, the Indians discovered the Axis defences and bombed them while the various portions of 4th Indian ponderously deployed for a formal assault. 4th Armoured Brigade resisted the temptation to press on to Fort Capuzzo.

While the Indians deployed, 7th Armoured motored across the desert, uncovering the defences at Point 206. 15th Panzer had been unable to resist intervening though, and had already set off across the desert so the British armour headed in their direction (which of course was exactly what Wavell had originally wanted - to tempt the German armour into battle on unequal terms).

Halfaya descended into bloody chaos as the Indians attacked. Ian got a chance to find out how minefields worked, and despite the best efforts of his engineers, losses were heavy. The Axis held off the first two assaults but as night fell they were looking very battered. I don't think I've ever played Battleaxe without Halfaya falling eventually, although the Allied losses are usually grievous they assault before isolating the garrison.

And in the desert a great armoured clash took place, which given the force ratios (7th Support Group was well up supporting 4th Armoured Brigade), wasn't really going the Axis way.

It was fairly obvious after some time that we weren't going to make it to the 16th June, so we just ran through the overnight sequence (resupply, redeployment etc) as night fell, but didn't bother deploying 5th Light Division, which arrived from Tobruk overnight. Instead we finished early and had a washup about things worked, areas which might be improved or applied elsewhere etc. It probably wasn't the greatest game session I've ever run, but I think it achieved the aim of introducing the game mechanisms, even if we didn't finish the scenario. 

I suspect that is the last Megablitz game I'll ever run, as the world has moved on to a certain extent, but it has rekindled my interest in my own operational rules which borrow heavily from MB, and I've got plans for a couple of large scale games I'd like to run over the next year.