Saturday, January 27, 2018

Sidi Rezegh - A Hexblitz Scenario

Having played out this scenario, I reverted to my original intention and played it as a Hexblitz game.  Having had a chance to rethink how I was going to do this, the thing actually played more quickly than the Portable Wargames Development (PWD) system did.  For anyone unfamiliar with these rule sets, they spring from the ideas of Bob Cordery whose own blog spot you'll find here.
I won't go into a detailed account, however, mainly owing to my camera choosing mid-battle to run out of battery.  That in fact I did have a fresh set in plain sight (having failed to find them after an extensive search) I did not discover until the action was almost over. 
The action followed lines similar to that of the PWD game, except that this time, I started the 361st Afrika Regiment slightly further to the east.  The clash between 15th Panzer and 4th Armoured Brigade also took a different path from the first battle, neither approaching further west than Sciuearat or Zaafran.
But the main point to note was that I used the Moving/Stationary/Defending system, and priority chits.  Instead of priority chits by unit, which was such a hassle in the Operation Uranus action, I tried them by formation instead.  That limited the priority stack to 1-7 - for four Eighth Army and three Afrika Korps formations.  The respective commands I left free.  Otherwise we would have been looking at 15 chits a side: 30 altogether.  The reduced number seemed to work very well.
This version of the action seemed to be the more exciting somehow, although whether this had to do with the the game mechanics or the dice rolling, or simply the effect of chance, I couldn't say.  One thing was certain: it was easier for units to drop out of the action through losses - and several did.
The first to do so was I Battalion 361st Afrika Regiment.  The picture below tells the story.  The 2/ Rifle Brigade and I/ 361 Rgt had both already taken one hit each.  In this particular turn, the Afrika Rgt (4 units) drew the '4' chit, the 7th Support Group the '6'.  I use these in numerical order.
Combat resolution is 'competitive': both sides roll, initiated by the 'Moving' unit(s).  First went I/361, SP=3 plus 2SP from artillery support: 5 dice requiring 6s to hit.  Three hits! Wunderbar!  2RB reduced at once to 1SP only.  Return fire: SP=4 plus 2SP also for defensive artillery support, 4,5, and 6s to count: Three hits - about what you'd expect.  Of course, that wiped out the remaining SPs of I/ 361st, which accordingly fell back out of the action.  Naturally, it was not long before 2RB also fell back and retired from the battle.
Meanwhile, the arriving 15th Panzer and 4th Armoured turned upon each other, mauling each other to a standstill in fairly quick order.  Although in the picture the Germans look to be getting the better of the battle, the Honeys were to prove hard to eliminate outright.  In effect the two formations cancelled each other out for the whole action.
It was about this time the camera batteries gave out. By the time I could resume taking photos, the action was nearly over.  The Afrika Korps had cleared the escarpment either side of Belhamed and carried the feature itself.  But the Afrika Regiment had but one battalion still in action, and that much depleted.  Sidi Rezegh was still held in strength, and it was clear that 21st Pz was not going to force any time soon 22nd Armoured Bde away from Ed Duda.  On balance the end result was rather less conclusive than the PWD version.
On the whole I liked the way this game played, but I probably ought more closely to have monitored the time scale.  The ground scale being roughly 8000:1, the time scale of roughly 90:1 is indicated.  That suggested for a winter's day in North Africa, maybe 6 x 90-minute turns.  The \overnight' turn could have restored to the surviving depleted units, say, half their lost SP values.  I didn't keep track of the moves, but I am pretty certain the action lasted well into the second day.

21 comments:

  1. Excellent stuff! I enjoy seeing the same battle fought with different rules.

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  2. Ion,
    I was rather intrigued by your comments that "this version seemed the more exciting of the two" and yet was "less conclusive" than the PW version.
    So which did you "enjoy" the most?
    One of the aspects of Richard Borg's Commands and Colors series of rules is the use of what is in effect "break points". While this can be problematic (aiming to destroy a unit for effect not tactical necessity) it does give a clean "end" to a game.
    Rommel has something similar.
    Perhaps "objective points" would have worked well here in the Sidi Rezegh game, with distinct geographical points (airfield, Belhammed, escarpment). A simple points system and move tracker would be all that was required. However as you slipped in monitoring moves, perhaps there is too much to do for a solo gamer?
    Neil

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    1. I'm having to go by a rather fading memory here. I think it was a case of the Germans seemed, from a fortunate beginning to be on the edge of a really decisive win, but couldn't quite put the British away. Units were being worn down faster, too. The opposing forces fought each other to a standstill.

      Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it was more a British defensive success, as it became clear, finally, that the Germans weren't going to advance any further than they did.

      So, under heavy pressure, teetering on the edge of defeat, the Brits held off the Germans, who were unable to drive them away from Sidi Rezegh. But there was never a question of the latter's advancing to meet the Tobruk garrison's sortie, neither.

      Bearing that in mind, let's call it a British tactical success, but strategically indecisive.

      For the rest, I was playing though the game rather quickly and for a considerable time was distracted by this fruitless hunt for batteries. Nor was I really thinking about the time factor, which was in fact a mistake. I recall the topic did cross my mind at one point, but let it go.

      Right now I've undertaken a order of battle of the forces for both sides of the Crusader operation (Wikipedia source looks pretty good, but for certain omissions from the NZ Division (field, AT and engineer elements)).

      I'll use these as the basis for future actions. It seems that what I called 361 Afrika was really 'KG Stephan'. I'll see what I can find about that formation.

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    2. Ion,
      If you look at earlier posts I detailed FC's take on oob. Stefan / Stephan was CO of 5 Panzer if memory serves, so would be armour, with some engineers. 104 Schutzen and MG 8 were the infantry component.
      There's a good oob for crusader here:

      https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=181224

      It's one of my (many) obsessions.......
      Neil

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  3. Everything looks great here...excpet camera batteries! Nice post...

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    1. After all these actions I think I'm on the edge of something pretty good - not there yet, and it nay end up as two things, but with a certain operational 'feel'.

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  4. This still looks sooo good. It would be interesting exercise to lay out historical deployments and then walk through the historical attacks, figuring out what sort of die rolls would be needed to achieve the historical result and assuming that the 'correct' rolls were made, and going to the next attack.

    In other words, taking chance and player choice out of it to see if the historical result is possible given the "right" player choices and "right" die rolls but to also discover if the historical result required unusual luck based on what the game assumes.

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    1. You know, I've never actually considered carrying out such an exercise, but the idea of probabilities has occasionally occurred to me in respect of isolated incidents in this or that battle. I think I would approach the task with some trepidation, though, wondering if I knew enough.

      I have once or twice carried out mathematical exercised based upon an extension of Lanchester's 'Theory of Battles' to weigh the performance of the two sides. I tried this on the two major incidents of the Albuera battle, based IIRC upon Keegan's analysis.

      I have to admit I cut quite a few corners and made some drastic simplifications, but the net result seemed to indicate that during the prolonged firefight between V Corps and Hoghton's Brigade, they opposing sides' standard of musketry was fairly well matched.

      I do think, though, that if one were to carry out the exercise you describe, there would be at least one really 'long-odds' major incident. It's the Granny Weatherwax Principle: 'Million-to-one shots crop up nine times out of ten.'

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  5. Archduke Piccolo,

    The more I look at it, the more I feel that PW is best suited to brigade-level actions whereas Hexblitz is much better for operational-level games.

    I hope to re-examine Hexblitz when I have some spare time as I think that it will be the basis of the rules I will use for my Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War project.

    All the best,

    Bob

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    1. Bob,
      I think you're right. At least, PWD has the 'feel' of Brigade level; but Hexblitz - or variants thereof - could be used for either.

      When I 'designed' my 6-stand Russian infantry formations - suggested so strongly by the selection of 'Plastic Soldier' figures, I had it mind they were battalions. But they worked so well as Rifle Divisions!

      I like the sound of your GPW project already... If there is any way I can be involved in it, count me in!
      Cheers,
      Ion

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    2. Archduke Piccolo,

      I've been planning my Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War project for years, and have quite a large collection of mostly unpainted 1:87th/1:76th/172nd-scale vehicles and tanks and 20mm figures waiting to be turned into suitable units. I'm niot sure when I'll get around to it, but when I do, I may well take you up on your kind offer.

      All the best,

      Bob

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    3. Although I have a fair amount of kit - German especially, I'm a bit (i.e. quite a lot) short on the early war stuff. I have toyed with a 'medias res' East Front campaign beginning November 1942 or July 1943. Even then I still have some serious gaps on the Russian side - only 2 light tanks, no BA64s, no Katyusha, no short-arsed Ferdinands (SU76).

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  6. Good AAR
    Pity about the camera, technology eh?
    Thanks for the report
    It has inspired me to do something similar
    Thanks

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    1. Goeodie,
      That is the nicest thing you could have said! Tell you what: these games I've having is the most fun I've had war gaming for quite a while.
      Cheers,
      Io

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  7. Superb. I've wanted to use Bob's excellent rules for some time, with a view to doing an Operation Market Garden game in 20mm. Your posts have reminded me of its importance on the list.

    Did you amend the combat chart slightly, if I recall from your earlier posts?

    Also love the finish that you have achieved with the hexes, Looks excellent.

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    1. Bonjour Monseigneur le Duc,

      If you are asking about HEXBLITZ - yes, I did amend the combat system slightly.

      Moving units (not 'changing position', but attacking, say) will score hits on defending units (under 'D' 'Dug in') for each '6' rolled, rather than for each '5-5' and '6-6'. Now I will admit that is a huge change.

      For one thing, you would require, if seeking the doubles, to be attacking with at least 2SP. True, you probably wouldn't want to be attacking with just 1SP...

      Attacking with 2SP only, you roll 2 dice. The probability of rolling a 5-5 or 6-6 is 2/36, one chance in eighteen or 17 to 1 against. True, they improve non-linearly with more SPs and more dice, but here's a thing: the statistical expectation of the number of hits DOES increase linearly (in a mathematical sense - we're talking 'fractions of a hit' here).

      If the defender ('D') were to roll 2 dice, he could expect 1 hit - eighteen times the expectation of the attacker. It seemed to me you would need an enormous preponderance of force to overcome a defender.

      By changing the requirement to '6' scoring a hit, an attacker at 2SP has the probability of 11/36 of scoring 1 hit. The statistical expectation of the number of hits is in fact 12/36, the difference being the 1:36 chance of scoring 2 hits.

      The defender's odds of scoring hits are only 3 times as great. However, on top of that I permitted a fortification value of 1, or in special circumstances 2, to be added to the defenders' SP to represent fortifications or other places difficult to attack.

      I have thought of an alternative (rolling ANY double) but need to suss the implications of that. For one thing, I might then drop the 'fortified' SP factor.
      Cheers,
      Ion

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    2. Archduke Piccolo,

      The combat system 'as written' was designed to encourage players to attack with overwhelming numbers at places where the enemy was weakest. It works ... but never felt satisfactory. It is one area where a revised version of the rules will need development.

      I like your simplification and the reasoning behind it, but I'd like to play around with the combat system before changing the combat system completely.

      All the best,

      Bob

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    3. The change I made was specific to units in 'M' mode attacking units in 'D' so long as the former was not 'Changing position'/'In transit'. The addition of SP for fortifications I thought reasonable to distinguish well-prepared fortifications OR urban situations against hastily defences in the open field. I've run across a similar method before, in a home grown Napoleonic rule set

      What I'd like to do is find out the probability of rolling doubles given x number of dice.

      Calculating the probabilities is tricky. I think one does need to do this to obtain the 'right' sort of ball park, whatever the right ball-park is.

      (I have done some calculations and here's an example of an attack by 6SP (M) against 2SP (D)

      'M' rolling for 6s can expect 1 hit (though he has a one-third chance of getting none, but a quarter chance of wiping out the enemy.

      'M' rolling for 55 and 66 has roughly a 53% chance of scoring a hit. There is a small chance of scoring 2 hits as well. The expected number of hits is just over 0.54 - little more than half a hit (which shows how tiny are the odds of getting 2 hits).

      'D' 2D6 rolling for 4,5,6 can expect 1 hit, but has a 25% chance of scoring 2.

      Which do we prefer? Something to consider. I'm leaning towards the 'look for 6s' but have an open mind - or at least, a persuadable one!

      Cheers,
      Ion

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  8. Great stuff Ion,

    Once I get mt current project done I will be sorting the Italians out. Should be done in the next few weeks.

    cheers

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    1. That will be great. Paul. I have the basis for the Italian OOB. Do you have any Italian armoured cars (AB40 or 41)? One of those would go with the RECAM outfit.

      Do you have any 'I' tanks, especially Valentines? If not I might be forced to get one or two of them. I do have 1 'Light Mark VI' that someone once scratchbuilt, which is just as well: I don't need any more of those!

      Enjoyed your posting on painting, by the way. My eyes are starting to give me trouble, so such methods might be a big help. Will probably see what I can do about the glazzies later this year.

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