Training Exercise: Attack on a Strongpoint

Our latest Mud and Blood engagement saw us introducing a few new players to the mix, so it seemed as if we should be expanding the scope of the battle, at leas a little bit. So, since we were looking to train up some new eggs, we turned the the "Training the Entente" section of the Stout Hearts and Iron Troopers supplement to M&B. Up first is the scenario "Attack on a Strongpoint", which comes more or less straight from Appendix X of the British Army's manual SS143, 'Instructions for the training of platoons for offensive action', 1917.

Because of the limitations of our figure pools, we switched the identities of the two sides, so that Germans (organized in the 1916 British style) were attacking a British strongpoint. We tried to give a thorough briefing on the rules, but we neglected giving the player a full briefing on the weapons systems, organization, and tactics. Given which, the players did jolly well, overall.

The attackers set forth in four columns; the LMG section and rifle grenadiers were on the left; the bombers and riflemen on the right, with the platoon HQ in the centre. They used the broken ground between their entry point at the strongpoint to cover a portion of their advance, but eventually the left-hand columns broke cover and were spotted. When they started taking fire, the platoon commander became fed up with advancing slowly and started positioning himself for a rush at the trench.

The defenders had placed their HMG in the center of the trench, with rifle sections on either side and dummy blinds in the woods besides the roads, suggesting more of a breadth of front than they were actually able to cover. At first, a rifle section was hitting the LMG troops, but the HMG soon joined in. The LMGers took several casualties and had a good deal of trouble getting their gun into action. As a result, the first section that attacked the trench took heavy losses from the HMG and the rifle defenders, as none of them had suffered any suppressive fire. The section fell back, lost its NCO, and started bottling it for the entry point. The next section suffered a similar result, though the platoon officer and NCO were able to rally them somewhat.

Eventually the attackers got their LMG on line and began coordinating fire between that and the rifle grenadiers. The nearest enemy section took a good deal of fire, especially from the LMG. The rifle grenades fell heavy amongst the HMG crew, and a few convenient jams provided the excuse for the last intact section of attackers (the rifle grenadiers) to rush the suppressed defenders of the near end of the trench.

With good luck and sheer perseverance, the grenadiers won their way in. The defenders died or fled, their NCO escaping out the back of the trench and circling around to join the remainder of the defending force. But the remaining rifle section dashed down the trench, past the cowering MG crew, and began evicting the unwanted squatters with the bayonet. Though they had penetrated the enemy position, the attackers did not have the strength to hold on to what they had gained.

All the new players (one of whom took command of the defending HMG, the others commanding the attacking force) seemed to enjoy the experience. One of the attackers is now contemplating raising a force of French infantry (his wife is Norman), so we may have hooked another fish. :-)

Both our cadre and our new recruits have distilled some of the lessons learned from this engagement (timing, concentration of fire, the use of cover) and are looking forward to using them in our next battle. We omitted the use of the sniper and the scouts in the attacking force, so as not to overload the new players with new rules, but both would clearly have had their value if used--the scouts in spotting off the defender's blinds sooner and the sniper in helping to suppress the defenders.

Linking for Victory

Just a quick post in order to link to Peter Knight's excellent Great War history website, The Old Contemptibles. Of especial interest to me was the tremendous trove of nearly three dozen manuals and pamphlets produced by the British Army that he has made available online as photobooks. These include the 1914 Infantry Training instructions, Instructions on Wiring, Instructions for the Training of Platoons (SS143 1917), Notes on Tactical Schemes, Training and Employment of Bombers, Tactical Employment of Lewis Guns, Platoon Training (SS143 1918) and many, many more. It's well worth a visit just for these, and they are only the tip of the iceberg; he's got lots of lovely material there besides.

WIth catlike tread

Having made some small changes to the Winter Sports rules, we had to test them out to see if they were too much, not quite enough, or the Golidlocks of rules tinkering--just right! (As a reminder, the three changes were replacing "False Alarm" with "You Men, Over There!", widening the range of modifiers for night to 1/2/3 from 1/2, and making "automatic " spots actually 4+.)

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So, once again the lads of the Canadian Black Watch crawled out into the night, cursing the darkness, the mud, the wire, and the way that--despite the terrain having been blasted into a moonscape of stark emptiness--their officer still managed to find a path that ran across briars that reached up under their kilts and clawed at them. "Couldn't it be B Company?" they asked plaintively. "We've just finished making coffee." (Tim Horton's was still 3,000 miles and 47 years away.)

And dark it was! The officers, learning from their last experience, had picked a night that was both dark of the moon and very foggy. Mother Nature would be doing her best to cover the advance of the Canucks; with any luck, they would be able to get close to the German lines this time before anyone knew they were there. The assignment was to retrieve a couple of prisoners that the Germans had captured off a wandering wiring party a few nights before. But as far as the Highlanders were concerned, the main challenge was just going out and coming back without being spotted, floodlit by flares, and machine-gunned to pieces. Especially with the Lewis Gun section, who seemed incapable of moving even fifty feet without a din of clanking, crashing, and thumping.

On the Boche side of No Man's Land, Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 261 was feeling quietly confident. Their own raid had not gone so well, but they had had a chance to thoroughly re-wire the area in front of their position since the Englanders had last come over. The gaps cleared by the British were gone, a few noisemakers hung, and new lines of fire for the Spandaus laid out. No one would be sneaking up on them, and if anyone got close, they would meet a hail of lead!

Having quietly (or mostly so) stolen up towards the Prussian lines, the Canadians couldn't believe their luck. In part because they had been carefully guided by Lt. McPherson (who had reconnoitered the ground the previous few nights with Sgt. McDonald) and partly because the Mississaugans down the line had obligingly set up a tremendous racket about an hour before, it appeared that the squareheads had not detected even a hint of their approach.

Unbeknownst to the kilties, a world-record game of skat had broken out in one of the troop shelter, and unless the patrol had come bearing a Jack of Bells, the chances of it receiving any attention were low. Even the sentries, fortified by "a little" schnapps "to keep the cold out" were bending their ears towards the xxx for a shout of victory, not into the hostile darkness for the sound of ammunition boots.

Well, at least someone was paying attention! Soldat Schultheiss, whose family were strict Calvinists, was shaking his head in disgust. Good, Christian men wasting their time in drink and card-playing! They should be attending to their duty, not...wait! What was that? "Alarm! Alarm!" Schultheiss sprinted for the nearest shelter, blowing his whistle vigorously. But amidst the commotion in the dugout (a dispute had broken out about scoring), no one heard him. Frustrated, Schultheiss ran on, looking for an officer. "Someone has to know what to do!"

The argumentative Gfr.Bauer had at last conceded that he had misplayed his null game when he looked up to see a face protruding through the blackout curtain. It was a horrid, ugly face, covered in black soot and looking like the veriest devil. But even more horrifying were the two grenades the frightful creature was brandishing. While the stream of gibberish coming from his lips was incomprehensible, the gestures he was making with the grenades were unmistakable. Slowly Bauer rose to his feet, wondering if there were some way to quickly slide his winnings into his pocket without seeming to make a sudden and dangerous move. Sadly he concluded there was not. Covered by the rifles of the sooty bomber's companions, the Germans began filing out into the trench.

At last Schultheiss's whistle blowing paid off. As he ran down the duckboards towards the nearest communication trench, he met his Leutnant and a Vizfeldwebel coming the other way. They quickly directed him to the rack of emergency flares and trotted past him towards the breach in the line. The forward dugout must be rousted out! Schultheiss let off a white flare, and he saw in its light that a Gruppe of men were already making their way towards him along the front line trench, and the duty Maxim crew were rolling into their fighting position and feeding a belt of Patronen into their piece.

But the Canadians had not been willing to sit on their prize. A couple of trench cleaners, running forward with bayonets at the ready, encountered the German officer and NCO before the latter could find their men. Over their strenuous objections, they were added to the "bag" of prisoners.

Eingreiftruppen were pouring into the communications trench, however, and Lt. McPherson could see that retrieving the Canadian prisoners would be a feat beyond his squad's ability that night. They might be able to wreak a little revenge for their previous pasting, however. He got his riflemen moving back through darkness towards the gaps in the wire, shoving and pushing their reluctant guests with them. Sgt. McDonald's section, which had positioned itself as his flank guards and which was exchanging occasional rifle shots with the other frontline German troops, began to withdraw also. Would the Germans follow?

At least some of them would. Uffz. Hinrich was not willing to see so many of his comrades led off like sheep. "After them, men!" he shouted, clambering up the nearest ladder and onto the ground in front of their fighting position. Half a dozen men followed him obediently.

Which was just what the Lewis Gun team had been waiting for. A burst caught two men full in the chest, dropping them like ducks on the wing. Several more suffered wounds of varying severity before they tumbled back behind their sandbags and logs, cursing bitterly. Into the darkness disappeared the Highlanders, carrying with them a German subaltern, several NCOs, and half a dozen rank and file.

It had been a good night for the Canadians.

a round-up of makers

We had a Mud and Blood game yesterday in which Mr Sherwood and I introduced a few more of our friends to Mud & Blood. Mr Taylor, who had participated in a previous Winter Sports skirmish, hosted, and Mr Johnson and Mr Myers were given command of a German infantry attack (on which more later). The upshot was that the hook was well seated in at least one of our fresh fish, and I was asked about manufacturers of Great War 25/28mm figures. I complied this list, but it can probably be added to.

Great War Miniatures: The link is to NorthStar, their UK distributor, just because, IMO, it's easier to view the figures on their site, but order from Brigade Games in the US. American, Belgian (EW), French (EW), British (EW/LW), German (EW/LW), artillery, British and German tanks.

Renegade: The bulk of my troops and Mr Sherwood's so far are Renegade. The link is to their site for best viewing, but we think they can be obtained in the US from Legends in Time. British (EW, LW) German (EW, LW), Frenc (EW), Austro-Hungarian (EW).

Brigade Games: They also distribute GWM, Woodbine, and Copplestone. Their own lines include British and French tanks, and armoured train, and French, British, German, and American troops for the Western Front; Austrian and Italian troops for the Italian front; ANZAC, Turkish and German troops for the war in Palestine; Arabs for the Arab Revolt; and British, German, and Belgian troops for the war in Africa.

Old Glory 25s: Extensive, as always with OG. British, French, German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Italian, Serbian (!), Montenegrin (!!), American. Also lines for the Pershing Expedition to Mexico (which might be cool to game with M&B) and some Arab figures in their "Sons of the Desert" FFL line that might in a pinch be used as Arabs for the Arab Revolt. Most of the lines include downed pilots, medical teams, scouts/signallers, field guns, and some armoured vehicles. Not many photos, so I can't speak to the quality. The *reputation* they have is that they are much smaller (closer to true 25mm) and less well sculpted than the dominant lines like GWM and Renegde.

Copplestone Castings: Turkish and British for the Middle East and (in their "Back of Beyond" line), Russian Civil War Red and White troops, most of whom would be fine to use as regulars on the Eastern Front.

1st Corps: Nice looking figures, have yet to acquire any myself. British (LW), German (LW), three ACs and a Whippet light tank.

Wargames Foundry: British (EW, LW), French (EW, LW), German (EW, LW). Some very generic packs, and some special characters. As Bryan mentioned, may be a bit small in comparison to the newer lines.

Eureka: Russian MGs, MG carts, and mounted officers. Odd little sideline.

Ebor: Belgian (EW), French (EW)

Woodbine (a subdivision of Gripping Beast): British (including Australians and Indians) for the Mid East campaigns, Turks, and French colonial troops. Available in the US from Brigade Games and from Architects of War, right up the road in Ellicott City, MD.

Scarab: Austro-Hungarian (LW), Italians (LW), French (LW), British (special characters), German (special characters), some vehicles (possibly all other manufacturers) plus resell Woodbine and GWM.

Musketeer Miniatures: Very nice figures but very difficult to get hold of; order in the US from Brigade Games, but the manufacturers appear to be very flaky in producing figures and filling orders. British (EW), Russian

Brigade Models UK: Belgian (EW)

There are a couple of other lines that I know of (Irregular, Reviresco, Alphacast, Tradition) but their figures do not look nice enough that I feel I could recommend them to anyone.

Waxing the Skis: Tinkering with the Winter Sports rules

So, after two games of Mud and Blood using the "Winter Sports" trench-raiding amendments, it became clear that something was broken. There seemed to be no way for attacking troops to reach the enemy trench without being repeatedly spotted by the enemy sentries.

Assuming that the defender positions his sentries evenly along his front line, which runs halfway across the 4' x 4' board, pretty much all the assaulting forces will be within the 24" automatic spotting range, even at start (see below). Night modifies the spotting chance down one, but any movement and the sentries' extra Action bump it back up again. And sentries' spotting areas will overlap; only one small area will be visible to all three, but only a small area will be visible to only one. So at least one or two and possibly all three sentries will be generating two Whistle Points (WP) per turn.

Using both dice, attacking groups would move, on average, about 7" per turn, assuming they moved across relatively passable ground (no minus for bad terrain). In theory that would mean they could reach the trenches in three turns. But in three turns of even two sentries successfully spotting, the defending officers are active; if all three can spot each turn, the general alarm will have sounded and the MG will be tooled up and ready to fire.

The Chinese Attack and Rat Imitation cards will block one or two sentries from spotting for a turn, but there aren't many of them (three at most, and odds were you would get some other cards among those three). A little respite may be gained by the provision that sentries can only spot at attacking units that have moved, in the same turn, but with the defender choosing which sentry to spot with when a Sentry card comes up, and the same number of sentries spotting as Big Men moving attackers, it's likely that each sentry will be able to spot every turn. And once the defender's Big Men are alerted and come forward to have a dekko, things move faster toward disaster.

One mistake we made in the first game came from the way an important piece of information is buried. The Snifter card is not part of the starting deck, as it usually is; instead, it is added to the deck when the defending Big Men come on deck. That was a critical change, because it meant that until the defenders reach 10 WP, the attacking units will all get to move every turn. In the first game, one British unit froze halfway across the board and did its best imitation of a dead stoat for three or four turns. No one could spot it, since it wasn't moving, but all the other British units were easy to spot, and it dragged out the British advance interminably.

One thing we tried in the second game was to spend one Action moving and the second Action taking cover, assuming that that would treat the crouching defenders as in light cover rather than the open. This had very little effect, as it made spotting only slightly less likely and it slowed the forward movement to a crawl (literally). Also a bit of a dead herring was the "false alarm" ploy. Having a Big Man take his entire turn to reduce the defender's WP by one seemed nearly useless.

Attackers in both scenarios felt as if they were tap-dancing across an oak floor in a spotlight.

So I talked to M&B veterans like Capt. Roundwood, Teniente Benito, and Sgt. Maj. Maxwell, who gave sage advice (they were also unstinting with their thyme). Between their advice and our own brainstorming, we came up with some changes.

First, the "false alarm" activity. To think about what it represents, taking it literally (an officer is making all the attacking men stand still) doesn't make much sense, since the men are actually moving forward. Also, most players seem to have interpreted it that this should be the senior BM; having a status III using up all his initiative to reduce WP by one while sentries are adding 4-6 per turn didn't seem right. So, what is one senior tactical officer doing that can make the assault more quiet?

Our conclusion was that it represents a BM expending all his attention giving guidance and direction to the moving sections, watching what sentries can be seen, what the wind is doing to cloud cover, and what can be seen or judged of the battlefield to find the least alerting path for the attacking sections to travel. So our modified rule, "You men, over there!" allows the senior attacking BM to expend all his initiative and reduce the WP by that amount. However, it can only take place on his card (obviously), it can only take place before the General Alarm (like False Alarm), and he can't combine it with any other sort of activity. Finally, he can only do it if he is in half command range (5" for a Status III) of all of his sections when he does so. He can hardly go shouting orders to everyone if he wants to keep things quiet!

We considered reintroducing blinds, or adding the Storm card to the deck. But Winter Sports are supposed to be a scaled-back version of the game, so we decided not to do that.

We decided to extend the +1/+2 spotting at night to 1/2/3: +1 would be reserved for nights with a full moon (when no officer in his right mind would lead a raid), with a partial moon being +2, and a moonless night being +3. And instead of treating "automatic" as 2 (which would be logical for an immediate success on 2D6), we treated it as 4 (one lower than the lowest other roll on the table).

So a sentry spotting a section moving in the open with two dice on a moonless night at 9" to 24" would need to roll 4 or higher (4 base +3 no moon, -1 for both actions used to spot -2 for moving with two dice). Not a huge challenge, but a little more difficult than "automatic". Add fog, some good cover, an officer pointing out the best approach route, and troops might actually have a chance of making it across without the entire enemy army being ready and waiting to greet them.

My own house rule for spotting is also to give veteran troops an additional -1 when spotting and green (to include exhausted and poorly disciplined troops) a +1 when spotting. Of course, the problem with a 2D6 roll is that it's a bell curve; -1 or +1 has a dramatically different effect, depending on what the base number is. Still, that can't be helped, and this made spotting just that little bit harder.

With those modifications in place, we tried another game. The account of that action will be next up!

The hissing fuse...

Having recently run across Sidney Roundwood's Captain Murdoch and his ferret, I found this quotation in Edward Lengel's To Capture Hell particularly apt, so I took from it the title of my blog.

Lengel quotes Lt. Edward Lukens, of the AEF's 80th Division, a young officer serving in an infantry regiment from western Pennsylvania. Lukens was leading his men in pursuit of fleeing Germans through a ruined wood when he saw a German dugout and investigated. Detecting movement within, he armed a grenade.

At the sound of the hissing fuse, there came from the dugout the most unholy conglomeration of yells that I ever heard from human throats--screams of terror and abject pleading. But six seconds is too short a time to negotiate a surrender; they had kept hidden too long and could not possibly claim to be regarded as prisoners. The fuse was already going and down the hole went the bomb.*

I thought that passage perfectly encapsulated the casual brutality of war, a sensibility that is not part of our games but that we ought always to be reminded of when we are playing our tabletop battles. I don't think for a moment that it is somehow special to the Great War; I think it is the sort of practical morality of soldiers that, when brought out in the light of day, "looks bad in the newspapers and upsets civilians at their breakfast" but that it inescapable once you put humans at the business of killing each other in a large, organized, and utterly chaotic way.



* Lengel, Edward G. (2008) To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Page 94.

Mud and Blood Winter Sports: Second Half of the Tie

In our first episode, a raiding party of 73rd (Royal Highlanders of Canada) had snuck through the shell-cratered muddy ruin that lay between them and the German lines, hoping to grab a prisoner or two and find out what was going on in the German lines. Between alert sentries and a brilliant moon (unexpectedly revealed), the Canucks had faced an impossible assignment and withdrew with a number of casualties and some shattered pride.

On the east side of the battlefield, this raid had caused some Teutonic brows to furrow. Why were the Canadians probing at such an inauspicious time? Any sensible commander would have waited until the moon had thinned, rather than counting on clouds for protection. There must be a strong imperative to acquire information or to disrupt German operations. A small scout group was sent across to see if there were signs of preparations for attack (and, incidentally, to repair the wire the enemy had cut in their approach).

Alas, the best-laid plans of mice and men... Feldwebel Schenk, an experienced soldier, slipped on an odd-shaped piece of stone (on inspection, it proved to be an old, battered British mess tin) as the scouting party was nearing the British lines. He sustained a severe ankle injury and, though he did his best to manfully stifle the shriek of pain that followed the tearing of muscle and snapping of bone, the commotion that ensured was sufficient to draw a strong British wiring party towards the German gruppe. Sending his men back to their lines, Schenk snapped off a few shots at the approaching Canadians, enough to keep their heads down until his men were well away. Then he put up his hands. Since he had not actually hit any of them, his captors were not inclined to mistreat him too fervently, and he was more or less intact when delivered to the A Company command dugout for interrogation.

Back at 1te Batallion, Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 261, there was consternation. Fw. Schenk was a valuable man. He had trained half the patrol leaders in the Kompanie. He was the Leutnant's right-hand man. He had to be rescued. Lt. Thundertentronck himself resolved to take a picked group of men, half a section, and retrieve the experienced landser before he was carted off to an Allied rear area. A Vizefeldwebel tried to reason with the young man, but to no avail. Ir. 261 didn't leave a man behind!

The night was quiet. A little too quiet for anyone's liking. It would have been nice to have a nearby barrage, or perhaps some flares going up half a mile away to keep the North Americans distracted. As the three gruppen made their way through the night, it seemed that the moon was, again, like a giant flood light, aimed right at their feet. As they neared the enemy front line trench, the Unteroffizieren urged silence on their men, and advances were taken in little rushes, a dozen yards and then a drop to the ground, finding whatever cover was available. After a moment or two, a stealthy rise into a crouch, and a dozen more yards would be trodden under their boot heels.

Lt Thundertentronck waited with two runners. He had pointed one gruppe to the gap in the wire on the left. Another had moved forward swiftly towards the gap on the right, but they were moving through the near gap at the same time as the first, and so blocked the movement of the third group. Earnest and full of initiative, but perhaps too impatient, that group's Gefreiter had decided to cut an additional gap in the near wire, since they couldn't move directly forward.

"Well, it will keep them occupied," thought the Leutnant. He motioned to to his runners and ran through the clearing (original) gap. The second group has slowed, and he found himself racing ahead of them. Turning, he glared and beckoned at their NCO, urging him soundlessly to keep up.

Soundlessness was not something, it rapidly became evident, that the Leutnant should have worried about. Only moments after shouting and whistles showed that their cover was blown, the abrupt and deadly voice of a British Maschinengewehr could be distinctly heard. Uffz. Grauber was screaming at his men, urging them to hurry as bullets began tearing through his position. Helmets could be seen, here and there, showing movement into the front-line trench. The Leutnant reached into his breadbag and pulled out the flare pistol he'd been issued; the line directly in front of them, which had a communications trench running back from it, was no longer a practical objective. But he could deny it to the enemy.

It seemed the shot had barely arced into the sky and burst when the supporting barrage began coming down. Was it trench mortars from their own unit, rather than howitzers from the Feldartillerie? No way to tell, but no one in those trenches would be moving now. He waved the pistol, trying to point Grauber and the other NCOs toward the trenchline to their right. Could they see him? Hard to tell--the flare was so bright, he could barely open his now night-sensitive eyes. Best to lead by example. He leapt to his feet and began running.

Grauber could see the direction, and it was unnecessary. He was headed that way anyway. The problem was his men. The machinegun fire was deterring them. Some of them were evidencing this deterrence by shrinking back and trying to find shelter in shell holes instead of moving forward. Others were manifesting their unwillingness in a more passive way, by lying huddled on the ground while bullet after bullet slammed into their motionless forms. After his latest round of shouting (over the combined noise of the British Vickers and the German shells impacting less than fifty metres away), he realised he was alone. Quite alone. Well, another gruppe was heading through the other gap in the wire; he would go join them.

This was, as it happened, a good idea. Hesitating briefly at the wire gap to get his bearings, Uffz. Meier had noticed more movement in the opposing trench. There was a dogleg just to the right of the traverse he had decided to head for, and it looked as if there were men with rifles entering the traverse. One of them even seemed to be pointing his rifle towards Meier....

The crackle of fire to his right alarmed von Thundertentrock. But this was supposed to be the one empty section! He and his runners paused briefly on the edge of the trench, then jumped in. He turned back to see how close his gruppen were. Not very. A figure that looked (and certainly sounded) like Grauber was standing with what seemed to be Meier's gruppe, urging them to move towards the trench. Grauber's own gruppe seemed to have disappeared. And Gfr. Kaufmann's men, having finished their (somewhat unnecessary) wire-clearing activity seemed to be hesitating about coming further forward. "We'll just guard this gap," he could hear them thinking, "and cover the other men when they retreat. Maybe we'll have a pipe while we wait..."

The Leutnant looked ahead towards where he believed the enemy command bunker (his objective) to be.  A section of enemy infantry filled the trench that accessed it, and his own interdiction barrage was falling all around it. Off to his right, the small group of enemy riflemen that had recently appeared were getting bolder. And off on the far side of his barrage, there were shouts and cries that suggested the enemy's ready-reaction force had arrived and was looking for a way through the barrage to come to grips with him. He looked around him. Two men in the enemy trench with him. About a dozen more, yards away and getting no closer. Schenk, if he were even still in the area, stowed away in the unreachable enemy Gefechtsstand.

"It's no good, lads," he shouted to his runners. "We're not going to make it through this time. Let's get the rest of the men and get them back to our lines." So near, but yet so far...

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Our second game of Winter Sports ended much like the first. We tried having advancing groups use one Action to move and another to take cover, hoping that this would make it harder for the sentries to accumulate Whistle Points. But doing so slowed the pace of the advance; using one Action to take cover doubled the length of time the advance took, but it did not make spotting the men even twice as hard. It was proving impossible for the attackers to come even close to the defending trench before, not only the frontline troops but also the machinegun and relief forces were alerted and active. We would have to make some changes if the scenarios were going to work as intended.

Teaser: Other AEF projects

Having started reading (both by printed book and audiobook) about the history of the AEF, I was struck by descriptions of the battle of Cantigny, 28 May 1918. Although American forces had been in action in the line before this point, this was the first coordinated offensive by American troops. Although the French provided considerable support to the attack (artillery, tanks, flamethrower teams, and air cover), the action served as the preview or dress rehearsal for AEF troops to justify Pershing's insistence that he be allowed to create American formations under American command, rather than "amalgamate" his troops into French and British formations as those armies wished him to. If Cantigny had gone badly, Pershing might not have been able to withstand that pressure.

Cantigny proved a remarkable success, however.The 28th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Division stormed German defense and drove the enemy out of the town, seizing its objectives less than an hour after beginning their advance. More importantly, the doughboys held through two days of German counterattacks, retaining the ground they had captured, though at considerable cost.

Both its small size and its pivotal nature suggested to me that this might make a good subject for a game. So one of my Great War projects will be to develop a scenario for the battle, featuring the American assault and the German counterattacks, using Charles Eckhart's "Storm of Dice" adaptation of the Lardies' If the Lord Spares Us rules. With any luck, I'll be able to cozen Rich into including this in a special later in the year.

I'd also like to put together a couple of M&B scenarios featuring the early efforts of the AEF, both its very first action against the Germans at Bathlemont in November 1917 and a scenario featuring some of the fighting around Cantigny.

Not that I'm looking for an excuse to buy a Schneider tank in 28mm; no, not at all. :0)

Mud & Blood: Winter Sports, First Foray

My chum Mr Sherwood and I being fans of Mud & Blood, we decided recently to try out the small night raid scenario generator contained in the "Winter Sports" article in the Lardies' Christmas Toast 2010 Special.

First time out of the gate we tried the recipe as written, with a British force seeking to penetrate German lines and snatch a prisoner.

A platoon from the 73rd (Royal Highlanders of Canada) set forth on what was supposed to be a cloudy night. However, by the time they had worked their way through No Man's Land to the gaps cut by an earlier patrol of the 67th Canadian Pioneers Battalion, a change in wind had blown off the clouds, and the patrol was exposed to the bright light of a gibbous moon. German sentries on the alert were very jumpy, and despite Cpl. McCrimmon's brilliant imitation of a rat, they watchers were alert enough to sound the alarm and bring first the area's Feldwebel and then the Leutnant from their warm billet in the command post up to the front line to see what might be brewing. On the way past one of the frontline troop refuges, the Feldwebel stuck his head in and called out the Gefreiter in residence and his Gruppe, in case any serious shooting needed to be done.

McCrimmon had been so pleased with his rat imitation that his section had lagged far behind the others. And while Sgt. Maj. McDonald's zeal in ensuring, personally, that the path through the wire was clear of wire, lines, pit traps, mud holes, and perhaps giant barking spiders, his habit of nipping forward on his own, then back to get his men, then forward on his own again was slowing his section down to a crawl. Several privates in the back were seriously considering pulling out a deck of cards. After all, the moon was giving almost enough light.

The patrol's leader, Lt. McPherson, was having none of any of this. His group of picked riflemen, rifle grenadiers, and bombers moved slowly, it was true, but that was due more to the uneven ground and the mud than anything short of zeal to get stuck in. Perhaps wearing gas masks was a bit overegging the pudding of caution, but there had been reports of nasty tricks further up the line, so he wanted to take no chances.

Finally they had the front line trench in sight! But what was this? The telltale profile of spiked helmets filing into the position from a communication trench! Signalling to the rifle grenadiers to let loose a volley, McPherson unholstered his Webley, waited for the bombs to rain down on the Hun, and then led his boys forward in a charge, yelling like Red Indians.

Not overly alarmed by a few bombs falling on them, the German troops gave a good account of themselves, and the Canadians found it impossible to get a foothold in the trench. McPherson rallied the retreating men and tried to assess whether a second assault would prove efficacious.

He rather thought not. A German Spandau had opened up and was spraying McDonald's men with fire. And in the distance he could hear hoarse shouts and the sound of running boots like a herd of cattle approaching. He could only assume that the nearest counterattacking party had been alerted and was flooding into the area. Best to move back to Dominion lines and have a try on another occasion. The Germans had just been too ready this time.

Opening Post

In 2010, Richard Clarke of Too Fat Lardies published Through the Mud and the Blood, a set of wargame rules designed to depict tactical-level combat on the Western Front of the Great War. I had been corresponding with him for about two years at that point, discussing history and gaming and other topics. Reading my newfound friend's powerful and heartfelt advocacy of the "anti-donkey" school of Western Front history, and the opportunity to acquire a small library of volumes on the Great War sparked an interest in me in a field of military history that I had never found terribly interesting before.

Mud and Blood, as it has become known, became popular quickly, and the rules have been extended and adapted to many different theatres and conflicts. Other concerns and projects diverted me, and my correspondence with Rich fell somewhat into abeyance. But I continued to add slowly to my World War One library, just as he continued to publish more work on the Great War.

Last year I helped my older sister clear out some old tat of my parents'. Among the rubbish, we found a few small treasures, including a Verdun medal that had apparently been awarded to my grandfather during his service in the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France. It now lives in a display case with the flag from his funeral (many years after the war) and a poppy from the British Legion, kindly supplied by the British Embassy. Near it sit a French novel that bears his name inside the cover, along with the inscription "Hqtrs. 151st Inf. Brig.", and an original copy (separately acquired) of the AEF manual Instruction in the Offensive Action of Large Units in Battle (thankfully, clearly marked as declassified in June of 1990!)

I never knew my grandfather, but by all accounts he was a gentle, quiet, and introspective literary man (after the war, he taught Elizabethan literature at Yale) who struggled with some unknown demons. I can only wonder if these had anything to do with his service in France. He and his brother Robert (who became a hugely brave and decorated flier) served as volunteers with a Red Cross ambulance unit attached to the French Army before America joined the war. I've been able to find almost nothing about his service with the US Army, such as where he was stationed or what he was involved in (the 56th Brigade, which he was transferred to after the 151st, was part of the 28th Division and fought in the Argonne, which is probably where the medal comes from). I do wonder, if shell shock had been as well recognised and addressed in their day as post-traumatic stress disorder is in ours, whether my grandfather might have lived a longer and happier life after the war.

So, while still not as deep an object of fascination for me (yet), as the American Revolution, the Great War has come to have a deeper and deeper interest for me as I read and learn more about it and as I feel more strongly the family connection. Hence this blog, which I hope will include information about both my historical research, my family research, and my Great War gaming.