"...the gun, however, had been removed..."

Last weekend we had the opportunity to recruit another member to our section of Mud and Blood enthusiasts. My friend Ash has played other wargames with us a couple of times, and he was up to trying something new. Mr Sherwood and I gave him a brief run-through on the basics of M&B and of simple infantry tactics, and then he was given command of a raiding party (with Mr Sherwood acting as his trusty senior NCO...)

For the event, I had put together a simple scenario that I hoped would be a fairly painless introduction to the rules, providing enough challenge to be fun while not being so brutal as to discourage the beginning player. As the subject, I picked the very first ever trench raid, as mentioned by Anthony Saunders in his Raiding on the Western Front.

This action took place in early November 1914 near Festubert. A German unit had pushed a sap forward towards the British lines and placed a machine-gun there "which was causing annoyance", according to one source. The 2nd Battalion, the Black Watch staged a small attack to capture or destroy the gun and its position.

Ash and Bryan had two sections of Highlanders to clear the sap and its supporting trench. They advanced side by side separated by a road, one section crossing an open field and taking cover in a tree line while the second section occupied the ruins of a farm about 50-60 yards from the sap.

The Germans had a good deal of trouble with their MG. They fired off a couple of bursts at one section of Scots as they advanced to the treeline, but after dropping a couple of kilties, they suffered a stoppage that lasted through the rest of the game. The supporting gruppe of riflemen did their best to stave off the inevitable, but with the MG out of action, the Germans were like the Lady of Shallot--their doom had come upon them.

I had tried to give the British an edge (justified by their success in the historical event) by including both the Up and At 'Em and Mad Minute cards. These proved crucial, as they allowed the British to get in position under cover and to pour a steady stream of fire onto the German positions that even their trenches could not wholly shelter them from. Eventually, the Highlanders just shot the Germans to pieces, with the German NCOs being shot down last, one by one, as they tried desperately to get their gun back in action (once the German units were gone, I allowed the British to shoot directly at the German Big Men). The Hun lost the MG, the sap, and the trench, with all ranks wounded or killed. The British took four casualties, much the same as in the historical raid.

I was quite happy with the result. It was intended to be a British win from the beginning, but I was impressed that the players managed (with help from the dice gods) to keep so close to the original British casualty figures. I think the scenario works well as a starter piece, a short scenario with the beginner as the British and an experienced player in the German role (and, if necessary, acting as umpire--it's not about winning and losing, so he can stand to be impartial). We skipped out on using blinds and spotting in our game, so as to limit the complications, and since they would be likely to be of short duration in any case.

Incidentally, on digging around for more information on the original action, I found a brief passage in Mereweather and Smith's The Indian Corps in France that describes the action and gave me an additional piece of information.

Before dawn on the same day, a similar raid on a smaller scale was carried out by the 2nd Black Watch, with the object of capturing or destroying a machine gun which was tormenting our men. Captain Forrester with twenty men rushed the German trench, and had a hand-to-hand scrimmage with the enemy, of whom they killed ten. The gun, however, had been removed, and the party were lucky to get back to their own trench with only Captain Forrester and one sergeant wounded.

Another account (A History of the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) in the Great War, 1914-1918, A.G. Wauchope, ed.)says

The chief incident in the left section was a night raid made on the German trenches by some twenty men of No. 2 Company under Captain Forrester, with the object of destroying a machine gun which was causing annoyance from a sap pushed up close to our line. The raid took place on November 9th. Captain Forrester was wounded through the lungs as the raid started, but continued to lead his men, who reached the German trenches and killed ten of the enemy in hand-to-hand fighting; the machine gun had, however, been removed. The party returned with Captain Forrester, Sergeant Wallace, and one private wounded.

So, in fact, our stoppage had had a fairly historical effect--the original German defenders had not had the advantage of an MG to defend themselves with--and neither did our fictional Germans!

I'll publish the scenario here as soon as I can format it properly.  Here's the scenario.

A few new toys

Among the things I got at Cold Wars were some of the Old Glory WWI figures and a special pack from Great War Minis.

I had heard that the two lines are not terribly compatible, and I have to say that's so. The Old Glory line, while quite nice based on these Germans and some Americans I acquired, are a good bit smaller, possibly true 25s compared with GWM and Renegade, which are more "heroic" 28s. Nonetheless, I think that of one doesn't mix the two in the same units, they can get by in the same force.

In the image above are two Old Glory pieces, in the top left and bottom right. Top left are a pair of kneeling/seated figures, one operating a radio or field telephone, the other taking notes on a pad. The latter could as well be paired with an officer observing through a filed periscope or some such. His base is not nearly as thick as that of the handset man, so I've added a small base under him, which leaves him slightly elevated over the other figure, but more or less on a level.I'll have to do some creative ground-sculpting.

On the bottom right is a chap holding a pigeon, with a nice wicker basket that presumably held the feathery messenger. The set also included a runner with a satchel, who is not in this shot.

The three other pieces are Great War miniatures, and beautiful work they are, too. In the lower left corner is a Granatenwerfer 16, an Austrian spigot mortar adopted by the German Army. The Soldier's Burden has a nice page on it here. The GWM piece comes with a granatenwerfer in two pieces, an operator, and an additional crewman.

I suppose the latter might as well be a support for the central figure, a gunner with a Mauser Tankgewehr M1918, or 13mm anti-tank rifle. He provided a nice excuse to pick up some of the lozenge-shaped bases that Gale Force Nine includes among its inexpensive MDF bases (for sale, alas, only at conventions). In emulation of my hero, Uncle Sid, I've decided to go with these for my WWI forces.

Speaking of these pill-shaped bases, the third GWM set uses one of these to carry a team using the Kleinflammenwerfer, or small flamethrower. The Soldier's Burden has a page describing the German employment of these devices. While initially effective, they became less so once British and French troops overcame their initial shock at the use of fire, and (as mentioned in this piece on firstworldwar.com), the life of an operator was dangerous and, if captured by the enemy, very short indeed.

I also acquired some Brigade Games German sentries (not pictured), some of which are smoking, the slackers! These will be useful for M&B for sure--I might even get them some special bases for their special role.

In addition, with my pre-Cold Wars purchases (thanks to the chaps who bought my old 15mm Franco-Prussian figures!), I now have enough figures for a half-Zug of early war Germans, another half-Zug of late war Germans, and a platoon of Americans. Now to start painting...

A Lesson in Success

While reading whatever I can get my hands on concerning the practice of trench raiding (I have recently acquired and look forward to devouring Anthony Saunders' Raiding on the Western Front), I came across this nice article on the Calonne Trench Raid (PDF), published in a 1999 issue of Canadian Military History. It's short (~10 pages), but it very neatly provides background on the Commonwealth Western Front practice of trench raiding, explains the purposes of the practice, gives the lead-in to this particular attack, details the planning and organization for it, and describes the action itself. it then wraps up the results and brings the reader back to the overall rationale and effect of raiding.

A sampling of the other accounts I've run across on the Web so far include several accounts on a site dedicated to the 11th Bn., East Lancashire Regiment: a patrol, a raid, and a raid by the 13th Bn., York and Lancaster Regiment. Also a nice animated presentation on a 1916 raid the the London Scottish, an account of an American who fought with the Royal West Surreys, another American serving under his home colours, and a short account of an action by 6th Bn., Seaforth Highlanders.

All Quiet At The Hissing Fuse

There's a brief hiatus underway while I prepare for Cold Wars (which won't have much Great War focus for me, at least this year). I'm continuing to read up on the battle of Vimy Ridge, which (for those who hadn't sussed it out yet) is the setting for our Winter Sports escapades.

I hope to develop a little mini-campaign of WS scenarios that will serve to involve the players in the preparations for the assault. The Canadians practiced trench-raiding extensively, often on a large scale, and it both "blooded" new men and contributed to the intelligence gathering that made the attack such a huge success. In the end, I'd like to tie the results into a larger depiction of the attack, maybe a couple of Storm of Dice scenarios or a Corps Blimey game.

The first step will be expanding the scope of the missions and ruse cards from the original article. While they're brilliant for the first few games, once you've run through them several times, they need updating to keep the suspense going. These will be a mixture of events and items that will be applicable to any Western Front setting and some that will be specifically applicable to Vimy Ridge.

One thing I'm looking forward to about Vimy is that it matches up the Canadians (the shock troops of the British Empire) against the Bavarians. The Bavarians had a reputation as doughty and ferocious fighters, and were, towards the end of 1917, the first to come to grips with the Americans as they arrived in France.

[A well deserved reputation! I got to command a division of Bavarians recently in a scenario playtest for Bruce Weigle's 1866 rules (he has a good scenario lined up for Cold Wars), and I found them quite redoubtable, considering the overwhelming Prussian firepower they were facing.]


ETA: Brief account of Cold Wars here.

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.