Ultramodern Wargaming – Ukraine 2024
Recommendations: 13004
About the Project
Lately, I've been running war games every weekend with members of the community via web conference. Players log on and play wargames with each other in real time, regardless of location, and we usually have at least a couple spectators as well. Many times it’s been Darkstar, but we’re also running wargames in Panzer Leader, Arab-Israeli Wars, and now Valor & Victory.
BoW/OTT community members @brucelea, @damon, @davehawes, and @rasmus have taken the plunge, leading battalions across thousands of meters of desert, starfleets in pitched battles across the heavens, or vicious firefights in the jungles of Vietnam, all without leaving the comfort of their home.
Hard-core, old-school command-tactical wargames can now be run (complete with spectators and recordings) in real time, with BOTH PLAYERS moving pieces across THE SAME virtual game board, thus maintaining player agency, speedy and instant results (no play by e-mail), interwoven turn sequences, any questions / feedback instantly received and addressed, and with the game being virtually recorded as it goes, a ready-made battle report can actually be created as we go.
All of this without the players having to install any new software on their computer, on any platform (PC or Mac). All that's needed is to agree on a time, a handful of dice, and a bellyful of courage!
Every weekend can now be a boot camp! All without costing me thousands of dollars in airfare, too!
Related Game: PanzerBlitz
Related Genre: Historical
This Project is Active
Game in Progress - Video Soon!
The game is now in progress! It’s a big one to be sure (finale of the series, I literally crammed almost everything I had on the table for this one).
We’ll see how it turns out.
Here are some screen shots from the raw footage of the video I hope to have out before too long.
Overhead of the board center as the forces deploy.
Marine squad under cover, tentatively probes forward to find the enemy
Marine at lower center (close up, out of focus), spots Iraqi infantry by the containers, and armor as well. Time to call in the M777s with the Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM) artillery and maybe some Copperhead ATGWs!
The AH-1W Supercobra dodges Shilka SPAAA fire while lining up AGM-114 Hellfires on those T-55 tanks ...
Marine M-60A1s in the fray! One has been hit and immobilized by an Iraqi AT-3 Sagger. Damn you! Table Build - Kuwait International Airport
Putting together a table for an upcoming game – marking the 30th Anniversary for the Battle of Kuwait International Airport – a major engagment at the climactic end of Desert Storm and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Miniature Game Video - Marines at Al-Jaber - 25 Feb 1991 (Modified Battlegroup) - Part Two
In today’s Sunday Show, we’re presenting PART TWO of our miniature game video for a 15mm recreation of part of the Battle of Al Jaber, fought between US Marines of Task Force “Ripper” and elements of 22nd Brigade, 5th Iraqi Mechanized Division on February 25, 1991.
This is the second “official” day of the Desert Storm ground invasion, even if artillery duels, reconnaissance raids, and advances across the Kuwaiti border had in fact already been in progress for weeks.
The first Iraqi defense line was breached even before fighting officially started, while the second defense line fell on “G-Day” against only token resistance. On G-Day +1, however, Task Force “Ripper” of the 1st Marine Division ran across pitched resistance and local counterattacks at Al Jaber and the Al Burqan oil fields.
The system we’re using is a modification of Iron Fist Publishing’s “Battlegroup.”
Ops Center Episode 20: Desert Storm - Conclusion
With this episode, we bring a conclusion to our 30th-Anniversary Ops Center series on Desert Storm and the Gulf War of 1991. Now that the Coalition’s ground invasion is in full swing, we track the progress of American, British, French, and allied armies as they liberate Kuwait and press deep into Iraq.
Such maneuvers, unmatched in sheer scale since perhaps World War Two, ignite such battles as Al Busayyah, 73 Easting, Norfolk, Medina Ridge, Kuwait International Airport, and Rumaila Oilfields.
We look into these battles, tracking the Gulf War to its echoing conclusion, and take a deep and detailed dive into how the recreation of such engagement can be brought to your tabletop. Whether at the sweeping operational level as a four-star general, command tactical level as a major or colonel, or up-close tactical level as a sergeant, lieutenant, or captain, we look at game systems and scenario types that can bring the Gulf War to your table.
Marines at Al-Jaber - 25 Feb 1991 (Modified Battlegroup) - Part One
In this video we present a miniature game video for a 15mm recreation of part of the Battle of Al Jaber, fought between US Marines of Task Force “Ripper” and elements of 22nd Brigade, 5th Iraqi Mechanized Division on February 25, 1991.
This is the second “official” day of the Desert Storm ground invasion, even if artillery duels, reconnaissance raids, and advances across the Kuwaiti border had in fact already been in progress for weeks. The first Iraqi defense line was breached even before fighting officially started, while the second defense line fell on “G-Day” against only token resistance. On G-Day +1, however, Task Force “Ripper” of the 1st Marine Division ran across pitched resistance and local counterattacks at Al Jaber and the Al Burqan oil fields.
The system we’re using is a modification of Iron Fist Publishing’s “Battlegroup.”
Task Forces "Ripper", "Papa Bear", and "Shepard" Break Iraqi Berms - 25 Feb 1991 in Panzer Leader Demo Game
With many Americans occupied with the Super Bowl today, I’m taking the opportunity to deep-dive into one my real passions, command-tactical, maneuver-level operations, specficially with the US Marine Corps in Desert Storm.
As you know, the 30th Anniversary of these battles are practically upon us, and just once I wanted to really crank up the scale and game how these battles really took place, at the regiment / brigade level, on a combat board 16 kilometers wide.
The map is scaled to and modeled on the actual battlefield of 1st Marine Division’s vanguard on 25 February 1991 (G-Day +1), with dispositions and opposing forces drawn from modeled from primary sources (US Marine Corps Historical Command and Museum Institute)
You might say this is something of a “super bowl” of historcial modern warfare?
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2PM EAST US, 7PM UK
American Revolution Game Live at 2PM Sunday
Join us as we recreate the Battle of King’s Mountain (7 October 1780) in the “Battlefield: Rebellion” system – designed specifically for staging Revolutionary War scenarios on the Sitrep Podcast Channel.
King’s Mountain was a small but fierce battle in the back country of South Carolina, fought not between armies, but “Tory” Loyalist and Patriot militias. It’s a backwoods shoot-out that would have profound consequences on the course of the American Revolution in the South, helping to steep the campaign toward a fateful conclusion at Yorktown.
This will be a live game between two members of the Sitrep team, so don’t miss it!
SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2PM EAST US, 7PM UK
Here is the overall map. King's Mountain was a relatively small battle, even by American Revolution standards. King's Mountain itself was only about 600-800 yards long, and this map total is only 1750 yards by 1000 yards (50 feet by 30 feet at 15mm). 
The American force. 950-1000 men historically, so we're looking at 12 unit counters at 80 men a piece (basically two understrength companies of the time). Although these are all militia, so "companies" is a strong word. The silly thing is the absurd number of commanders, all of them rather poor. Again, this is a militia force, drawn from "overmountain men" from places like South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and what is today Tennessee. Every *ahem* "colonel" brought their own band, so we would wind up with colonels in some cases commanding 20-50 men. There were actually more colonels than this historically, but this is the approximation we're using to fit King's Mountain into the "Battlefield Rebellion" game system. Even this is a lot, clearly.
The "British" force isn't actually British at all. Major Patrick Ferguson is the only British man in this 962-man force, and he isn't even an Englishman (Scotland, actually). This is the same Patrick Ferguson that invented the Ferguson Rifle, and by all rights should have shot George Washington dead at the Battle of Brandywine (11 September 1777). Seeing the success that German Jaegers and American Patriots were having with rifles, he tried to get the British Army to adopt a rifle corps, but wasn't very successful (this is 35 years before "Sharpe's Rifles"). His 2-in-C is a New Yorker of Heugenot stock, and the rest of the militia are American, the trained from the Loyalist Legion (levied from New York, I believe) and the rest raw militia drawn up from the local area (South Carolina).
Historical set ups for the two forces at about 1:30 PM, 7 October 1780. Ferguson didn't think much of his opponents, calling them barbarians, mongrels, etc. SO he didn't bother to have defensive works set up around this "impregnable" hill on which he'd positioned his militia. The Crown will be tabled here, in fact the victory conditions of the game require it. Who wins the GAME will be determined by the American losses. 0 units lost = decisive Patriot victory. 1 unit lost = tactical victory. 2 units lost = draw (this historical result). 3+ units lost = a Loyalist tactical victory, and Crown force NOT tabled = a Loyalist decisive victory.Ops Center Episode 19: Desert Storm - Opening the Ground War
In this episode, we continue our 30th Anniversary commemorative look at the Gulf War of 1991. The air phase of Desert Storm has been pounding the Iraqi air force, air defense system, and army in the field for weeks, and at last it’s time for the Coalition to begin the ground invasion to liberate Kuwait.
Of course it wasn’t at simple as that. There were plans to be drawn up and preliminary battles to fight, including an abortive Iraqi invasion into Saudi Arabia. This episode covers the preparation and preliminaries, compares the forces of the two sides, and outlines the units and equipment not only of the United States, but those of the Coalition allies as well.
Finally, Operation “Desert Sabre” – the full scale ground invasion – kicks off on 24 February 1991, and the final deadly phase of the Gulf War is on.
