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
H-Hour +36 minutes. It's Getting Worse!
Turns 2 and 3 are now complete, putting us at about 36 minutes past H-Hour. The American second wave is ashore … sort of. Losses continue to be hideous. American losses now stand at 48 platoons of various types rendered combat ineffective (1680 men, so roughly 560 killed and 1120 wounded).
Although some cracks may just be starting to spread in the Atlantic Wall, casualties and equipment losses are reaching the point where I honestly don’t know if the Americans will succeed in opening the four major draws off Omaha.
The Vierville Draw at the end of Turn 2. The remnants of A/116th and C/2nd Rangers have made the horrific dash across the sand and have now reached the shingle, represented by the darker brown band that lines the beach at the foot of the bluffs. Engineers have to either blow a hole in the shingle on a successful demolitions roll, or Sherman Dozers have to clear a path. Again, despite the "historically horrible" losses suffered by the assault infantry, one positive change remains the larger presence of surviving American tanks (seriously, almost half of them actually made it to the beach IN OUR GAME, a shockingly high number). Note the "Open" markers, showing where engineers have already cleared gaps in German minefields or cleared paths through the shingle. NO VEHICLE is allowed to pass through the shingle hex until it is cleared. So opening these cuts is vital.
On the opposite end of the beach, the 16th RCT / 1st Infantry Division has really caught a break here. A volley from the battleship USS Texas has scored some amazing hits and positively EMPTIED Wiederstandnester 62, while a P-47 airstrike and even some tanks have pummeled the Germans in Wiederstandnester 61. Resistance here is not broken, but it has been very badly weakened through some frankly VERY lucky dice rolls. Not so lucky are the Americans still struggling shore, being positively liquified by consistent German artillery firing from further inland. Making the artillery doubly effective is the "pre-sited" special rule. Because the Germans have the beach pre-sited, indirect fire artillery missions on a BEACH hex do not have to be called in a turn in advance like normal.
The center remains in doubt. While German artillery and infantry guns are positively mauling survivors still hung up and pinned down in the beach obstacles, not enough engineers and dozers have made it across the beach to both open gaps in the shingle, and more importantly ... blow the blocks that are barring exit via the draws and roads. This is the crucial shortfall, as of course these are the objective hexes that determine victory in the game.
Finally on Turn 3, German artillery starts to slacken a LITTLE. This is because P-47s that dropped their ordinance are allowed to linger on the table for strafing attacks, or conduct spotting missions if a German unit fires from under cover within ten hexes. Well, the first planes bombed on Turn 1, spot on Turn 2, which means they can direct third-wave air strikes on Turn 3 to hit at least some of these 10.5cm howitzer positions. Of course every howitzer battery has at least a 2.0cm FlaK protecting it ... But at last at least a third of the German artillery is silenced. The problem is the Americans only have SO MANY air strikes ... 
The second major wave (second echelon of life rifle companies) makes it ashore in the 16 RCT / 1st Infantry Division sector to the east. No gaps have been opened in the beach obstacles yet (every beach landing hex is assumed to have obstacles in it) so every American unit still has to make a survival roll as it lands. Note at lower left, two Sherman platoons (10 tanks) have snuck through a gap in the shingle opened by dozers to actually take one objective hex. It's still behind that block, though, I need to get engineers to it to blow it before the draw is considered open and I get the points for the objective (only engineers can blow a block counter, Sherman dozers cannot do this).
Is it possible that things in the west are getting even worse? All the luck in getting the Shermans ashore and landing a few naval gunfire salvoes on German bunkers has deserted the Americans here. Losses in the second wave are almost worse than in the first wave. Also, German artillery in the west is more intact after Turn 3 air strikes. So yes, Dog Green and Dog White absolute tornadoes of carnage.remain 
The good and bad news on the American right (west). Note that survivors of C Company / 2nd Ranger Battalion are now off the beach and climbing the bluffs. I anticipate the first actual American close assault on Turn 4. However, Brigadier General Cota seems to be out of the battle! Note that the HQ Company of the 116th Regimental Combat Team has been blown up trying to come ashore (bright green counter, upper left)! Oddly, this reverses history, where "Captain Miller" and the Rangers did NOT lead the way off the beach as depicted in the movie, Vierville Draw was only opened around midday by Brigadier General Cota (Robert Mitchum, The Longest Day) leading a flanking attack from the east pretty much where we see the breach being made here. But Cota won't be leading that effort in this game, it looks like it's coming down to the Rangers after all. So this game is turning out more like the movie than the history, at least in this local sector.
The overall situation at the end of Turn 3 (H-Hour + 36 minutes). FLASH: OUTCOME OF INVASION STILL IN DOUBT!Dear God, It's Started.
Turn One is complete. It took about 90 minutes. Nineteen turns to go. So far there are few surprises.
The landings are chaos.
DD tanks are sinking.
German AT guns are murdering all the American Shermans with dozer blades.
Engineers cannot push inland to blow holes in beach obstacles or the sea wall shingle.
The Americans at Dog Green and Dog White have been all but shattered, with “A” Co / 116th all but annihilated in the opening fire phase.
But some armor has made it onto the beach. And air power has knocked out at least one infantry gun and pinned German MG-42 bunkers in Wiederstandnester 71 (the exact bunker complex that butchered Captain Miller’s company at the Vierville Draw).
Meanwhile, German artillery (8.0 cm mortars, 15.0 cm mortars, 10.5 cm howitzers, and even one battery of 15.0 cm howitzers) has positively mauled American landing points at Dog Green and Easy Red (16th RCT, 1st Infantry Division).
So as horrible as things are, some parts of the American landings are actually going slightly better than historically, while others are going much worse.
H-Hour +10 minutes. 27 American platoons have been destroyed (marked by black smoke columns) across five miles of assault beach. So that's over 900 men killed, wounded, or hopelessly scattered.
As expected, the hot spot is the American right wing, in front of "Dog One" draw leading toward the Vierville objective hexes. This was BY FAR the bloodiest slice of Omaha, which was BY FAR the bloodiest beach at Normandy (more casualties than the other four invasion beaches plus the three divisional airborne drop zones ... all combined). To kick the historical results a little, I have thrown a lot more support here. Note the naval gunfire support markers (green target icons) and the four P-47 Thunderbolt air strikes. One plane was hit and damaged, but the strike went in and probably saved at least some lives.
A close up of the Vierville Draw. Note the Ranger counters, "C" Company / 2nd Battalion. This was "Captain Miller's" unit, and yes, he's already lost a third of his company. One difference, though, is that fourteen Shermans have made it on the beach. Two full platoons of five and one four-tank platoon of dozer-blade Shermans. Let's hope they make a difference. 
Further east, the landings get even more scrambled because of tidal shear. Some units hit German beach obstacles coming in, either dispersed (pinned) or killed outright. DD Shermans sink wholesale. In hex 0907 (just beneath the Big Red One symbol) German artillery has wiped out a whole American company in a single barrage (three counters = three platoons = 150 men). This part of the beach was actually a little easier at first historically thanks in part to a fortuitous brush fire ignited by naval gunnery, the smoke actually blinded some German fire. Not here. 
The far east sector, on the left wing of 1st Infantry Division / 16th Regimental Combat Team. German fire is positively murderous, but a fair number of American tanks have made it onto the beach - I actually rolled pretty well on these, the roll is not easy because of the historical rate of American losses). So here's hoping this positive change from history makes a difference, because this part of the beach is actually a little bloodier so far than the real event 75 years ago.What is WRONG with me?
My God, I think there is something legitimately wrong with me. What kind of fool tries to recreate a legitimate, full-scale, platoon-based, historically “approximate” re-staging of ALL of Omaha Beach?
Well, the map is complete. The initial forces are set up. Just a few special rules to iron out and it’s time to start this apocalyptic game.
The whole map. Almost six miles wide, over three miles deep. At least 5,000 men on the table already. Each hex is a 4x6 15mm table, or three 28mm tables.
A close up of what I'm sure will be the bloodiest sector of a very bloody beach, Dog Green and Dog White, the right shoulder of the Omaha assault zone. 
THIRTY SECONDS! GOD BE WITH YA! A detail of the initial landing waves of Dog Green and Dog White. Note the "Ranger" counters in Dog Green. This is "C" Company, 2nd Ranger Battalion, "Captain Miller's" unit in Saving Private Ryan. They went in with "A" Company, 1st Battalion, 116th Regimental Combat Team at the mouth of the Vierville Draw. Well, you've seen the movie. The reality was horrifically worse. MOVE FAST, AND CLEAR THOSE MURDER HOLES!
German defenses at the mouth of the Vierville draw. Now 726th Rgt was originally a "second rate" unit, part of the 716th Static Infantry Division. But since March they'd been attached to the hardened 352nd, reinforced and re-equipped, and trained largely to 352nd's standards. Furthermore, elements of 352nd had been moved up to reinforce them (916th Grenadier Rgt, specifically). Still, you'll notice that many of the German platoons are still the weaker 2-I-2 "Security" platoons rather than the "3-I-2*" Rifle Platoons. Nevertheless, only the fact that the Americans get another whole wave just like this one every other turn for at least eight turns, plus massive destroyer, cruiser, and even battleship gunfire support (USS Texas), plus massive air support, even gives them a sliver of hope.
Things might go a little easier in 16th RCT / 1st Infantry Division's sector over in Easy Green and Easy Red. 
German defenses are actually extremely brittle. When you make up German units as they actually were, and try to deploy them along a battlefield of the proper scale, you realize how thin they were. True, 352nd Division was reinforced, but they were also expected to defend 33 miles of beach, an absurdly huge frontage for a single division in the field. Here is the limit of their reserves. Couriers on bicycles, empty trucks and horse-drawn wagons, flak troops, and so on. There are some nice regimental 12.0 cm mortars back here, along with the 10.5 cm howitzers of I.Bn/Artillery Regiment 352.Gianna vs. Oriskany - Part 01 posted
Good afternoon ~ We have now posted Part 01 of the Sitrep Podcast Live Wargame between @oriskany and @stvitusdancern. See if her US Special Forces can find, pin down, and destroy elements of my NVA main line regiment, Kon Tum Province, Central Highlands, South Vietnam, December 1967.
System: Valor and Victory
Parts 2 and 3 coming soon!
Enjoy!
Change of Gears - Heading Back to 'Nam for Some Special Forces Action
So I’ve taken a brief break from Omaha to build and run a game with @stvitusdancern on the Sitrep Command Team. The game was Valor & Victory (Barry Doyle, Vietnam Expansion by @oriskany) where we pitted a platoon of US Special Forces up against Vietnamese regulars (PAVN) near the Laotian border, Kon Tum Province, South Vietnamese Central Highlands, III Corps, mid-December 1967.
The general situation in this part of the war was dominated by a VC/NVA build-up for the Tet Offensive that would hit in January-February 1968. During this build-up, large contingents of NVA troops and weapons for the VC would come down the the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia – with branches leading off the trail at many points, leading into South Vietnam. American and ARVN ground forces were not allowed into Laos and Cambodia, but they could interdict these forces as they crossed into South Vietnam, hopefully stopping the buildup and perhaps using intelligence gained in these actions (prisoners / captured documents) to build a better picture about the Tet Offensive that was building up.
So here are the Special Forces units I put together in Valor & Victory to facilitate this game. We have Special Forces squads, half-squads, and medic teams. There are also leaders. They are named for American Revolutionary War Generals. The leader is Morgan, named for Daniel Morgan, leader of the 11th Virginia (the "Virginia Riflemen") and founder of the Rangers. He is often recognized as the "father" of American Special Forces. 
Vietnamese forces. These the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), often called in Western Press as the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). These are not South Vietnamese communist guerrillas like we see with the VC (National Liberation Front, or NLF). This is a hardened, trained, regular rifle company of the formal army of Hanoi.
The Special Forces platoon. They are carried in four UH-1 Iroquois transport helos (more typically called the "Huey") - the "slick" configuration without significant guns. The last helo on the bottom is a full-on UH-1H Gunship, which has sacrificed half its troop carrying capacity for some small degree of armor plating and rockets and guns ... LOTS of guns.
Here is the map I drew up for this game, live on Twitch, on Thursday. Seven objective hexes will be designated. Gianna must take at least four (the majority) to win the game by the end of Turn 6.
The battle begins. All NVA units begin "masked" - obscured as black counters until Gianna's troops spot them, move adjacent to them, or they fire on Gianna's units. During her initial movement phase (as helos entered the board), my NVA captain and a heavy machine gun crew on high ground (DShK 12.7mm) open fire on one of her birds, hitting and damaging it but JUST MISSING shooting it down. Instead it is "Pinned" (helos that are "pinned" have to withdraw from range of enemy gunfire and stay there until "rallied".) But now that NVA gun position is revealed, and in comes Gianna's gunship to release .50 cal, 7.62mm MG, and 2.75-inch rockets. BOOM! There goes the DShK (and my captain). However, the American commander (Captain Morgan) has landed on the ground to the east and headed north into those hooches, only to discover that those masked NVA units were "dummies" - "EMPTY JUNGLE." Throughout the game Gianna will have to discern where my forces really are, and how they are deployed. The Vietnamese are always hidden in this war, after all. 
Some more NVA units reveal themselves to the north, where I try to attack MSgt Herkimer's Squad once it becomes a little too isolated wading across that stream. That's three half-squads, one of them carrying an RPG-7. But those are Special Forces, and their opportunity fire more or less annihilates this force before they can mount the assault. So far we have one NVA officer and 16 men either killed, wounded, or driven off, with really no losses to the Americans other than a damaged UH-1 (and perhaps a wounded pilot or co-pilot or crew chief). But this game is just getting started! Omaha Map Complete - American Forces Built and Set Up
The Omaha Beach Panzer Leader mega-game continues to come together. The overall map is now complete (2500+ hexes, 24 square miles, or almost 63 square kilometers, estimated 2800 Flames of War tables).
American landings are researched and set up to pretty precise to the historical plan, we’ll see what the current, tides, beach obstacles, and enemy fire do to it.
Now I just have to set up the Germans.
The project is temporarily paused, however, to facilitate construction of a Valor & Victory Vietnam game for Saturday.
The full map, now with trees, hedgerows, and a beach shingle. 
American landing research for 116th Regimental Combat Team (29th US Infantry). not only do we have to account for all these units and when and where they are scheduled to land, but also their size,composition, and equipment.
Same with the 16th Regimental Combat Team (US 1st Infantry Division), followed by the 18th RCT that lands behind them mid-morning. 
Converted to Panzer Leader and set up on a color-coded phased turn landing schedule. Each color is a different turn of the game (20 turns in all, I think) and has a designated beach assault sector Every piece is a platoon of 5 tanks or 50 men, or a battery of 4-6 guns. Clearly this game is going to be ridiculously gigantic. This doesn't include air support or offshore naval gunfire support. Fortunately, the Germans are far less numerous.Omaha Beach - Panzer Leader - Map and Counter Construction
So after the success of last week’s Gold Beach game (Gold Beach is one of the British invasion beach zones during the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944), I thought I would create a new scenario for Omaha Beach, the big American beach depicted in Saving Private Ryan.
The system will be Avalon Hill’s Panzer Leader.
This will be a monster game, play-tested solitaire (not live … it would literally take days). But the ambition here is to run all of Omaha Beach, in true scale, no shortcuts, no gimmicks.
So far I have the map mostly complete – with the American units built.
The map in its entirety. Each hex is 150 meters, so the map overall is just short of 6 miles wide (10 km)
A detail of the Dog Green and the Vierville draw, one the bloodiest sectors of Omaha, by far the bloodiest part of D-Day. This was the setting for Saving Private Ryan, but only a small slice of what we'll be recreating with this game.
American units for use in the web game. Each piece is a platoon of 5 tanks or about 50 men. We're looking at all the unit TYPES here, there will be hundreds of counters in all on the map. I should say these counters are the start of a complete library for US forces in ETO 1944-45, not all of it will be used on OMAHA BEACH specifically.Gold Beach Wargame - Final Video Posted!!
Part III of our Gold Beach Panzer Leader game (myself with the Germans, @brucelea and @damon with the British) has now been posted on the Sitrep YouTube channel. It comes down to the final crunch here, folks, a 9+ hour game to the last turn, and almost the last roll! We have Typhoon fighter bombers, German FlaK, Royal Marine Commandos, Centaur assault tanks, Churchill AVREs, desperate defense and frantic close assaults!
This is one for the record books! With some funny jokes and sound effectsm too! 😀
British units: 1st Hampshire Rifles, 1st Dorsetshire Rifles, 2nd Devonshire Rifles (231st Brigade), “B” Assault Squadron / 6th Royal Engineers, Winchester Dragoons, 47th Royal Marine Commandos, Sherwood Rangers
German units: Infantry Division 352 (Grenadier Rgt 916, III. Battalion) and elements of 441 “East” Battalion, Infantry Rgt 726, 716 Static Infantry Division.
