Played with Hugmenot as part of our Indian Mutiny campaign

A fairly large group of Hyderabadis (accompanied by the increasingly shrill Razakars) attempt to halt a strong Indian/Gurkha force from continuing their advance. Assisting them in this is the construction of a map wide AT ditch, the one referenced in the title.

The victory conditions in this one require the Hyderabadis to finally consider their losses. Up to this point, the losses experienced by the Hyderabadis were huge but irrelevant to the scenario victory. As a result, my tactics did not spare the men. Now, however, losses which turn into victory points are one of two drivers (along with control of town hexes) of ultimate victory. In essence, the Hyderabadis either have to kill lots of Indians or hold lots of town hexes without losing tons of their own troops.

So, we are in for a stand up fight. Let's catalog the Hyderabadis strengths for such a fight.

Artillery would be nice in a standup fight to cause losses and disorganize the attackers. That would work out really well. Looking at the OB I can see that the Hyderabadis have absolutely no indirect fire weapons at all.

OK, then how about morale, we should have morale superiority then. Well the Razakars and armored cars equal the Indian morle at the top end but a lot of the line has to be held by Hyderabadi regulars whose morale is below the Indians.

Well, fine, if you want to be difficult, at least our direct fire should be effective. As long as you consider a 3-2 full strength direct fire acceptable for your infantry (the 2-1 Razakars aren't really a DF bonanza). These platoons significantly underperform the Indian 5-3 infantry.

I have to admit that, given the lack of any clear strengths, that my battle plan was pretty unimaginative. I hoped to delay and cause some losses in the closest town, drawing the Indian armor into the open where I could use my heavy AT concentrations to get some high value losses on the Indians. My opportunity fire was actually pretty good against the Gurkhas and Indian infantry but my assault rolls were poor and the resulting erosion of Hyderabadi strength without inflicting corresponding pain on the Indians ultimately ended up losing the scenario for me.

The Indian assault was deliberate and offered few opportunities for grand gestures by the Hyderabadi army. Given my setup and subsequent inaction a Hyderabadi loss was nearly inevitable. There were however, some things that I could have tried.

• Defend forward at the ditch. If I had a scrap of artillery I could have seen this approach but as it was I decided to try to lure the Indians into a kill zone (I then couldn't kill anything because the Indian artillery knocked out my big AT guns)
• Try a "Hail Mary with a sizable portion of the armored car force. I tried a little bit of this but they are too fragile and too valuable (2X victory points for each step loss) and I ended up pulling them back.
• Use lighter forces up front and have a strong defense further back towards the final town. This might have the better result having played around with the options. The Hyderabadis were actually in pretty good position until turn 14 or so when the losses really started piling up. Delaying the big fight to a later part of the game might have brought a better result.

Both Daniel and I had some reservations about the scenario itself and the few options open to the Hyderabadis. There were no real rabbits to be pulled out of hats on this one. I give it a "3" with the caution that, while it looks like a stand up fight, choosing that option as the Hyderabadi is not the way to win it.

Played ftf against Matt W in one long afternoon.

House rule: we do not inspect stacks in restricting terrain unless all units fired or moved, or we have a unit adjacent.

Matt’s setup surprised me. With the AT ditch providing some cover against direct fire and being an obstacle the Indians must clear (fill?) for their AFV to participate in the battle, I expected it to be more heavily defended. Not necessarily strongly defended but rather enough to harass the Indians and slow them down.

I surveyed the board and guessed the 17 pounder was likely place right there. Boom! The biggest threat to my tanks is no more. With deductive power like mine, I am sure I should have led the effort to uncover the alleged weapons of mass destruction! Or maybe not; I prefer cold weather to warn weather.

Meanwhile, my infantry crossed the AT ditch unopposed and set up a perimeter while my engineers aided by an infantry platoon cleared filled just enough ditches for my Sherman tanks to cross. A smaller infantry detachment crossed the ditch and immediately went for the closest town.

The large group which crossed near the road was split into 3 groups. The first small group was sent to clear the woods on map 1 and failed to make progress due to unexpected stiff resistance by the Razakars. But it was enough to occupy the enemy so it was an OK result. A second small group was sent against a roadblock set up a few hexes away. It took a while, but we were finally able to rout the enemy. The third, larger group was sent to clear a path along the ditch and then head for the town. No, not for R&R, but rather to help the assault. The Sherman tanks crossed and followed the larger group a few turns behind when the enemy artillery position was known or at least only able to shoot at long odds. The engineers went with them.

It was a slow, deliberate progress calculated to bring me the victory with several turns to spare. Matt recognized his troops stood very little chance and made a dash for the town using his armored cars. A few blew up real good and he decided to pull back the rest. A few turns later and it was all over; my side was already in winning territory with the kill ratio only likely to increase in my favor.

Indian victory.

I rated this scenario a “3” but it’s a weak “3”. I believe the way I played the Indians against Matt’s setup involved very little risk and was very likely to bring on success. I think the onus is on the Hyderabadi commander to find a more effective defense (see Matt’s AAR for suggestions). Having said that, I believe this is a good, albeit large, veteran against newcomer scenario with the veteran taking on the Hyderabadi side.

This was a continuation of Wayne and my play-through of the Indian Unity playbook which has provided some very interesting scenarios. This one, however, did not prove to be as good as the others have been. It seemed that as long as I could keep my chain of command coherent and apply force, it was a going to be a foregone conclusion as to how the battle would evolve.

The Hyderabadis setup with small groups of units located in the north, central and southern part of the ditch, which ran along the fields and forests on board 1. the 17 pdrs were placed at the cross-roads dug in and the town to the north on board 1. the rest of the troops were placed in the southern woods and the two towns. The Indians setup in the woods on board 6 as close as possible with the Shermans and Priests on the road between the woods.

The Indian plan of attack was to use the artillery, Spitfire/Tempest and Mortars to soften up the center dug in units and get close enough with the Sappers to fill the ditches in the road. The artillery and planes were also used with good effect to clear the 17pdr at the cross-roads (after it had hit a Sherman with a long shot and demoralized it) and the 6pdr dug in with the central troops. The infantry and Engineers approached all along the line until several units were able to traverse the ditch and eliminate the central troops, allowing the Sappers to get to work filling ditches.

I had to send several units north and south in order to keep those units in place while the Sappers worked. The Artillery and Planes hammered continuously on the front line troops which allowed the Indian units that poured over the ditches to assault and move towards the northern town on board 1. The units in the South had to fight through the forest as well but by turn 7 the ditch on the road had been filled and most of the Infantry and Engineers were west of the ditch line. Between turns 7 and 13, The central and northern units slowly moved north and west, closing on the town while the southern units tied up the Hyderabadis in the woods. Once the units in the North arrived within sighting distance of the town, it took until turn 13 to destroy the 17pdr. Once cleared, the Shermans had free reign and moved in to support the troops in their final assault on the northern town. The game ended on turn 18 after the Indians were able to lock 3 hexes of the town in assaults and inflicting numerous step losses that put the game at an end.

Obviously, the Indian player has the advantage in this scenario and there is very little chance of a Hyderabadi win. Wayne and I spoke after the game and we couldn't come up with any effective ideas for the Hyderabadi to place any better. Several options such as moving the ditch further east or not garrisoning the western town on board 4 were mentioned but we both agreed that Indian numerical superiority was just too great and the lack of any real interesting moves for the Hyderabadi made this scenario a "meh".

This scenario has a large Indian/Gurkha combined arms force with air support attacking a numerous Hyderabadi force with armoured cars and a long A/T ditch covering the entire front of the defending forces. This is meaty scenario using 3 boards and about 30 units each side. However its perhaps the worst scenario in this otherwise good game. The Indian player has to solve the problem of getting across the A/T ditch to assault one of the two towns, once he has cleared a path for his tanks, then providing the on board artillery and aircraft have found and neutralised the Hyderabad A/T guns, then its only a matter of time before Indian firepower and Assault skills bring victory. This will take some time has the Indian player has to amass twice as many VP's as his opponent. In our game Tony did just that, using ING and WPN units with good leaders to sweep the enemy units away from the A/T ditch, SAP to clear just one hex and then the Shermans could move to help the Gurkha's clear the town. To be fair to the scenario it took him 18 turns to do this but to be honest if it had not been for some early FOW rolls the game should have been over at least two turns prior to GT18. The final Step loss ratio was 44 Hyderbadi step losses to 4 for the Indians which shows how uneven the contest was even though the VP ratios was exactly 2-1 when we called the game which makes it sound an exciting game. Tony played well throughout and I did not make to many mistakes. *The problem is once the defending player has done his set up he has very little to do, the fire power at his disposel is weak and it is just a case of often rolling low OF/DF hoping to get Double 1's or 6's. To be honest it was a bit of a bore. This scenario could work as a solo with as its an interesting puzzle for the defence in setting up and for the attackers to break down that defence but as a FtF game it leaves a little to be desired. *