The City Fight

[vince hughes]

Hi DX,

Very interesting discussion on a subject I would like to see tackled and have scenarios designed for the various many city battles..

Have you tried fighting this as per the NORMAL rules and ONLY THEN consider potential changes ? You may have already and if so, I apologise as I don't recall the full details.

I was thinking that if a battalion attacks on a 200m frontage, it would not be in a massive lump moving forward, and therefore, there is only so much that can be attacked at any one time, despite numbers. so I would not overly fret on stacking numbers here.

Also, using ASL as a campaign format is going to be well out for any historical reality when it comes to 'times'. ASL sometimes assumes to represent just two minutes per turn and so much happens in ASL games in that time. I think you should work with PG's 15 minute turn assumption as I think this can be the framework for timings re exhaustion etc.

Also, rather than add entrenchments to the mix, have you considered basic 'Special Rules' for designated hexes. The obvious one being that certain hexes could be shown as 'No Retreat' hexes as per entrenchments and you could also consider specific terrain modifiers for designated hexes. As an example, hex X could be a -4 or -5 DF AND -3 IDF. Even with the adjacent bonus of +2, that would still end up with a modifier of -2 as per the max..

On the question of continual fighting, I think one should consider the PG framework for battles anyway. If I may give an example. In Iron Line South (FoF), my opponent and I had no less than 17 assaults in progress in the city (Gembloux). Despite that, during assaults, many of these hexes had little or no action on many turns. Not so much due to Fog of War, but instead due to units recovering from DIS & DEM or indeed, simply not wishing to instigate an assault but instead tie down enemy troops there. In such a battle as Stalingrad, units would certainly experience having to occupy same hexes during 'quiet' periods. This would be due to local commanders not pulling troops out of 'captured' or 'held' territory, therefore enforcing a dual-occupancy hex (different floor levels, different rooms, different buildings within the hex)

For some of the taller buildings, perhaps stacking would need to be raised, but just like ASL, you would probably have to go into the sphere of designating what levels these troops are at. I guess its going to get messy from there ?

It would be interesting to continue hearing of progress made, but my thoughts on this subject when carrying out my own 'cogitations' is, like the Cassino box-set, to have special rules for various hexes, therefore eliminating a massive divergence from the main rule book.

Whatever happens, I think extensive play-testing (for once) is required to find the effects over sustained use of any rule and scenario design. So good luck to you.