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RangerJoe -> RE: War Gamer story (true) (3/17/2021 4:04:54 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RFalvo69
A bad memory is what happened during a game of "Command Decision" miniature game set in the modern era. The scenario saw a heavy Soviet Mechanized assault against a mixed British/Dutch defence. We played 3 vs. 3. It was my last year in high-school and I was the "mascot" of the group. As a new player I got the NATO reserves - so that I could watch some turns of "the real battle" and better familiarise myself with the game. My allies assured me about "not worrying too much" because "real life tactics worked".
Beer was flowing high, so after some turns I went to the "loo", washed my hands, came back to the table and... I looked at it, stunned. During the turn resolution phase the Soviets had achieved a general breakthrough in the center. Their advanced forces were already near my reserves. Even worse, my forces were badly positioned. My plan had been to wait before committing and, if things went south, to commit according to the situation. It wasn't bad planning, but I never thought that a breakthrough could be so sudden and that meant that I was in serious trouble. It was easy to see how the Soviet player had to do only one thing: take advantage of the situation as fast as possible. To compound my problems even more, the referee had judged that, due to both heavy electronic warfare and the chaos in NATO lines, normal communications were impossible. I couldn't talk with the other two NATO players.
The only good news were that I still had contact with both our tactical air forces and the divisional artillery. In a way, the situation was forcing my planning. I had to somehow slow down the Soviet schwerpunkt, try to reposition the reserves and, hopefully, gain enough time for my friends to reestablish the front line. So, I called all our available airstrikes on the Soviet advanced forces (among them a flight of A-10s which was our real hammer) and then with the artillery I did a "number" for which I patted myself. Instead of some desolutory firing, I called for FASCAM minefields to be delivered in front of the enemy.
Next turn, and each of us reveals his actions ("Command Decision" is WEGO). I revealed mine and... everybody, allies and opponents alike, just looked at me. Then the referee asked me if I was sure about what I was doing. I wondered if I had missed some rule. Was there a delay before the airplane and the artillery could answer? If so, I had wasted my best ammo and we had lost the game right there...
Well, no, my comprehension of the rules was fine. The problem was a bit different: true, the Soviets had broken through while I was in the loo, but those "advanced Soviet forces" weren't neither advanced nor Soviet. I had called all of our airborne hell on a Dutch brigade that was trying to retreat fast while still in good order - while cutting off their retreat route with my FASCAM mines. In a way, my plan had worked perfectly. In a way.
The game was actually stopped, with the Soviet players arguing that "that idiot" had never played the game before and so it was only fair to allow me to change my orders once. It was the NATO players that wanted to keep the SNAFU because "this is what happens in war" - while, at the same time, also wanting my head due to my complete inability to "just look". I sat in depressed silence through all of this (it was there that I started hating miniature games).
At the end the referee made a compromise: my air and artillery strikes were called back, but I couldn't send orders to my forces for two turns due to "the obvious confusion in their commander's head". This, basically, cut me off from the main game and at the end the Soviet won.
That wasn't the last time that the Warsaw Pact was able to reach the Pyrenees due to me commanding some NATO forces, but this is a tale for another time...
Your Scouts should have been able to identify the Dutch forces if they had vehicles. The Scouts are trained to do so at the lowest level. If there were no vehicles, then the Dutch troops would not have been mistaken for the Soviet spearhead either. The A-10 pilots also should have been able to identify the vehicles as well - maybe even before they fired their guns.
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