Somewhere in Jæren, Norway 1940 (Solitaire Advanced Squad Leader)

 I've been out and about a lot lately since I got the summer tyres back on my bike and the weather has become better. Looking around for destinations to visit, I picked out a few coastal fortifications in the area as being accessible navigation points. These were built after the Germans had invaded in April 1940, although many were then taken over by the Norwegian military after the Second World War. Of course, it also helps that there is a lot of Migration Period and Viking Age archaeology visible here and that I can combine my visits to the bunkers with visits to runestones and grave mounds.

Exploring the bunkers and the fact that it is Liberation Day as I start to write this blog post inspired me to dig out Advanced Squad Leader to play again. I knew it would involve a lot of reading of rules, but I have all weekend, and shall hopefully finish the game and post this blog before the end of the weekend. If I do not, well, never mind. I tried!

The Bunkers

Bø coastal fort is easy to access down a path and across a field. You can go inside and the area is also a nature reserve. There's a lot more to it than the pictures below.

The main part of the bunker complex

Fairly sure this says "Last one out switch the lights off."
(It actually says "In case of danger of gas, shut the doors and loopholes")

The view from the inside

Løndshaug is 22.5m in diameter and 4m high

There were several more gravemounds like the one above at Børaunen, but the Germans built a bunker complex on them! This is actually something we see a lot of here, where they used the gravemounds as the basis for artillery and anti-aircraft positions but just digging into the top of them.

Vigdel fort is another complex that is easily visited, although beware of the wind. Even on a nice day, it will be blowing a howling gale. Here are a few pics of parts of it. Most of the underground tunnels are locked up and not accessible unfortunately.

And if you tire of the coastal fort, N 244 Helland II is just a couple of kilometres down the road. The runes apparently read 'Skarði erected this stone in memory of Bjalfi(?), his son, a very good man' (× skarþi : risti : stin : þana : iftir :: biafa : sun : sin : harþa : kuþan : man :). I could only read a few of the runes, so I must trust the runologists here. What is interesting is that the stone fell over at one point and was re-erected the wrong way up. It now stands the right way up and has been supported so that it will not fall over easily again.

N 244 Helland II

The Scenario

Near a village in Jæren, Norway, Norwegian soldiers are on patrol.

It has to be Jæren because I rolled for the conditions and got no snow and lots of wind. It is always windy in Jæren. When it is not windy there, it is very windy indeed instead.

Looking at SASL, I decided it would be fun to play a patrol scenario. Both sides enter on roads and march towards each other until the front elements make contact. Then the scenario proper begins. The Norwegian troops marched through the village. Forward elements spotted Germans advancing towards them, just as the Norwegians were about to exit the village.

The situation after the initial march on

Both sides scattered off the road as fast as they could. In the initial exchange of fire, two German units broke and ran for cover. The Norwegian half-squad panicked in the middle of the road instead of leaping into cover like the rest of their company.

The situation at the end of Turn 1

As the two forces closed on each other, the Norwegians gave good, disciplined fire and the Germans, taken by surprise, broke and sought cover.

It looked like things were going to go the Norwegians' way, but a new company of German infantry arrived from the south. However, this was countered by a mixed company of infantry and armour arriving from the north. Who knew that the French had armour this far south in Norway?

With the French armour arriving, the German commander called in the artillery. Two stonks were sighted in on the Norwegians, but one was immediately cancelled when the commander realised that it was going to his prisoners the Norwegians had taken. Over on the left flank, a lone German squad tried to sneak through, but Colonel Eliassen led his own squad into the fray and a desperate melee ensued. However, fully half the first Norwegian company was paralysed by panic, a situation that would continue as they became flustered by the increasing German assaults.

The second artillery stonk was sighted in and eventually landed in the right spot, leaving Norwegian troops fleeing as fast as they could for cover.

As the Germans sought to extricate themselves from the fighting in the forest, their reinforcements were advancing on the hill, unaware that the lone squad they had seen off was now being reinforced by a full company. In the confusion of battle, the Norwegians were able to take several officers prisoner, and the French armour began a drive into the German rear. Although Norwegian casualties were mounting, there was still a chance that they could hold the village and beat back the German forces.

With artillery raining down around them, about half the Norwegians took cover and refused to stick their heads out. Meanwhile, the rest were advancing on and attacking the German reinforcements on their left flank, driving them back. In the forest, the German leader bravely worked to rally his troops, while a lone half-squad faced off against the French tanks and immobilised one of them with an anti-tank rifle. The tank crew heroically manned the gun and co-ax machine gun in the face of a close assault by a German squad. The squad threw grenades and did their best to close properly, but the French hled them off.

Norewgian infantry rushed to aid the tank crew and a fierce melee developed in which neither side could quite get the upper hand. On the left flank, the Norwegian counterattack was bearing fruit as increasing numbers of Germans surrendered to them. At this point, the German guns fell silent. There was too high a chance of dropping 150mm artillery on their own troops.

Surrounding the last of the Germans on the left flank, the Norwegians marched as fast as they could herd their prisoners towards the fighting in the forest. In the meantime, the melee around the tank had ended with the arrival of fresh Norwegian troops, who aided their beleaguered allies and cut down the attacking Germans.

The fighting died down and the Norwegian infantry rounded up the last of the German soldiers. Their village had been blasted by artillery, but they had given the invaders a bloody nose. They would be able to drink their beer and eat their komle with their heads held high tonight.

After thoughts

So, it took me three days to work through 11 turns. I did not play constantly, but it did progress slowly for the first half of the game, because I had to keep looking up the rules. I do not play Advanced Squad Leader often enough, and it shows in how much I need to check up as I play. Still, it was a good game and the good guys won.

I sometimes think too hard about the real people that lay behind our cardboard counters. It's hard not to when I pass the graves from Operation Freshman most days on my way to work, or when I see the grave of Solveig Bergslien near them, or any of the other war graves in the cemetery by my house. It makes me wonder about the ethics of playing wargames when the events may be fictional but there is a reality and real people's lives behind that fictional element. The fact that this country was occupied territory for five years and that there are memorials and reminders everywhere makes it all too real. I am not sure how to square that with playing games based around those events. Maybe I just think too much.

All that said, I still feel I should play more often. I enjoy the game, and there is definitely a cinematic element to it that belies the reality of the Second World War. If only the threshold for digging the game out were lower! The set-up is reasonably easy once all the counters are organised properly and you have a system for accessing them, but they still take up a fair bit of table space, and for SASL in particular, you have a whole bunch of charts. Then there is the rulebook that is a large folder. It really needs a lectern beside your seat for ease of access! Having to shuffle things around constantly slows game play down and makes it all harder. Clearly I need a dedicated ASL room with masses of ASL paraphernalia to ease set-up and game play. I wonder what my wife would say if I bought a 65" TV (or bigger) to use as a screen for digital versions of the charts...