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. Of course, it should be said that I overthink everything.

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...

The Guards Counterattack (Advanced Squad Leader)

 Over the past few weeks, my brother and I have played an ASL game via Skype. We each set up the board on our tables, relying on description to ensure that we kept up with each other, and it worked. We also rolled dice ourselves and just announced the result. This also worked for us. It would be nice to have a setup where you can see your opponent, their board and their dice rolls, but the whole thing was a bit ad hoc. Maybe next time. The only real issue we had was when his board appeared to deny a line of sight and mine allowed it. This is the difference between the original boards and the newer Start Kit style boards with updated artwork. All in all, it made for a pleasant, social game.

We could have played on VASL, the digital tabletop for ASL, but that would have meant staring at the computer for yet more hours. I don't want to do that, because I do that all week long at work and get really bad digital eye strain these days, to the point where it takes a solid half hour of staring at anything other than the computer screen before I stop seeing double. The other reason not to do it is that this hobby is tactile and aural for me. I want to feel the counters and hear the dice. If I wanted to play on the computer, I would play Cyberpunk 2077 or Parkasaurus or something, not ASL.

As we have both been out of the game for a while, we decided to follow Jim Stahler's "8 Steps to ASL" which was published in the ASL Annual 1990 to refresh our memories. This approach is based on the original Squad Leader rulebook that took a staged approach to learning the rules, and it uses the same scenarios but updated to ASL. These are now in the ASL Classic supplement that you can get digitally on WargameVault. The first scenario is "The Guards Counterattack". I have lost track of how many times I have played this scenario. It is just such a perfect introduction to the game with only infantry and machine guns, and no weird terrain rules.

The Scenario

The scene: Stalingrad, October 1942. Soviet assault troops are massing to try to retake part of the city. The Germans are digging in hard and resisting. They are outnumbered and their positions are flanked, but  they have the advantage of defending. Their only goal is to hold on and not lose too many troops.

My brother took the Soviets, whose goal is to take ground in Stalingrad (measured by stone buildings captured) or to reduce the German forces. Failure to meet one of these goals means that the Germans win. Set-up is limited by the scenario description, which made the scenario more suitable for our purposes and we were able to use email to set-up ahead of time, so that we could just get on with the important business of rolling dice and talking shite.

Red circles mark buildings controlled by the Soviets at the start of the game. Red arrows show Soviet movements. German-controlled buildings have blue circles and their movements are marked by blue arrows.

My set-up in this game was based around using my machine guns to get interlocking fire lanes to stop the Soviet forces advancing. Naturally, this failed on the first turn as my machine gun teams were broken by Soviet fire. Only one team managed to lay down any fire. Fortunately, this was the one that inhibited the Soviet assault troops' advance. In the end, I feel like this was pivotal in the result of the game alongside my sniper who get busy from the outset. The assault troops failed to advance quickly enough. Being held up in the first building meant that the Soviets could not push on fast enough to take more buildings.

As with every play of this scenario that I have every played, the Soviets advanced counter-clockwise and the Germans did the same. As my sniper took several solid shots, the Soviet leadership suffered. Troops broke, the leaders rushed to rally them and were shot down by the sniper. Even the Soviet commissar was wounded. By the end of turn 3, only the Soviet commissar remained, and he was doing sterling work shooting his own troops, who kept cowering behind cover instead of rallying and returning to the fight.

As the game continued, a German squad managed to manoeuvre round the Soviet forces, and started taking buildings previously held by the Soviet forces. Lacking leadership, the Soviet troops stayed broken rather than returning to the front. Those who remained had no fire support and were only left with the option of charging the German positions and hoping that they survived. Dear reader, they did not.

Situation at the end of the game. So many broken Soviet troops! The Soviet MMG top centre is actually possessed by a German squad. The wound marker on the right shows the wounded Soviet Commissar.

As the day closed, the Germans held on. The Soviet forces were in disarray with only a tiny number of squads still combat ready. All the rest were broken and hiding from the German firepower, unable to rally because their leaders had all been sniped. The Battle for Stalingrad would continue another day.

Thoughts

This is a great scenario and well-balanced. As was expected, the action moved in a circle with the Soviet assault troops taking their target building, while the Germans managed to circle round through the Commissar's building while he was broken and take Russian buildings at the top of the map.

The key things that won it for the Germans were the slow advance by the Soviet assault troops and the active German sniper, who killed two of the Soviet leaders by half-way through the third of five turns. With troops broken and no way to bring them back into the fray en masse, the Soviet advance stalled. My brother still heroically soldiered on and tried to get his troops into place. He did succeed in making small advances, but there was no way what remained of his forces was going to win the scenario without extremely lucky dice rolls that were not forthcoming.

Retaking the Assembly Hall (Solitaire Advanced Squad Leader)

 Attention all units. The Thrappled Lemmings will return in a moment.

I got distracted by talking about Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) with my brother. With a view to relearning the rules, which I played almost constantly for a couple of decades from the early 90s onwards, I set up a solitaire game. I made a lot of mistakes, read a lot of rules and worked my way through to a conclusion. I got so much wrong that I cannot claim it was a victory. Nor can I claim it was a defeat. It was just a learning experience.

Then I got overly ambitious and set up a solitaire game using the solitaire rules for the Barrikady factory in Stalingrad that were published in an early ASL Journal. It took me most of a day to set up the Suspect (possible enemy) locations, and most of a week to play the whole thing through. This included a false start where I almost completely annihilated my assault engineers with a misplaced rocket strike. Disappointingly, that same rocket strike did almost nothing to the enemy force when I reset the scenario and started again. Such are the vagaries of the dice gods.

The early game. That's a lot of possible enemies!

In the photo above, my Soviet force has entered from the bottom of the photo. The Germans are defending the Assembly Hall, which is the building with the huge numbers of Suspect counters in it in the centre of the photo. It is November 1942. The weather is clear. The Soviets have between 8 and 13 turns to take the Assembly Hall. The game will end on or after turn 8. The game will end on a die roll of 1 at the end of the turn. The die roll is modified by -1 for each turn after turn 8, so it ends on a 1-2 at the end of turn 9 and so on.

My force consisted of a company of assault engineers supported by two companies of infantry, a heavy weapons platoon, a troop of T34s and a 2nd Lieutenant with a map and access to a Katyusha battery. This last is reputedly the greatest weapon in the German's arsenal, as my early attempt at dropping rockets to weaken the defence showed.

Having finally worked out which way to hold the map, the Soviet officer got his rocket strike on target. It had little effect on the Germans in their fortified positions. The Soviet infantry pushed forward, following the strike only to find the Germans fighting back. It was a hard fight and they really got the worst of it. Soviet troops broke and streamed backwards as fast as they advanced. They got in each other's way and the advance progressed at a snail's pace.

The Germans held on with amazing tenacity and many heroes emerged from the German ranks to take the fight to the Soviets. Meanwhile, the Soviet sniper was busily firing off every round she had at possible German targets, but only really managed to annoy them.

The main success was the assault engineers, who used their demolition charges to good effect, blasting holes in the German defence and permitting Soviet infantry to advance into the Assembly Hall. This was not without hazard though as German troops sniped from the sidelines and fired everything they had at the advancing Soviets.

It did not help that the Assembly Hall was defended by a reinforced troop of StuG IIIGs, several infantry and anti-tank guns and a StuIG 33B with a 150mm gun. Although they managed to get one of the T34s into the Assembly Hall to help, the main way to deal with these AFVs involved getting up close and personal in hand-to-hand combat, and that cost bodies. It was a bitter and hard fight. 

The limit of the Soviet advance. About half the Assembly Hall is safely in Soviet hands, and various buildings are burning.

Eventually, night fell and both sides settled in to their new lines. The Assembly Hall had not been retaken despite their best efforts, but the Germans were exhausted too. They had lost as many troops as the Soviets and would probably not be able to sustain the defence the following day. The rest of both sides was disturbed by the fires that had broken out because of heavy shelling and burning vehicles. it would not be a quiet night for either side. I imagine that the fires were actually started by an enterprising NKVD officer to stop the Soviet forces from retreating.

Some Thoughts and Wittering

That was fun, but crikey there's a lot to keep track of when playing on your own. And I am sure that I never used to knock counter stacks over quite as much as I did playing this scenario!

Although fun, it was also a bit frustrating. The German dice were hot for almost all the game, while the Soviet dice need to be sent to Siberia for reeducation. I could not believe how many StuGs the German's generated. It's like they lined the whole assembly hall with artillery and SPGs. They also generated 4 or 5 heroes and battle-hardened a similar number of squads by rolling more double 1s on their morale checks than the Soviets did in the entire game. The German low rolling also meant that the Soviet sniper checked for activation constantly. On top of that, there were lots of elite German troops and they generated a 10-3 leader (the best quality leader in the game) who proved almost impossible to stop.

Meanwhile, the Soviet experience was characterised by lacklustre performance of the troops. There was one turn where the Soviets failed 12 morale checks in a row, despite their improved morale for being in the Assembly Hall. To think I thought that Rangers of Shadow Deep was swingy! They also only rolled one result that resulted in a German sniper check, and the only time they rolled double 1 for a morale check, the best Soviet officer went berserk and charged the Germans completely on his own!

From a tactical perspective, I should probably have taken more of a risk and attacked up the right flank, risking activating troops not in the Assembly Hall, but also giving me faster access to the far end of it. I was too careful about that, and sent my troops up the middle to minimise enemy activation, in the hope that I could deal with each hostile as it was generated and then move on. Next time I shall do better.

I'm going to retreat to the ASL rulebook for a spot of reeducation again, although I am satisfied that I got most things right in this scenario, and I shall return with more Rangers of Shadow Deep shortly. Hopefully, things will go better when I play my brother. And my next Solitaire ASL scenario will be smaller ... unless I get too ambitious and start a solitaire Historical ASL campaign.

Red Barricades Once More - Advanced Squad Leader

Mal and I have returned to Stalingrad after I inconveniently moved to Ireland for a year. We decided to restart Red Barricades Campaign Game III, and have managed a couple of sessions so far. It's taking ages and we are only half-way through the first campaign scenario with potentially thirty more to go, assuming the campaign runs its full course. At our current rate of play, Mal and I reckon it will take us 10 years to complete the whole campaign. Well, everybody needs a project.

The view from the Russian end of the map

 The campaign begins with everything clustered in the north. The Germans enter the map and have to fight their way south through the factories. And loads of them are fortified. Eek!

The view from the German end of the map

The Germans have struck out strongly down both flanks while keeping a pinning force in the middle. Unfortunately, the promised artillery has not turned up so it is down to the grunts on the ground. I got one fire mission from one of my artillery modules, and that only after ages of trying and failing. The other was lost without a shot being fired. Ugh! Also, as I should have expected, the three-hex building on the German right flank is fortified and I am not going to be able to push through quickly. I really should have focused on the left flank more. Of course, if the artillery had come down as intended, it might have been a different story.

Overview of the whole map from the German end

I'm looking forward to the next session, but that won't be until later in April, because neither of us has a free Saturday before then. Ah well, anticipation only sharpens the enjoyment.

Clearing Gudbrandsdal - SASL Mission End

German Turn 7. Time to cross that rather open terrain ahead of us. Good job it is raining heavily. That should cover my advance. Roll for Wind Change: 3. Rain stops. Suddenly that ground ahead of us is thick, claggy mud with increased visibility for the Frenchies on the other side of it. I rearranged my forces and used the orchards in the centre right to cover my advance party.
French Turn 7. It started raining again. What's the betting it stops raining on the German turn again?

Well, the rain kept up and the Germans were able to advance across to the next village without triggering too many French attacks. My scouts found out the hard way that the next village was occupied. They broke and some of the men disappeared. Leutnant Furstenback manoeuvres into position to bring the HMG to bear on the village. The rest of the troops continue to move up.

The village is occupied by a few French troops

Suddenly the German sniper wakes up and breaks the French squad in the village (random event). Meanwhile the French sniper has broken a German crew. The French in the top centre have broken a couple of German squads in the village but their days are numbered as Lt Furstenback brings the weight of the HMG to bear on them. The leader and one squad break, but they other goes berserk. No worries about that. It will have to charge over open ground to get to the German lines next turn. Plenty of opportunity to scythe the Frenchies down.

Village cleared but a French squad has gone berserk (orange counter at the top)

German Turn 10. The turn begins with a random event. A pioneer platoon has decided to join the fray from the right flank. I wonder if they will get to the fight before it is over. The troops fire everything they have at the Frenchies in the building but fail to destroy them all. Some of the troops advance. The pioneers race up the road hoping there will be some wine left in the villages. At the end of the German part of Turn 10 I roll for game end. The game ends.

Game over

Final Scores
French: 9 VP
Germans: 16.5 VP
German win

Rest and Refit Phase
Three half squads had been broken and one LMG. One of the half squads is a permanent loss but the other two return shamefacedly to the company and the LMG is fixed.

In the after battle reports, Lt Furstenback is written up and receives a promotion from 9-2 to 10-2. Henceforth he will be known as Kaptein Praxa.
Two squads have gained experience and rise from 2nd Line to 1st Line.
One 1st Line replacement squad is also received to replace losses received over the course of the campaign. The company is now only one half squad short of a full complement.

Comments
That was a much easier campaign scenario than some I have played. There were fewer S? markers indicating the possible presence of enemy troops and a large chunk of those present were either poor quality troops or turned out not to have anything there. It's nice to get an easier scenario like this every so often, because Solitaire ASL can be brutal. Now to see what mission the troops will get next. It will be in Norway again but the dice could offer almost anything up.

Clearing Gudbrandsdal - SASL mission continued

The village in the centre is proving to be a hard nut to crack, so I concentrated more troops on it and poured as much fire as I could into the FFL troops there. One of the half-squads went Berserk and charged my troops, only to get cut down in the pouring rain. Did I mention that the rain had got even heavier? Well it had. Eventually, a lucky shot took out their leader but the FFL don't need no steenkin' leaders. They promptly got snake-eyes on the morale check and went Fanatic. Yikes!

Fanatic Frenchies!

My machine-guns kept up their fire but it just was not enough.

Time for a swift and decisive show of force.

On the right flank I had managed to get my troops to charge the enemy in the building with bayonets and grenades, but getting the troops into position to do this had cost me some men. A first-line squad broke and reduced to a second-line half-squad. I was going to have to do the same in the village in the middle. Charge! The fight was tough but my men reduced the enemy and then destroyed them without any losses. Yippee. That's one third of the map cleared.

The situation at the end of turn 6. I now control this much road.

I am now at the end of turn 6. I start rolling for game end from turn 10. I think I may not have pushed hard enough and fast enough to win this, but we shall see. My main mistake was not reading the rules about road networks. As a result, I set up S? markers on the left flank, where there should have been none and spent time destroying them when I did not need to. RTFM, Mr D. Anyway, the next part of the mission is to cross that rather open board in the middle. The grain is not in season, so there is no cover there. The orchards will provide some cover, and the heavy rain is a godsend in terms of cover, even if the mud makes moving slower. My wife is not home from work yet, so there might just be time for another turn ...

Norway 1940 - Take the Highway (a Solitaire ASL mission)

Many moons ago I got into Advanced Squad Leader (ASL). It is an awesome game in every sense of the word, but I do not get to play it enough these days. The problem with ASL is that you need to play it regularly to stay on top of the rules or every game becomes more about making sure you have the rules right than thinking about tactics and the best way to beat your opponent. Worse yet, the only ASLer that I get the chance to play against these days is so much better than me now that it is positively disheartening to play him. I remember when I beat him more often than he beat me. Oh, happy days! :-) So, what is the answer to my lack of game play? That's easy. Solitaire ASL (SASL). Every so often I dig out SASL and have a go. Some time back I decided to try playing the entire war out with it. The idea is that you follow the career of a company through the campaigns and see if they can survive. The answer is usually no, because SASL can be brutal. Anyway, My most recent attempt to do this lasted two scenarios before I had to pack it all away again. That's the real problem: packing it all away after each session. The other problem is keeping it safe from the cats. Feline On-Board Artillery is a known ASL problem and has its own rules section (honest!). Anyway, after a bit of reorganisation of my office/games room, I now have a desk with doors on so that the FOBA can be kept out and the game can be left set up. It's not perfect but it has afforded me the opportunity to see how my company fares in its next mission without having to finish the mission in one sitting.

Through the war with a German infantry company
My German infantry company conquered Poland easily enough (first scenario). Then they invaded Norway in April 1940 and broke through the Norwegian defences (second scenario). It is now May 1940 and they have been told to Take the Highway. They must secure a road network and clear the enemy from it. The road network is defended by French troops in this instance, but British and/or Norwegian reinforcements could turn up and support them. I reckon we are advancing up Gudbrandsdal in this scenario because it fits the Norwegian campaign history.

The situation: The sky is overcast and the ground is muddy due to the first melting of the winter snow. I have only my company under my command at the moment. Before us lies an open valley with stands of trees and villages providing cover for the enemy. "Vorwarts!"

Part-way through Turn 1

My left flank has advanced into position and encountered poor quality enemy troops. They are using the woods as cover to advance around the flank of the village to their right, which is our initial target. Sgt Linden on the right flank and most of his men are not happy and have not advanced. Fortunately some troops have taken the initiative and moved forwards anyway. My scouts, who are not on the map now, have identified a French Foreign Legion strongpoint in the first village the hard way. As we push forwards it suddenly begins to rain. Now it is not only muddy but we are soaked to the bone. On the other hand, the rain can help conceal our advance from the rear echelon enemy troops, so it is a mixed blessing.

End of Turn 2

As we advance, more and more of the suspected enemy positions prove to be empty. We are relatively fortunate. The 50mm mortars are shelling the woods just in case of enemies there. The enemy on the left flank are broken and we just need to put them in the bag. We should soon be able to concentrate our force on the village. Sgt Linden has found his courage from somewhere too. Unfortunately, there is a French sniper kicking around here, causing havoc with our discipline. Still, it looks promising for establishing a bridgehead here from which to launch our assault across the open ground to the easy (top of the map). Let us hope that it remains that way.

To be continued as and when I find the time.