West of Suez

Made it to the club today for the first time in a long while, for another game of Seven Days to the River Rhine with James "Oriskany Jim" Johnson as GM. This one is set during the Yom Kippur War, which interests me because I'm Jewish and my dad lived in Israel for three years during the War of Attrition.

The scenario is a meeting engagement based on the crossing of the Suez Canal. I played on the Israeli side, with Tom as my partner, against two (ultimately three) Egyptian players. The Israelis are said to have compared this battle with Vietnam, possibly because they were unused to fighting amid greenery (The Egyptians, like Israel, were trying to "turn the desert green" here with irrigation.

I suspect it was more because the close terrain made it feel like Hue.

Incomplete field of battle, from Israeli corner.

Close-up on Israeli deployment zone; the Canal is
somewhere off to the left.

Israeli deployment.

Egyptian table corner...

... and deployment.

The Israelis had five M48A5s ("Magach") with 105mm guns, a platoon of paratroops in M113s ("Nagmash"), and four jeeps - two command, one scout, and one with TOW missile. In reserve were four M48A2s with 90mm guns, and we were allowed four aircraft sorties with the choice of napalm against infantry, or CBUs against armor.

Didn't get the total, but we were outnumbered by T55s, wheeled BTR-60s, two Josef Stalin heavy tanks, two ZSU23 "Shilka" antiaircraft vehicles, and three off-table artillery fire missions.

Infantry on both sides could fight tanks, with either bazookas or anti-tank guided missiles.

My first game, if nothing else, had taught me to husband my activation chips, so I was happy to give the other side the initiative, and throughout the game we mostly did single activations before "turning over" to the enemy.

Turn one was primarily movement. The Egyptians moved two BTRs and a T55 down the road towards my partner, who killed one transport and a tank, and put suppression markers on the infantry. I moved several of my tanks up the road and we both moved our M113 towards the center. The Egyptians spread out and headed straight for us. Nonetheless, with first blood I felt pretty confident at the end of the turn. This was misplaced!

The forces at upper left will be in range to hurt me next turn.
The BTR, T55 and squad at center are about to get blown up.

Poor shot - LOS to the Egyptians.

End result.

In turn two, things turned ugly.

On my side, I creep an M48 up the road,
and a recon jeep a little too close
to the enemy.

Egyptian infantry turned up...

My reaction failed...

And bang went my tank. Though I also brought up 
some of my own paras in support.

On the Egyptian right are a pair of unlucky
M48s and an infantry squad about to have
an artillery barrage dropped on it.

The infantry survived, but their APCs
went bang.

Closeup on the M48s.

In retaliation, we tried our first airstrike - the mass of Egyptian armor on the bridge was tempting, and anti-tank salvos have a radius of 3" - but the putative Skyhawk was shot out of the air by the ZSU23s. I misheard, thought I'd hit, and was busy measuring out where the T55s would die when I was disabused of my complacency and warned that I was attempting (and had just lost) a second strike. Jim and our opponents kindly let me take it back. Jim suggested further strikes should not be attempted until the ZSUs were dead.

My attempt to move more of my tanks up the left-hand road ended in a tremendous clusterf*** as the Infantry and another artillery strike shot them up:

With infantry, tanks, artillery and APCs
all joining in, Jim declared this
"a nasty little shootout." It was actually pretty big.

One opponent to another: "You're wiping out all my targets!"

Let's just say that the Israelis were badly hemmed in to start. So I drove my following tanks - M48A2s - through the hedge into the desert. Notice all the missing hedges?

Hint: Do not roll 1s when you need a 2+
to get through a hedge. I did this FOUR TIMES.

At least I killed that pesky infantry squad.

But the Stalin had fine LOS.

Turn three started with the JSIIIs missing; I used a reaction to spin one of their targets about and drive like hell for blocking terrain up the hill behind - mistakenly turning 180 degrees rather than the rules-as-written ninety. My partner lost another M48 on the right. The final Egyptian barrage dropped on the central building again, causing the infantry more pain - but remember that infantry can't be directly killed, only suppressed, and the elite paras have to take six suppressions before being knocked out, rather than the Egyptians' five. It didn't help that vehicles were blowing up all around them, causing further suppression tests, and both sides ultimately lost two squads apiece, which was far more than my first game where the tanks took the bulk of the casualties. Infantry played a major part here.

Having been cautious with our activation chips, the Israelis ended the turn with two left after the Egyptians expended theirs entirely - even though they'd started with more than us.

Payback time. We spent those chips on two more airstrikes - and this time the AAA couldn't react.

CBUs on the ISIIIs.

And napalm on the building. Thanks to a 6" radius,
while the strike failed to hurt the infantry in the building,
it DID hit and kill both vehicles behind. The BTR
exploded, placing a suppression chip on the otherwise
unharmed infantry squad at the back of the building!

And here we stopped, because Jim hadn't been tracking victory points (no objectives this game except to drive each other to breaking point). The Israelis had lost badly, losing 31 points out of 50 to 20/66 for the Egyptians. Without those two fantastically effective airstrikes, it would have been even worse, but I was happy. And I feel more comfortable playing, as well. It takes me quite a while to learn any ruleset, and it doesn't help that I ask incessant questions and suffer analysis paralysis. Jim's cogent point was one most players seem to forget - If you don't want to move your units to a point where the enemy can react and shoot them, you can always do a morale check to remove one suppression token (roll a 6 and you remove them all).

A good game with good players and GM. Jim mentioned that this was only his sixth time running Seven Days, but he did an excellent job and, as any GM should, knew the rules backwards and forwards. My apologies for constant interruptions to ask questions answered long before, Jim...

Three of us even spent an hour or more after cleaning up talking (most of it by me) about assorted historical topics. Another social-cue thing I need to be cautious of. Most of us are going to Recon next month in Kissimmee, Florida - it'll be my first time.

A few more closeups of Jim's paint-jobs and minis: Plastic Soldier Company Arabs, Old Glory tanks plus a few 3D prints, and Old Glory or Axis and Allies for the Israelis:

Thanks for reading!

Seven Days to the River Rhine

 I've got an online subscription to Wargames Illustrated, mostly for the older issues with many different rulesets. A few newer ones are free to subscribers, one of which is this one about the Cold War turned hot:

I haven't tried it before, for the obvious reason that I have no modern models or even much knowledge (beyond some aviation) - collection-wise I stop at the colonial period. Our local club, the South Florida Miniatures Gamers, tends to stick with colonials (primarily TSATF) and Napoleonics (primarily General de Brigade and Limeys and Slimeys), with occasional diversions into other rulesets and periods and an increasing interest in DBA. I have never played a WWIII game; for that matter I have not read the classics Team Yankee or The Third World War (and I really should).

This weekend is Hurricon, the yearly autumn gaming convention in Orlando, and most of our regular members are going. (I will sadly miss a Northwest Frontier game run by Jeff AKA Sgt Guinness.) I was itching to go but couldn't get leave - I will certainly make time next year in plenty of time. Ironically, there's an actual storm on the way as I write.

So it was kind of Oriskany Jim of SITREP Podcast to offer to run Seven Days on the River Rhine for the rest of us on short notice. Well, for two of us, as it turned out.

I reread the rules, which are relatively simple. I say relatively because for me, they still took getting used to. There are QR codes in the rulebook, linking to video demonstrations of the different mechanisms; since my phone can't read QR codes, I searched on Youtube for the videos directly. 

They weren't there, but Oriskany Jim was. The first videos on the list, in fact - a review and two solo playtests. That was useful, and I came to Das Krieg Haus (the clubhouse) ready to play.

The base of the terrain was a subtly camouflaged sheet that Jim swore
he found in a store - and cut to eight by four before he discovered we
could have done eight by six.

A representative handful of terrain.

A couple mechs for comparison!

15mm scale T72 and Leopard.

More terrain and a Mil24 Hind.

The roads and water features are paper; the bridge
is a historical model sized for 28mm swiped from the
club collection.

The buildings were tough mid-weight card with 
beautiful color and detail.

Tanks and transports of both sides.

Infantry and a handful of American vehicles.

M42 Duster proxies as a Gepard Flakpanzer.

Jim continues to populate the table. It took us an
enjoyable, relaxing hour to set up a busy
and realistic-looking battlefield. Most firing range
is infinite and cover for vehicles is minimal, so we
needed plenty of LOS-blocks.

From the other end - almost done.

T80s. Speed is in inches, range unlimited. Armor
is separated by frontal/side-rear. To-hit is with D10;
penetration is D10+weapon score vs. armor.
(Tie: immobilized; otherwise destroyed.)

A typical infantry team and card. Infantry units take
morale hits rather than damage. Letters next to attack
and armor values represent special armor or piercing
weapons that provide extra dice (choosing lowest or
highest as appropriate).

BMP-2s.

Soviet infantry teams. with heavy weapons team to left.

German Leopard tanks - better than the Russkies
but outnumbered.

Marders...

... and Bundeswehr infantry proxied by US WWII infantry
and a Desert Storm heavy weapons team.

A beautiful AH64 Apache.

A BO-105 - an indigenous attack chopper I'd never
seen before. I mistook it for a Huey.

We left aviation and AA out of the scenario. The game is smaller-scale than the more popular Team Yankee; a typical game is a Soviet company versus a couple NATO platoons, plus a couple helicopters. At this size game, it's scale-agnostic, and I've read battle reports ranging from 6mm to 28mm.

My entire army, discounting the ZSU23 at left. This is
about 800 points, a medium-sized game.

There are also use-and-discard cards for special events.
We each got five at the start of the game.

Turn 1: My opponent used a preliminary bombardment
card! White chips denote negative morale, which affects
activation (basically a suppression mechanic).

Dark chips are activation tokens - you get one per
unit plus two for your HQ, except for transports and
helicopters. Here I shoot at and miss the Leopard at
top center by the trees.

"Panzer Vor!"

The Leopards from the previous photo score first blood.

My own first kill.

Activation has several facets. Tokens are the "currency" of the game. You must attempt to activate by rolling higher than the number of activations and suppressions presently on your unit (so an uninjured unit gets its first move for free). But your opponent may also spend an activation counter and roll to react, interrupting your move with a move or shot of his own. This sort of thing normally leads to analysis paralysis in my case, and most of our club are not enamored of rules where you need to pass an activation roll to do anything. But this is different - a turn in Seven Days is very busy, and unlike the normal IgoUgo method, players are constantly engaged. I was not bored or distracted. It is even possible to steal the initiative from your opponent (if you roll a 6 for your reaction roll), and the turn only ends when both sides run out of counters. It is useful to deliberately turn the initiative over, as well; once you use up your counters, you can't react in your opponent's turn and he can roll all over you.

Losing your command vehicle, as we both did, takes away your counters - D6 for NATO units, 2D6 for Warsaw Pact. Since I started with 15 and my opponent with 13, this is not a good thing.

And tank warfare in this era is deadly. The only reason we didn't wipe each other out in the first two turns is that we both rolled an awful lot of ones. The game lasted just over four turns, and that only because I brought in a reinforcement tank which upped my army's "break point" (two-thirds casualties).

Here a Leopard gets round my flank - his 11 gun
vs. my 16 side armor means he needs a 5 to 
immobilize or a 6+ to kill on a D10. I tried to react
(my turret's pointed at him), but failed.

Special delivery of flaming death.

Tank duel. The yellow "cap"
on the cargo crate is an objective
marker.

Here I spent a "reinforcement"
card to bring in a tank on an
opposing tank's flank. Didn't
do me much good.

My center gets the crap kicked out of it.

These photos are all from my left and center; I failed to take photos of the right, where (swiftly losing many tanks) I raced two infantry teams forward into LAW range. We both used cards to allow reservists/Spetznaz to surprise each other's command tank - he killed mine, I only immobilized his.

Infantry in this game are very durable - they're easy to suppress, but hard to kill. Basically they don't take damage, but suppression, and must take their morale score (either 3 or 5) in suppression counters to be eliminated. (It is possible to remove suppression counters, but this can be a laborious process - normally one activation counter per suppression counter, unless you roll a 6 to remove all of them from a single unit. Makes sense.) At the end of the game nearly all my tanks were gone, but three of my four infantry teams were still intact, one of them with four morale counters on it, virtually unable to fight because it was hunkered down behind a hedge with German autocannon and 120mm fire whining about its ears, yet still alive. The one team that did die was wiped out in one blow by a nearby exploding tank - within four inches, infantry teams take multiple suppression tokens at once.

So a game with lots of tanks is spectacular but explosive, while a game with lots of infantry will be more a slogging match.

End of game, testing out
aviation mechanisms for fun.

A good game, and for once I felt I was getting the hang of it by the end. I'd be happy to try it again. It looks like a good candidate for solo play, in fact. Thanks to Oriskany Jim for the introduction. He did record the game, so there will be a far better narrated and -photographed report on his channel in a week or so - I'll link to it when it turns up. Thanks for reading!