SimWar FireMove "Lost Battle of 2016" (Part III)

The first glimmer of hope/success for the British Commander as the "close assaults" go in and after fierce hand-to-hand fighting two German Platoons are removed (see below, the low hills [top left] and central plain [bottom right] are cleared, the Germans are down to 66%):

Just as the momentum started to seemingly shift towards the British, accurate defensive fire and further ammunition depletion strikes the British Battalion, taking it down to four infantry platoons (33%). Regardless of sustained losses so far the British Infantry push to their last to gain a final round of "close combat" (see below):  

A last gasp of (round twelve - German only activity) combat sees one more British Platoon fall. The German defensive line has been barely scratched in all honesty 75% British Casualties (admittedly not all KIA and wounded, it represents ammo depletion and disruption to unit cohesiveness) to German 33% looses (see below, German VP 9, British VP 2, a difference of 7 VP to the Germans a significant victory):

Darn! I thought I was getting the hang of this game. In hindsight the terrain was unforgiving and I was "fighting everywhere" instead of a specific localised area where I held local superiority. It was all part of a learning curve but from what I have learned since you had best apply the British Army philosophy of basing your attack on the "seven questions". In short my plan played into the strengths of the German player. In the amended rules Philip Sabin has introduced a bidding system (letting the Artillery Barrage be decremented down in power [starting at 4], with the lowest bidder becoming the attacker.

Afterthoughts:

Game over and some things to think about ... in particular the amount of time it takes to generate the terrain (at least 15 minutes of frantic dice rolling, 48 pairs of dice at that). Yes I have a computer programme for that now and it is time to share (which this Blog for a later post/link). Further it still seems 'hard to attack', but maybe that is because I am not doing it right or perhaps attacking is hard. Also is the terrain truly representational. A soldier said to me "where are the roads"  and all I could say was "Er, there kind of abstracted", to which I was met with a quizzical look of bewilderment. To which he said "Look, there are always paths, if not roads." He also brought me back to the "seven questions" and said "Why am I fighting here, I would like to fight where the enemy does not have such a continuous front?"

Four great sources for analysis of the British Army "seven questions" (note see slide 2 in the first presentation) come from the Connections UK wargaming event (see below):

• http://professionalwargaming.co.uk/20140722-Connections_UK_Presentation-COAWargaming-LSCC.pdf
• http://professionalwargaming.co.uk/Connections2014Gardiner.pdf
• http://professionalwargaming.co.uk/2016Farren.pdf
• http://professionalwargaming.co.uk/2016COMDTRMAS.pdf

Meanwhile, I uncovered two additional FireMove photographs of "generated terrain" as of yet not played over (see below):

I was obviously playing around with what sort of defence the Germans should put up. Here was my solution (see below):

The challenge here is the obscuring Line of Sight (LOS) feature delineating the board into two halves. Maybe the game board's time will come this year. I might try it out with Phil Sabin's paper AI defence as a solo game.

 ;)