Chain of Command 29 Lets Go Campaign

For the last few weeks/moths I have been running the "29 Let's Go" Chain of Command pint sized campaign for some of the Devon Wargames players. Primarily this was to show them the way the game is played at its best, one platoon against one platoon.

Picture stolen from JJ's blog

As I have said previously, the best place to see the battle details is JJ's blog. He has taken many pictures and put up a few reports already. I am now putting up the final result and the details of casualties etc.

In the campaign the Germans get a single platoon for the majority of the actions while the Americans get a new platoon for each game. This gives a big advantage to the American player as they get three squads of twelve men for every game while the German has to husband his resources and try to minimise losses while still stopping the advancing enemy.

The campaign is fought on 5 maps in a ladder sequence. It is possible for the Americans to win in 5 games, put unlikely if the German player is sneaky careful. As it was, this run of the campaign took 9 games as Ian managed to pull a few sneaky wins and one completely flukey one.

Above is the map of the battlefields as they appear on the ground. Maps 1, 2 and 5 are defended by a single platoon of Germans. Luckily maps 2 and 3 are off the advance route and are held by other platoons, so they just serve to delay the advance. 

In the campaign the games went well for the Americans initially. They won game 1 and 2 on maps 1 and 2, then lost game 3 on map 3 and had to refight it in turn 4. Turn 5 on map 4 saw a major back step for the Allies when, despite getting 6 phases on the trot before any Germans were even on the table, they failed to get a chain of command dice and the concentrated German firepower broke their force morale very quickly. The battle was lost for want of a single 5 in 7 phases of play.

That set them back to map 2 on the main road. The original German platoon was well rested by now and called up reinforcements, giving them a full platoon again. They went on to win and consolidated their position. This also caused the American Colonel to waver, requiring a visit for General "Dutch" Cotter to get him moving again. Game 8 and the Germans inflicted a few casualties and then pulled back to maintain their strength. Game 9 was the final round and would decide if it was a major German victory or if the allied advance would continue. As it went on, this final battle was a very cagey affair and it went right down to the wire. Both sides lost many men and force morale fell, reducing chain of command dice until, finally, the Germans broke and the American advance could continue. However, all the Germans except for the defending platoon had escaped and the ongoing fight would be harder for it.

Below is a table detailing the losses after each game. Losses are not all dead, 50% are dead or badly wounded enough that they are counted as dead, 25% are wounded and miss the next game while the final 25% are lightly wounded and are available for the next game.

The different coulours on the German column show the losses for the other platoons. In total German losses were 86 infantry, 2 NCOs and 9 support weapon crew. That works out as 43 dead and 43 wounded. American losses were 103 infantry, 1 Senior NCO, 3 NCOs and 6 Shermans, giving 52 dead GIs with 51 wounded.  All told the losses were fairly equal, except for the 6 Shermans!

It was fun to run the campaign for the lads, especially as  I got to see their tactics and planning change each time they played. I can recommend the pint sized campaigns to any one who like Chain of Command, it makes for a very different game to the usual game as you have to be more careful with your losses. 

That's it for now, I am off on the yearly pilgrimage to Partizan tomorrow so expect news of that next week. Catch you all later.