This weeks reinforcements

 

A bit of this and bit of that.

Still working on getting all the various infantry support units completed for the British and finished off some Sappers this week. I can mix and match these figures to reflect the task(s) for which the team is being used.

And the printer has also been busy this week.

Various Flak wagons. These still need to be worked on and cleaned up a little before I can start painting them.

What makes Chain of Command so special - Part Two

Friction, Chaos, Command dice and Chain of Command points.

Clausewitz had this to say about Friction 

Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.

Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.

It explains the countless minor, unpredictable, and compounding obstacles that make the simplest military action or plan incredibly difficult to execute in reality. Too much Friction and chaos starts to creep in and control can ebb away.

So what does any of this have to do with CoC? 

Well Clausewitz also had this to say 

Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.

CoC has several mechanisms that mean uncertainty and chance, and so by extension Friction, are always just a die roll away. This can be for good or bad in the game. (Luckily for us only our little toy soldiers have to deal with the danger and exertion.)

Command Dice

With each of the six possible die rolls resulting in a different outcome in game you can never be sure that you can actually carry out the actions you may have planned for any given phase, (and possibly been building up to for the last few phases) 

Roll                     Result

1                         Activate one Team

2                         Activate one Section

3                        Activate one Junior Leader

4                        Activate one Senior Leader

5                        Add one Chain of Command point

6                        Turn Sequence  

Typically each core platoon will start with five command dice, but the dice have no memory and so results will be random each phase.

Some example rolls

1x1, 2x2, 1x4, 1x5 -> activate one team, two sections, one SL, and gain a  CoC point.

1x3, 1x5, 3x6         -> activate one JL, gain a CoC point, retain being the active player for the next phase and grant the opponent a CoC point.

1x1, 2x2, 1x3, 1x5 -> activate one team, two sections, one JL and gain a CoC point.

None of the above rolls are better than the others without the context of the specific game underway. The second set of rolls could be very powerful as you now have the benefit of playing two phases in a row, however if you wanted to activate a team that has no attached leader you are out of luck. 

Chance and uncertainty leading to Friction. 

If you don't like this concept then CoC is probably not the game for you as in every phase this uncertainty is present.

Chain of Command Points

Chain of Command Points are another mechanism by which Friction can be created, but in this case typically by throwing a spanner into the opponents plan.

Spending six points allow you to 

• Interrupt an enemy phase, allowing a friendly unit (unpinned section team, or crew position) to move or fire.

• End the Turn, which sees the cessation of mortar and smoke barrages, the removal of Tactical, Overwatch and Suppressing Fire markers, and sees Stunned Leaders recover among other things

• Carry out an Ambush - this can be a very powerful disruptive action which I will talk about in a future post.

• Avoid a Morale test

• Move a JOP

As can be seen these are powerful actions which when used well will likely disrupt the opponents plans and cause them Friction. They are wholly outside of their control and wrest an element of initiative away from them often at  critical moments. In addition spending three points allows for either "React Fire" or "Hit the Dirt" during the opponents phase again disrupting their plans although perhaps to a lesser extent. The downside of course is that the points can only be spent once and so have to be built back again before these options become available again. 

We encounter Friction in our everyday lives - being delayed due to traffic, some piece of kit or equipment not working when required, being tired and making less than optimal decisions. The list goes on. For this reason I find it somewhat odd when some gamers complain that they dislike rules or games where they are not fully in control. CoC makes not pretence in this regard. You can lose control at a critical juncture and not regain it for sometime. You have to deal with this and make do. To me this is very true to life.

Two final quotes from our favourite Prussian

 War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.

No other human activity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance. And through the element of chance, guesswork and luck come to play a great part in war.

Chain of Command, while only a game, gets very close to the core premise of both these quotes. You do not have full knowledge of the situation, you need to make educated guesses, and luck may favour you as the player or not. Exactly what I want in a set of rules and one of the main reasons I enjoy CoC so much.

Do you like the Friction the game creates or do you find it a frustration 

 Let me know in the comments.

If you missed it - part one can be found here

What makes Chain of Command so special - Part One

This weeks reinforcements

 Fourth Section 

Back from a weeks holiday in Sorrento, but I did manage to get these guys painted either side of the holiday.

My fourth British Infantry section - an important and flexible potential Support purchase. I have used figures from the Peter Pig pack 488. British Late War rifles advancing in light kit. This differentiates this section from my core three sections who form the base platoon. Not that it can be seen in the photos but I have painted the shoulder titles for these figures in dark green reflecting that they are members of 1st Rifle Brigade, the Motor Battalion for 7th Armoured Division. My core infantry platoon are painted with red shoulder titles as they belong to 1/5th Queens Royal Regiment and are wearing haversacks. 

The cost for an additional British infantry section is five support points but fielding a fourth section allows for a lot of manoeuvre potential, particularly for an attacker, and adds a further 12 FP dice (excluding the JL) to the equation. Paired with a SL this section can provide a potent base of fire (utilising both "Five Rounds Rapid" and "Concentrated Fire" in the same phase) while still allowing for two manoeuvre sections and a reserve section.   

This weeks reinforcements

 Burnt out M9A1 Halftrack - Table Scatter 

Cheating today as this model was completed sometime ago, as due to a busy Bank Holiday week I've not finished any new models this last week.

What do you do when the print quality is not as good as you would wish - beat the model up and make a wreck, in this case a burnt out M9A1 halftrack from the 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade, for use as table decoration.

And previous to painting the M9A1 I did an angled chop on this Bedford MWD 15cwt truck so it sits as if its been driven into a ditch and abandoned. In this case the vehicle is from 7th Bridging Troop, Royal Engineers, who presumably got a bit to close to the front line.

Both pieces add a bit of colour and spice to a game table. I have some German horse drawn wagon models I'm working on to do the same with.

 

Let’s talk MMG’s

 I've previously shared this article on the CoC FB page so it may be familiar to some.

I’ve spent some time looking at the MMG support option in British and German use and thought I would pen my thoughts. (The caveat being I am neither a rules nor maths expert).

The British Vickers MMG and German tripod mounted MG-42 both cost three support points and come with a crew of five and an entrenchment for the team. This entrenchment is in addition to the maximum of two that can otherwise be purchased as support units.

Both MMG command 10 Fire Power dice, but neither qualifies for the Storm of Steel bonus as purchased.

As a team the MMG is activated on a DR of 1 but can also be activated by a SL on a DR of 4 provided all other requirements are met. In addition, for the Germans, activation by a SL can allow for the use of the Maschinengewehr National Characteristic and this increases the number of FP dice to 12 or 13 depending on whether 2 or 3 Orders are used and means Storm of Steel is in effect.

Close range is up to 24”, effective range 24”+

A MMG has to be reduced down to just one crew member before any penalty is felt, with the number of FP dice being reduced by 2 at that point.

In addition MMG’s can fire suppressing fire at an area with a continuous frontage of 9” or at two teams with 4” of each other.

 

To understand better how they actually work on the table I ran a quick exercise for both the British and Germans (20 separate fire for effect dice rolls for each side) which suggest the following. *

Across the 20 rolls for the British (and Germans without the benefit of Maschinengewehr ) the best burst of fire produced 7 hits at close range and 6 at effective range. The worst 3 and 1 respectively. The average was 4.8 hits at close range, and 3.35 at effective range.

British Data

For the Germans with Maschinengewehr in effect (two Orders used for 12 FP in this example) the best result was 11 hits at close range and 9 at effective range. The worst being 4 and 2, with an average of 7.75 at close range and 5.2 at effective range.

German Data

To take the numbers a little deeper I then rolled the hit effect dice based on the best, worst and average number of hits at close range. 

With a target in the open this saw 3 shock and 1 kill achieved for the British, and 4 shock and 3 kills for the Germans using Maschinengewehr. Other results can be seen on the data image.

 

In summary with the addition of a SL for the Germans the tripod mounted MG42 becomes fairly potent producing shock and kills in most results. The downside however is that this option really needs an extra SL for the Germans to work given they only get one with their core platoons (exception being the Fallschirmjager) and so the cost for the package of the gun and SL is now 5 support points.

For the British (or non SL lead Germans) the MMG is a more steady option seemly causing shock in most instances.  

The entrenchment gives hardcover regardless of where set up and with close range going out to 24” vs the 18” for rifles and LMG it seems this is where you will get the most bang for your buck. A base of fire allowing infantry sections to manoeuvre appears to be their optimal role in game which reflects their use on the real life battlefield. Put out rounds at 18-24 inches range while well protected against any return small arms fire and allow infantry sections to move freely.

Let me know if I have anything wrong and I’d welcome people’s thoughts on how you utilise the MMG. 

*Yes I know 20 rolls is nowhere near enough for a decent statistical finding but I’m not that sad

This weeks reinforcements

 
US Parachute Infantry Platoon - Normandy

I finally finished the last few figures to complete my US Parachute Infantry Platoon. This is the two section version used in Sicily and Normandy. I have sufficient figures to complete a third section  as used in later operations including Market Garden but these are still in the painting queue. 

I am looking forward to giving the platoon a spin on the table as it is quite a unique force. It is the only platoon in the CoC rulebook to field only two sections, but despite this still has a force rating of +1. (This increases to +6 if the third section is fielded !). The platoon also qualifies for a red die purchase.

Its potency is easy to see, with two Senior Leaders, and integral Bazooka and Mortar teams

In addition the five man crew for the 60mm mortar deploys with a Replen Point due to its size giving it six HE rounds at start, although it cannot fire smoke.

Each section comprises of a .30cal LMG with a crew of three and eight riflemen. That is sixteen Firepower dice for a full section with the rifle section benefiting from Storm of Steel. 

In addition the platoon is Aggressive in Close Combat

The nuance of playing with only two sections will be an interesting challenge and likely will emphasis firepower over manoeuvre - not my usual style.

What makes Chain of Command so special - Part One

 This blog is all about Chain of Command being played with 15mm figures and vehicles, but so far I've concentrated more on the 15mm aspect than the Chain of Command rules themselves. Time to change that.

Chain of Command_v2 (CoC) is, in my opinion, an amazing set of rules. The rules tick all the boxes on my list of what rules should be and added some boxes I hadn't thought of.

• 1:1 scale and matching ground scale.                                                            ✅
• Infantry based - skirmish/platoon level game.                                                ✅
• The empty battlefield, fog of war and Jumping Off Points.                             ✅
• Friction, chaos, Command dice and Chain of Command points.                   ✅
• Historically based - platoons, national characteristics, tactics.                      ✅
• Thematic rather than competitive.                                                                 ✅
• Lends itself to a high aesthetic.                                                                     ✅

All in all the rules are comprehensive without being confusing or overly complex and greatly benefit from the history of v1 and the amendments/additions made for v2. 

Scale 

The rules provide an infantry skirmish level game, where one figure equals one man, one vehicle equals one vehicle and with regard to terrain and buildings what you see is what you get. This 1:1 scale means that visually there is very little abstraction.

The rules advise that 12" on the table represents 40 yards in the real world. (1 inch equals 10 feet) This is 1:120 scale which is very close to the 1:100 that 15mm is often also classified as, so when playing at 15mm the figures, vehicles, buildings and terrain pretty much match the ground scale of the rules. 

When using a 6' x 4' table this translates into a battlefield that is 240 yards (220m) by 160 yards (145m) - not a large area by combat standards, but very much the pointy bit of the spear. 

The main fighting force for the game is the infantry platoon, with these closely following their historical counterparts. A British Infantry platoon consists of 37 men, the Soviet Motor Rifle platoon 25 with the remaining platoon types ranging between these two numbers. Allowing for some support unit purchases a force in region of 35-50 figures per side is all that is required to start playing the game. 

As somebody who loves painting figures this low figure count means I can spend time on painting to a higher quality rather than having to worry about painting a multitude of figures.

The Empty Battlefield and Fog of War

There are two clever game mechanics that make for a very foggy battlefield.

• Patrol Markers and The Patrol Phase
• Jumping Off Points (JOP) 

The patrol phase is almost a separate mini game in its own right that determines where each players JOP are placed at game start. (I need to get better at this phase, as currently I feel I have very little strategy behind how I play this - Something for a future post).  

Patrol Markers in simple terms are moved in turn up to 12" across the table (they must remain within 12" of at least one other friendly marker throughout this process). These markers are then locked down once they are within 12" of an enemy patrol marker. When all markers are locked down the JOP are placed using a nifty process for determining the zone into which each individual JOP is placed based on the location of the friendly marker and the two closest enemy patrol markers. There is the additional requirement that this must be at least a further 6" from the closest two enemy patrol markers, and behind cover. This all means that JOP start positions are unique to each game and table layout and that neither player has total control over where his JOP are placed.

Jumping Off Points, are a very clever device that mean that at game start no troops or vehicles are present on the table. The battlefield is empty - the ultimate Fog of War. While dependent on Command Die rolls the player controls when units enter the table, if at all and for infantry units they are free to deploy within 6" of any unblocked, friendly JOP. In consequence the opponent cannot predict when unit(s) will deploy onto the table nor at which JOP. Vehicles deploy onto the table via their friendly table edge and on a road if one is present. However there is one very cool exception for German low profile self propelled anti tank guns via the Pakfront! National Characteristic which may deploy from a JOP as if an infantry unit. 

A further element of FOW is introduced  by the use of Support Points, and their purchasing power. A player may have Support Points to spend on additional units or equipment and in most games these purchases will be unknown to the opposing player until deployed. This uncertainty reinforces the need to build a balanced force based on the core platoon that is able to cope with potentially facing a combined all arms force. No Min-Maxing here 

In Part Two I cover how friction and chaos is introduced into the game.