DUGOUTS?

Alan Hume

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going to have a go at doing up a 'small' scenario featuring the Canadian Scottish Regiment (sister Regiment to the Royal Scots) have run out of potential Royal Scots actions so trying to make up the 10 scenarios I need (lost two to Pete at VFTT as he wants to release them free as a taster) another two so now looking at the Canadian Scottish

Have a small attack on the outskirts of Calais by a platoon against 28 Germans (so another platoon basically) the Germans are manning a strongpoint of guns (MG's, going to use LMG's here, not sure how many but guessing 3) in trenches and dugouts

so, how best do I depict the dugouts in the game? do I just use foxholes or do I go for weak pillboxes?

I think this could be a neat little scenario and help me get another one out of the way but I need to figure out how to show the strongpoint
 

Alan Hume

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course, now I need to identify just what German unit/s were defending Calaise so that I can
put a name to the defenders, could be difficult
 

Paul M. Weir

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i would advise against FH as they are supposed to represent unconnected individual or two man scrapes/holes as evidenced by the ability of a unit to dig same within the limits of a scenario. The type of fortification that you described would have been connected, IE requiring no exposure when moving from position to position. FH penalise you if you try that (I'm in the treat FH akin to shellholes for entry/exit purposes camp).

A dugout can refer to a position with firing port(s) and overhead cover or a place of refuge from artillery/air but little or no possibility of firing from. The first can be represented by a Pillbox (either the standard or the 360° ones that came with BRT ), the second type would use the BRT Bombproof rules.

So any fieldwork that was created over at least a day or two would be best represented by a mix of Trenches and Pillboxes. Even 'trip-wire' outposts outside the main position would likely be more substantial and safer to enter/exit than a FH.
 

Alan Hume

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thanks, trenches and a couple of pillboxes it is then I guess, just hope that doesn't make the game unwinnable for the attackers, as I say, a platoon against a platoon (heck, maybe actually more than a platoon on the German side)

probably going to just give the Germans two LMG's though
 

Carln0130

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Alan, can you give a physical description of what the dugouts actually were in actual fact? Then we could probably give better advice on representing them. Paul's suggestions are good, but we are shooting blind.
 

Carln0130

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Nicely done Von. Still, very curious to get a description of what the writer was describing in the historical account. One writers dugout may be another's pillbox. I can still see that damn reporter from the first Iraq War, standing in front of a blown up APC while blathering that he was standing in front of a tank. Hopefully the person who wrote the descriptions that Alan is using is well beyond that point, but to figure out how he should represent it in his scenario, it would still help to have more detail as to just what was there in the historical event. Hopefully he doesn't simply use the term dugout, with no further description of them.
 

Alan Hume

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Alan, can you give a physical description of what the dugouts actually were in actual fact? Then we could probably give better advice on representing them. Paul's suggestions are good, but we are shooting blind.
sorry, not really, the book didn't say, it just said dugouts, not very helpful really I know but it's the best I can do. I guess Paul is right though and that I should go with trenches and pillboxes (the brown ones I guess)
 

Alan Hume

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Nicely done Von. Still, very curious to get a description of what the writer was describing in the historical account. One writers dugout may be another's pillbox. I can still see that damn reporter from the first Iraq War, standing in front of a blown up APC while blathering that he was standing in front of a tank. Hopefully the person who wrote the descriptions that Alan is using is well beyond that point, but to figure out how he should represent it in his scenario, it would still help to have more detail as to just what was there in the historical event. Hopefully he doesn't simply use the term dugout, with no further description of them.
It's from 'Ready for the Fray' the Regimental history of the Canadian Scottish, I will go back and look at it again as I could well be missing something here but I'm pretty sure they just said they attacked a strongpoint and mentioned dugouts (oh and machineguns) I don't have the War Diary for this period either so that doesn't help, if I can afford it I might ask the guy on the WW2Talk forum if he could try and find it for me next time he is at Kew (all costs money though)
 

Carln0130

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It's from 'Ready for the Fray' the Regimental history of the Canadian Scottish, I will go back and look at it again as I could well be missing something here but I'm pretty sure they just said they attacked a strongpoint and mentioned dugouts (oh and machineguns) I don't have the War Diary for this period either so that doesn't help, if I can afford it I might ask the guy on the WW2Talk forum if he could try and find it for me next time he is at Kew (all costs money though)
That's too bad that it doesn't give you more to work with. Does it say the fire was coming from the dugouts? If so, that would steer you towards Paul's Pillbox/trench solution. You could also try googling. Sometimes you will be surprised what you come up with. Good luck.
 
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Alan Hume

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I'll have to double check, just got a message from Kew regards my other scenario, they don't have the appendix I was after and have directed me to Canada, so guess that's that then
 

Alan Hume

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would rather not do that right enough, hmmm, haven't done much on this scenario for a while to be honest been working on other ones
getting there I think but not getting as much playtesting done as I would like
 
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