Post Korean War ASL from MMP

[Paul M. Weir]

ASL's core audience is people who like World War II tactical wargaming. Stop trolling.

I am one of those, the majority of my games being WW2. However being interested in WW2 tactical is not the same as being exclusively WW2 or even a majority of interest being WW2. That's the first thing.

The second thing is that WW2 starting style combat is the result of early-mid WW1 experience combined with '20s and '30s experimentation. Indeed the greatest effective changes I feel occurred during WW2 (not pre war) as a result of practical experience. Nations did not enter WW2 with the optimum arms balance. The Germans for example started with a Pz Div with the equivalent of 4 Pz, 3 Inf and 2-3 Art battalions and ended with 2 Pz, 4 Inf and 4 Art. Ditto the British, Soviets and US started with tank heavy Tank divisions and ended with more balanced Tank units. All major nations changed their OoB for humble infantry divisions during WW2, sometimes fairly drastically at low level.

Thirdly WW2 style and ASL compatible combat bleeds all over the '20s to the '60s like a stuck pig in a slaughter house. There was no case of "OK, WW2 is ended, stack your pikes, we only use short swords from now on!". The intermittent peace in the '20s and '30s still was interrupted by clashes (especially in China) and some historians have used the term "The Great War", not in its original usage of WW1, but to encompass the entire period from WW1 to WW2 or even to Korea. There simply is no clear cut off either in political terms or in terms of equipment and tactics.

 

[Philippe D.]

Nations did not enter WW2 with the optimum arms balance. The Germans for example started with a Pz Div with the equivalent of 4 Pz, 3 Inf and 2-3 Art battalions and ended with 2 Pz, 4 Inf and 4 Art. Ditto the British, Soviets and US started with tank heavy Tank divisions and ended with more balanced Tank units. All major nations changed their OoB for humble infantry divisions during WW2, sometimes fairly drastically at low level.

Should this really affect the tactical battles at the level of ASL? I mean, it should obviously affect the design of any "what if" scenario, but a scenario based on a historical action should use a ratio of armored vs infantry forces based on what was present, right? (I know about as much about scenario design as I do on real WW2 tactical combat - still, I have a feeling, from the "Intro/Aftermath" of many scenarios, that many of them talk about a somewhat larger scale action, then portray a very small part of it to keep it to a manageable scale)

 

[Paul M. Weir]

Yeah, that's true to a good extent when designing a scenario. However at the platoon level many nations changed the composition, eg Soviet SMG companies were a WW2 innovation and the Germans moved from 1 LMG/squad to 2 during the war. My point was that though there were great changes in the way infantry were organised and used by the end of WW1 and that type of change (to a Stosstruppen model) continued in the interwar period, in many cases the changes during WW2 were as great.

My view is that there is no definite WW2 ASL level period. The transition to squad level tactics started mid-late WW1 and the evolution post WW1 was continuous, even if often uneven from there on. ASL, with a few SSR or almost SSR (eg 1PATAC) level rules manages to cover the whole of WW2, so I feel should be well able to cover much of end WW1 to '60s at least. WW2 is only just a slice, a dramatic and illustrative slice, true, of ASL level historical infantry tactics.

 

[Proff3RTR]

Waiting for someone to want Advanced Fire Team Leader in its stead.

Sounds like 2017 could be the great schism.

We'll have our:

Orthodox Squad Leader players
Orthodox ASL players
Protestant ASL players
new age tree hugging ASL hippies
Modern ASL reformists
and
ASL Terrorists

And so the religion based wars start afresh

 

[RobZagnut]

Side views of vehicles were ok in PanzerBlitz.

JR

That's because one counter represented 5-6 German tanks or 8-9 Soviet tanks. There was no need for covered arc. Always annoyed me when I was a kid that the Soviets got to have 8-9 tanks on a counter while the Germans got less.

 

[RobZagnut]

I've always felt that the system could be expanded somewhat painlessly (addition of squad types and updated AFV values) into 1956 Arab-Israeli war, possibly into the '67 war. There has been a TPP treatment of the French Indochina war that worked well with little change to the underlying system.

When you start getting into more modern conflicts with more sophisticated weapons systems (ATGM, helicopters, etc....) the system begins to require drastic enough changes as to warrant a redesign, or even aq complete new system.

Exactly. I'll play ASL up to 1956 AIW, but anything more modern than that and I start to grow leery. And I've never been interested in Vietnam no matter what game system is used.

Ancients - sometimes
Napoleonic - no thanks
American Civil war - maybe
WWI - meh
WWII - always
Korean - yes
Arab Israeli - sometimes, depends
Vietnam - never
Modern - never

 

[Carln0130]

Thank you very much for taking the time to express your opinion about who ASL's core audience is, and what my motivation is for posting. I disagree with both. I have more certainty about the second. I would very much like to see ASL applied to actions outside of WWII proper. I also think there are a large number of players that would like that as well, a majority even. Until someone presents something that resembles a fact about this, I think I will maintain my position. In any case I will keep posting my opinions, just as you do.

JR

Sounds like a poll in the offing?

 

[GeorgeBates]

Sounds like a poll in the offing?

You're whoring again, Nogueira...

 

[hongkongwargamer]

You're whoring again, Nogueira...

What do you mean "again"?

 

[Carln0130]

What do you mean "again"?

Still is certainly more like it. ;-)

 

[Robin Reeve]

For Vietnam, I would go for "Front Toward the Enemy", which MMP are taking pains to maintain on preorder.
http://www.multimanpublishing.com/Products/tabid/58/ProductID/318/Default.aspx
I think that a specific system for Vietnam can be much more satisfying than a (possibly wobbly, heavy) adaptation of ASL.
Perhaps is the 20 page rulebook too light?
For 48$ I would give it a try.
... and so I did just now!
Order 470, still 70 to go.

 

[Bob Walters]

I think it would have made more sense to keep the scale at 40 then one could have used the same boards.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

ASL's core audience is people who like World War II tactical wargaming. Stop trolling.

I always love when Mark has his assumptions about ASL challenged. His replies are so erudite and educational.

 

[Jeffrey D Myers]

We Ohioans say, "edumacational".

Edit: I am an ex-pat.

 

[von Marwitz]

I think it would have made more sense to keep the scale at 40 then one could have used the same boards.

This was funny!

von Marwitz

 

[Bob Walters]

This was funny!

von Marwitz

Why?

 

[Bob Walters]

It just requires a shift in perspective. There is no real reason that a map of the same terrain could not be used for two different games as long as the subject matter responds to the laws of physics in the same way.

 

[hongkongwargamer]

Not just terrain. There's no real reason why FTE can't use 2 minute turns instead of 5 and really use most of the same rules as ASL!

Certainly we can use the same counters ..

My God ....

 

[Michael Dorosh]

It just requires a shift in perspective. There is no real reason that a map of the same terrain could not be used for two different games as long as the subject matter responds to the laws of physics in the same way.

This was proven with Devil's Den and ASL I thought.

 

[hongkongwargamer]

This was proven with Devil's Den and ASL I thought.

That's why I got Devil's Den.

Another scenario with the map from Little Round Top as well.