Rare subjects for ASL battles.

lluis61

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No one is discussing any battles. They're listing campaigns. If you're trying to generate ideas for scenarios, don't just list names of campaigns. The Battle of the Scheldt is "under-represented" as well. If I was going to talk about scenarios, I would point out that Kampfgruppe Chill was an experienced formation that formed the core of resistance at the neck of the Beveland Peninsula. The Germans had artillery ammunition shortages, and few tanks, but held out in some key urban areas because the terrain surrounding them was relatively flat, without trees, and often inundated by the Germans blowing up dykes. Movement was often restricted to the dyke tops, so Allied troops could only advance on a front about 20 feet wide, one squad or one tank at a time.

Scenario fodder? Maybe there is a reason it was "under-represented".

By contrast, the garrison on Walcheren Island was a "stomach battalion", part of a division of convalescents - guys with hearing problems, digestive issues, and too sick to serve in other units. Would that require an SSR?

Walcheren Island had to be taken by amphibious landing. An option had been parachute assault, but Guy Simonds opted instead to bomb the dykes on the island - pull a trick out of the German playbook - and flood the island. So, no paratroops (they were needed for Market Garden anyway) and an amphib landing on Walcheren Island.

The only land approach to Walcheren was a 1600 metre causeway, straight as an arrow and 40 metres wide. On both sides was flooded swampland. Scenario fodder? Probably not. My regiment was there and managed to get across 1600 metres of causeway under 88mm and 20mm direct fire. It took three tries by two regiments to do it, and was only managed with an intense 25-pdr barrage leading the way. Scenario fodder? Probably not. The German counterattacks on the bridgehead were more worthy of that, including the only time German flamethrowers were used against my regiment in the entire campaign. Sergeant Blacky Laloge got the DCM for throwing German hand grenades back before they exploded. Now we might be getting somewhere. Scenario fodder: tired Canadians in the midst of a reinforcement crisis, fighting a German stomach battalion in a tiny bridgehead on Walcheren Island. No tank support for the Canadians (crater on the causeway). No artillery (Germans too close). Not a lot of 'toys' that seem to be popular, but a German FT or two and maybe even a StuG.

Kind of says much more than 'Battle of the Scheldt' don't you think?
This isn't your thread. You can't impose the which and how of the theme. Open one thread of your own if you don't feel comfortable with the argument.
 

Honza

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Why not? Honza asked a broad question, people have responded with broad answers. From those, more detailed discussion could proceed, if someone has more detail on battles within a campaign.
Exactly. Alan has it right. Most people don't actually know the details of campaigns but are aware that the campaign is underrepresented. The details can be filled in later.
 

hayman

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Another ASL under-represented area is the Caucasus campaign, between Rostov's capture by the Germans & the German retreat to the Taman peninsula.

German attack August 1942 - Russian counterattack January 1943.

Decent quality troops on both sides, Mountain units, wooded, hilly terrain, fighting for roads, passes & oil production areas.
 

Michael Dorosh

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It's worse than I thought:

Code:
ID    Scenario         Rating    Attacker   S/A/G   Defender  S/A/G   Date       Publication
SF-7  Deadly Appetici            German     6/0/0   Allies    10/0/2 1943-11-12  Special Forces II - Küstenjäger!
FE193 Death From Above           German     8/0/0   Italian   10/0/4 1943-11-12  Fanatic Pack 5
FT166 Heroes at Leros  5.00      British   14/0/1   German    11/0/0 1943-11-14  From The Cellar Pack #6
36    Rachi Ridge      6.00      German    13/0/0   British   21/0/0 1943-11-12  ASL  5 - West of Alamein
The second and fourth days aren't represented at all!
 

lluis61

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It's worse than I thought:

Code:
ID    Scenario         Rating    Attacker   S/A/G   Defender  S/A/G   Date       Publication
SF-7  Deadly Appetici            German     6/0/0   Allies    10/0/2 1943-11-12  Special Forces II - Küstenjäger!
FE193 Death From Above           German     8/0/0   Italian   10/0/4 1943-11-12  Fanatic Pack 5
FT166 Heroes at Leros  5.00      British   14/0/1   German    11/0/0 1943-11-14  From The Cellar Pack #6
36    Rachi Ridge      6.00      German    13/0/0   British   21/0/0 1943-11-12  ASL  5 - West of Alamein
The second and fourth days aren't represented at all!
Wow! One scenario from WoA, which everybody owns and has been in the market constantly; one from HoB that needs two maps of High Ground to be played, one from FTC6 (Out of Print), and one from FP5 that doesn't have the minimal resemblance of being accurate historically. You're right, it's overrepresented, at least nowadays.
 

Michael Dorosh

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There are three scenarios on the battle of leros already. How many more do we need?

JR
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7502/leros

For a slightly larger scale, but still tactical, examination of the battle, the TCS game has several scenarios as well as a campaign covering the entire battle.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/307899/leros-comprehensive-review

The late Seth Owens, as always, has a good review of the game.

A couple things from the review hint it might not be appreciated by ASL players - the game isn't designed for "competitive play", as Seth puts it. And this title has almost no vehicle units. Just trucks and some unarmoured flakwagens.

So even in ASL terms, where the draw is often the number of AFVs you can mix in, there doesn't seem to be a lot of appeal. "Under-representation" is often easily explained, if one doesn't get upset by the notion of thinking about the whys.
 

Tuomo

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OK, let's dig in more.

The quality of another game that covers Leros is largely irrelevant to whether a good ASL scenario could be made from it. Sure, if the real battle were a walkover, there'd be little to make a game out of, but IMO that's not the case here. Even if the real battle lacked the typical "toys" that we associate with the ability to garner ASL interest, a good scenario could get made from a straight-up all-infantry battle. Here, though, you've got a combined German air-land invasion of a Mediterranean island with a mixed British-Italian defense. From Seth Owen's review: "Historically the battle was very hard-fought and evenly balanced, but ended in a British defeat that Winston Churchill thought very humiliating so late in the war."

Fact is, this all sounds interesting to some. Maybe not to everyone, but who are any of us to criticize what others find interesting?

Note that the comment "the game isn't designed for 'competitive play'" in Seth Owens' original review refers to the TCS System, not to the Leros TCS module. Seth's actual comment is this: "On the other hand, this is also the system’s biggest weakness. It is wholly unsuited for competitive playing styles." I think his "this" refers to the game's C&C rules, which he refers to previous to that comment.
 

Carln0130

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The Dubno/Brody/Rovne battle(s), end June '41, is still under covered. While between the 2 wings of Kursk and surrounding areas overall had more tanks (~8k), the Dubno battle had more than either wing in a more concentrated area (4k-5k).

Coverage of East Africa is still a bit thin.
This was a hard fought campaign. The Italians fought well in this region and were competently led. I know of at least one scenario someone was working on for this one. Don't know enough about the campaign to know if it would make a good CG/module or not. Esoteric by most ASLers standards, but would definitely be something different.
 

Honza

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The Normandy Beach landings are pretty rare subjects for ASL. It is only CH that decided to tackle them fully. Lone Canuck is planning Juno Beach. How can one resist?
 

witchbottles

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This was a hard fought campaign. The Italians fought well in this region and were competently led. I know of at least one scenario someone was working on for this one. Don't know enough about the campaign to know if it would make a good CG/module or not. Esoteric by most ASLers standards, but would definitely be something different.
I'm not entirely convinced that the entirety of the East African campaign was "hard fought". In fact, most source materials indicate a general lack of the Italian Occupation troops to fight, except in rare circumstances, and even on occasions when the Italians held the upper hand against the Colonial forces (mainly 4th and /or 5th Indian Division troops) they were engaging, the Italians would pull out of the fight rather than risk valuable equipment such as mortars or light artillery or wheeled transport in a firefight.

Those few occasions (Dologordoc, etc) - make for the mass of the excitement in this theater of battle. The #1 enemy the Western Allies faced here was the long supply lines. North to South Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, to Red Sea, to Djibouti or one of the smaller occupied ports in Kenya or the Gaza Strip/Sudan region west bank of the Canal, then overland via camel and caravan track to the front lines of advance vs the Occupation forces, who were stiffened by a solid levee of Alpini troops that had arrived about 45 days before Italy entered the war. Those long supply routes limited the ability of Allied forces to engage effectively for some time, leading up to the long-term survival aspects of the Italian positions, which took a very long time to seize in their entirety, but not from Italian combat prowess of any kind.
 

jrv

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I'm not entirely convinced that the entirety of the East African campaign was "hard fought". In fact, most source materials indicate a general lack of the Italian Occupation troops to fight, except in rare circumstances, and even on occasions when the Italians held the upper hand against the Colonial forces (mainly 4th and /or 5th Indian Division troops) they were engaging, the Italians would pull out of the fight rather than risk valuable equipment such as mortars or light artillery or wheeled transport in a firefight.
The Battle of Keren was a long, difficult fight, perhaps comparable to Monte Cassino at a smaller scale. The rest of the campaign was not as dramatic at high level, but some ASL scenarios could be found lurking in history.

JR
 

Michael Dorosh

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OK, let's dig in more.

The quality of another game that covers Leros is largely irrelevant to whether a good ASL scenario could be made from it. Sure, if the real battle were a walkover, there'd be little to make a game out of, but IMO that's not the case here.
Actually, asymmetrical VC could also get you a decent scenario out of it.

Even if the real battle lacked the typical "toys" that we associate with the ability to garner ASL interest, a good scenario could get made from a straight-up all-infantry battle.
I prefer infantry only battles, if they're well designed. I think I may be in the minority.

Fact is, this all sounds interesting to some. Maybe not to everyone, but who are any of us to criticize what others find interesting?
If you're doing a cost-benefit analysis, as a publisher, or as a designer, I think you'd be foolish *not* to at least consider what others find interesting. I'm not suggesting anyone be criticized for their choices. And many artists prefer to work on what interests *them* and not much care about chasing the mainstream. But then again, there are a lot of frustrated artists too. :)

Note that the comment "the game isn't designed for 'competitive play'" in Seth Owens' original review refers to the TCS System, not to the Leros TCS module. Seth's actual comment is this: "On the other hand, this is also the system’s biggest weakness. It is wholly unsuited for competitive playing styles." I think his "this" refers to the game's C&C rules, which he refers to previous to that comment.
Point taken. I only meant to suggest the possibility that the unique characteristics of the Leros battle that make it so well suited for TCS just may mitigate against producing popular scenarios for ASL. Although I'm of the opinion that a *skilled* scenario designer will find a way to make just about any historical situation interesting.
 

witchbottles

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The Battle of Keren was a long, difficult fight, perhaps comparable to Monte Cassino at a smaller scale. The rest of the campaign was not as dramatic at high level, but some ASL scenarios could be found lurking in history.

JR
it was, and Dologordoc fortress is only a portion of the Keren fighting. Still , once the fortress positions fell, the Keren defensive lines collapsed in a fairly rapid succession. It was pretty much an "all or nothing" defense of key mountain passes defended by stiff fortified lines. Took a long time and several assaults to take apart, the Italians did show they could stand up to a long defense, esp with artillery and sufficient MGs in place. There is some interest that perhaps it was this stand that led "Papa" Beck into the belief that a gun position at Hellfire Pass, manned by artillery supported Italians in the main, in Nov-Dec 1941 could (and did), stymie the advance of the Desert Rats for a significant time period. Its a rather interesting line of thought.
 
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