SSR in A27 King's Castle

von Marwitz

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It's a castle with thick stone walls, and probably few windows. There would be no way to coordinate an entire platoon shooting from inside to the outside in such a building so the easy fix is to limit stacking.

View attachment 14903
Few people being able to shoot out, would not, however prevent many people from being inside the building.

That said, if the intention of the SSR was to represent a scarcity of firing slits, then it should not limit the stacking limit but rather only allow area fire from the building. But even then - put a couple of MGs behind those few firing slits and you won't need a number of squads for the job.

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lightspeed

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Indy, It just dominates the scene and the whole courtyard effect at weird angles is annoying to me. What can I say, it's visually unappealing and strange SSRs are needed to tone down its citadel effect.

Board 6 is okay as long as the chateau from hell is not the objective.

Perhaps Robin nailed it on the head, the place is huge, Versailles is 400 meters in facade and this one is half that. That's the largest chateau in France, by the way.

Marc,

Thanks for that...I was thinking a bit about my hatred (no, that's too strong...aversion).

I think the lack of visual appeal does me in.

I'm really not bothered by the size. I don't take the 40m or 2minutes too literally. If I did,
I think that almost every board would make my head explode!

I'm with you on the chateau not being the objective. I've played Strayer's Strays and Action
at Balberkamp (sp?). They both use board 6, and I didn't run screaming from either.

indy
 

The Purist

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Personally, I love board 6, the Chateau de Quesnoy and Action at Balberkamp scenarios. They are fun monster scenarios set in the pre-1943 period so I'm in. I have played both many times over the years and would run towards them. :p

For King's Castle, being an older design, one could change the SSR to limit stacking per Location and disallow multi-location fire groups. I don't know if this would fix the scenario (or if this was the designer's intent) but it would definitely make fighting in the narrow corridors and rooms more challenging for the attacker.
 
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von Marwitz

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In fact it would, otherwise why would they be in there?
To shelter? To take shifts fighting and rest under protection? To act as a reserve that could sally forth forcing the opponent to commit more assets outside 'the castle'?

Castles/strongholds could be typically held by a small garrison but keep a much larger number of people - especially when the attack was not a prolonged siege. Only then numbers became a problem for the defenders.

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Robin Reeve

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The idea is that a competent defender would place just the necessary men to defend the place.
If some additional troops want to pic-nic or fill the corridors to have a smoke, they will suffer the effects of their carelesness - and that is when the overstacking sanctions kick in.
 

The Purist

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From my own visits to intact castles in the UK and Europe the one thing that stood out to me was how small most of the chambers were. With the exception of the main hall you could not fit thirty men around any of the firing points even in two or three such rooms.

Note that most of these castles were your standard stone structures held by one lord or another and not the 'great keeps' such as Dover Castle14916
 
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von Marwitz

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With the advent of times when armies got larger and before the rise of railroads, one of the most daunting challenges was to supply these armies and to enable them to move about the country. For this, large fortifications were needed where (optimally) large supplies were stockpiled beforehand that would be impossible to transport together with a moving army. As such, the side which could rely on such fortifications was at advantage. These fortifications were intentionally large enough to accomodate large garrisons if need arose. Be it their happining to become frontline or the object of sieges or in their support of armies on the move.

If you look at casemates of 15th century fortifications or later (Vauban etc.), they often were vast. No problem at all to shelter large number of troops there - and more than were needed to defend such a fortification.

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von Marwitz

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View attachment 14906

This is the Chateau de Quesnoy near Conde-Folie (not to be confused with Chateau le Quesnoy further south). I believe the first appearance of Board 6 was in the Crescendo of Doom scenario set here. The size of the chateau can be discerned by comparing the (European) cars.
Interesting!

The board 6 castle is larger than this one. This one could be described as a two-hex two Level building.

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Michael Dorosh

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Interesting!

The board 6 castle is larger than this one. This one could be described as a two-hex two Level building.

von Marwitz
Average Peugot is 4 and a bit metres long so the building looks to be just a smidge over 40 metres wide. I would say your assessment is accurate.
 

lightspeed

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Personally, I love board 6, the Chateau de Quesnoy and Action at Balberkamp scenarios. They are fun monster scenarios set in the pre-1943 period so I'm in. I have played both many times over the years and would run towards them. :p

For King's Castle, being an older design, one could change the SSR to limit stacking per Location and disallow multi-location fire groups. I don't know if this would fix the scenario (or if this was the designer's intent) but it would definitely make fighting in the narrow corridors and rooms more challenging for the attacker.

Balberkamp was an interesting scenario. Sadly, I've only played it once, as the Germans. I gave up on trying to escort two prisoner
squads almost 25 hexes to safety!

indy
 

Michael Dorosh

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I played the original Balberkamp in junior high school - I remember vividly the PzKpfw I and the forest, and trying to get the flanking forces to cut the road. Looks like the ASL version added a board?
 
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