Blitzkrieg Commander 4, and 'Artillery Drift'

Set up to go, QRF, counters, artillery zone templates and festive clock

Over the Christmas break I set up and played my usual solo Christmas game. This time I chose to re-fight the Second Day at Sidi Rezegh (22nd November 1941) scenario I set up as a demo game for Fiasco 2013. I will not bore you with the details except to say that the Germans won comfortably. However, I will dot this post with photos of the game.

Turn one - yummy!

I decided to play it using Blitzkrieg Commander 4 available from Pendarken Miniatures. Leon kindly discounted me a copy last year at Fiasco and I promised to post a review, so here was my perfect opportunity to test the rules at my leisure.

The initial set up

Firstly, let me say that I was always a big fan of BKC because they are set at just the right level of command, level of detail for the kind of games I play and, most of all because, the command and control mechanism neatly covers a multitude of sins (training levels, fog of war, etc.) in a very simple, play friendly, way.

The MMG battalion of Group Knabe, with heavy artillery support from Belhamed, going up against 1st Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps.

The multi-functional command mechanism basically allows for units to act once, more than once, or sometimes not at all. To activate an 'order group' of units you roll two, factor modified, dice: If you score your command value or lower you can act with the unit, or units, under command once, then you can try to get them to act again, and each time the score required decreases making it harder. This means that better troops with better command generally get to do more each turn than those with lesser abilities. 

My first ever game with BKC was a 1941 German versus Russian game and I just loved how this simple mechanism so wonderfully reflected the difference in the tactical ability of the troops involved - I was sold.

Gotta love, or is that Gotha love, 88s! This one is modelled firing without fully deploying off its wheels; it's a great little model (by Battlefront FoW).  

In that first game we used BKC 1, later we played the second edition which improved on the basic game. Some years later BKC 3 came out and the less said about that edition the better; except to say that Leon pulled out all of the stops to redeem the situation with refunds and the publication of BKC 4 -  well done Leon. 

My first impression of BKC 4 was a good one. They are clearly written and well laid out. As far as I can see, most of the wrinkles that were in BKC 2 have been ironed out and I don't have a real quibble about anything in the rules except for the artillery rules but, this is nothing new. I have a problem with nearly all WW2 artillery rules.

4th Field Artillery Regiment - it's HQ in the background plotting solutions.

My problem with the artillery rules is this. For as long as I can remember, most WW2 artillery rules have comprised the following three concepts.

• You call for (request) artillery support, usually via a FOO / FAO. This usually involves a dice roll.
• Then, you dice for how far the artillery rounds fall away from the target point, most usually by moving a barrage zone template a 'dice rolled distance' in a randomly determined direction. What I call, 'Artillery drift'.
• Then, you dice for damage inflicted on targets in the zone.

I have no problem with the first and third concepts. They make perfect sense to me. However, 'artillery drift' is simply a load of tosh and does not represent how artillery works in any meaningful way. Why 'artillery drift' rules have become so fashionable is a mystery to me because it's a total load of (excuse me) bollocks! Artillery lands where it is called, it basically lands on target! Let me clarify that bold statement with an explanation.

My understanding is this. In WW2 an FAO would call up for artillery barrages and concentrations. He would give the co-ordinates for the strike to the battery. A firing solution would be worked out. All of the guns would set to that solution but only the lead gun would fire. The FAO would watch for, and then correct, the fall of shot. The battery would re-calibrate its solution, all guns would re-set, then the lead gun would fire again. If the shot was still off target the lead gun would fire until its shot landed on (near) target, with all the other guns adjusting their firing solutions to match the lead gun (but, importantly, not firing). When the lead gun ranging shot fell on or near the target, and only when it did, would the FAO call "Fire for effect", at which point the all of the battery would open fire, laying down a concentration of shells (25 pdr batteries usually fired 5 shots each in quick succession without correction) then cease firing. As the guns in the battery were all the same, all had the same firing solution, all were firing the same ammunition and all were fairly close by one another, the shots all landed in the prescribed barrage zone. From memory, of the shots fired into a zone only about 7% went wild and fell out of it. Such was the accuracy of modern artillery. Barrage zones certainly didn't land all over the place, missing the targeted zone completely! Note I said targeted zone, not target point.

If we look at the three basic rule concepts again:

• Calling for fire is the request and the ranging in, which could take quite some time, especially if more than one battery was being directed at the same time: The Germans suffered from this more than the British, the latter tried to bring fire down quickly with a wider spread whereas the Germans tried to bring theirs down in a pin point concentration; in BKC this is nicely dealt with by having different templates for 'barrage' and 'concentration'. Failure doesn't mean that nothing happened, it just means that the batteries are not ready to 'fire for effect'. 
• Artillery drift is a load of rubbish. My solution is this. Place a marker (I use a blast marker based on a two pence piece) on the target point. Roll the request dice and note if any successful roll was odd (1,3,5), or even (2,6,8). If the result is even you place the template, if it's odd your opponent does. It always basically lands on target, near enough and is, IMHO, a more elegant way of doing things.
• Dicing for damage is the important factor in determining the effect of artillery. Not everything in the artillery zone will be hit and damaged and this is where that test takes place - it should not be done using some random rule to make it miss the point of aim completely. 

The German player has placed his 'ranging shot' blast marker before rolling for the request. The German FAO successfully requests his artillery support and makes an even roll. The German player (rolling even) places the concentration zone template (6" wide circlet of piano wire - barrage templates are square): Two guns, two transports and an A15 are in zone (see below) - dice for hits and damage! If they had failed to request artillery the ranging marker would remain in effect - I make artillery easier to acquire on second request at the same point.

Now, if you are going to go down my route, you will need a 'blunder' mechanism. Lo and behold, a perfect one already exists in the standard BKC 4 artillery support rules. This is how artillery lands where it is not supposed to: Blue on Blue is rarely a product of bad mathematics and poor ranging shots; Blue on Blue is more readily explained by target misidentification - it lands on target, but the wrong target.

Rant over. 

It's not really a dig at BKC as such because BKC simply follows what has become de rigueur for a lot of WW2 artillery rules. I don't get annoyed any more, I just sigh and change them.

To recommend certain things about BKC's approach to artillery: I like the differentiation between artillery barrages and concentrations, and the request / blunder mechanism is basically sound and fit for purpose.

21st Panzer arrives

Will I make more changes to BKC 4? Yes, but not so you would notice much in game play. 

For instance, I play in 15mm and I have a large table so, I've increased all centimetre measurements by 50% and converted to directly to inches (E.g. 20 cm in the rules becomes 30 cm; 30 cm is 12"). 

I've reduced the artillery zone templates down to 6" (150 mm across) but count everything touched as in. With the way I do the artillery now this makes sense. The standard rules count something as in an artillery zone if at least half its base is in; I don't particularly like adjudicating if half a base is in; I prefer adjudicating if the template touches a base: if it does it's in. 

Now that the template no longer drifts, careful measurement of 'drift' distance and direction is no longer needed: the players simply place the template over the blast marker as desired and there can be no argument as to what's in or not (see the pic with artillery concentration template and blast marker 2 pics above).

I've changed or added a line or two here and there in Quick Reference Sheets (which I've re-done and got onto 2 pages rather than 4) to better suit my personal views on warfare in the Western Desert - I don't game anything else set WW2, except as a guest gamer, so my changes are quite specifically for Western Desert November 41 - mid 42 (at the latest). 

7th Armoured Brigade - old cruisers and A15s. On day one (at Sidi Rezegh) they started the battle with over 150 tanks - on day two they had just 28 runners left! I've decided not to do smoke: Caualties will be removed henceforth as I found I was arguing with myself over LOS and cover provided by burning hulks! (Plus, white smoke doesn't look right).

I've re-set this game to be played by The Lads over the next couple of Wednesdays. Hopefully, I will manage a full report on the action so you can see how BKC 4 handles over 50 units a side with ease.

So, apart from changes to the artillery rules, would I recommend Blitzkrieg Commander 4? 

Yes, in a heart beat! 

Blitzkrieg Commander 4 are great set of rules for large action, combined arms, WW2.