Gas Warfare rules

[MatrixGamer]

How do various game rules handle gas attacks?

I'm interested in doing 1918 battles (especially 2nd Marne and on). You can't do the Western Front without gas and lots of indirect artillery. I want to know how various rules handle this or if they breeze over it.

[MatrixGamer]

What I'm thinking is to have gas laid down like smoke. It blocks line of sight and makes units in the field roll to save and roll a morale check.

This fits the standard rules ideas I'm using. Roll fire, saving rolls for hits, then morale checks. I don't know if this works but I'm testing it out. Lots of play tests.

What do other games do?

[Infman]

In 'Through the Mud and the Blood',  gas clouds cover and area and move with the wind causing 'shock' but not hits. The effects of mustard gas remain on any area that the cloud has moved over.

[monk2002uk]

Generally speaking, rules do not handle gas attacks well. It is very important to understand how gas was used. For example, the chemical warfare experts in the British army could work out where a German infantry attack was most likely on the basis of where gas was NOT used. Most gas bombardments, cloud attacks, or projectile-based attacks were focused outside the zone of infantry fighting, either geographically (i.e. off-table when suppressing enemy artillery formations or flank units) or time-wise (i.e. not during the assault, e.g. Livens projector attacks the night before).

Robert

[MartinR]

Great War Spearhead handles gas comprehensively. Its most effective use is in counter battery fire and area denial, as irl.

It partly depends what level of game you are looking at. In a company level game a Livens Projector attack is going to be game ending, in a divisional one, it is just part of the armoury.

[monk2002uk]

Yes, that is correct about Great War Spearhead.

Your second point is very well made. A Livens Projector attack would be game-ending. In real life, this is why these attacks were made at least one day before the infantry assault, i.e. not in the time frame of a game.

Robert

[MatrixGamer]

Fascinating how scale makes such a difference here. I'm working on rules where players are brigadier generals. I've read that the allies used a combo of smoke and gas in their attacks to sow chaos. I thought they meant in the trenches they were attacking.

Working in gas, artillery and everything is hard.

[monk2002uk]

It is hard, yes. WW1 battlefields were much more compressed, i.e. there were far greater concentrations of troops compared to WW2. This really has a big impact on smaller scale battles. A machine gun company could wipe out an infantry company and be completely off-table for example, if you use a squad or section-based game.

The Battle of Le Hamel was an example where smoke and gas was used to sow chaos. Both were used in series of pre-planned bombardments in the lead up to the battle. The idea was to 'train' the German soldiers to wear gas masks during these bombardments. On the day of the battle, however, gas was not used. The German soldiers were wearing gas masks but the Australian (and US) assault troops were not. Any game based on this battle would not have gas on table during the game unless, like Great War Spearhead, there are game phases that cover the build up to the actual assault.

Robert

[MartinR]

As brigadier, the players aren't going to have any say in the barrage plan. All that stuff would handled at division, Corps or higher, unless they were just mounting a glorified trench raid.

Their main role would be sorting out the unit frontages, composition of each wave and assault timings.

Obviously they'd have their battalion and Brigade mortars, and any close support artillery.

Id just treat the bombardment as a pre game abstraction at Brigade level,  and have some sort of rolling barrage producing obscuration and suppression rolling across the table for the chaps to follow at a set rate.

[carlos marighela]

With the help of some common household items, you could simulate gas warfare on a low level, company or even platoon scale.

Take a teaspoon full of lemon juice and get the players to snort it up their nostrils. At the same time rub some chopped chili peppers or chili powder into their eyes. Finally, take some Deep Heat or Dencorub and apply it liberally to the more tender parts of their bodies, including their genitalia. Then ask them to roll their dice and move their figures as per normal.

Should prove quite instructive. 




* Children should not attempt this at home without proper adult supervision.

[MatrixGamer]

I did a full scale test game yesterday. Australian vs Germans in 1918, with tanks planes and pre-determined artillery. One Brigade vs one brigade. It worked well. It did abstract some of the pre-deployment things. I need to do more work to figure out the abstraction of the resupply thing. WWI really isn't WWI without doing something about supply.

I like running brigade scale games. There is not so much tactical genius, just managing an infantry attack.

I'm read Monash's book of the achievements of the Australians in 1918. It has some great maps!

[monk2002uk]

Supply wasn't a big issue in the initial assault situation. There were some exceptions to this but you don't need to factor it in. If an assault was successful then resupply followed unless, as happened on Thièpval ridge in the Battle of the Somme, the defender was able to close down No Mans Land. This happened after the 36th Division's assault had succeeded in taking Schwaben Redoubt. Even then, it wasn't until the evening that the Ulstermen ran so low on ammo that a withdrawal was needed. No resupply had been possible before then but the attackers had made liberal use of German weapons systems, especially grenades, in addition to what was carried over in the assault wave. The bigger issue to reconsider is the use of equal size infantry forces. Normally this would have given a very big advantage to the defender, even allowing for tanks and artillery.

Robert

[FramFramson]

With the help of some common household items, you could simulate gas warfare on a low level, company or even platoon scale.

Take a teaspoon full of lemon juice and get the players to snort it up their nostrils. At the same time rub some chopped chili peppers or chili powder into their eyes. Finally, take some Deep Heat or Dencorub and apply it liberally to the more tender parts of their bodies, including their genitalia. Then ask them to roll their dice and move their figures as per normal.

Should prove quite instructive. 




* Children should not attempt this at home without proper adult supervision.