Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Conflicts that came in from the Cold => Topic started by: Westbury on November 02, 2023, 06:20:37 PM
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Inducted the 'Regulars' into 10mm Cold War Commander today with the 10mm Iran Iraq collection.
Encounter game between Iraqi 15th Mechanised (2 x Mechanised battalions and 1 x Armoured battalion) plus an Armoured battalion from the 26th Armoured and the Iranian 37th Armoured (2 x Armoured battalions and 1 x Mechanised battalion).
Iraqi armour was mainly T54/55s with a few T62s, Iranian armour was M60A1s and M48A5s, all the infantry had a ride. No artillery or air support was used.
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Initial deployments were a bit slow and disjointed and one of the Iranian armour commanders was particularly ineffective lol
On the Iranian left the mechanised battalion sped for a large palm grove and debussed there and settled down to await targets which were obligingly supplied by one of the Iraqi mechanised battalions who lost several vehicle & infantry platoons to RPG fire. Ultimately the Iraqis withdrew and took up positions in a nearby town.
On the Iraqi left the other mechanised battalion advanced confidently supported by the additional armour.
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When the Iranian armour had got it's act together in the centre it started to make it's superior quality tell. The Iraqi T54/55's suffered and the left flank mechanised battalion decided discretion was the better part of valour and reversed behind the burning armour and some hills - safe! Just to show off the M48's also lobbed some shells at the other Iraqi armour lol
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Not wishing to be executed, the Iraqi armour on the right opened up on the palm grove and forced the Iranians to retreat with some losses and then decided that was enough for one day.
The Iraqi armour getting shot up by the Iranian armour bravely closed to get into range but it was a losing fight and when we called time they clearly weren't going to have much effect.
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People had places to be so we didn't get to complete the game but in terms of reaching the battlegroup breakpoint (the rules mechanism for deciding winners and losers) the Iraqis were closer although they could afford to lose more.
As a rule set I like it and as a first game for most of the players I think it played out well enough. The big problem for the Iraqis is the weakness of the T54/55s against the more modern US and British armour, the T72s would equal it out a bit I think but I haven't painted them yet :)
The main problem players have to wrestle with is the relatively open ground a desert table presents and so the challenge becomes one of cluttering the table enough to block lines of sight without the table looking nothing like the real thing - this is a consequence of a rule set originally developed for 1980's Germany where there is a lot of cluttered countryside. I guess I'll have to invest in some more scenery lol lol
For me, the rules scratch a long standing itch so I will be ploughing on. Next game, artillery and air support ;)
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Very cool looking game!
I’m wondering whether the challenges presented by the open terrain might correspond with some of the difficulties the combatants faced historically. There were reasons why that conflict bogged down into trench warfare where neither side could get a decisive advantage - long sight lines may have been a factor. I suspect the Iraqis’ experiences against Iran gave them an inaccurate picture of what fighting the Coalition in 1991 was going to be like. They expected a similar type of static warfare would develop, but it didn’t happen.
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A lot of the heaviest fighting took place in marsh lands and in and around cities in the south, neither of which should be considered open terrain.
The Iraqis had a number of successes, one of the better known ones is the Battle of Dezful, where they handed a couple of Iranian armour brigades their arses on a platter. The Iranians lost over 200 tanks.
The Iraqis were smart enough to understand the limitations of their kit and tactical training and after advancing, dug in their vehicles and essentially set up a giant armour ambush into which the Iranians obligingly drove. I don't know the rule set but no doubt it provides to hit modifiers for hull down vehicles.
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Ian,
Sorry buddy but I don’t own marches and city scenery.
I reckon we know someone who could build it for you…..after he has finished my farm of course lol
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As Ian kindly said the Iranians were the winners, & as I was one of the Iranian commanders (Ian was the other ;), though he spent most of his time umpiring)
I would like to claim that it was my tactical genius that won it, but in truth I just blundered through the battle.
I won't follow Ian's exploration of Cold War Commander, not least because I could not afford all those vehicles! :D
I too will 'scratch the itch' of this war, but will do it at the budget end of the games with '7 Days to the River Rhine' with a few vehicles.
Thanks should go to Bob (Flatpack) who provided the buildings that the Iraqis hid in & behind. lol
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Then there's the late war Iranian problem when they can't get spare parts except on the black market at exorbitant prices.
Problem when you manage to alienate both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
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Nice write up and lovely looking collection
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Another game as I/we learn more of the rules and more kit gets painted.
This time the Iranian 37th Armoured (2 x armoured battalions & 1 x mechanised battalion) attempting to hold a railway line and a couple of settlements. The Iranians also had a FAO on the roof of one of the high rises as we were going to see how the artillery worked. The Iraqi's deployed the 15th Mechanised along the baseline (2 x mechanised battalions & 1 x armoured battalion plus one battalion of T72's from the 10th Armoured) and also had a single pre scheduled artillery barrage available.
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In brief, the Iraqi's advanced in two sectors, on the right, hidden by a dried river up river bed, was the 10th Armoured and the 2nd Mechanised and on the left, hidden by a large hill was the 9th Armoured and the 1st Mechanised.
The Iranians deployed their mechanised infantry to defend the bend in the river bed and placed their armour in the central plain near one of the towns to await developments.
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Faced with the two pronged Iraqi advance the Iranians took the bold decision of advancing to take on the left sector. The M60's and M48's outranged the T54 & T55's so first blood went to the Iranians and the Iraqi tank commander scuttled back behind the hill. Undeterred the Iranians ploughed on to crest the hill and start shooting up the de bussed infantry, however, as we all know, unprotected tanks are very vulnerable and after a couple of infantry assaults which destroyed one platoon and very nearly took under another (awful die rolling by the Iraqis) the Iranians fell back to the rail line.
From a rules standpoint the assault mechanism works well and was a lesson learnt for us all :)
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Over on the Iraqi right the advance went well and the Iranians were slowly ground down despite the advantage of cover (the river bed) and calling in the off table artillery on two separate occasions - then the ammo ran out :(
The artillery was a bit of damp squib for the Iranians inflicting minor damage on both occasions, mainly due to drift from the point of aim. As a rule mechanism it was pretty straight forward once I'd understood the language - the rules do suffer in a couple of places from a clarity fog ;)
Ultimately the Iranian infantry and most of their vehicles ceased to exist.
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The final couple of turns saw the T54's & T55's come out of skulking mode and press the attack on the reduced M60's & M48's with their RPG infantry lending support. The scheduled Iraqi artillery strike also arrived but the planned point of impact was nowhere near the Iranians and succeeded only in destroying two settlements.
Again the mechanism was fairly straight forward and from a gaming point of view taught us that you need to think very carefully about pre planned strikes.
As we neared what would be the end of the game from an attendance point of view somebody piped up up and said "isn't there a break point mechanism in the rules?" which there is and we had forgot lol After consulting the rules, yes the Iranians were over their break point so we did the test and they failed first roll, end of game.
The break point mechanism could be seen as a little artificial but it did mean we had a definitive end and frankly none of us could argue about it.
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Lots of tanks in the desert - what fun. Good to see the rules giving a good game.
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It looks lovely.
IIRC, Cold War Commander is based on the Warmaster rule set. Any comment on how well this works with "Modern" Command and control structures?
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Easy E
I'm no expert but the mechanics seem to work ok and have enough nuance to feel like an 80's clash at the brigade level. Other guys I've played with who use it for "classic" cold war gone hot in Europe seem to rate it as a reasonable representation. What I am thankful for is there isn't a whole mass of technical detail to try and comprehend, which type of shell will penetrate what thickness of armour on a graduated scale of ranges, I'm just too old for that s### lol
What the Warmaster set was I have no knowledge of.
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Another go with Cold War Commander in the desert; this time an Iranian infantry battalion (165th Mechanised) holding the line of a major highway in the face of an attack by the Iraqi 26th Armoured of two tank battalions (6th & 7th) while awaiting the arrival of their own armour the 232nd battalion.
The Iraqi armour was mainly T62's with some T54's & T55's, the Iranian's were Chieftains. Both sides had an FAO, the Iranian already on high ground looking over the highway and the Iraqi arriving with the tank forces.
As we had a limited time frame to play in all arriving forces started on their respective table edges at turn 1.
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What was noticeable about this game was the ability of all players to barely get a phase in before failing their command roll - history coming to life maybe?
The Iranian tank column roared (spluttered) up the road obscured by hills and the villages occupied by the infantry. The Iraqis had the 7th armoured (all T62's) come on via the road leading to one of the villages at the northern end of the table while the 6th (one company each of T55's, T54's & T62's) came on in line abreast at the other end of the table using the hills to keep themselves out of range of the Chieftains for as long as they could.
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Inevitably the 6th armoured came into range of the Chieftains better guns before they could themselves fire and paid the price. Full marks though to the Iraqi tank commander for trying to keep the terrain between him and the enemy.
Both sides also started to call-in artillery but the spotting was miserable from both sides :( :-[
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Both Iraqi columns had now got close enough for the Iranian infantry to fire their RPG's from the villages which at least meant the Iraqis had another target to shoot at ineffectively lol
This was also the time for the Iraqi FAO to roll an artillery blunder and call down fire on his own tanks - as if they didn't have enough problems!
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With relief the Iraqis noted that it was time to call it and be elsewhere so we assessed the state of play.
The 6th armoured was destroyed with no loss to the Iranians which left the 7th needing to swing out and take on the Chieftains knowing the odds favoured the Iranians. The objective of seizing the highway had failed.
Reflecting afterwards we noted again that the Iranian armour consistently out performs the Soviet gear of the Iraqis and so the Iraqis definitely need more kit but as we needed to be quick, one battalion per player was the way we went. From a "points" perspective it was definitely tilted in favour of the Iranians, maybe next time we will have a bit longer to play (and know the rules a bit better) and so have a more balanced game.
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An accurate report Ian, which more than can be said of our artillery. :o :o :o
The question on the lips of all the players... is there a bonus for moving on a road ??? ??? ??? lol
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I enjoyed commanding the Iranian armour today.
Lovely duck shooting weather.
(https://i.postimg.cc/3rDLhRQD/IMG-5852.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/hhc8bKjS)
Scratch the first Iraqi tank
(https://i.postimg.cc/YSs3KcX3/IMG-5853.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/Y4QgYPBG)
Scratch the second and third Iraqi tanks
(https://i.postimg.cc/RhfGLPLT/IMG-5854.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/p5WD2J79)
Lovely view of the chieftains on the shooting range.
(https://i.postimg.cc/W1sS0wFM/IMG-5858.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/D8YqTscZ)
Oh look, it’s a full house of destroyed Iraqi armour. Well, the ones that decided to advance Pete lol
(https://i.postimg.cc/rwgjjRx7/IMG-5857.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/HrcbsxSt)
John’s Iraqi armour steadily approaching our village, before we got to open up on him.
(https://i.postimg.cc/MGTDFZYH/IMG-5859.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/PCgYLj9n)
Iranian chieftains taking a steady approach to oncoming traffic.
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Great pictures! Do keep them coming.
Cold War Commander is my gaming groups preferred rules set. And is by far our most played game. We have just now switched to 2nd edition. and have only had one game of it.
It can be frustrating when commanders consistently fail command rolls but it is also part of the fun.
I think it is a good idea that you gradually introduce the different aspects of the game. We did the same when we started playing.
We have introduced the house rule that infantry in transports can mount or dismount as part of a move action. And if a transport is killed the infantry in it are not knocked out as well, but they take the same amount of hits as the vehicle and are suppressed. All to make life a bit better for the poor infantry. That way you are a bit more willing to take more infantry and not just get tanks.
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Thanks for posting these, some very readable battle reports with nice pics. I've dug my 2mm Cold War accumulation out of the lead pile and I fancy giving it a spin, although that does hinge on finding an opponent.
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Great looking games. I also enjoy that you are focusing on the Iran/Iraq War.
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Thanks to everyone for the kind words, encourages me to get more done - just started a battalion of M109's for the Iranians.
Still looking for that on road bonus Pete lol
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A photo that I forgot to post.
(https://i.postimg.cc/GhwXmCbg/IMG-5856.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/3W1Xtz42)
These were the Iraqi T-62’s stacking, to attack our far left village.
I tried to shell them about three times, as they were a lovely looking target for artillery :o
Unfortunately my Iranian Visually Impaired Observer Corps couldn’t spot them. (Nothing to do with my poor dice rolls at all…oh no,no,no)
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Ha! Those silly Iranians fell for our ploy. That is really a column of dummy tanks.
Beneath each one is a valiant soldier on a push bike pedalling like crazy. :D
We even stopped for a whole move to tempt their artillery. lol
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It was impressively bad shooting Bob :D
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Beneath each one is a valiant soldier on a push bike pedalling like crazy. :D
/quote]
^__^
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It was impressively bad shooting Bob :D
Ian
I’d realised it was an Iraqi unit, only armed with push bikes, so didn’t want to waste any precious artillery shells on them. lol lol lol
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Another attempt at a narrative driven game for the Iran Iraq affair, this time the Iranian 37th Armoured tasked with retaking two towns on a main army held by the 15th Mechanised who had an SU22 squadron on line.
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The Iranians struggled to deploy on table to start with and the Mechanised Infantry battalion was late to the party and very bunched up.
The Iraqi tank battalion threw caution to the winds and rolled out against the deploying Iranians despite the previous evidence of how awful the T54's & T55's were in an armour shoot out.
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The fun part of the game was the air support. By and large the calling went well - I think we only had one failure. Once over the target the performance was, well, variable lol
In the first couple of runs using munitions the planes could barely hit an adobe door and Pete's harrumphs were quite funny to watch. However come the napalm, cometh the pilot and we had two runs of napalm dropped on the bunched up mechanised battalion which reduced the M113's and their unfortunate passengers to ash.
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With their infantry now buggered the Iranian armour had a bit of a task on it's hands; two towns to take and a brave/foolhardy Iraqi armoured commander spoiling for a fight. So fight they did.
The Iraqi infantry in the one town did some RPG damage on the lead tank column but not enough to send them packing but the T54/55's gave as good as they got having closed the range and learnt the lesson from the last time about concentration of fire.
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Conscious of the clock (people had to go) I looked up the conditions for adjudicating winners and losers and realised the Iranians were one unit shy of breaching their command Breakpoint and right on cue the Iranians busted that by knocking out two more units. Without further ado we tested, the Iranians failed and withdrew. Perfect timing lol
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Running these games is a bit like herding cats, 4 players who barely know/can remember the rules and an umpire who is only just ahead of them so it can be a bit frenetic and as a result things get missed. It was also our first go at using air cover.
As a game I thought it went well, we crammed a lot of play into a small window of time and got a definitive result, they remain my go to set for Cold War gaming. For those familiar with the rules both sides were 3,500 points with about a third of the Iraqi points being the air cover.
Reflecting on the game afterwards there were several errors, some umpire, some player. Bob had thought it strange the planes got a clear run - yes it was because I forgot each command element has an AA capability, not enough to halt the attacks but maybe enough to drive off or down a plane thus reducing the effectiveness of the attacks. I made a mistake on visibility through cover although it didn't make any difference as such and I wasn't watching Pete closely enough when he crammed loads of infantry bases into one built up area lol Whether the players made any mistakes I'll leave up to them to reflect on ::) ;)
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A great looking game ... and it doesn't sound like the mistakes with the rules detracted from the entertainment :)
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Great game and miniatures. An interesting topic too. Nice.
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I ran the game again 5 days later with different players and fixing the couple of mistakes i made.
Interestingly both sides deployed more or less the same. The Iraqis placed their two infantry battalions in and around the two towns and their armour out of sight behind the southern town. The Iranians deployed their infantry more to the north taking advantage of the northern hills, they again deployed a tank battalion in column on the road (the lure of a road lol ) and the second tank battalion further south than their predecessor.
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The Iranians again had a slight delay deploying and again the Iraqis launched their air wing early and again had zero effect in the first couple of attacks.
The Iranian infantry made better progress this time (not getting burned to death by napalm helped ;) ) and managed to debus and advance on the town.
The tank column on the road dithered a bit (cautious player) but finally swung south to tackle the other town.
The southern tank column advanced unopposed as the Iraqi player decided to keep his tanks hidden for as long as he could and avoid the usual problem of being outranged.
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The northern battle was a lesson in getting troops close enough to find out whether there was anyone in the buildings by tempting them to fire out and then bring concentration of fire against single targets. It took until the end of the game for the player to to get a hold of this and by then it was too late. We also learnt the obvious lesson of how difficult it is to close assault troops in buildings - abject failure :-[
The north was also the complete opposite in terms of the FAC, the Iraqi player just could not get a break! He lost one aircraft due to AA fire from the command elements and from then on just could not get the score to activate the controller - both were lessons learnt, command elements have AA and it hade been too easy to activate the FAC in the first game.
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In the south the Iranian tank advance was enough for the infantry in the buildings to let fly with RPG's and then commit the tanks. Again the infantry were difficult/impossible to remove despite the tank pounding and those tanks were then distracted by the more real threat of the Iraqi tanks and quite the duel ensued which ultimately favoured the Iranians but wasn't a walk over. Holding the Iraqi tanks back was the better tactical decision.
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In terms of achieving objectives, the Iranians failed to take either town and neither side reached it's breakpoint.
As a battle it was a more nuanced affair as the Iranians probed cautiously (perhaps too cautiously) and the Iraqis held back from committing.
From a rules perspective we learnt that infantry in buildings are difficult to get rid off and as we played we thought it to be impossible and therefore a problem. In the aftergame discussion we realised; a) don't assault, it ends badly, b) bring weight of fire against a single unit which might involve a bit of manoeuvre to get the APC's into a place to give extra fire, c) once your tanks have taken RPG fire move back so that you are out of RPG range but still in your own half range and and again concentrate on a single unit.
We also kicked ourselves up the arse for forgetting that once you are within Initiative range there is effectively two rounds of firing and forgot until half way through to use (misuse lol ) Opportunity Fire which makes a bit of a difference to the flow.
We also learnt that aircraft are not necessarily battle winners :D lol
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Photos from the first game using aircraft.
(https://i.postimg.cc/wv8CTm69/IMG-6386.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/QBm4fV9z)
(https://i.postimg.cc/Fzhw0Xdq/IMG-6387.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/BLwhGyCc)
(https://i.postimg.cc/XYXS2WH6/IMG-6388.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/18xjtk1v)
(https://i.postimg.cc/VkTyphpr/IMG-6389.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/5XwkFsxb)
When aircraft roll well, without any anti-aircraft fire rules used. lol lol
(https://i.postimg.cc/wBmKpVYW/IMG-6391.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/yJsph0d9)
I guess the clue for the AA, is a Duster AA vehicle on the command base as shown in this photo Doh.
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Like Flatpack above, these are pictures from the first game.
Just to note, Ian, not one single six when throwing SIXTY-FOUR D6s (i.e. Buckets of dice ;))
is a justifiable...' harrumph' lol
and...
and I wasn't watching Pete closely enough when he crammed loads of infantry bases into one built up area lol
But Ian, you took a picture!?! :D
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Pete/Bob
All command bases have an inbuilt AA level plus you can upgrade to say a Duster and fire even better provided the umpire remembers lol lol
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Great stuff.
I am jealous.
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Pete/Bob
All command bases have an inbuilt AA level plus you can upgrade to say a Duster and fire even better provided the umpire remembers lol lol
Doh….apology accepted Ian lol lol