Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Conflicts that came in from the Cold => Topic started by: SJWi on December 20, 2023, 03:40:42 PM
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In the days "BP" ( ie Before the Pandemic), my gaming group were lured into trying 1980s Cold War with the release of Great Escape Games "Seven Days to the River Rhine" (SDttRR) ruleset. Unfortunately two years of fairly limited face-to-face gaming didn't give us much chance to use them, and then the release of PSC's "NORTHAG" gave a new lease of life to our 6mm collections.
Roll on several years. We have played the rules a handful of times, but many in our group have lost interest Recently I offered to buy my mates rather nice Poles and Canadians to add to my BAOR, Dutch and Russkies. Last weekend I decided to give my new acquisitions a run-out on the table plus deploy new building stock and dust-off the rules. The scenario was pure speculation, pitching troops from the Polish 7th Naval Landing Brigade against Canadian's from their "Air-Sea Transportable Brigade Group". I don't intend to write a detailed AAR but have included some photos. Instead I thought I'd comment on SDttRR and how it works.
The rules are nicely produced, and my copy came complete with the command and "hit" chits that you need to play the game. They are pretty simple and they give a "game" rather than a "simulation" of what 1980s warfare in Europe could have been like. The various vehicles are all detailed with their various attack and defence stats, but the infantry squads across all Nations are standardised. In the great scheme of things no big issue for me. The core mechanism is the stack of "command chits" a player has. These allows them to activate vehicles/teams, and even re-activate them a 2nd or 3rd time using more chits, albeit this will mean other assets do nothing in a turn. Hits usually progressively degrade a units morale and combat power ( a bit like Shock in Two Fat Lardies games) until a unit breaks and is removed from play. There is also a deck of cards with each player receiving a random selection of 5 cards . These can be played at any time and add "friction" into the game . I thought it fairly benign until the Polish player played a card which removed six of my nine command chits for a particular turn, rendering my force pretty useless that turn. The rules in the main read well, but we did find certain rules tucked away in odd places plus the annotations in some of the stats tables didn't seem to be referenced anywhere else.
After the game the victorious Polish commander and I had a debrief of what we thought of the rules. My mate doesn't like the fact that there is no artillery . We were both brought up in the '80s reading that "artillery is the Red army's God of War" and so its complete absence apart from as a card event is a little odd. We also think the command and control doesn't differentiate enough (at all?) between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces. Again, maybe we are products of our own propaganda, but the belief in the 1980s and '90s was that NATO forces had better C3I than the Warsaw Pact. I think the NATO vehicles are too expensive compared to their Soviet counterparts. We played a 400 point game and my Canadian force comprised 3 Leopard 1s, 1 M150 TOW, 2 Lynx recce and 3 M113s with infantry teams. For the same points cost the Poles amassed 4 T55s, 4 PT76s, 5 APCs and 5 infantry teams. Yes the Leo 1 is better then a T55 but "combat mass" proved critical. However for me these are minor quibbles, and certainly the points issue can be remedied with judicious scenario planning.
Overall I quite like the rules. Some innovative rule mechanisms and they cover the basics of Cold War gaming. Maybe not for the purist who wants to game a detailed combined arms action, but easy enough to throw onto the table and have an afternoon's fun pushing toys around a table!
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Thanks for posting. I like the rules, but take on-board your comments.
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Looks great . I have the rules but yet to play. Thanks for the inspiration.
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing it.
My group has played them a couple times (in 20mm/1-72). We thought they gave a good game, in spite of quibbles we had that were similar to yours (except that we tend to ignore point-based stuff in games...).
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Capn Jim; I agree about points. I don't slavishly devise points-based games, but as I hadn't played them for a long time I wanted to use points as a sanity check that I was constructing a balanced scenario. My observation was more about the result of what ORBATs I devised using balanced points. I had set up a pretty urban-heavy scenario to use my shiny new building stock, and once again I learned the hard way that AFVs and congested urban areas don't mix. A lot of my Canadian vehicles fell prey to roaming infantry teams, and I didn't have enough of my own infantry to effectively counter them .
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Thanks for the review.
I picked up the rules at Warfare this year and I am trying to decide what scale to use.
Chieftains and T64As are close in points and FV432s are half the points of BMP-1s so it depends on your force choice to some extent.
The lack of off-board artillery does seem odd, especially as the on board options are limited.
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We’ve played the WWII version (Iron Cross) a fair bit, and they give a decent game.
I think the game is really aimed at a smaller scale where an artillery barrage is more of a pre-game thing, or from an event card, rather than called in during the game. But the rules are pretty simple, and I hardly think would break if you wanted to bolt some artillery rules on.
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Thanks for the review; very helpful 8)
Looks like I'll have to pick this set up as well now :D
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Fred, I would agree about artillery, certainly for small scale games. I forgot that you can use mortar teams as infantry support weapons.
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We’ve used them for middle eastern games and enjoyed the rules.
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We also planned to use them for Middle East as my mates had Yom Kippur forces in 15mm. If I remember correctly there was additional vehicle data and a bespoke set of Arab-Israeli cards available on a Forum somewhere? Sadly our interest in both the ruleset and theatre of war waned . Some of us have now bought Middle East models in 3mm as the concept of being able to field a whole Israeli tank brigade plus support assets on the table and play part of the defence of Golan has a certain appeal.
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Thanks for you post and thoughts! Your miniatures look good!
We have yet to play 7D2TR but it is on our list of rules to play.
We have Played GEGs 1914 and Iron Cross (new more detailed version to come out from a post I saw on their Facebook posts) and like them both. The Command allocations and the ability for the opposition to react (and have a chance to gain the initiative) are the best part to the rules.
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Looks good, albeit a little open for urban terrain. Fabulous looking vehicles and buildings.
No off-board artillery and the same C3I for NATO and Warsaw Pact sounds just wrong. You aren't a victim of our own propaganda. By any objective measure, including their own tactical doctrine, WP forces were less flexible than NATO. Must say it puts me off.
Been toying with the idea of re-doing some 6mm Cold War but I think I'd stick with CD which neatly deals with command flexibility by the way it apportions the different types of command stands.
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Carlos, thanks for the plaudits about the vehicles and terrain. A mate of mine painted the vehicles and sold them to me for a very reasonable price. They are mainly Battlefront "Team Yankee" with some Skytrex "Command Decision" plus the TOPAS-2 by Butlers Printed Models . The buildings are mainly Faller OO railway plus some Blotz modern 15mm. As you say "urban" is a bit of an over-statement. I should really have clustered the buildings more which may have given a better game. I'm always on the look out for more 2nd hand Faller stuff on E-Bay.
As someone else has posted the SDttRR is quite a low-level game, with really only a couple of platoons a side so abstracting the artillery via the cards isn't a bad solution. However the C3I is an issue and we did come up with a tweak which I need to find again.
We also game Cold War in 6mm but opted for PSC's "NORTHAG" rules. They aren't bad, and as we also use their very similar Battlegroup set for WW2 at least we know the basics. I'm getting to the age where I can only keep so many sets of rules in my head!
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Ah, I hadn't realised it was so low level, I was assuming it was a larger game. The GEG website is less than informative.
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Carlos, I guess it is "scaleable". In the rules they talk about bigger games but on my 6 x 4' table I can only accommodate 4-6 tanks a side and maybe 1-2 infantry platoons . Anything bigger means no manoeuvre room which you really need for a good game. Hence why I opted for 6mm for NORTHAG. PSC's models for NORTHAG are 10mm, I suspect primarily driven by "commercial considerations" ( ie H&R and GHQ have pretty much sewn up 6mm). That said PSC's have not really developed their range, and their offerings are pretty limited with Red 3 Miniatures, Pendraken and Timecast having much bigger.....and IMHO nicer.... ranges.
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I am a bit on the fence now between 6mm and 10mm; I totally forgot I have enough 10mm terrain for a 6x4 urban table. I use this for Dropzone Commander, but since it's simply a concrete jungle, I don't see why I couldn't also use it for WW3...
Simply add some modern(ish) details such as gas stations or terrace style housing and I'd be done on that front. (still have to finish it, of course :D ).
And 10mm is objectively prettier... ::)
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Daeothar, my main advice would be to ask yourself "how big" you want to go with this project. At about £4 per vehicle ( unless producing your own 3d printed models) a couple of platoons doesn't break the bank, but bigger formations ( particularly Warsaw Pact under some rules) will get pretty pricey . If I was starting over I would go 10mm for SDttRR as it involves a low model count. Although the vehicles are nearly as pricey as you can find some Battlefront 15mm plastics, I think the scale just looks better.
If you want to add some real 1980s period West German buildings to your existing building stock I would look no further than Timecast's range. They produce houses, shops and even a supermarket. I have some of their 6mm stuff and it is superb.
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Lovely looking models :)
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The last game of 7DTTR we played involved a Soviet attack with a T80 company (9 tanks) and attached BMP platoon (3 BMP2s with dismounts), with a recon section of 2 BRDMs. They attacked understrength Americans (3 M1A1s and 3 M2 Bradleys with dismounts) defending a river bridge near a West German village. It made for a pretty darn good game, as I recall. I think I have photos somewhere...
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Being an ex BAOR chap finding a set of rules to replicate what may have happened has been a bit of a quest! We have played Seven Days a few times now, and enjoyed it, to the extent a few of us intend to put on a "large" game later in the year, somewhere in the SW of England. Meanwhile we are putting on Gyros Teller, Pt VI the Belgian defence, at Exeter on 11 May 24.
To mirror what folks have said, by the time troops were in contact, most guns will have switched to depth targets, although depending on the task the Bde might allocate some guns to a Battlegroup. Likewise Recce, one would not expect to see Recce on the front line as part of the battle, they would either be forwards of the fight or to the rear, awaiting re-tasking.
Of course a Soviet Advance Guard would contain arty and the 2S1, and the Abbot!, could fire in the direct role.
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All rather depends on the scenario/ tactical situation. In the defence guns will clearly still be firing FPF missions in contact. Warpac forces generally attacked mounted, so again guns could still be firing after the assaulting force has left its FUPs. To not factor in artillery is odd IMO.
Recce may well be involved as screening forces withdraw and while the dedicated recce troops of Soviet armies typically were either well ahead or on flanks with orders not to engage, it was a standard Soviet doctrine to have a recce group of a tank and an infantry platoon act as the recce element to MRR attacks from the line of march.
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At the level at which seven Days is set, one would be very lucky to receive a Troop of Abbot allocated from Bde.
A recce screen is that, it is not there to fight but to monitor and report and not lead attacks Team Yankee style. Sov recce was very different and at Regimental level could well have a platoon of tanks supporting elements of the Recce company willing to fight for information.
Attached a good old aid memoire from the 80s and a elements of a MMR Recce Coy.
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Quite familiar with the tactical doctrines. Nobody's arguing that a platoon would have a dedicated battery but if that platoon or company is part of a larger defensive position, it's likely to have some sort of off-board support and potentially that should be factored into a game. How that is done has multiple solutions but completely removing it seems odd. Of course I don't know the game system so maybe the design factors it in another, more abstract, manner.
Never played Team Wanky so that wouldn't be my model. I do game Vietnam, where supporting arms density would typically be at similar and sometimes lower levels than 1980s Europe and dispensing with off board artillery for ay game set at a company level would seem distinctly odd.
As for recce, I served for a period as an attachment to a recce regiment and again, I'm familar with their doctrinal peculiarities. All I'm saying is that it is possible to conceive of recce elements withdrawing through a defensive position, main or otherwise, whilst being pursued and thus caught up in the fight. Whilst not their main bag, recce elements do from time to time get employed in mundane tasks such as route security.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu3eSOmGAOM
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...All I'm saying is that it is possible to conceive of recce elements withdrawing through a defensive position, main or otherwise, whilst being pursued and thus caught up in the fight. Whilst not their main bag, recce elements do from time to time get employed in mundane tasks such as route security.
I can confirm that, having been a group leader and later platoon sergeant in one of the last mounted infantry recon units in the Dutch army. That's mounted, not armoured... The motto was see without being seen, because when the shooting starts, we're all dead. Most exercises were spent walking (and crawling), watching and radioing, without a shot being fired (by us).
Obviously, we were a blatant anachronism in a time of mobile warfare, so in wartime we'd be employed as a forward observing unit often several kilometers out, falling back towards the lines at the first sight of the red team (obviously working from the assumption of a defensive stance).
In hindsight, expecting us to fall back towards our own lines on foot, or at best in Landrovers and 4-ton trucks was hugely optimistic (I'd rather have tried my luck hoofing it, especially when facing armour). Also considering we were issued only small arms and a couple of LAWs ::)
Peacetime though, we were employed as opfor a lot, especially for the Americans in Germany, Dutch Territorial reserves and UN-peacekeepers in training, and as domestic security units (that was the boring stuff).
Cavalry recon units operated much the same way; pretty much as Carlos explained. They were just harder and faster than us, so stood a better chance of actually reaching our own lines :D
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"Whilst not their main bag, recce elements do from time to time get employed in mundane tasks such as route security"
Indeed, quite scenario specific, and most of our Gyros Teller series of games start with the Recce elements screaming down the road turrets reversed, attached showing the Belgian Recce passing through the German line of defence. Route security, convoy escort we even had a QDG Troop attached to our Bde HQ as Bde Recce and HQ security!
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A friend and I are playing The First Domino campaign at the moment . The addition of Campaign points (CP) that allows , extra air support/defence , artillery support etc is a decent tweak - I can be used also to buy more forces .
The rules exist for on board mortars - hitting on an 8 plus on d10.and get one better having hit - just you then tend to run out of command chits to keep activating it.
Higher level art is by card availability -and it’s a random distribution normally if you get one at all . . That where the CP can at least give you a definite option of having some support . We use this at any point of the game rather than before it all kicks off . However it can only inflict one morale marker - you need 6 to kill infantry - so it’s something we want to improve the mechanic of too .
Infantry are harder to kill than vehicles- so first thing to do is dismount them! As they can be easily killed in vehicle if it kabooms , or at best it survives and takes maximum morale markers - so just one hit would kill them .
The campaign is available from the 7DTTR FB page .
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikATtDAZUWKRVonYZkrHz_-m-bE9vZolljfpOyvD_3tySogLyKPTouTBKM3otF9fR3TNjOKEUdp_uEQ0__XfyAQGYPmuS114VMg1VxeR0_T7RCIs_liegfHvql55UDmgR8YFUjiFCsVGeF9CpGRIdUWX3ji_kpb4TXMrATSyd7vCPTjQcxSHmkcI_wiJ0/s2048/IMG_4349.jpeg)
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqllicD0MWa7Mj-8GrlOeZ_SK0LB8hqwjxRft52eCBf9XHHaKouPDNE3Wp8NVZLysnFY1oNsOkdtmb6RqGx53eyH17iYwuR6OdFiA8kv9neY-bAtVUwrpgtS6u-9DyD41RVunf3-fO2KVvW4e5nzIRMrWY7JyAI23_XDY1xhoFQTfGPDangTV7iKXxC5I/s2048/IMG_4347.jpeg)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu3eSOmGAOM
Great video, somewhere I have a photo of me about to have a pee up against the T-62!
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Always been curious about that. Do you know when and where they acquired the Soviet kit? I presume it was gifted by Israel. Appears that they did have a full CRP element to play with along with at least one BMP.
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From Israel, the Red Star Company, an American unit at Grafenwoehr, Germany. It was a bit of a mix of kit hence what is in the video.
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I got to see some of that Soviet stuff during one of our rotations at Graf. It was interesting looking at them through our tanks' sights. We were not allowed to shoot at them, though... 8)
And the Opfor at the NTC at Fort Irwin in California had an MRR outfitted in US vehicles VISMOD'ed to look like Soviet stuff (i.e., Sheridans turned into T72s).
I think we house-ruled arty in out game (but I don't remember how...).
As for recon units, as Carlos pointed out, MRR sent BRDMs forward, followed by a company-sized element of tanks and recon BMPs. And I was in an armored cav regiment for a while - Support Platoon leader, Troop (company-sized in the US) Commander, and Squadron (battalion-size in the US) S4. We could stand and fight if the mission or situation called for it...
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It’s worth remembering that we had a Recce troop of 8 wagons in our armoured regiments .
Scorpions (76mm) up til 1987 and then Scimitars (30mm) . So, you’d deffo see recce cars shooting backwards ( turrets traversed rear) and once or twice spotted them in front of us , especially if they were recceeing a minefield and often used as anti Heilborne defence.
Also , on numerous occasions an MBT regiment also had ‘Gobbly Wobbly’ , a GW Troop in Swingfire 432s. At least twice during my (‘78 -‘08) service we had them in Command Troop (1978 and 1985) . Very rare to see those boys with their long range ability.
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On the subject of vismod vehicles, I think there are CVR(T) Sabres at Suffield with drums on the rear deck as Soviet/Russian MBT stand-ins.
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Yes there were . Was a great experience exercising / live firing over there but sadly all gone now .