Western Front WWI: tactical combat

Monday night saw an interruption of the DBA battles that Frank and I have resumed, as Chris stepped up to host a game of Flames of War 1918, his World War I variant on the WW2 game from Kiwiland. I've played FOW1918 before with Chris, and I was looking forward to this, the more so because I have been preparing to run a 1917 operational kriegsspiel, so I've been thinking and reading more about WW1 than usual of late.

Chris's set-up did not disappoint; he had recreated a German frontline trnech, with a fair quantity of wire in front of it and a number of gun pits behind it, as well as a comms trench leading (presumably to bombproofs in the second line where the Jerry counterattack troops were sheltering. A portion of that second-line trench was visible in one corner of the board. All the area around the trenches was literally plastered with craters from prior bombardments. I took the gallant British attackers, and Frank took the stodgy but determined Fritzers.

I had an initial bombardment to keep the Huns' heads down, and a choice of fire plans for my supporting barrage. I picked rolling barrage that would precede my attack and cover us (as well as hopefully knock out a few Germans) while we struggled with the wire. As for my assault force, it was four platoons of British infantry (each containing sections of bombers, Lewis gunners, rifle grenadiers, and the dogged British riflemen) and a small battery of Stokes trench mortars.

My goal was to capture one or the other of two objectives that I had been allowed to specify before the Germans or I deployed. I placed them on either side of his comms trench, thinking that there was not much point in spreading them out, as I would have to concentrate to get through his defences in any case. While I'd have to fight past at least one weapons pit to reach them, better there on the left than over on my right, where they would have been placed in the open in front of the visible portion of his second trenchline. My plan was to advance with two platoons forward and one back on my left, driving hard for the objectives, and the fourth platoon on my right as a pinning force to keep him honest. The mortars would hang back until I knew where I needed them to concentrate fire; they could shoot indirect over open sights to 16" (rifle range) or bombard beyond that with less killing effect but more suppressive effect.

The bombardment kept everyone's heads down, but IIRC it only killed a few defenders. The rolling barrage worked beautifully; it couldn't have gone better if it had been radio-controlled. It lingered over the wire and front trenchline, blowing big holes in the wire, and it covered my troops as they advanced, perforce very bunched up, through No Mans' Land. He had an SOS barrage registered, but had trouble getting it started, and when it was about to begin, some swift counterbattery fire from my guns bought us enough time to clear the area where it was registered. The leading platoons did pretty well at clearing the wire in front of them; the pinning force actually got a clear run, and they were able to attack his only forward deployed force and overwhelm what remained of it after the barrage.

Expecting an ambush in his front trench, I was pleasantly surprised and raced forward into the front line. We pushed men up the communication trench, at which point we discovered that his surprise was a pair of HMG teams int he two mid-field weapons pits. Thankfully, they were *only* pits, not proper concrete bunkers, so we were able to overwhelm the Maxims with a few rushes. As we were consolidating our positions and moving up, however, his counterattack force arrived. He dropped off LMG teams and sent one platoon rushing down the comm trench to throw us back (which he did) and another over open ground in the centre of the battle area to provide support.

Things had gone well for the British so far but took a nasty turn now. I *had* to rush the LMGs on the left to clear him off at least one of the objectives, and despite doing it in rushes so as to get some LMG support of my own up, I still got two platoons pretty thoroughly crocked to no good end. The platoon I'd used as the pinning force took a hammering trying to chase his men out of the comms trench, so I had only one good platoon to try and clear the other side of the objective area. We threw everything in, having done our best to suppress him with the mortars (which I didn't use as effectively as I could have done in the battle), but it was touch and go right down to the end, with turns running out, the shop wanting to close, and our last platoons shredding each other. I got the better dice and ended up winning, but it was a near-run thing.

If the barrage had moved a little faster, if he had had a little better luck trying to unpin troops or bringing in his counterattack force, it would have been a very different story.

The rules are, IMO, quite good, and in the absence of the oft-promised Western Front adaption of 'If The Lord Spares Us", they are my first choice for tactical WWI. I have some Eastern Front and Arab campaign troops that Iwill be moving to the painting table so as to give Chris more oppo for his Germans and Turks.