Small Unit Tactics

I have spent the last three days working at a music festival. One of the benefits (aside from the overtime grafted though stupidly long hours) was the opportunity of chatting to and generally chewing the cud with Dave Brown, author of the General de Brigade rules, who was working the event with me.  I have known Dave professionally for years but it wasn't until a year or so ago that I put two and two together over our mutual hobby interest.

He was telling me that he is approaching the final stages of completing a rework of his WW2 company sized rules Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier at the moment.This was followed by an interesting discussion over the power of sustained fire Medium Machine Guns in WW2.

Given the recent debacle in my last game and the pre read that Ted has given me for the next,  the issue of tactics in attacking a defended position arose. As a 'youngster' I admit that I failed to see the point of the humble 2in mortar as used by British and Commonwealth troops but as I 'approach' middle age it is now instantly clear that I would like loads of them to lay down a real 'Pea souper' of a smoke cloud next time I attack.

Funnily enough Rich Clarke of 'Lardies' fame addresses the same issue in the most recent issue of Miniature Wargames. I have to say that I am a British doctrine style player by nature  rather than one who prefers the straight use of suppressing fire. Equally I am not the sort of person that could adopt Red Army or Korean War type wave attacks. My old gaming partner of yore had the flaming red hair to match a Commissar's mentality and regularly threw hordes of conscripts towards me from one side of the table to the other with sometimes inevitable consequences. The fact that I used the word as sometimes probably indicates why this strategy continued.

What struck me was how the same topic of thought arose at the same time to three different people. Now it is time to cancel my order of figures who were to be my U/E Boat Crew and look for some Early War Tommies and a Mark VI Vickers Light Tank that I can paint up as my grandfather's. (or perhaps I will just 'forget' to cancel the sailors!).