Gaming in a ground / guerilla warfare setting.

[robject]

How have you run games where the players are in the middle of ground warfare?


GOAL

My goal is to present the effects of war, the environment of war, the mindset of a war for survival, that sort of thing. I have wide latitude here, but I'm thinking I have to do my part, to paint the picture, to enrich their decisions if possible.

So, I want to get them in the mood.


TOO MUCH INFORMATION

My players are off worlders, and they're involved in a regional ground invasion. They will decide what their level of involvement is and what they choose to do. There's guerilla warfare, barbarian hordes fighting outnumbered infantry, and so on.

There is no actual air war. Defense has superior intel (and some airships), but is not well organized. The invading force has fanatical morale but only ground units with local intel and no ranged weapons. The side with airships can deliver nukes, but this is home territory, so a last resort.

 

[Timerover51]

How have you run games where the players are in the middle of ground warfare?


GOAL

My goal is to present the effects of war, the environment of war, the mindset of a war for survival, that sort of thing. I have wide latitude here, but I'm thinking I have to do my part, to paint the picture, to enrich their decisions if possible.

So, I want to get them in the mood.


TOO MUCH INFORMATION

My players are off worlders, and they're involved in a regional ground invasion. They will decide what their level of involvement is and what they choose to do. There's guerilla warfare, barbarian hordes fighting outnumbered infantry, and so on.

There is no actual air war. Defense has superior intel (and some airships), but is not well organized. The invading force has fanatical morale but only ground units with local intel and no ranged weapons. The side with airships can deliver nukes, but this is home territory, so a last resort.

Go read the following books.

1. Shots Fired in Anger, by Lt. Col. John George
2. The Malakand Field Force, by Winston Churchill
3. The Spearheaders, by James Altieri (1st Ranger Battalion)
4. Tarawa, by Robert Sherrod
5. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, download from archive.org
6. Combat Actions in Korea, download from Center for Military History, http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/030/30-2/index.html
7. Three Battles - Arnaville, Altuzzo, and Schmidt, download from Center for Military History, http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/011/11-7-1/index.html
8. Center for Military History bookshelf on Vietnam, http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/vw.html
9. Fire and Movement, Bargain-Basement Warfare in the Far East, by Jac Weller, title is explanatory

Those will give you a real good idea of combat, including guerrilla warfare.

Edit Note: I forgot Small Wars, by Major-General C. E. Callwell, that has a lot on Europeans fighting with low-tech level Africans and Asiatics.
There is also the US Marine Corps Small Wars Manual, downloaded from the Internet or lots of reprints available online. The Marines did a lot of what would now be called counter-guerilla work in the Caribbean between World War 1 and World War 2.

 

[tzunder]

Or, have a look at Hard Times for MegaTraveller.

 

[Timerover51]

Or, have a look at Hard Times for MegaTraveller.

I think that Robject is looking for factual accounts to work from, not fiction. He has Hard Times.

Robject, if you need more data, I can either post more, or email stuff to you, or email links to you.

 

[Timerover51]

The Down and Dirty of War

The men had been poorly fed. They were, for the most part, on the Australian ration—hardtack, bully beef, and tea, supplemented by a little rice. Because the unceasing wet had made it virtually impossible for them either to heat the ration or to boil water for tea, most ate the food cold and threw away the tea. The bully beef (corned, preserved beef of Australian manufacture) came in large, four- or five-pound tins. It was not only unappetizing, it often had a revolting fish-oil taste that caused some of the troops to retch when they tried eating it. Many of the tins had become contaminated: some had been contused or sprung when they were dropped from the air; others had been left out in the open without cover and had rusted. This contamination, together with the impossibility of sterilizing the few eating utensils the troops had with them, and the tendency of the oversize cans of beef to spoil before they were completely consumed, had its effect. Acute diarrhea and dysentery gripped most of the battalion, and many of the men had to cut holes in the seats of their trousers, so completely had they lost control of their bowel movements.

You do not normally get that in reading about combat.

Taken from Victory in Papua, by Samuel Milner, page 114, part of the US Army Official History of World War 2, also known as The Green Books. This can be downloaded from the Center for Military History. There are also some good reports on friendly fire casualties from the fly boys dropping things where they should not have. Also, because of stupidity on the part of MacArthur and fly-boy Kenney, the 32nd Infantry Division, a National Guard division from Wisconsin, was sent into combat at Buna-Gona with NO ARTILLERY SUPPORT. The infantry cannon companies were used a rifle companies, and the artillery battalions sat back at Port Moresby and Australia.

 

[Timerover51]

Robject, here is the link to the US Marine Corps Small Wars Operations-1936 edition.

https://archive.org/details/smallwarsoperati00unit_0

Here is the link to the US Marine Corps Small Wars Manual-1940. This is loaded with organizational data along with organization for combat. It is an extremely useful book to have.

https://archive.org/details/smallwarsmanualu00unit

 

[mike wightman]

Rob, what are the TLs you have in mind for the various forces?

 

[Supplement Four]

If you want how Marc Miller wrote an adventure around a ground war, check out the scenarios that happen on Aramanx in The Traveller Adventure.

 

[Reban]

Overall Tone
All the normal services and background colour that your Travellers are used to experiencing has been disrupted or has ceased to function. This may include services that they normally avail of in the starport too.

Mindset
Civilians your Travellers encounter may be distrustful, reserved or may want to engage with them to trade blackmarket items or seek passage off the planet or at least out of the combat zone.

Give your Travellers the impression that some people they encounter are pro guerrilla and may be actively aiding the guerrillas. Of course one time they'll do this and find the civilians are collaborating with the invaders.

Rumor
There are always rumors. News from the next village, from just over the mountain from a still functioning news net that is said to favour one side or the other. People will tell the Travellers things just to see if they'll confirm or deny what they've heard.

Eventually you could confront your Travellers with the sound of artillery and a refugee stream.

If you want a good account of how to run a Guerilla war read Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara.

 

[Timerover51]

If you want a good account of how to run a Guerilla war read Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara.

Guevara ended up dead.

 

[Enoff]

Some science fiction I would recommend

Gordon R. Dickson's "Tactics of Mistake"

Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium stories

 

[Enoff]

And for the hard realistic stuff

Bob Newman, "Guerrillas In The Mist: A Battlefield Guide To Clandestine Warfare"

Learn every facet of the grim, violent world of guerrilla warfare: basic fieldcraft; mines and booby traps; tunnel construction and strategy; ambushes; urban and nocturnal tactics; interrogation, indoctrination and exploitation; psyops; and more. For academic study only.

Ragged War - The Story of Unconventional and Counter-Revolutionary Warfare

Guerrilla warfare may well be seen as a 20th century development, although its origins go back to the dawn of warfare. It is probable that insurgency & counter-terrorist actions by superpowers & lesser nations will become the most likely use of military power in the coming decades. This study is an historical examination of the development of counter-insurgency & counter-terrorist warfare. As well as an assessment of the tactics that have been effective, the author emphasizes the importance of intelligence in these operations, reviews the weaponry used, & analyzes the training of 3 elite special warfare units. Unusual & interesting action

 

[Timerover51]

Dickson is not too bad, but Pournelle's combat accounts read like a badly-written after-action report.

 

[aramis]

Dickson is not too bad, but Pournelle's combat accounts read like a badly-written after-action report.

They read much like the various AARs I've seen in the records in the National Archives - Alaska Branch... most of which are actually somewhat less detailed and often are obviously hiding someone's incompetence....

I find the Falconberg's Legion sequence to be quite enjoyable, because, in great part, the battles are not the forefront... but the strategy leading to them is.

 

[Quint]

I'm with Reban in many ways. I'll also say that it really depends upon what sort of mood you are trying to convey - this can be clean, they can be brutal, they can be filled with alien cultural whimsy if you like.

What if

In general I like to take a close look at the PC's history and then filter the information they get through the lens of their own Imperial service. Perception is reality, so I'm likely to say things "As an prior service Imperial Marine, you are outraged/sicked/heartened/whatever by THING PERCIEVED"

This also lets me play up PTSD-like reactions for folks with prior combat experience, or just overall "horrors of war" for the Merchant Service character who has never seen anything like this before.

The big thing I do strongly suggest is to figure out what your players want to play - I have a combat vet in my group, they are *not* interested in a graphic "horror of war" scenario (it would absolutely trigger their PTSD) while I've had other vets who would have been fine with that (and the opportunity to engage in some cathartic make-believe violence against "bad guys"). This is one of those places where immersive verisimilitude can backfire in unexpected ways...

D.

 

[Timerover51]

They read much like the various AARs I've seen in the records in the National Archives - Alaska Branch... most of which are actually somewhat less detailed and often are obviously hiding someone's incompetence....

I find the Falconberg's Legion sequence to be quite enjoyable, because, in great part, the battles are not the forefront... but the strategy leading to them is.

I took Roland Green, who worked with Pournelle on one series, out to lunch one time a while back and told him that I could tell which combat scenes were written by him and which by Pournelle. He told me that Pournelle used actual after-action reports for most of his combat. For one battle, Pournelle basically re-wrote the account given in Charles Oman's Art of War in the Middle Ages, the two volume work, including getting one of the main headaches killed off in precisely the same way one of the historical leaders was done it.

AFter the Falconberg Legion book where he took the 532 AD Nike Sedition in Constantinople for his plot basis, down to eliminating the problem civilians in a sports arena, with the Legionnaires slaughtering roughly 30,000 civilians without any hesitation, I totally lost interest in the series and Pournelle in general.

 

[Timerover51]

This also lets me play up PTSD-like reactions for folks with prior combat experience, or just overall "horrors of war" for the Merchant Service character who has never seen anything like this before.

The big thing I do strongly suggest is to figure out what your players want to play - I have a combat vet in my group, they are *not* interested in a graphic "horror of war" scenario (it would absolutely trigger their PTSD) while I've had other vets who would have been fine with that (and the opportunity to engage in some cathartic make-believe violence against "bad guys"). This is one of those places where immersive verisimilitude can backfire in unexpected ways...

D.

You want some good "horror of war" then look at these links that you can download.

https://archive.org/details/NPC-5121

https://archive.org/details/NPC-5127a

And yes, I have looked at both of them. No, I will not use them for my World War 2 history class. The students are not old enough to handle this type of material.

 

[Supplement Four]

Roland Green wrote a few Conan pastiches, and he's thought of among most Conan fans who have read him to be one of the worst authors ever to attempt a story about the mighty barbarian. His ideas are good, but, Crom! I think a High Schooler could write better prose.

I've attempted a couple of his books, but as much as I am a Conan fan (I'm a HUGE fan), I can't get through them. He wrote Conan The Guardian--a book I wanted to read because it is set in Argos, where my campaign is set. It's my third attempt since purchasing the book. It starts OK as a decent read. The encounter with Conan and the water dragon at the start of the tale is pretty cool. And, the negotiating and bribing to allow what's left of Conan's Free Compnay into the Kingdom is neat. But, then the story shifts to a noble woman being attacked by...her furniture! No lie. It's as if Green took the very D&D idea of a Mimic (creature from D&D that can look like normal items like a treasure chest, before the chest splits to reveal a big, toothy mouth that chomps down on any thief trying to open the chest) and used it in a very un-Conan-like way. That type of stuff does not fit well in the Hyborian Age. It's too "fantasy" oriented.

I'd ignore it and keep reading, but it turns out that this spell (or summoning--I haven't found out which) is the main sorcery type of the evil badguy in the story. So,there's A LOT of it.

And, the writing is just not engaging. I find myself rolling my eyes and dreading to pick up the book after I've laid it down.

Maybe Roland Green is a better author with other material. I know that Steve Perry has written a few things that I liked, and he, too, has written some of the worst Conan stories ever put to print. When people ask me who writes the best Conan, I usually say that most of them are good--but stay away completely from Steve Perry and Roland Green.

 

[aramis]

How have you run games where the players are in the middle of ground warfare?


GOAL

My goal is to present the effects of war, the environment of war, the mindset of a war for survival, that sort of thing. I have wide latitude here, but I'm thinking I have to do my part, to paint the picture, to enrich their decisions if possible.

So, I want to get them in the mood.

I ran a Take and Hold Until Relieved IMC campaign under MT... with PC's as the Cadre of the Drop Infantry Regiment. Set in the 5FW, they go to seize a Zhodani prison... and wind up with more resistance from the prisoners than the staff!

I used automation to generate the characters for the entire DIR and its attached Armor and Support Battalions. 3x Infantry Bn, 1x Armor Bn, 1x Sppt Bn, all with integral transport and mechanics... and the HQ company. I then combined them into their appropriate squads/platoons as conglomerate units.

They played out the engagements using the mass combat rules from Ref's Companion.

They also had to deal with the POW's and the original (and hostile to them) prisoners...

They were not warned ahead of time that it was a Tavrchedle base...

What I did to get them in the mood? Not much. It was the month the US engaged in Iraq again...

 

[robject]

He told me that Pournelle used actual after-action reports for most of his combat. For one battle, Pournelle basically re-wrote the account given in Charles Oman's Art of War in the Middle Ages, the two volume work, including getting one of the main headaches killed off in precisely the same way one of the historical leaders was done it.

Has to be King David's Starship. Well, it could be. I liked that book, but I find the Falkenberg books boring.