Mucking about with WWII on a Grid

I hadn't intended to go back to this soon so soon, but a cancelled rehearsal left open a bit of time Monday evening, and painting didn't seem super appealing (in fact it hasn't very much lately).

It began innocently enough with playing with configurations of figures on and off bases, in 6" and 4" grid spaces - there are lot of ideas spinning about in my head - and before I knew it, I'd setup a small test game on a 6 x 6 grid. No rules were determined in advance. I was intent on playing to see what came out of it.

The scenario was simple : two German platoons (3-squads each) with 5cm mortar in support were to attack and capture a hill occupied by the Soviets. The Soviets had a single platoon (3-squad), an HMG - represented by an LMG team, and a mortar.

Units are single squads or heavy weapons teams, grids spaces are 100 meters on a side, up to 4 units from the same side can occupy (may be "stacked" in) a single grid-space.

What follows essentially amounts to notes to my future self, but I present them for your amusement. They are not at all refined nor a complete set of rules:

The "game" already under way.

I prefer cards for initiative, so that was an easy decision. That is, until I got the cards out and then I had to choose exactly which card method. In the event, I assigned red to the Soviets, black to the Germans. Odd cards allowed all units for that side to move, evens to attack, and face cards allowed all of that sides units to move and attack as needed.

I'm not at all sure as to why I came up with that, but I figured I might as well roll with it.

The resulting "friction", aka "frustration" worked mostly - except when successive card draws resulted in no action of any kind. On the other hand, it's not like a lot of time was lost that way. If Jokers mean the end of a turn, then that has the potential to change how much gets done per turn - something I like.

When the first attack card came up, I was struck by the realization that allowing multiple units per grid space had to be meaningful in some way or there was no point in doing it.

A Soviet platoon moves out to meet the German advance.

+1 to the result for each additional unit also attacking the same target simultaneously seemed OK. At first, I allowed units from multiple spaces to count towards the total - my thought was to encourage focused attacks rather than scattering efforts across targets - and therefore the bonus. I dropped this later in the game and only give the bonus from those in the same space  as it was getting a little silly.

I rolled 1d6 for each infantry unit attacking, but in retrospect, I'm thinking maybe one for the attacking space - with the modifiers for each attacking unit in that space.

On the Soviet left a German platoon fires from cover with mortar support in hopes of suppressing the MG.

Mortars were limited to suppression results only - an idea stolen from Company Command I think. While infantry attacks could cause hits and/or suppression. What suppression meant I never really quite decided - other than that a unit had to remove the suppression results before they could do anything else

The German assault on the hill. Note the suppression on the MG team - this allowed the Germans to advance to close range (1 grid space) and greatly improved their chances for clearing out the MG.

I found myself being sucked into the game, which is always a good sign except that I was trying to hash out some rules ideas. There are clearly areas where more thought is needed - and possibly more than a few things that are missing (oh, like off board artillery, armor, anti-tank rules, etc.) but as I've noted elsewhere, even if these rules eventually amount to nothing, it is an enjoyable exercise.

******
Here are the "complete" combat rules, more or less as they were used:

All units have 4 HP (for convenience - this is just a brain storm of a game after all)

Each infantry unit rolled 1d6
Each mortar unit rolled 1d6
Each MG unit rolled 2d6

+1 to the result for each additional unit also attacking the same target simultaneously [later changed to attacking from the same square]

To hit:
For infantry and MG:

Target in Open:
range 3 spaces: 6+
range 2 spaces: 5+
range 1 space: 4+

Target in Cover (nebulous description to be sure):
range 3 spaces: 7+
range 2 spaces:  6+
range 1 space: 5+

If the target is hit, it loses 1 HP and automatically acquires a suppression marker.

If the target is missed, re-roll. If the score on the dice hits this time, add a suppression marker for each hit (but no loss of HP).

[I was trying to do something like I vaguely remember from playing BKC (a game I enjoy). Need to read those rules out again.]

Mortars must have direct LOS to target, or be within 2 spaces of an infantry unit that does, for indirect fire. They have a range of 6 spaces (600 meters, which, after a very brief internet search, looks to have in fact, been too far for these small mortars) and always hit on a 4+, regardless of cover or range, but they only score suppression results.

At 0 HP a unit is removed.

A suppressed unit can take no actions (except to remove suppression) until all suppression markers are removed.

To remove suppression: Roll 1d6, a 4+ removes 1 suppression markers and can be attempted on any card drawn for that side.A unit may keep removing suppression markers until a failure or all are removed.  It can then act as normal on that card.