Contemptible Little Armies and the Late Arrivals

I don't usually post so closely to a previous post, but I  have been playing Contemptible Little Armies (CLA) a lot, in an effort to really dive into the nuances that might be there.

I decided to play a One Hour Wargame (OHW) scenario squished to a 24" square, rather than the 36" usually used.

The scenario is 'Late Arrivals' which is one of my favorites and one I played before on a painted 24" "board" using the OHW 'Machine Age' rules and 3"-4" wide companies. That was, in hindsight, quite a bit of space for what amounted to a single battalion with support. I opted to use the same painted board (it's quick to set up after all)  this time, but with CLA.

WWI is notorious for crowded battlefields, especially early-to-mid-war. While dependent on the situation/terrain, generally speaking, as a rule of thumb, a battalion in WWI had the same frontage as a company in WWII( I found this article extremely helpful in visualizing the differences). Thus, the 24" area should force the issue.

Rather than the intended 1:1 figure-to-man scale, which, as I've mentioned before, doesn't make sense to me with the rifle range, I opted to take up the author on their suggestion that figures and units are what you want them to be, and to use three figures per company. This is similar to the 'Machine Age' game I linked to above, but with individually-based figures and multiple battalions per side.

According to at least one source (H.M.G. by Agema) the Bersaglieri have three companies per battalion, so they field nine figures, while the Austrians have four companies, totaling 12 figures. 

Coincidentally, points-wise, which is something CLA has, it gives me 81 points for the Bersaglieri (9 points each) and 84 for the Austrians (7 points each). Really closely balanced by accident. 

And since the Bersaglieri have fewer men per company and a smaller number of companies per battalion, I feel like the equal-ish points reflects the "elite" nature of the Bersaglieri.

I'm using a 40 or so yards per inch based on some really iffy back-of-the-napkin math. Does it matter? No. Although the 12" range makes a whole lot more sense this way.

In any case, the scenario has three battalions of Austrians attacking with two battalions up and one following attacking on a 960 yard front, supported by a field gun unit and an MG unit. attacking a single Italian Bersaglieri battalion, with all three companies in the line (which was pretty typical of the Italians and a source of much dissatisfaction for the troops), with MG support holding a trench line some 640 yards long. The Italians have two battalions and a field gun unit in reserve. The commanders on both sides are starting off table.

In my head I was thinking the 1916 Strafexpedition  but it could just as easily be 1917 Caporetto or 1918 Asiago - admittedly the later dates would invite stormtroops and arditi.

I have played this *many* times now for testing the rules. Here is but one of those:

The lead Austrian battalion advances using the road. Unfortunately for the following units, it's moving kind of slow - road congestion is real!

Turn 5: A second battalion of Bersaglieri arrive to hold the village.

Turn 5 still, the first Austrian battalion has nearly disintegrated against the Italian defenses while whittling the defenders down. The 2nd battalion has finally moved into a position to engage the defenders on the left. The 3rd battalion arrives on the Austrian right to follow up the 1st battalion's efforts.

Turn 6, a jubilant Italian field gun arrives on the scene. For the Italian arrivals, used a CLA suggested rule for reserves to arrive and diced vs their morale. They failed the check on turn 5, but passed on turn 6.

The Austrians attack the trenches. Chaos ensues.

The trench is captured!

A third Bersaglieri battalion arrives in time to draw some of the attackers away from the village.

Side view of same - so you can see the Austrian field gun on the table shooting away, hitting nothing.

Both sides suffered tremendous losses but the Bersaglieri held off the attack. As the Austrians still hold the trench line (barely) a counter-attack (and Austrian reinforcements) would be a likely follow-up.

Interestingly enough - in every replay of this scenario, the game went to at least 13 turns and went to 15 on more than one occasion. It's rare that I go beyond 10-12 turns playing OHW rules. Play time was about an hour including picture taking. I know most of the basic rules by heart so I rarely need to look at the QRS even, and that helps keep the time spent playing.

It's also a scenario where rarely does the attacker win (when I play).

The playing area looked pretty congested which is what I expected and it felt accurate that way. Road congestion was a pretty common occurrence. The variable movement rate in CLA really added some pressure to the Austrian cause - and I found myself focused on getting units to where they needed to be and out of the way of the units following so that I could bring the full force to bear. 

The ticking time clock of the turn counter though forced some decisions, like attacking on the right before the unit on the left was even in position. The benefit there would have been the Italian unit would be losing figures from a single unit, thus forcing morale checks potentially earlier and more often. Although it would have brought the Italian MG into play sooner.

The MG unit in CLA is much more effective than the Heavy Infantry of OHW, and silencing it as soon as possible is a pressing issue once it starts shooting. It rolls 6 dice, and the Austrians are hit on a 3 or higher. The woods only provide a -1 benefit when checking for figure removal (4+ is required normally, so 5 or 6 with the bonus), so MGs cut down the Austrians pretty fast. You can't spend all day plinking away at the MG unit from the woods, hoping to score a removal.

On the plus side of that equation (the one where Austrians are easy to hit), 12-figure units stretched my force capacity and were it not for recycling losses into later arriving units, I could not have fielded three Austrian units. It looks like getting another bag of figures from Armies in Plastic will top my 2024 shopping list.

The next step for CLA for me is to incorporate off-table artillery fire for both sides.