One Hour Wargames Scenario Idea: Pozzuolo del Friuli

I am house/cat/plant sitting this week and I am away from my wargaming paraphernalia - so, I began looking at some of the non-painting/non-playing options I could pursue. 

Of late, I've been inspired by people taking historical battles and making scenarios from them. The problem, for me, is that I only rarely if ever have the necessary kit or space for those kinds of games. However, One Hour Wargames scenarios often approximate a historical situation (beyond the ones that inspired their creation), and those take up very little space and are forces I can muster.

So, taking my interest in the Battle of Pozzuolo del Friuli (October 1917, part of what is commonly called 'Caporetto', and which features Lancieri), I applied the OHW approach. 

None of this has been play tested yet and I probably won't until I get home. 

Rules will be some version of my modified One Hour Wargames Machine Age rules (here and here and here).

The Map:

Click to enlarge

The result is a sparse looking map admittedly - just like those in OHW. 

In this case, the land around Pozzuolo del Friuli is pretty flat and is mostly farmland, at least in modern photos. Scattered trees won't look out of place (but provide no cover bonus), but there are no forests or woods playing role in the battle according to my one and only source (see link below). 

Situation:

Battle of Pozzuolo - Wikipedia

Army Sizes:

Austria-Hungary 60th Infantry Division:  8 units

• Two Heavy Infantry
• Four Infantry
• Two Assault Infantry

Options: 

• May swap up to one Assault Infantry for Forward Observation Officer
• May swap up to two Assault Infantry for Infantry
• May swap up to two Heavy Infantry for infantry

Italian Force: 6 Units

• One Heavy Infantry of the Bergamo Brigade
• One Infantry of the Bergamo Brigade
• Four Lancieri of the Lancieri di Novara Regiment

Options

• May swap up to one Lancieri for one Infantry
• May swap up to one Heavy infantry for one Infantry

In the historical event, the Austro-Hungarians had a division vs an under-strength infantry battalion and an under-strength cavalry regiment. To reflect this, rather than doing a 6 vs 4 game which Neil Thomas does, I went with 8 vs 6. I get to use more of my toys this way.

A variant to consider is to allow eliminated Austro-Hungarian stands to enter via the road north of the village on subsequent turns to better reflect their numerical superiority.

While I came up with representative forces, I thought it might be fun to have some "legal" tradeoffs, for replay value. Note, my tradeoffs are limited by my collection, not by anything remotely historically influenced. I left out arditi as a swap for the Italians, as they were not present, but I suppose if you want to go down the "what if?", why not?

One reason I wanted to formalize my scenario idea is to lend some direction to my figure painting queue - having a defined scenario I know I need to focus on making two more cavalry stands, so 4 more figures.

Deployment:

My layout is inspired by the Flank Attack (1) scenario but adjusted to reflect the historical situation. The deployment zones I've specified allow for some options while keeping the general idea intact.

1. The Austro-Hungarian 60th infantry division approaches Pozzuolo del Friuli from the Northern table edge.
2. The two Bergamo infantry units are deployed in the village of Pozzuolo del Friuli.
3. The Lancieri di Novara deploy to the east of the village.

The downside for the Austro-Hungarians is that they may not all make it onto the table on turn one, depending on base depth (which might be a thing that becomes official later, now that I think about it).

 

Game Length and Turn Order:

The game lasts 15 turns. Austria-Hungary goes first each turn.

Victory Conditions:

        Austria-Hungary:

• For minor victory, must occupy the village by the end of turn 15.
• For victory, must occupy the village by the end of turn 15, uncontested (no Italian unit within range to attack)
• For major victory, eliminate all Italian units and occupy the village before 15.

Italy:

• The Italians win a major victory if they still hold the village with at least one unit at the end of turn 15.

I decided to give the Austro-Hungarian force the opportunity to achieve varying levels of victory, while the Italians have only one objective - hold out until turn 15. It might more in keeping with the historical event to have to move units off the map for the Italians, but they are a delaying force, and I felt that it can be presumed that when a unit is removed, it reflects that in addition to wounds, men retreating due to failed morale.

Plus, with so few units, I really hate moving them off the table.

Once I get a chance to play this a few times, there will likely be some changes, but I figured I'd share what I have so far just in case it's of use to anyone else.