Somewhere on the Southern Front 1918ish

I hope you will forgive the indulgence of posting a non-monthly update, but the other day, for a change of pace, I played the One Hour Wargames "Machine Age" rules pretty much as written and I wanted to get my thoughts down sooner than later. 

The only rules modification was to treat cavalry as OHW "Rifle & Sabre" cavalry (mounted w/lances, rather than dismounted with rifles).  

The scenario is one of my favorites, "#12 An Unfortunate Oversight". The playing area is roughly36" square (roughly because I can't cut fabric in a straight line).

The Italians took the role of the Blue Force with 4 infantry units, 1 heavy infantry unit, and 1 cavalry unit. The Red Force was played by the Austro-Hungarians, with 4 infantry units, 1 heavy infantry unit, and 1 unit of artillery.

At the start. Italians have found a ford to cross on their right and avoid the bridge. Both sides are intent on holding the hill.

  

The Austro-Hungarian force reaches the hill first. Italian infantry, supported by machine guns, attempt to open the crossing at the bridge, while the majority of the Italian force crosses at the ford.

The village is cleared momentarily for the Italian infantry on the right. But they are battered and Austrian reserves are poised to move into the village as well.

Meanwhile on the Italian right, attempts to dislodge the Austrians from the hill top begin.

 

Lancieri make a final valiant charge to drive off an enemy heavy infantry unit. It was both their greatest and last success of the day.

  

At battles end, a lone Austro-Hungarian unit surveys the bloody ground; an abandoned field gun battery stands guard over the dead.

I used individually mounted figures but that didn't really change anything other than the appearance - still, it had an appreciable impact on my enjoyment of the game by giving it something of an "old school" look (to my eyes, having never actually played when old school was not yet old school) that I enjoyed greatly.

If there's a practical benefit of single figures with rules that don't have casualty removal, it's that the figures stay on the table far longer.

In any case, I had fun and was swept up into the game. Which also accounts for the minimal picture taking, but I'd rather be caught up in the game than snapping pics.

As it had been awhile, I had forgotten that in the Machine Age rules, artillery is direct fire - albeit with a 48" range (I just assume an officer has binoculars or similar).  Unlike the mortar rules for WWII, which can hit anything any unit can see, regardless of intervening troops and terrain, WWI artillery, in these rules, are equivalent to 75mm field guns, and require you to keep your own troops out of the way of your gun, lest you hamstring them.

In this game, that led to a swath of table that the Austrians tried to keep clear. It also meant if the Italians could move enough, they'd force the gun to have to rotate (move) and thus not fire that turn. This game of of cat and mouse was, well, gamey, but also fun.

And unrelated to rules in any way, for reasons which are known only to the dice gods, the lancieri performed terribly.

Early on they had a perfect opportunity to deliver a flank attack to infantry that had yet to take high ground. Instead of the double-digit damage that I hoped, they rolled a 1- a whopping 2 points of damage. Alas, rolling a 1 was repeated under less favorable circumstances several more times.  

When they finally rolled a 5 (reduced to 3, for attacking uphill) the unit they destroyed already had 14 points of damage to it, delivered primarily by Italian infantry.

It was, by any account, not their best showing. Perhaps they were trying to tell me to finish painting up the officer already.  

I still find the lack of infantry close combat in the Machine Age rules mind-boggling. That said, as long as the scenario requires one or both sides to take an objective or to exit the table, movement and getting close, rather than a stagnant long distance fire fight is the rule.. When opposing units got close, I just treated it like shooting combat - such as when the Italians tried to take the village and the Austrians counter-attacked.

The difference really is only of being locked in combat or not and it worked fine in this case. 

If I'd had arditi or stormtroops on the table, I'd have used the standard OHW close combat rules and given the assault units +2 (I also have them take 1/2 damage when attacked due to their dispersed formations and increased individual initiative, relative to the regular infantry, even late war, at least in Italy).