PBI Campaign - Arnhem Day

On 17th September 1944 the first phase of Operation Market-Garden got under way. The key objective was to capture a bridge of the lower Rhine at a location few had heard of. Since then the name of Arnhem has become synonymous with ‘courage’, a tribute to the men of the First British Airborne Division who perished there. But their story is only part of the drama surrounding the ill-fated operation. The British XXX Corp was to push over the Rhine at Arnhem and head into the heart of Germany. Thus, thought Montgomery ending the war before Christmas. Men of the US and Polish Airborne were to capture and hold the series of bridges to make this possible. When he heard of the plan to reach Arnhem (which lay 65 miles behind enemy lines) in two days, Lt. General Frederick (Boy) Browning told Montgomery,
“But, sir I think we might be going a bridge too far.”
History shows he was right.

Ponders End War-games Club decided that he theme for our second national PBI Day would be Operation Market-Garden. The question was, would history repeat itself, or could the Allies effectively end the war? Martin (Peter Pig) and myself would be playing the British First Airborne, twelve other players would be taking the role of the German Forces and the other airborne troops. The day struck a chord that lay close to my heart. My Uncle was MIA at Arnhem and although reported as amongst the POW taken, never returned home. In some small and I admit, insignificant way, this was my chance to honour his memory.

Click here to view information on the scenarios.

The setup

PBI was an ideal choice as the rules for the day for various reasons:
* They are fast and we needed to get 4 games in, one for every day of the operation.
* They are easy to play with little leeway for argument – ideal for a hectic days gaming.
* We had a large amount of 15mm scenery.
* The Company based rules gave a feeling of ‘closeness’ for the tactics and action while enabling the games to have some real effect on the strategy.
* Each game, while being part of the overall action could be self-contained, thus allowing everyone to have enjoyable games no matter what.

If you are not familiar with how PBI2 works it may be wise to read the review of the rules in the October issue.

The actual format of the day was the brainchild of Shaun from PEWC with a lot of inspirational input (and phone calls) from Steve. The rest of the PBI regulars were guinea pigs for the play- testing nights. We actually had to revise our plans a number of times to give a balanced game. In the end we ran with regular PBI rules, but with no rolling for the optional national characteristics. This was because we concluded that both sides were unable to rely on the norm. It avoided things that in reality didn’t happen. In the initial play-testing the road tended to get mined a lot, Germans would be dug in, occupying bunkers in force, 30 miles behind the front line. The Allies on the other hand would be calling in artillery everywhere or XXX Corp would divert to ‘help’ out on the table it was passing through. How the Germans could hold up XXX Corp was another few nights testing. We hoped we had got it right, only the day would tell,

PBI is played on 4’square tables and we set them up around the room so that XXX Corp could flow from one table to another, ending up in Arnhem. 1st Para had to start on a table adjacent to the Arnhem table and fight their way through. XXX Corp would have to average more than a table a game. The column of tanks were to appear (squadron by squadron) on the road square of the first table edge as it made it to the deployment zone, like any reinforcement unit … in PBI reinforcements are diced for and moved up to a deployment zone, being placed on the board as the required number are deployed.

After the first squadron (of three M4 Shermans are on the board another may be diced for, and so on). XXX Corp had to use its movement allowance on advancing up the road, only being able to fire on the troops on the table if its progress has been halted. This would happen if the Germans occupied a road square, or either square adjacent (unless the allies held the road squares in question). So in a majority of games the allies had to clear the road and bridges and hold them open for the tanks to roll through.

Instead of the normal objective placements, both sides gained victory points by occupying the roads and bridges, and if XXX Corp were present on their table, for how many squadrons got through. For the 1st Airborne to advance from the drop zone table to Arnhem they had to fulfil two criteria:
* Win the game by victory points
* Get the Company Commander off the opposing table edge.

A pre-game recce segment was played as per the rules. This enabled either side to be the attacker or defender on their particular table, independent of what was going on elsewhere. This reflected either the allies initial seizure of the road or bridge, or one of the many small counter attacks that the Germans affected to block XXX Corp. By having XXX Corp spread out over a number of tables and the individual squadrons in the control of the allied player on that table meant that every one would be able to see the effect they were having. For instance, if the lead squadron was knocked out, the player on the table preceding it had to feed more tanks into the advance. If a German player managed to stall the advance on one table it would mean that XXX Corp would run out of steam as tanks got knocked out, if one squadron left the table with only two tanks it would have to wait for a third to ‘catch up’ before being able to advance. This in itself meant the allied player could not afford to use the tanks as an on table artillery source as they had to be kept moving.

Hoping that the play-testing would enable a close game the first battle kicked off with an encounter scenario – both sides starting off the board and arriving as per the reinforcement rules. Thus recreating the initial confusion and disorganization on both sides.

How the day panned out

Game/Day 1 – On the road to Arnhem
Playing the 1st Airborne, my objective was to get organized quickly and break through to enable access to the Arnhem table. The first table allied force needed to get XXX Corp rolling. The other allies representing the US 101s and 82nd Airborne needed to recreate the Band of Brothers episode and take and hold the bridges.

It quickly became apparent that my hopes of getting my Commander on quickly and making a brave dash down the road were somewhat optimistic. PBI has a 21 point end of game countdown, At the end of each turn you roll a D6 and this accumulates until the magic 21 is attained signifying game over. Not for the last time during the day, my 15mm troops did a fantastic impression of the troops we were hoping to emulate. In reality 1st Airborne hit three immediate snags, they were 8 miles from Arnhem with little transport or support weapons (the gliders and planes with them in suffered from being delayed by bad weather and others being hit by flak), their radios all failed to work (no one informing them that the Dutch resistance had excellent hidden telephone wires set up), and the ‘pots and pans’ auxiliary troops they were supposed to meet turned out to be crack troops who were on R&R from the Russian Front. A double whammy really as these troops would be peeved at having their rest disturbed but probably relishing being able to get their panzers and panzergrenadiers into action against troops not equipped to deal with them. My 15mm versions saw the game end accumulation reach 15 before getting anything on the table, the only sixes I was rolling being for the game end roll – this unfortunately recreated the problems they must have had sans radios of getting formed up. My Commander who was to make a dash apparently was still somewhere over the channel as he didn’t appear until the last turn of the game. My soft opponents turned out to be Panzer Grenadiers equipped with PAK 40s and heavy weapon support who were basically all on the table before my first troops got to the off table deployment zone. Needless to say the day was not going well.

Mr Peter Pig himself was not faring any better on the other Arnhem adjacent table, Martin got on the board fairly quick but was well bottled up by the stiff German resistance. One saving grace of course would be XXX Corp tearing up the highway, the picture below basically says it all. German tank hunters obviously thinking it was open season.

Back to my table where, with the game end points now at 18, I had to bring on two half platoons and hope for the best. Well if the best was - failing to be able to nominate an arrival square (on a 3 or 4 on a D6 they arrive as you wish), having them all forced together, being hit by long range shots from the Pak 40’s and HMGs and then throwing five ones as saving throws - I would have been happy - the saving grace was at least my CO showed up with at least a turn to go, My luck appeared to be changing as my paras pulled themselves together and not taking any more casualties started to fight back, clearing a path for the CO in jeep to pass through. Probably wouldn’t save the game but if he made it and I occupied the road squares maybe I could scrape a dodgy victory and get onto the Arnhem table. Throwing, what by this time appeared to be the norm for my dice – a one – was fortunate this once, as we were ensured one more turn.

Never say die was quickly becoming my motto as the Germans failed to do anything of significance, mainly due to the ability of medium mortars in PBI being damn effective at suppressing troops (pinning the entire square on any roll of a six on 4D6).

Only one German stand of average infantry moving in the open stood in the way of an easy passage off the table my the CO, while my other troops could gallantly flood the road, thus getting victory points. All in all I had 12 D6 to get sixes, each forcing a saving throw of 5+ to be made. By now I imagine you can predict the result – the German stand would have in reality probably not even realised anyone was firing in his direction. My last chance was to get six points of action points for my CO – enabling him to deftly manouver through terrain, thus avoiding the German. I rolled a five, leaving him short.

So game one had ended, the US paratroops had taken their objectives. However John on table one had only just got a squad of XXX Corp on, and these had been destroyed. Both Brit Paratroops had been well and truly held up. All in all the German players were looking pretty smug and history appeared to be repeating itself as if it was following a script.

Game/Day 2 – XXX Corp do a snail impression, 1st Airborne appear to pull the ‘return to start’ card.

This game had to see XXX Corp moving at least two tables. 1st Airborne needed to move onto the Arnhem table, which meant that my infamous die rolling needed to get into action. Meanwhile the US troops could start with a better chance of defending, which should make the journey for XXX Corp easier.

Now my mind was doing it’s Baldric (from Black Adder) trick , “I have a cunning plan my lord!”

The plan was to make sure I was defending, set up on the extreme defenders line, which is only two squares away from the edge of the board and run my CO and his jeeps off the board. A bit cheesey on the game plan I admit but :
* Things were very desperate.
* There was a historical precedence set by Urquhart when he made a recce into Arnhem. He got stranded for a while, but hey at the moment I’d settle for that.

Unfortunately for me, Steve a regular playing partner had decided the best way to stop me was to defend in force. Playing the recce game in PBI is great, you normally want to attack and both are trying to out recce the other. However with both of us reluctant to attack the recce game ended in another accidental collision game!

XXX Corp had made a good start with Andrew urging them on towards another bridge. Martin’s paras were doing ok, attacking in force. Maybe if I got my CO on quick (if he wasn’t too busy with tea and crumpets this game) I could get him off and then just hold the road.

All went well, he got on first move and Steve had nothing on the table. Second move I only needed to motivate (anything but a 1 on a D6 – and 2 two chances at that), then shake a 3 or more for action points. This was because I got a +1 for being a Commander and I only had to cover 8 squares at half AP per square. The Germans got some forces on – some quad AA guns and a few troop stands, but Steve failed a throw to put them where it would stop me. All was looking good, with the engine revving in my mind, the dice was cast for motivation – I passed – now one for APs. OK by now you’ve been reading the article long enough to know there was only one possible result. A ONE !

Looking across to the other tables it was obvious that:
* XXX Corp progress had lagged, it was being held up by a German counter attack that retook one of the bridges.
* The other Brit para attack had been repulsed.

Obviously getting that info reflected in a meeting with Dutch resistance members, who had been using the land line instead of ‘high tec’ radios. So I decided not to risk running the CO half way up the table on his lonesome. This was a good move as the German forces managed to flood onto the table next go. This would have resulted in a lot of unwanted attention for my CO.

So I waited for the rest of the force to arrive. Not a six in sight until it came to my end of game rolls (yet again) which saw a 6, 5, 6 and a 4. A four move game which saw me getting about one third of my forces on the table, and this was for the final turn! The other Allied forces had about as much luck. The US troops were still thinking it was a HBO miniseries – holding the bridges well. The English troops with XXX Corp had stalled, only getting half a squadron off the table. This would mean they would have to wait for more to feed up next game before being able to move onto the next table. They were still 4 tables away from Arnhem!

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