A few hints on devising a new scenario

Rob Gibson

It is in all our natures to want to go a little further - what
boardgamer has not surveyed his latest acquisition only to mutter
"they've left out the Battle of......”?The military historians among us
might seek to replay a battle outside the popular periods e.g.
Fehrbellin, 1675, between the Swedes and the emerging Prussians.
Whatever your reason, careful consideration of a number of important
points should ensure success.

Choose Your Battle 

This is where you need to do a fair amount of research. You will need to
know at least:

(a) the strength and composition of each force involved.
(b) the terrain fought over. 
(c) the objectives, both tactical and strategic. 

To find these things, a good precise account is needed of the battle
with clear maps of the battle area. This may be difficult to obtain
especially for modern battles, where Orders of Battle (OB's) tend to be
vague and the maps show only the general area without reference to
terrain (try regimental histories here). Read up the "Sources" or
"Bibliography" sections of the books you can find on your subject and
get your local library to track them down for you - if they haven't
already got them in stock. More than one source always helps -
especially in the Napoleonic period, estimates of unit strength vary
from account to account (some will justify their figures, which can help
in choosing).

It would serve no purpose to list suitable books here - some periods are
outside my ken and it would be daft to recommend anything for them. Use
the appropriate simulation as a guide, find out how the units are
constituted and then determine what data you need to match them.

Example: You are constructing a "Musket and Pike” scenario. You will
need to know the military value of your pikemen and musketeers in order
to compose your armies and the quantity of each. Thus untrained levies
would rate as "Militia Pikemen" or "Militia Musketeers", trained
infantry would rate as "Professional" and Elite units e.g. Newcastle's
Whitecoats would rate "Elite" status (note that there are no Elite
Musketeers reflecting the infancy of this weapon as a decider of
battles). Examine your forces regiment by regiment to decide their
appropriate category - most accounts reveal in some detail the gathering
of the armies and their constituents.

Naval scenarios are at once more difficult and easier to stage. Open-sea
battles are fairly simple in that you require no terrain data: you do
need to know relative positions and speed however and this may be more
difficult. Most modern accounts give positions of the ships at given
times and the narrative usually outlines the state of the ships at
various times throughout the battle, including speed and damage state.
The difficulty usually occurs either when speed and relative position
are missing, or in the ships themselves, which may not directly compare
with the counters available e.g. British or German vessels in a
'CA'-based scenario.

Example: In a recent extra scenario (based on 'CA') depicting the Battle
of the River Plate, the writer found himself with the following
problem(s):

HMS Exeter--no available counter 
HMS Ajax--only one CL-6 counter
HMNZS Achilles--only one CL-6 counter 
KMS Graf Spee--no available counter 

Although the ultimate solution was four new counters, a comparison had
to be made with 'CA' parameters to determine what was needed. HMS Exeter
had 6 x 8" main armament but was otherwise similar to HMAS Canberra
which had 8 x 3" main armament. Solution reduce attack factor by 25% to
9.

KMS Graf Spee is a bigger problem - no 'CA' counter covers a vessel with
11" guns and cruiser mobility. On reference to "Strategy and Tactics"
number 50, the article on Dreadnought contains data on the guns of the
German Battlecruisers "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" whose main armament
was identical in type to that of Graf Spee. A cornparison with either
the "King George V" or "Renown" class, both of which appear in the 'CA'
counters mix will give sufficient data to approximate an attack factor
for Graf Spee: Renown = 6 x 15" guns. Weight of explosive in shells -
875 kg. Scharnhorst/Gneisenau = 9 x 11" guns. Weight of explosive in
shells - 315 kg. The first factor, number of guns, can be dismissed -
Graf Spee had six 11" guns. The second factor, calibre of gun, affects
penetration of defensive armour i.e. the ability to obtain a hit (Graf
Spee:Renown = .73 to 1). The third factor is the weight of explosive
i.e. the ability to cause damage once penetration has been achieved
(Graf Spee : Renown = .36 to 1) .

Renown's attack factor is printed on the 'CA' counter: 22. After careful
balancing of the two significant factors, it was decided to give Graf
Spee an attack factor of 14 i.e. 63% of Renown's--which favours more the
ability to hit than to damage.

A later article in this series will examine the important factors in
bringing your chosen battle to the simulation stage.