What a surprise - a new project
31 August 2020
Over the last year I have written several battle rules and have been waiting for the moment when we can announce the publication of the rules on our website for purchase by any interested wargamers.
In the meantime, I have become very interested in WW2 platoon level Infantry battles. You know the ones that are between men and not materials - the boots on the ground type of battles after the armour has gone or before its even arrived to support them.
This means I wanted to look at the poor bloody infantry as it slogs it way over, through and around the terrain. So, I turned to the Building Rules for Gaming Battles guidelines, just to see if I could use them to give me the flavour of infantry fighting in WW2. This has led me to research and start building “Fire and Move - Infantry”.
As usual I started at the base scale with one figure one man and then sorted out the troops. My Baccus6mm order went in for the British and German infantry and at the last ordering window I added an American Company to my list. They took a little while to come, however come they did and I could begin to base my British Infantry Company based on the Order Of Battle (OOB) below that will eventually be in the rulebook.
I will also get some German and American Platoons done in that order next.
A British Infantry Company
This British Company OOB is about as close as I could get to a standard infantry company derived from various sources, this includes tactical, local and in battle variations of the OOB’s over time.
I decided that 30mm x 30mm basing would give me a flexible basing system, as this allows me to reflect the different platoon, sections, groups, squads, gruppen and whatever naming convention is possible across different countries within the standard company.
I have worked on the following countries so far - the British, German, American, Japanese, Belgian and French Companies. I will no doubt do some more as time and rules move forward through the design stages. Then hopefully, if I can, I will include a little section on how to create your own companies for areas I have not covered.
Maybe the Italians, Norwegians and Swedish for those who want to fight "what if" battles . . .
Moving forward I did a sample of bases to try out and see if my platoon bases would work, here are my basic test bases.
From left to right as you look at them:
The first two bases are the Platoon HQ
- Base one is the Leader & Rifle Group
- Base two is 2 inch Mortar Group
The next two bases are the 1st Section
- Base one is the Rifle Group
- Base two is Gun Group
- Base three is the Scouts (only used when they are sent ahead for scouting)
I thought these worked well and gave me some leeway in basing the figures. I now moved on to seeing if the whole company would work as well.
My standard British Company is set up like this
- 1 Company HQ (9 men)
- 3 Platoon HQ’s
- 3 Leader Groups (12 men)
- 3 2 inch Mortar Groups (9)
- 9 Rifle Sections
- 9 Rifle Groups (54 men)
- 9 Gun Groups (36 Men)
- 9 Scout Markers (18 figures)
Based Assets
- 1 3inch Section
- 1 MMG Section
- 1 Engineer Section
And this is what the British Company looks like when it’s all based and ready for painting.
