Folks, on Tuesday at my club, we played a low level skirmish using an adaptation of "Normandy Firefight". The location was in the area around Crossmaglen and Cullyhanna in South Armagh in the early to mid 1980s. A 4man British Army patrol were required to put in a hasty OP at a crossroads following intelligence that part of a PIRA ASU were going to visit an arms cache.
The Army patrol consisted of LCpl Rogers M16, Pvt Smith M16, Pvt Henderson M16 and Pvt Dunn LMG.
The PIRA ASU consisted of 3 males, Fergal Murphy, Francie Blair and Eamon Byrne.
We had 6 players so we controlled 1 character each with 1 player operating 2. I played as well as GMing and I gave the seperate forces seperate briefings.
The British were told that intelligence suggested part of a PIRA ASU would be visiting an arms cache in the vacinity of a crossroads, supplying the grid reference, and asked to observe and if the evidence was there, make arrests.
PIRA had a 3 man team tasked with attending the crossroads and recovering 2 rifles from an arms cache for a future job. The team would be attending the crossroads in a vehicle and proceed to the arms cache on foot.
Below are a couple of views of the crossroads set up on a 3'x3' board.
The Army set up with LCpl Rogers located in a hedgerow at the bottom right of the top photo, Pvt Smith was located in the field opposite, Pvt Henderson was in the same field next to the cut visible to the right of the sign in the top photo, and Pvt Dunn was prone with his LMG in the far field on the Dundalk road, bottom photo uppermost field. They waited.......
What I do with this system is role play it until the action starts and we go to the system which utilises 2 second turns.
The Army heard a car approaching which parked up at a small layby beside the crossroads. In the photo below you can see Pvt Smith observing a very suspicious Mk1 Escort!
Fergal, the leader was in the front passenger seat, Francie was driving and Eamon was in the rear. After a couple of minutes Francie and Eamon got out of the Escort and walked over to a treeline just across the crossroads (In the top picture top right of the board). The Army patrol saw no evidence of firearms and continued to observe. After 5-10 minutes Francie and Eamon returned to the car, they'd been unable to locate the cache. After a bollacking from Fergal the 3 of them reattended the site of the cache. Unfortunately due to line of sight issues the Army did not have eyes on them at this stage. Here's a shot of Fergal Francie and Eamon at the Cache site. You can see Pvt Henderson at the top of the photo, the cache was located at the foot of the tree on the left, out of his sight.
PIRA collected a couple of M1 carbines from the cache and made there way back towards the Escort. In the meantime LCpl Rogers had moved position and was prone behind the front nearside wheel!
LCpl Rogers initiated the action, he observed that Francie and Eamon appeared to be carrying rifles and immediately issued the challenge, "ARMY STOP!" This is the point we started using the system and action started.
PIRA bomburst, Fergal and Francie ran off into the hedgerow (top picture to the right of the roadsign), however Eamon sprinted towards the Escort reached it and shouted, "Who's that behind the car?"
Pvt Smith, concerned for the welfare of his NCO challenged Eamon, got no response and fired 2 rounds at him as he was by the car. Round number 1 missed and ricocheted under the car towards LCplt Rogers! The second shot hit Eamon in the left leg causing 20% damage. The errant round very luckily missed LCpl Rogers but pinned him! At this stage we had LCpl Rogers unhurt, but pinned behind the nearside of the vehicle and Eamon with a gunshot wound to the leg also pinned on the offside of the vehicle. You can see the close range action in the photo below!
What happened next is an example of good roleplaying by the guys concerned. Eamon passed his Pinned test, LCpl Rogers did not! Eamon managed to get into the escorts driving seat and switched the radio on full blast, "Bat out of Hell" reverberated across the scene!
As this was happening Fergal had ran back to the arms cache and Francie had got himself into the hedgerow behind the roadsign looking over the crossroads towards the Escort.
Here's a different view below
Francie and Fergal legging it after the challenge
The action was fairly furious now, Pvt Smith concerned at the escalating situation and wanting to detain Eamon, who had now started the Escort, dashed down the road keeping to the hedgerow to about opposite the car. At this point a single shot rang out!
Francie, hidden in the hedgerow behind the roadsign opened fire with his M1 hitting Pvt Smith in the chest who went down at the side of the road. As this was ongoing LCpl Rogers sorted himself out, passed his Pinned test got to the vehicle and popped 2 rounds into Eamon who slumped forward into his seat.
Fergal had made his way back onto the road and was walking towards the scene shouting he was a member of the press and unarmed! This situation was quickly dealt with by Pvt Henderson who, following Green Card procedure, challenged Fergal and ordered him to the ground which he did and was subsequently detained. this was covered by Pvt Dunn, who although not greatly involved in the action played an important role covering the scene with his LMG. There's a photo of his position below.
Francie after binning his M1 ran off board and was last seen heading for the Republic!
The QRF was called out and the scene secured.
The results
Pvt Smith was wounded in the chest but survived, Fergal Murphy was detained then arrested by the RUC for terrorist offences, last seen heading for Castlereagh and Special Branch interrogation, Eamon Byrne was shot dead at the scene, Francie Byrne escaped to the Republic.
This type of game requires the players to roleplay well which resulted in a great scenario!
Dougie
