Jasenovac - August 1991

In an effort to find a set of rules suitable for Yugoslavia, myself and Mark tried Force on Force out at the club last Thursday.  Now I've several games of these lined up for the next week or two, so for now I'll be focusing solely on the game and the scenario rather than a review of the rules.

Part of the reason for this is simple, the rules are rather complex in execution and I don't think either of us really understood them at the start of the game.  This naturally improved as we went along, but I wouldn't pretend after my first game that I'm in any way an expert on them yet.

As to the game I set up a very simple scenario with small forces, firstly there were the Serbians with elements of both regular and militia forces:

Their mission was to burn out as many of the buildings in the village of Jasenovac as possible.  To defend against them, the Croatian regular army fielded the following:

It was their intention to protect the village, but also to try and capture enemy equipment which could be of value.

The village itself was a small and well dispersed one with significant woodlands to it's rear, and I playing the Croats deployed behind the crossroads, hoping to produce deadly crossfire rather than trying to stop the Serbs at the very edge of the village.

The Serbs would enter from the right in the shot above.  Their initial forces advanced onto the field near the green house and were out of sight to us, but a militia team on the Serbian right were exposed to fire from Croats and soon found themselves pinned.

The same fate befell another militia gang on the main road.  This began a long exchange of fire between the Croatian anti tank team in the white chalet and several Serbian units, including regulars advancing with covering fire from the M60p APC.

But at this stage the Croat crossfire was to prove highly effective, and the men in the Chalet proved extremely fortunate not to become casualties during a failed assault by the Serbians; which tried simply to run in through the front door, to no success.

The Croat M18 risked coming out of cover at this stage and put the Serbian APC to flame; but by this stage the militia had managed to set fire to two of the Croatian buildings.

The Serbs despite their losses were feeling bold now and their anti tank fire forced the M18 to pull back, despite never really endangering it.  Meanwhile the Serbian regulars were able to push in to the centre of the village.  The Croat regulars had to counter by throwing their own reserve in to the street fighting.  But the badly bloodied Serbs were able at the end of the game to put a third building to the torch.

In terms of mission points the game was  a very close run thing, ending up 16-14 to the Serbs.  It was a useful learning experience, but I know we got a few things wrong, and there is much more practice needed.

Still at this stage it seems to have potential, though with some limits to be set on the weaponry and balance.  On the evening I commented that firpawer from man portable rockets was simply excessive; you can theoretically fire them several times in a turn, so a section of four or five men might effectively be carrying enough RPG or LAW rounds for 24 or more shots in an 8 turn game?  To many for me.

But that gripe (and the somewhat impenetrable structure of the rule) aside it was a good start; there are more games to follow however and I shall report in more depth wen ready to call a final judgement.