Operational CinC's

We need this many players!

Our last operational outing with the Arnhem scenario was a great game.  Every table had troops move across it and there was combat on 8 out of 10 of them.  Paratroops spearheaded an armoured thrust whilst a ragtag German force attempted to stem the onslaught with green volksgrenadiers reinforced by armoured units from a panzer division.  Once more, the operational format gave us a wide range of units, with plenty of manoeuvre, played to a conclusion in under 6 hours - great!

However, we are still missing a key component of the original operational concept - the CinC!  As we presently play it, the games remind me of football played by seven year olds - everyone running around chasing the ball in a big scrum until the ball is suddenly ejected into one sides net or the other.

Without a CinC we, naturally, tend to get absorbed in the action on the table in which we command troops and trust that this is where the game will be decided.  Reserves are committed to where-ever things seem desperate and air assets played reactively instead of to a plan.

We have played some games when we did have dedicated CinC's.  The 1941 Barbarossa game felt almost like a battle of wills between Ozzie and Frank (despite the fact that neither of them had played an operational game before), as well as a battle of wills with some subordinate commanders.

The main problem has been lack of players as ideally we need 3 players aside and an umpire; whilst I think our Arnhem game could have done with 4 players on each side!  And yet, I think this is also our default excuse - we see the benefit of the Thursday night pre-operational planning conference but we are too easy going for anyone to step up and want to take charge.  It may also be that we don't want to miss out on the fun of actually fighting on the tables and that stepping back and taking responsibility for implementing Thursday's plan is a thankless task - if you win everyone slaps themselves on the back on a group plan well played, if you lose the CinC is a ready made scapegoat!

I know I may be overplaying the stresses but it is easier to play a game with everyone mucking in at the tactical level - but it's those seven year olds again!  So, what I am thinking of is creating some Thursday night scenarios where we fight over one table but in which we experiment with the benefits of one player on each side taking on the role of off table CinC and taking charge of reserve commitments, air assets, artillery and orders.

Hopefully, we will discover the benefits of a dedicated CinC, understand that the CinC is not the boss but one of the team with a more specific role and find a new facet of operational gaming that we may all want to have a crack at - or do those seven year olds look like they're having fun?