Battles at Naco

[martin goddard]

Federals defending. 600 men.
Rebels (Constitutionalists) attacking. 3200 men.
April  1913

Fighting lasted several days. On and off.  Naco was fought over for a year.

Federals dug in with MGs and artillery. Average/poor quality troops.
Rebels attacking, tried several times to use an exploding train/car to get things going. Failed on three occasions and thus the signal for attack never took place.
Attacks went in as fragments.
Some units refused to attack or got lost  on night manoeuvre.
Most of the attacks failed through incompetence of men, officers and plan(s) of attack.
 
As Naco is up against the US border (i e touching). The rebels had some collusion with the US authorities.  This included sneaking through US territory in order to launch a flank attack on the federals up against the border.

e.g of incompetence.  Rebels flashed the US three times (3 flashes)  US returned the 3 flashes. Thus the Federals  knew the attack was to take place at 3AM.

e.g. Both sides used Yaqui Indians.  The federal ones changed sides. The rebel ones snook up really well but got counter attacked and slaughtered by the federals.

e.g A federal counter attack was led by an overweight officer. When wounded, his men tried to carry him back, several dying in the process as he was too heavy to carry easily.

Despite having a 5 to 1 advantage the rebels only won when eventually the federals abandoned Naco when they ran out of ammo.


martin

[Leslie BT]

Interesting to see how you will get this battle reflected in the rules.

[martin goddard]

I think  a huge dose of chaos Les.

martin

[Colonel Kilgore]

Bigger handfuls of dice?

[Smoking gun]

Bigger handfuls of dice?

That makes the results more predictable, less chaotic.

Best wishes,
Martin Buck

[Antioch (Bob)]

Maybe rolling for ammo, after you commit yourself...?  Ouch😀

Bob

[martin goddard]

I think the idea is that with more D6 you are more likely to knock figures over and thus add random casualties?  Mathematically brilliant.


martin

[Andoreth]

Most of these can be dealt with in the build up to the game.

i) the rebel player puts one unit into a flanking box, when it wants to move the player rolls; 1-3 unit appears, 4-6 unit gets lost (obviouslly it could be more sophisticated that this). Linking it to the next point you could allow the Federtal troops an intelligence roll to allow them to position troops to meet the threat.

ii) in the build up federals could pay for intelligence, if they succeed then they know the time of attack and all troops are ready, if they fail then their units activate on a reducing scale (turn 1 activate on a 6, turn 2 activate on 6,5,4 etc.

iii) all Indians roll for allegiance at the start of the game, on a roll of 1 they switch sides and are run by the opposing player, most of the time I think that they might immediately desert but it could be worse. Whether they are easily driven back or not depends on what troop type you want to call them.

iv) the Federal side are probably better off without him,



 

[Mike6t3]

e.g A federal counter attack was led by an overweight officer. When wounded, his men tried to carry him back, several dying in the process as he was too heavy to carry easily.

Maybe a movement penalty or extra casualties if forced to retreat due to having an overweight officer 😂

Mike

[Smoking gun]

For firing, number of bases firing from AK47 Reloaded would work well simulating  motivation and ammo supply.

I like Andy's (Andoreth) suggestions.

Best wishes,
Martin Buck