FUBAR

 

FUBAR

The rules

The one page FUBAR rules by Craig Cartmell, and others, did I find on their website. In the 'Download section' there are a lot of different versions and supplements for these rules covering almost every era and Sci-Fi. I used the FUBAR Core Rules 4th Edition for this game

The scenario

I've placed this skirmish to the United Nations largest mission in both scale and operational scope during the Congo Crisis 1960-65, when UN troops 'peacekeeping' was more offensive 'peace enforcement' with force.

Situation:

This skirmish is finding place in fictional place of Lumbaya in the early January of 1963, when the UN during operation 'Grand Slam' are turning their attention to the remaining Katangese strongholds in Southern Katanga after after securing the Katangese capitol of Élisabethville.

Place:

Lumbaya is a very small village located 80km south west of Élisabethville, and are made into a stronghold by a small platoon of Katangese Gendarmes. The village is one of several strongholds in the area to trying to hold the UN off while trying to keep the self-proclaimed president Tshombe by power of the self-proclaimed Katanga state.

Forces:

• Katangese:
• 2 rifle-squads each of 10 soldiers, a LMG and and a bazooka/flame thrower. Each squad can operate as 2 fireteams independently. 
• 1 HMG-detachment of 3 soldiers
• 1 sniper
• HQ-section with platoon-leader and 2 medics
• After turn 12 if rules include vehicles or skilled troops: A QRF consisting of 1 truck with a HMG and a section of 10 'veterans' with a LMG and a bazooka arrives from the next village. Only if Lumbaya is still held by Katangese forces.
• I've made all the Katangese units 'seasoned' with 'veteran' leaders, except for the QRF which is all 'Elite'.
• Since all their rifles are semi automatic, I'll let them have 2 FP for distances under 12".
• UN:
• 1 Platoon of 3 rifle-squads each of 8 soldiers and a LMG. The squads can operate independently.
• 1 Light mortar-detachment of  2 soldiers and an observer
• 1 bazooka-detachment of 3 soldiers
• HQ-section with platoon-leader
• 1 Jeep with HMG and 2 soldiers. If rules do not include vehicles, the Jeep must stay stationary with the HMG at the deployment-area
• I've made all the UN-units 'seasoned' with a 'veteran' leaders.
• Since all their rifles are semi automatic, I'll let them have 2 FP for distances under 12".

Mission:

• Katangese: To hold the strongpoint of Lumbaya. Can request QRF-support as mentioned in the force-section from turn 12 if still holding whole or part of the strongpoint.
• UN: To take and hold the strongpoint of Lumbya, preferably within 12 turns, and take control on as many Katangese gendarms located there as possible.

AAR

Time:    2 hours and 50 minutes

Turns:   10

Result:  UN withdrawal

The UN forces got their heavy weapons in position to start supporting their attack on the Katangese stronghold in Lumbaya.

After a turn I let the support weapons get aiming-bonus as they all ready had fired at their targets and now knew the position and distance

The support fire let the rifle-sections get into position for their assault on the Katangese forces...

...but the UN mortar and HMG didn't make a breakthrough in the Katangese line of defense the UN rifle-sections could exploit. So all UN units were in position just waiting:

The breakthrough made by heavy weapons never came, so the UN rifle-sections made a go for it by trying to cover each other:

But the defending Katangese units was well prepared for the attack and well in cover. Since they didn't have to move they also got their +1 aiming bonus. This started to take a toll on the UN-forces and their advance came to a halt in the outskirts of the village.

The Katangese forces had good support in the rooftop HMG and sniper...

...so when the UN relocated their jeep to try to give the rifle-sections closer support and some forwarded cover, it was taken out immediately by the Katangese HMG:

The remaining UN rifle-sections tried a final push without the support of the jeep-mounted HMG and a mortar that just wasn't hitting it's targets:

Without propper support it did just not work for the remaining UN-troops. They had several casualties by now, and had to withdraw in turn 10 by the FUBAR rules and by reason:

A Bazooka-team gives their retreating comrades covering fire

Pros

• It's a very simple and easy game on only 1 page (!), yet it is complex enough to bring interests and challenge to the game. Being only 1 page reference checking is really fast.
• It's simple and can be played with easily available and cheap army men or toy soldiers from a lot of different periods and scales.
• It differs units between their quality and skills.
• I like the activation system that you are in the initiative as long as you are 'good enough' instead of the traditional "I go, you go".
• Giving aiming-bonus for units not moving.
• Rules for On Guard/Overwatch.
• Have own rules for covering several different periods and sci-fi-themes.

Cons

• No cover modifier can make a Unit’s expertise worse than 6+, meaning that a 'green' unit have the same 16,7% chance to take out an unit in heavy cover as an Elite unit. They would just probably miss or have even less chance to to so. On the other hand you're encouraged to ignore or modify rules that make no sense. And there are other FUBAR rules editions and updates that adresses this.
• Best played with own tokens that describes each units actions. At the time of writing these are not available at the FUBAR site, and I found mine at the FUBAR-page at Facebook called 'The Forge of War'.

FUBAR order-counters

These are not made by me, but again these counters are not as easy to find as the FUBAR rules online, so I share my find here:

FUBAR order-counters 4th edition

FUBAR order-counters 5th edition

Conclusion

This was a very easy, fun, narrative and playable game, and it kept the excitement until the very end. Looking up references in the rules was easy and quick. I actually thought that these rules was made for smaller scales in mind like 28mm or 20mm, but these actually worked just fine with my 54mm Army Men. 

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One Brain Cell Vietnam Rules

 

One Braincell Vietnam Rules

The rules

The One Brain Cell Vietnam Rules did I find as a wayback-archive on the Miniature Wargaming site. This is the link to it: One Brain Cell Vietnam Rules

The scenario

I've placed this skirmish to the United Nations largest mission in both scale and operational scope during the Congo Crisis 1960-65, when UN troops 'peacekeeping' was more offensive 'peace enforcement' with force.

Situation:

This skirmish is finding place in fictional place of Lumbaya in the early January of 1963, when the UN during operation 'Grand Slam' are turning their attention to the remaining Katangese strongholds in Southern Katanga after after securing the Katangese capitol of Élisabethville.

Place:

Lumbaya is a very small village located 80km south west of Élisabethville, and are made into a stronghold by a small platoon of Katangese Gendarmes. The village is one of several strongholds in the area to trying to hold the UN off while trying to keep the self-proclaimed president Tshombe by power of the self-proclaimed Katanga state.

Forces:

• Katangese:
• 2 rifle-squads each of 10 soldiers, a LMG and and a bazooka/flame thrower. Each squad can operate as 2 fireteams independently. 
• 1 HMG-detachment of 3 soldiers
• 1 sniper
• HQ-section with platoon-leader and 2 medics
• After turn 12: A QRF consisting of 1 truck with a HMG and a section of 10 'veterans' armed with assault rifles, a LMG and a bazooka arrives from the next village. Only if Lumbaya is still held by Katangese forces.
• UN:
• 1 Platoon of 3 rifle-squads each of 8 soldiers and a LMG. The squads can operate independently.
• 1 Light mortar-detachment of  2 soldiers and an observer
• 1 bazooka-detachment of 3 soldiers
• HQ-section with platoon-leader
• 1 Jeep with HMG and 2 soldiers.

• Katangese: To hold the strongpoint of Lumbaya. Can request QRF-support as mentioned in the force-section from turn 12 if still holding whole or part of the strongpoint.
• UN: To take and hold the strongpoint of Lumbya, preferably within 12 turns, and take control on as many Katangese gendarms located there as possible.

AAR

Time:     2 hours and 40 minutes

Turns:    12

Result:   UN withdrawal 

The game started well for the attacking UN-forces. Their mortar started to support the advancing squads...

...and got a direct hit...

...Securing the UN-advancement towards the village:

The mortar had limited fire-range, and wasn't able to follow up the advancement. But it was used for firing smoke-grenades to give the advancing squads cover behind smoke screens so they could advance to hard cover.

When approaching Lumbaya, the UN forces got in range of the Katangese weapons, resulting in loosing their supporting .50 cal. on the Jeep. The advancing squads was actually now without any effective supportive-fire.

That resulted in an effective Katangese halt to the UN advancement. This is how far the UN got before losing men. The UN-loss got higher for each turn and able men had to be used for medevac the disabeled ones.

So in turn 12 the UN-attack came to an definite halt in the outskirts of Lumbaya, as all in the infantry sections was either dead, disabeled, wounded, pinned or busy medevacing their fellow soldiers. There was no other way for the UN to retreat.

2 soldiers medevacing 2 fellow soldiers whom got disabeled during the attack

Pros

• It's simple and can be played with easily available and cheap army men or toy soldiers.
• Rules makes it harder for moving soldiers to shoot in the same turn or hit moving targets.
• Have rules for wounded and disabled soldiers, and disabeed needs medevac.
• Make it harder to take out a softskinn with light infantry weapons than previous rules.
• Have rules for smoke-screens giving cover.
• Morale rules.
• Rules includes different skill-levels in morale and hand-to-hand combat.

Cons

• As given by it's name, these rules are for the Vietnam war. Despite that, I think that these rules can be useful and playable for other scenarios from WWII and onwards.
• Have no rules for pistols, sniper rifles or flamethrowers.
• No "Overwatch-option" letting stationary troops to fire back or stop advancements.
• Short weapon-ranges. 
• This game has many rules to cover effects on fire; pinned, wounded and disabled and many different effects for morale. This goes for each individual soldier in a squad, resulting in some squads might "go in all different directions" after been under fire.

Conclusion

I thought actually that this game was made for 54mm soldiers, but I find the weapon-ranges so limiting that I guess it will be better for smaller scales. Perhaps 28mm or 1:72 scale would be better? When your squads comes under fire there will be a lot of reference-checking to sort out all your individual soldiers effect on the firing or the morale outcome. I don't recommend to have too many squads on the table when the shooting starts. Being so detailed in every aspect of individual soldiers, it's strange that weapons like pistols, sniper-rifles or flamethrowers are not included in the rules.

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