Since last we left our intrepid hero... After my last post about what I would do for a National Guard list using Battlefront's new Red Dawn book for their tabletop wargame, World War III, Team Yankee (or TY for the rest of this article), I have been busy finishing my own build of the NG list, I have gotten my copy of the book and Unit cards, and I have made some revelations along the way. Hence why I'm wasting even more electrons blathering on about this when no one but me really cares in the first place. I never claimed to be anything but stubborn.
One of the biggest things that really got me in the way that Battlefront (or BF for short) dismissively didn't provide any NG list for Red Dawn, besides just letting you have anything you wanted from the American book, including Marines, was that they could have given a pared down list that more reflected the older technology found in the NG forces. And yes, it is very much a thing, I can't begin to tell you how much old, worn out and out of date the equipment I used in my time in the NG. Now, that is not 100% true for all NG units everywhere, but let's think about the situation surrounding the TY timeline and Red Dawn book - World War 3 has been kicked off by the Soviets invading Eastern Europe in 1985. NATO is trying to stop them, and America has begun shipping over all of their Active Duty and Reserve Army and Air Force units (that aren't being held up in other countries like South Korea and Japan) to the point they're also calling in favors from the National Guard to get more troops and equipment to mainland Europe to stop the Red Wave. So when the Soviet VDV and Cubans invade the continental United States, what do you think is left? That's right, not only National Guard troops, but the ones with the oldest, jankiest equipment to be had.
Oh, and Canadians, they'll also be facing Canadians. The map shows the VDV hitting a little bit of Alaska, riding through a large chunk of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan territories before sliding into Montana, I'm sure the Canadians are not letting that one go down without a fight, and neither are the Soviets not getting a little of their own back for Canada's support of NATO in the European theater. However, I am not as familiar with Canada's armed forces, and we haven't gotten much beyond the old Free Nations supplement (which the update to that book was announced to be released in later 2023, September or so, in the Battlefront holiday video) so I'm not willing to take a crack at that list beyond pointing folks towards Free Nations and saying "have at it".
For me, you can choose to go one of three ways with your National Guard choices - numero uno is what BF put in Red Dawn, everything in the American book goes, have fun; numero dos is really what I kind of expected BF to do in Red Dawn, and that is use the US Army lists from the American book, but restrict it to a few units (I'll provide that here momentarily); and lo ultimo is what the rest of this article, the thousands of words you see below, is about, rewriting the US Army lists, adding in old vehicles that were still in NG usage, and adjusting stats of units. The first option is easy, if you have the American and Red Dawn books you're good to go, have fun with your friends. The second option is pretty easy, basically a few restrictions on allowable equipment and Formations you can choose from. This is all optional, do what you want, but if you want a little more realism, a little more difficulty facing down the Soviets and Cubans, here is what I recommend. First, no TOW-2s, only the original TOW missiles. Formations - I suggest skipping the M1 Abrams Armored Combat Team entirely, but if you do pick it, stick with the M113 Scout Sections and M113 Mech Platoon (Bradleys are way too new); M60 Patton Armored Combat Team is good to go; M113 Mech Combat Team is good, but skip the Abrams and Bradley options; UH-1 Huey Infantry Combat Team is good to go; I don't like letting the NG have the RDF/LT (they never existed in real life) but this is your game, so I'm not totally heartbroken saying if you want to do the Heavy Combined Arms Company, go for it; on the other hand, I see no issues in anyone using the Light Combined Arms Company or the Light Attack Company (or multiple ones, these are cheap Formations); the M113 Armored Cavalry Troop also good to go, but again, encouraging you to skip the Abrams and the Apaches; HMMWV Cavalry Troop no changes; and from Divisional Support I'd say skip the MLRS, the SGT York, and the Apaches. If you also wanted to do a Marine force, those poor bastards get hand me downs in their front line units (because they belong to the Navy and the Army outnumbers them by such a large margin) that you can go crazy there, the Marines do have Reserve units scattered across the United States, not just near the coasts were their bases are at.
The third and final option, at least that you'll get from me and the point of all this rambling and throwing words about, is the last gasp of the US Army National Guard, the absolute bottom of the barrel responding to the invasion of CONUS (Continental United States), something that has rarely happened and not since the turn of the 20th Century. All the front-line National Guard troops and equipment are on their way to Europe to fight against the Soviets, the Middle East to help the Israelis and Iraqis, and to Korea to help the South throw the North back across the DMZ (yes, I think either Battlefront will make a Korean book specifically for TY, or they'll hire it out to Osprey like they did for Fate of a Nation, or I'll finish this project and start writing it up myself), so when the Soviet air assault VDV and the Cubans invade, all that is left is the dribs and drabs. The various National Guard Adjutant Generals panic called all of their command structures and threw everything they had left on the roads to head north or south, east or west, whichever direction they needed to get into the fight and throw back the invaders. As such, in addition to digging up some old equipment, I've downgraded almost all abilities, which does make everything cheaper. Unfortunately, I'm restricting myself (you can do what you want, but I'm going this route) to just one each of the different Units - none of this four Formations of M60 Patton Armored Combat Teams, no no no, just one. Just one M113 Mech Infantry Combat Team. And so on, so the individual Formations are cheaper, but you're (okay, I'm) going to have to use multiple Formations to meet whatever points total you and your opponent have agreed on. This restriction is to represent the hodge podge nature of this force the NG has scraped from the bottom of the barrel to throw at the bad guys invading America.
I have had numerous revelations while I have been creating my NG list. Many of the decisions I made in my previous post, after either looking deeper into the official lists, comparing hard numbers while translating statistics and points from other books, hearing other players opinions and real world experiences, and even trying to find appropriate miniatures for these changes (okay, I confess, I only looked for 6mm scale miniatures, so while I can't guarantee that you can play my NG list in 15mm scale, generally there are more options in 15mm, so you should be fine), got changed, dropped, or shifted slightly. I think my biggest mistake was trying to take the M40 106mm recoilless rifle as a man-portable crew served weapon. Yes, they were generally set on their own special tripod and meant to be dragged away from their current firing point by hand, but they got to that firing point towed by at least a M151 Mutt. I could have probably rejiggered the M113 Mech Infantry to have Mutts in them for towing, but it would have never fit in with the Huey air assault infantry. Plus, couldn't find a good mini - yes, I'd said previously that GHQ had a recoilless rifle in their Soviet infantry pack, but it's way too small to represent the M40, which is a sizeable piece of hardware - and while I do have Jeep-mounted options that will work, again, could not fit those into the Huey troops. Still, I wanted to show how low on available first rate technology the NG is in the Red Dawn scenario, and while I still allowed the various infantry elements to add one M47 Dargon missile team for an extra point, and replaced a transport M113 with a M40-equipped M113 (they still have plenty of Passenger spaces in the remaining M113s), I replaced all the other Dragon teams with M67 90mm recoilless rifle teams, the stats of which I got from the 'Nam force builder. Plus, since the M67 is basically a slightly larger Bazooka, I am going to use that Soviet recoilless rifle-toting infantry mini after all.
I still think that if there are any M60A3 Pattons in the front lines in Europe, that is because the US Army doesn't have a single M1 Abrams left in the United States. However, if you wanted to allow the M1 Abrams (not the M1A1, I still think that one should be off limits for the Red Dawn scenarios, but again, this is just my opinion, you play your game how you want) where it is an option next to the M60 Patton, then you're probably not straying too far away from reality. Okay, "reality", as this is a game about an alternate history that never happened for us, being represented as a game that has to be fair and balanced for both sides. News flash - militaries aren't interested in "fair fights", those are for suckers.
I know why they don't do it, but I do wish BF would have built the game around off-board artillery. Yes, it's because they wouldn't sell as many minis (understandable, they have to make money, after all), and some dice rolling on the side to determine the facts of an artillery counter-battery duel would not be as exciting as seeing it play out on table, still I wish they had gone that way so I could expand the NG arty options to towed pieces. And yes, there are stats for towed pieces I could steal from 'Nam and Fate of a Nation (FoaN), but no towing vehicles or movement rules in the current TY/v4 ruleset. Why would anyone want to move 155mm towed artillery pieces mid-battle? I've worked with artillery troops before, and let me tell you, those knuckle-dragging, tube-licking, gun bunnies wouldn't pause before pushing their cannons onto line to commence pouring some direct fire at incoming armor or infantry. Well, while I could use my stats I generated for the M35A2s, I don't feel like digging out my v3 books and trying to translate all the hitching up and moving rules. Besides, instead of the West German M109G stats, I found the Canadians in Free Nations already using the original M126 bearing M109, so I just stole that whole cloth and made it the only option (besides the M106, which I never considered changing, they were fine as is). The other artillery wish I have for my NG list is that somewhere in an official BF product they had used the American M110A2 203mm self-propelled artillery piece. Not only is it screamingly old school and GHQ has an excellent 6mm mini of them, but they were in use by the NG up until the mid-1990s.
The other big lesson I'm starting to realize as I type this and read more in Red Dawn is that I am right in restricting the technology and even bringing in some older equipment, but I was not right in insisting on keeping the same abilities (Courage, Morale, etc) as before. Yes the majority of NG troops, both combat and support, are just as good as our Active Duty brethren (though they'll deny, deny, deny) as much of the NG are made up of former Active servicemembers who are constantly passing on their knowledge and experiences to the rest of the force. Plus, all NG have to meet the same standards as the Active Duty folks, and maintaining those same skills and level of performance while managing a civilian career and family on top of it. Being NG is harder than you think, trust me, why I always point young folks interested in joining the Army fresh out of high school to go Active Duty first and come to the NG after they've had some NCOs babysit them for at least one enlisted contract (usually 4 years). But wait, earlier you said you were wrong, what's up with the conflict between the "I'm wrong" statement and "the NG are Gods Among Humanity"? So, yes, your average NG troops are just as good as your average Active Duty line troops... but those are the ones that have been sent to or preparing to jump off to Europe to join in the fun, not the troops left behind who now have to deal with the VDV and the Cubans. While I've been getting to the end of creating my NG list (I'm to Divisional Support right now) I realized the above, and am also cross checking ability scores and points between East German and Czech forces from the recent Warsaw Pact release. I don't remember if I touched on this in a previous BatRep (and am too lazy busy to go back and find it if I did), but the WarPact supporting countries - Poland, East German, Czechoslovakia - run, in that order, from most expensive to least expensive points-wise, and the only real differences they have, besides some equipment uniqueness, is ability scores. So comparing apples to apples, your standard T-72M tank company, in both the East German and Czech lists, have the exact same stats, but the Czech ability scores are all one worse than the East German scores (except Assault, exactly the same) and cost one point less at three tanks, two points less at four, and three at five. The M60 Pattons have similar stats to the T72Ms and the M48A5s have similar stats to T62, and now with the new, lower abilities, I'm going as simple as possible - 3 points per M60, 2 points per M48A5. And to make sure I'm not being too overpowered, in addition to lowering every ability (except Assault) by one, I'm also lowering the Hit On from 4+ to 3+ (again, 2nd line and older troops that were left behind while the 1st line folks are at the Ports of Embarkation getting ready to deploy to the European theater and Korean peninsula... sorry my brain is all over the place, I've long thought that BF could release a Korean book that, much like Oil Wars, covers the North and South Korean forces during the TY timeline, because you know if the Soviets come through the Fulda Gap, the North Koreans are going to decide the Americans are distracted enough to cross the DMZ.. and BF can also do a Korean war section, and if they ever do the promised Checkpoint Charlie book, they can set up the Korean forces for that portion of the timeline) to justify the drop in points.
Okay, that was a lot of words, I'm going to try and avoid being so wordy from here on out (HA!!). Have I mentioned that I also changed all of the Thermal Imaging to Infra-Red? Again, a downgrade to equipment to reflect the older gear the National Guard is using. In addition, I'm working up stats to include some old school equipment that isn't to be found anywhere else in TY, 'Nam or Fate of a Nation, like the aforementioned M110A2, and A7 Corsair II. I'm doing so many points adjustments and everything else, I might as well try my hand at creating some pieces I want to play with whole cloth, but honestly, I think those 2 are plenty and I am unable to find any other pieces that are just too cool not to include. Starting with the M110A2, I go first to the source of all recorded knowledge, Wikipedia. An interesting thing about this artillery piece is that it has 13 crew - 1 driver, 2 gunners, 2 loaders, and then 8 assistants that usually ride around in an M548, which is a little tracked cargo hauler that the M110A2 batteries used as ammo haulers. I think for self-defense purposes, I am going to include 2 stands of rifleman infantry and the M548 (with mounted M2 machinegun) with each M110A2. Another interesting fact is that, due to the large nature of the caliber of these guns, they are screamingly slow to fire, but due to the nature of how the Special Rules work in TY, I don't want to just use Slow Firing, which degrades the accuracy whenever the vehicle moves and fires, instead I need to paw through the books and see if I can find a special rule where these guns can only fire every other Turn. I also found the Army operator's manual, amazing what you can find on the internet, and wow, these were one of the artillery pieces the US Army was trying to fire nuclear weapons out of, so these had ranges in excess of 15 miles. No, I am not trying to stat up a nuclear round for this one, the standard HE rounds will be quite devastating enough, thank you very much. I am going to give the gun enough range, it doesn't matter how big of a table you're on, you can reach all the way across it. Speaking of, with the bursting radius of these 8-inch rounds being what they were, the temptation is to make the Artillery bombardment into a Salvo bombardment, but that isn't the way to go. Instead, make both the Artillery template bombardment and the direct fire Brutal, as well as another couple of Special Rules I'm making up based on other rules I've seen in TY and other BF products - because the shell is so much bigger than the 155mm in the M109, that the battery will ignore the "re-roll successful rolls To Hit if only firing with 1 or 2 weapons" and then, due to how long it takes to load and fire, if the battery moved or fired last round, it cannot fire this round. That last one I am serious about, the very best crews could only get about four rounds off a minute, and most crews were having a good day if they were averaging two to three rounds a minute, sustained. I'm still not 100% on what all the stats will be for these beasts (the rifleman teams? easy, take your standard team and remove the M72 LAW; and the M548 is an unarmored version of the M113 with an M2 .50cal, too easy), but I'm trying to balance reality with game mechanics and will try to figure points cost after I get the stats nailed down.
After much fiddling with stats and points, I think I am where I want to be, or at least a lot closer. I have gone back and, in addition to not including the Apache into my list, I added as an option a Huey Slick, the UH-1B/C attack variant with 7.62 mini guns and 2.75" rocket pods. I had remembered these had been used by the Army for many years (yes, Army, they have the helos, and the Air Force gets the fixed wing craft, with some small exceptions both ways) during and after Vietnam. I also settled on just two planes for the attack aircraft options, the A4 Skyhawk, since I had its stats from 'Nam, and the A7 Corsair II, whose stats I had to make up. Why not the A1 Skyraider as well? Been out of service too long, and really, two plane options is enough, didn't need old-older-oldest as options. After some discussions with folks in the various online forums, I pulled back the infantry teams for the M110A2s and also the "if you fired or moved last round you cannot fire this round" restriction, both were just too messy to deal with on the table. KISS - keep it simple, stupid. This is just a game, a gamification of what could have happened, and yes, very much a fun game, but it is just a game and not reality. I did up their Assault and Counterattack stats just a smidge to reflect having that many troops on hand, but other than that, the rest were too much. I did leave the M548 ammo haulers with the M110A2s because a) they are cool looking, b) would have been there, and c) gave me an excuse to keep at least one .50cal MG per arty track close by for either AA duty or to help shoot up an incoming Assault. I also doubled every Divisional Support option - instead of being able to bring just one FIST, now you can bring two, if you have the points for it, and so on - as I had lowered so many points across the whole list that it just made sense to offer more Units from Support if that is what you want.
There you have it, my stab at a Us Army and Air National Guard list to be used in Red Dawn type scenarios for Team Yankee. If you want to download the list itself and see the huge sprawling document, you can check it out here. No, i am not trying to give away something BF currently offers in their catalog, practically everything about this list has been changed from the original. If BF ever does release a US NG list that looks vaguely like mine, I will take this one down. We have become too litigious of a society, and I just don't care to be "the name" behind this list, I just want this list to exist out there so we can play it. Besides, I have done roughly zero playtesting on these points and stats, I could be close, I could be wildly high or low, or I could be perfect. I doubt I'm perfect, and while I hope I'm at least close, I know with a lot of trial and error I could get closer to perfection. Which means there is a lot of playtesting in my future, oh darn the luck! An excuse to play more games. Battlefront folks, if you find this and are intrigued, please drop me a line, I'll be glad to share everything I have with you, as I am greatly enjoying your game and just want to see more options and the hobby growing. As for the rest of you, please get out there and play more games, any games, with your friends and family.
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