S&T 276 | Designer & Player Notes | SEP – OCT 2012 A1

Battle for Afghanistan, 2002Operation Anaconda, 2002

PLAYER NOTES

By Joseph Miranda

You’ve just got your boots on the ground in Afghanistan’s Shah-e-Khot Valley in March of 2002. Now what do you do? Anaconda: Battle in Afghanistan,appearing in S&T 276, gives you the opportunity to re-fight this battle which took place a decade ago—and in a country in which the war is still going on! How do you the player command Coalition or Al Qaeda forces in the chaotic conditions of modern warfare?

A quick review of the game: Anaconda integrates systems from the “Boots” series and Manila-Leningrad. The former has players randomly draw-

ing command chits from the proverbial large-mouth opaque container, with each chit generating an operations phase for one or more of the sub-com-mands controlled by a player. The latter system uses quasi-tactical combat reso-lution where units fire at range. Losses include the elimination and pinning of

targeted units, with a pin causing a unit to become temporarily combat infective.

Right away, the command system presents an – to use an ever popular term – asymmetrical situation. The Coalition has four different commands to start with: Task Forces (TF) Rakkasan, Dagger, 64 and 11. The Coalition can also bring in TF Commando as a reinforcement. Al Qaeda has three task forces: generically named “A”, “B” and “C”. All three Al Qaeda forces are organized in the same way, though variations for deployment will be in each scenario owing to the random-ized way in which they are set up.

Each of the Coalition forces is, in contrast, a unique organization. TF Rakkasan is built around a light infantry brigade (and that is quite literal as it has no artillery, unless you are using the optional rules); TF Dagger includes the friendly Afghan Military Forces (AMF) with some special operators; TF 64 has the special operations forces (SOF) contingents from the various Coalition powers; and TF 11 brings in high level US SOF from the SEALs and CIA, among other folks. This brings in some advantages and dilemmas.

For example, the AMF units of TF Dagger can potentially deploy some much needed rifle strength to the battle, but they may be affected by the Panic rule. TF 11, while having some elite units, is small and has weak air support. It’s easy, as was the case historically, for this task force to get into trouble. If you bring in TF Commando, you are getting another light infantry brigade, but again no artillery. Most of the firepower comes from air support which appears in conjunction with each of the Coalition task forces. TF 64 can bring in up to four airstrikes in an operations phase, the largest single contingent. This reflects its SOF calling in airpower, one of its TF 64’s primary missions.

Air support markers include various types of airstrikes, helicopters, UAVs (drones) and even satellite recon. TFs Rakkasan and Commando each can call in three of these markers, while Dagger and 11 only have one pick each. This means that while potentially there is a lot of firepower to be delivered by air, getting it concentrated at the right place and time can sometimes be difficult. TFs 64 and 11 may find themselves in trouble if they rely over much on air-

OPERATION ANACONDA, 2002 | Sherman Tank Analysis | Teutoburg Massacre, AD 9 | Cherokee Wars, 1654-1865

#276 SEP − OCT 2012

OPERATION ANACONDA:

AFGHANISTAN 2002

A2 S&T 276 | Designer & Player Notes | SEP – OCT 2012

Operation Anacondathe Coalition performs ISR (Intelligence, Reconnaissance, Surveillance). The face down units can be useful for setting up ambush situations.

The Coalition can perform ISR in several ways (rule 19.0). One is by recon, probing hexes adjacent to friendly units. SOF and snipers can also conduct special recon, revealing enemy units within range. This means placing your SOF in the right place can be critical for determining the nature of the enemy. Some air units (helicopters, UAV, satellites) can also perform ISR. You have to be able to manage all elements of the modern battlefield. There’s even an AC-130 special operations aviation aerial gunship, which can be used for either fire support or ISR.

One rule both players can take advantage of is Attacker Impetus (27.0). This allows units which have advanced after combat to make another close assault. If you pull this off correctly, you can use Attacker Impetus to roll up an enemy line. It also adds an element of uncertainty, since a defensive line can be turned into a vulnerable position.

Anaconda also looks at some of the non-material aspects of the battle. One is Jihad (rule 6.3). If the Jihad marker is picked from the Command pool, then the Al Qaeda player rolls against the number of his units which are in the deadpile. The more units in the deadpile, the better the chance of a Jihad being triggered, which causes two dice rolls worth of Al Qaeda reinforcements to come streaming into the Shah-e-Khot. This, needless to say, can be a real game changer. Another is Coalition Panic (rule 6.2). Similar to Jihad, if the Panic marker is picked, then a roll is made against the number of eliminated AMF units, and this can cause other AMF units still on the map to fall back on off-map bases, returning a random number of turns later, or to be eliminated outright.

The Jihad and Panic rules bring in more asymmetry. Al Qaeda has a better chance of getting a Jihad if its casualties are high, giving a reason to fight with suicidal abandon. But if AMF losses go too high, then a Panic is

power. The article in the accompanying magazine gives more details on the con-fused command control situation in the original battle, which I won’t repeat here. As with his historical counterpart, the Coalition player in Anaconda will have to come up with a plan to maximize

use of airpower while sorting through the chaos of the command situation.

On the other side of the valley, the Al Qaeda player has some potential advantages. One is that his units begin the game face down. They are not revealed until they engage in combat, or

S&T 276 | Designer & Player Notes | SEP – OCT 2012 A3

Battle for Afghanistan, 2002

more likely to occur, reflecting morale issues and making the Coalition player consider his casualty rate. The result is that each side’s forces have inherent differences which are not simply a mat-ter of combat factors. Actually, morale is not very often included in modern era wargames, though a common enough feature in gunpowder, medieval; and ancient situations. But it is real enough, as Anaconda demonstrated.

One other minor advantage that Al Qaeda gets is in the Friendly Fire markers. When picked, they give Al Qaeda a free shot at a hex of Coalition units. In the original battle, a friendly fire incident was one of the things which caused the AMF to panic (in game terms), so it’s in the game.

Both sides have same special units. Coalition leaders and Al Qaeda high value target (HVT) give various bonuses to combat and rally, so having them at the right place and right time is useful. Osama bin Laden can also make a guest appearance though his use in the game is very highly optional. PSYOP teams amplify the effects of eliminating enemy units via close assault. The idea is that the PSYOP-ers are recording victorious actions on video or other medium, then transmitting them via various networks (and also conveniently turning the cameras the other way when friendly forces are los-ing…). Since in a modern information warfare environment the perception of victory can be just as important as the reality, the rule is in there. And while on this topic, to clarify rule 25.3, if a Coalition PSYOP team is adjacent to Osama bin Laden if he is eliminated

via close assault, then the Coalition receives a mighty 100 victory points.

The optional Casualty rule (26.0) causes markers to be placed on the map when Coalition ground and helicopter units are eliminated, representing KIA and WIA. Recovery of wounded, dead and prisoners was a major factor in Coalition tactics. At one point in the actual battle, fighting centered on recovery of a SEAL operator who fell out of a helicopter. In the game Anaconda, the Coalition player gains victory points for medevac-ing casualties, while Al Qaeda gets points for controlling them at the end of the game. Casualty markers, therefore, become mini-objective markers, changing the nature of the map as the battle is fought. Again, this gets back to various morale and infowar factors adding an additional dimension to the action.

Now, let’s take a quick look at the Anaconda Combat Results Table. There are more pinned (P) results at the lower end, while eliminations (E) are at the higher end. This gives players a decision in allocating their firepower: do they want to make several low strength attacks, trying to pin down several units, or fewer high strength attacks, hoping for eliminations? The former can be useful if you are trying to insert units into a part of the map dominated by enemy forces—or extract them out of it. The latter is good for killing the enemy.

This brings us to the game victory conditions. Anaconda is won or lost on victory points (VP). As befitting the asymmetry of the situation, players get different amounts of VP for different things. The Coalition rakes in large

numbers of VP for killing Al Qaeda HVT, with the embellishments mentioned above for PSYOP. Al Qaeda gets relatively more VP for killing Coalition combat units than vice versa, modeling, again, the political situation in which casualties were a bigger issue for the American home front, as well as for America’s NATO and Afghan allies. It all comes down to both sides having to figure out their objectives and fighting for them—even if those objectives change in the middle of the fighting!

A4 S&T 276 | Designer & Player Notes | SEP – OCT 2012

Operation Anaconda

Designer’s Notes

By Joseph Miranda

Anaconda: Battle in Afghanistan, March 2002, is slated for appearance in S&T. It’s a wargame on the battle fought between Coalition and Al-Qaeda forces in the Shahikot valley at the start of the US intervention in that country follow-ing the attacks of 11 September 2001. The action saw the US commit elements of two brigades, as well as numerous American and Coalition special opera-tions forces (SOF) and friendly Afghan Military Forces (AMF). The objective was to surround and destroy an Al-Qaeda stronghold while capturing as many high-ranking enemy leaders as possible.

That plan, as the axiom goes, didn’t survive contact with the enemy, not to mention the realities of operations in Afghanistan. The initial Coalition attack fell apart as AMF troops were demoralized by a friendly fi re incident, and Al-Qaeda resistance proved to be much stronger than anticipated. Added to that was a convoluted Coalition chain of command, with numerous different contingents involved. Fortunately, the Coalition was able to exploit network-ing technology to bring in suffi cient airpower to overcome the foe. Still, it was a hard fought battle, and it fore-shadowed the start of a long war ahead.

As usual, the initial question for me was: which game system is to be used in this design? The battle was characterized by more than the usual chaos, as well as a fragmented Coalition chain of

command. On the Al-Qaeda side there was no hierarchical command in the conventional military sense but, rather, a kind of “networked” control that could dispense with centralized leadership.

I ended up combining elements of two different systems I created earlier. One is them is the They Died With Their Boots On system. The way it works is each side is divided into “sub-commands.” Each sub-command is acti-vated for an “operational impulse” when a player picks a “Command Control” (C2) chit for it from a pool. That pro-duces the desired result of players never knowing who will be activated next.

On the tactical end I added in elements of the Manila ’45/Leningrad ’41 system. Units are largely platoons, each with a fi repower, range and movement factor. Units can fi re at enemy hexes within range. There are two general types of outcomes: elimination and pinned. I gave each unit a range based not only on the reach of its weapons but also on its tactical fl exibility. Thus, Coalition SOF get an extra hex of range on the grounds they would be operating in a larger patrol zone than a regular infantry platoon.

One modifi cation I made to the combat system was to remove most of the die roll modifi ers (DRM) that were in the earlier games. They caused the players to have to go through mental gymnastics that often led to various DRM being used simply to cancel each other. I ended up applying a small number of DRM for defender’s terrain. The attacker, if fi ring from

an adjacent hex, can declare a “close assault” if he has any qualifi ed units. That doesn’t provide any DRM, but it does allow an advance after combat.

One of the big issues in designing Anaconda was the order of battle (OB). Oddly enough, it was easier to put together the Al-Qaeda OB than that of the Coalition. During initial deployment the Al-Qaeda player picks at random units equal to two thirds of the total and places them, face down, on the map. The remaining units may enter play if the Jihad! event goes into effect.

For the Coalition side, building the OB meant piecing together information from many sources. There are several useful books out there, such as Not a Good Day to Die. As befi ts the informa-tion age, however, I also trolled the inter-net. In doing so, I came across an article that indicated the US infantry battalions contained only two companies each for this fi ght – the rest were back at base camp or in the US. So I confi gured each battalion as six rifl e platoons, a sniper/recon platoon, an engineer platoon and a heavy weapons platoon. That more or less shows their tactical deployment, with the heavy weapons representing a consolidation of mortars and such.

The US had elements of two infantry brigades in the battle: 3/101 Airborne (Air Assault) (aka TF Rakkasan) and 10 Mountain (aka Task Force Commando). Each brigade was considerably lightened for deployment to Afghanistan. They lacked artillery support, for a variety of political and logistical reasons, as well as being short on helicopter support. Task Force Commando had one US infantry battalion and the 3/Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI). They deployed during the second phase of the operation. The higher US Command for the operation was Task Force Mountain.

As for the SOF, that was a matter of going through the various formations. There are three SOF sub-commands in the game: TF Dagger, represent-ing the Special Forces-led AMF; TF 64, representing various US and Coalition SOF under the operational control of TF Mountain; and TF 11, higher-level special operators.

Units of maneuver in the game are platoon-level. In some cases I consolidated squad-level formations into platoons. The US Navy SEAL units each represent two teams. Just about every type of SOF is in the game: Special

S&T 276 | Designer & Player Notes | SEP – OCT 2012 A5

Battle for Afghanistan, 2002Forces (“Green Berets”), Delta (termed “Combat Applications Group” these days), SEALS, Army Grey Foxes, Rangers, some CIA, plus a host of NATO special operators. I didn’t include USAF Combat Air Controllers as separate units; rather, their effects are factored into the abil-ity of the Coalition player to bring in airpower anywhere on the map. SOF are generally treated as combat units, but they have a special reconnaissance abili-ty to fl ip face up inverted Al-Qaeda units.

I also gave each side a couple of PSYOP units. These represent not only infowar (as psychological operations are known these days), but also military intelligence detachments. Their effect is to double victory points gained in certain circumstances. That represents not only exploiting media coverage of the battle, but also capturing of prisoners and the information gained from subsequent interrogations.

There are some optional units. The Coalition can bring in a battalion of 105mm howitzers, plus a full comple-ment of helicopter gunships. They can also bring in the PPCLI at the start of the battle. That unit can be useful, as its infantry has higher movement factors because they were trained to operate in mountains. (Reports from the operation at the time indicated the US 10th Mountain troops lacked skills in that area, their divisional unit-title actually having devolved into little more than an honorifi c for a light-infantry rapid-deployment unit.)

Of course, the Coalition gets airpower, and lots of it, but it’s generated by random picks from the reinforcement pool. So you never know what you’re going to get. It may include anything from powerful B-1 strikes, through AC-130 gunships, down to friendly fi re incidents. Friendly fi re is generated by a randomly drawn chit, and it makes utilizing airpower risky at times.

The Coalition also gets helicopter transports and gunships, though they’re vulnerable to anti-aircraft fi re. There are also some UAV and satellite chits tossed in, the idea being to show the players the full range of modern techno-war abilities.

Al-Qaeda forces are no slouches. They deploy face down, which can create real problems for the Coalition. Some of the units represent civilians, and if airpower is used against them it costs the Coalition victory points.

was supposed to have lasted for three days. It got dragged out to almost three weeks. The standard scenario lasts nine days (2-10 March), but the Coalition player can extend the operation up to nine more days by giving Al-Qaeda VP. If so, the Coalition receives Task Force Commando (the 4/31 Infantry and PPCLI Battalions) as special reinforcements.

There is also the human dimension. The Coalition player has one leader for each sub-command. Leaders provide an advantageous DRM for friendly units fi ring from their hexes, but leaders are received at random as they’re picked from the reinforcement pool. That represents exceptional individuals who self-create themselves as “leaders” in the heat of combat. The Al-Qaeda player has equivalents with High Value Target (HVT) units, representing top-ranking Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders. They provide the leadership bonus for his forces, as well as being worth lots of victory points if eliminated.

There’s also the possibility one of the HVT will to turn out to be Osama Bin Laden. That gives the Coalition player one more reason to launch an assault into the highlands of Afghanistan.

There are also IED markers that provide other unpleasant surprises, along with insurgent compounds, deceptions units, and a horse cavalry unit or two.

The game map was, like the order of battle, the product of several sources. One of them was a Soviet-era map of the region. Apparently, the current Russian government provided the US with some help in mapping the geography of Afghanistan gained from their own earlier wartime experience.

Map scale is 500 meters per hex. I kept the terrain modeling simple to avoid complications with line of sight. There are three levels: ground, elevated and observation points. Units on observation points get unobstructed lines of fi re plus a couple extra hexes of range. That makes fi ght-ing for the high ground important.

Coalition regular reinforcements are placed (mostly) in a wide-mouth opaque container (the reinforcement pool), and are randomly picked as each sub-command is activated. That adds more chaos, as the Coalition player never knows what he’s going to get: sky full of airstrikes or the Ranger Quick Reaction Force. That was a reasonable way to model the chaos of the historic situation.

One thing here: picking the TF 64 C2 marker gives the Coalition the most reinforcements among the various sub-commands. The reason for that is, since TF 64 contains the special operators who were (mostly) calling in the airstrikes, and since most of the reinforcements are air units of one type or another, it made sense, at least for Afghanistan.

As for Al-Qaeda, if Jihad is triggered, they get a couple dice rolls worth of reinforcements. Since a Jihad is more likely to be triggered if Al-Qaeda is taking a high level of casualties, that makes for an interesting dilemma for the Coalition player: if he pushes the enemy too far, the situation may blow up in his face.

Historically, Operation Anaconda