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Common village defenses
Posted by: Loonz
Date: 07/07/2000 17:23
What are some of the novel ways you use for the locals to keep the PC’s out? Marbles in cans? Geese, dogs? Mounds, walls, towers? What are the COMMON defenses/////////////
Posted by: Rochkano
Date: 07/07/2000 19:18
Depending on the village’s situation: Sharpened logs pointed out (anti-horse tactic) Punji Stakes Mines (or phony minefields) - including claymore mines. Anti-tank ditches (with the dirt mounded on the Defenders side) Tripwires (marbles in cans, trip flares, bells, etc) Wire Obstacles such as concertina wire, tangle foot (barbed wire at about mid-calf level), etc That’s All I can think of off hand...that should help get the ball rolling////////////////
Posted by: Eric.......
Date: 07/07/2000 19:44
Longtime no post! A few things I’ve used to deter PCs from villages: Signs in one or more appropriate languages, (falsely) warning of Cholera, Leprosy, or your other favorite malady. The good old skull or rotting corpse on a pole says alot. Poorly-concealed pungi stake pits, dummy claymore mines, etc. that either send a message (OK, what traps DONT we see...), or are used to channel the PCs into an area that IS, in fact, mined or trapped. Fake MG bunkers that are constructed to look real. These can use either things cobbled together from pipes or wood, or perhaps weapons that are beyond repair, or unique items like the DEWAT MG-08 that currently hangs in a local sporting goods store. Graveyards. This is hard to explain, maybe it’ll make sense. It has to be presented correctly by the GM. Something (probably the dead people there...) about graveyards just gives me the creeps. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Anyway, without it being too "D&D", a large graveyard just outside the town can say "steer clear". One in my county actually forms about 2 1/4 of the boundaries of the town. Avoid mysteries, "ghosts", etc. as these will spark curiosity and actually draw the PCs in closer. Graveyards can make good OP’s or sniper roosts, if the GM sets it up right. Enough already. Hope this helps.///////////////////
Posted by: Jim L
Date: 07/08/2000 08:42
Village or small Township defenses:
(I’ll try not to double up on what’s already been mentioned)
- Railroad ties, ’I’ beams or other girders set at angles, ’Dragon’s teeth’ or ditches to deter armored vehicle approach.
- Guard towers, fortified Hi-Rise or Industrial structures (mine towers, etc) for perimeter defense and surveillance.
- Abatis (tree’s cut at the forks and the branches sharpened, then placed in the ground so that they interlock)
- Flooded areas such as dams, ponds and nearby watercourses as obstacles. While these may provide fish stocks in a similar way that medieval moats did, they may freeze over in winter.
- Bunkered buildings, industrial structures (pump houses, substations etc) at prominent or strategic areas. These should be well camouflaged.
- Dividing the village into multiple lines of defense, once an invader penetrates into one area he is brought under fire from the next section that dominates the outlying sections and so on.
- Preplanted command detonated mining charges packed with shrapnel. Also, foo-gas and similar pyrotechnics.
- Walling between houses, using the back walls of each house to form a continuous perimeter. Many Italian villages are built like this already. A far more believable structure than a more military looking perimeter berm.
- Expanding upon subterranean features, nearly every large town has a stormwater culvert that may be used to move about when under attack. The exit where this leads to a creek etc may be used to sally out for flank attacks and partisan raids on supply areas, command posts etc.
- Watch posts an nearby avenues of approach, these people have had four years of this and will be ready for sneaky Petes crawling though the scrub. Broad areas may be cleared to foil covert approach, perimeter guards will have dogs (they can detect you by your gun oil, don’t believe that stuff about GI soap) and their hearing is so acute that a dog will always zero on a sound to within 5 degrees.
- If possible, villagers will keep groups at a distance and deal with them there. Few villages will be truly isolated and a message (signal, runner, radio etc or combination) will be sent to allies for help and warning.
- The ground and terrain features will be altered to deter assault groups having lie up points or cover during an assault. I.e.: A nearby prominent hill may be mined or have a bunker placed on it, vegetation will be cleared away from the walls, gullies and ruined houses will be patrolled.////////////////////
Posted by: Jim L
Date: 07/08/2000 19:27
Villages may be categorized as to their level of preparedness.
- Not.
- A bit of work. The villagers may not have been there long or are sublimely unconcerned about their fate. Only easy or absolutely necessary works have been undertaken. There may not be any guards posted and the defense force will be unorganized. A pushover.
- Some work. They’ve tried to make a bit of an effort, but may have been handicapped by insufficient time or manpower. A guard will be posted and they will have talked over the defense plan. Rudimentary defenses have been erected with a view to more permanent works later. A clear line of retreat will have been established and the villagers are aware of the danger.
- Defended. Given a summer and a winter to get things done, the villagers have tried to develop a defensive arrangement. The occasional patrol is mounted and hunters are logged in and out. The defenses are permanent and are considered a priority, bit may not be well thought out or have the help of military or civil engineers. There is a defense plan and the defense force knows where to go and what to do. Guards are vigilant but civilian. Contact has been made with neighbors about mutual defense and some vague plans made.
- Well Defended. A real problem for attackers. The lines of approach will be interdicted and possible aggressors will be intercepted before they can harm the village. Ex-Military personnel are the bulk of the defense (returned villagers, adopted stragglers and deserters)The village subscribes to a forward defense policy and there may be signs of annihilated marauder attacks (roadside graveyards, ex-marauders used as forced labor, damaged marauder vehicles undergoing repair etc). The works are well thought out and comprehensive and often consist of several layers. Works will be overlooked by defensive positions. It is this sort of village that is often comes to the aid of satellite settlements.
- Redoubt. An attackers graveyard. Led by a forward thinking strategist, this village has enthusiastically defended itself. They have gone short on food in favor of security and dominate the surrounding area. Armor assets are likely and the ground around the ville is one big deathtrap. The villagers fight with a zeal similar to Stalingrad or Berlin residents, underground links and shelters are strategically placed for protection. Multilayered defense absorbs and obliterates attackers. Go to town on the defense, they did. Maybe even a squad of suicide sappers with pole charges or similar constructs. The children fight on an equal footing, the only way to take the village is level it but you’re not likely to get that close./////////////////
Posted by: Rochkano
Date: 07/08/2000 21:43
Almost forgot about log cribs...basically a box made of logs and filled with rocks, dirt, debris, etc. Along the lines of the Abatis (which probably wouldn’t be used as a village perimeter defense unless the village was in a thick forest) is the road crater. A big crater will slow down any vehicle, and depending on the depth and size may stop vehicles completely. To expand on the idea of putting useless (beyond repair) weapons in bunkers, why not pull a tank that is beyond repair (but externally looks good) into a position overlooking the approach. The only thing the villagers need to do is keep prying eyes away from it (to prevent them from discovering that the "tank" is a nonfunctioning hulk). Combine these and the other obstacles in a staggered line so that vehicles have to maneuver back and forth (thus exposing their flanks) and a vehicle attack becomes very costly.////////////////
Posted by: Aaron
Date: 07/08/2000 23:16
I always like the Giant Crossbow ala Road Warrior something in the neighborhood of 300-500 lbs. with a crank, an idea I got off the Morrow Project email list is a black powder cannon using Monroe effect shells (who expects a black powder gun to take out a Bradley) and one of my favorites is the old Tank in the park refurbished and moved to a strategic location like the bridge into town, whether it works or not depends on resources available. ///////////////// Posted by: Ed the Coastie
Date: 07/09/2000 12:05
One of my favorite axioms for creating NPCs and communities is that "Anything the Players can do, so can the NPCs". Although skill degradation would very likely have taken it’s toll, the handful of ex-military types in the village would very likely have retained enough knowledge to be able to cook up many nasty surprises for would-be attackers. A half-dozen of the town’s best hunters could disperse into the nearby woods. Combining their rifle and woodcraft skills with the "home field advantage" would make them a dangerously-effective sniper force. Chemical (or even biological) weapons are not beyond the means of the average village that has a local high school or even a pharmacy. As for a delivery system, mortars are easy to build and "can be turned out in quantity from small machine shops and garages". (Just in my local community, we have two high schools, about a dozen pharmacies, countless garages and auto-repair shops...and a National Guard unit that includes mortar specialists./////////////////
Posted by: Eric.......
Date: 07/09/2000 09:09
Almost forgot! A good book I’d like to recommend: Enemy at the Gates, by William Craig. Tells the story of the battle of Stalingrad in WWII. There are allot of the strategic elements mentioned in the book, but also some stuff about house-to-house and village fighting. The previous post mentioned use of a tank in the park. I think the book gave an example of knocked out tanks being used as decoys, as cover/concealment for snipers, etc. Why not use a junk pile as concealment for MG, OP, or sniper. Expanding on another previous post, use of the city sewer system, and knocking out walls between basements, or knocking holes between walls in adjoining buildings, why not take it up to the rooftop level, and if distances allow, use old doors or ladders etc. to allow movement between buildings, over alleys using the height advantage.
These same above-eye-level points can be used for traps -- falling logs, rocks, old gas cans full of gravel for alarms./////////////////
Posted by: Jason Weiser
Date: 07/10/2000 00:13
Well, with all this talk of village defenses, I thought I’d share some ideas of my own.... 1. Anti-Armor Ambushes...These can be rather easy to do. All you need is one automatic weapon, and one AT team...You set up the two teams in separate, but mutually supporting positions then have the MG engage some infantry at long range to get some tanker’s attention. then when a tank come to engage Mr. MG. your AT team takes them in the flank and flambeaus a tank. The tricky part is getting your MG team out in time. 2. Evil tricks for urban settings: One, smoke is your friend, toss a Smoke Grenade under an armored vehicle that doesn’t have thermal, and they can’t see you waltz up with that AT-4 and plant it where it can do the most good. Second, never use a door when you can make your own using C-4 or an RPG. Third, Reactive Armor works both ways, to the Russians horror in Chechnya, The Chechens would fire an RPG at the Reactive armor on a Russian MBT, setting it off and having a Claymore-like effect on the escorting infantry, this in turn made Russian Infantry very reluctant to be near their own AFV’s and loss rates of AFV’s increased. Some other dirty tricks.. -German WWII play-book, Panzerfaust rigged up on a tripwire to be used as an off route AT mine -Mines, mines and more mines items that go boom are very useful for a variety of things./////////////////////
Posted by: Aaron
Date: 07/14/2000 21:58
You comment about the RPG against the reactive armor got me to thinking (aaaagh the smoke detector, not again) RPG’s have been used successfully against Helicopters in Afghanistan (against the Soviets) and in Somalia (against the US) resulting in Helo’s being reluctant to get too low and losing some of their close support effectiveness. Of course this won’t work in the current Aviation rules unless you find a full auto RPG but its still worth considering.////////////////
Posted by: ReHerakhte
Date: 07/17/2000 04:25
To follow up what Aaron mentioned, another tactic for RPG use in Afghanistan was to use it as a diversionary device for a shoulder-launch SAM. RPG crew would fire at a low flying helicopter, helo takes evasive action thinking a SAM has been fired, which brings it into a more favorable firing solution for the real SAM or keeps the crew from seeing the real SAM’s launch ’till too late.
