Arab-Israeli War 1973-Fistful of Tows 3- Solo Game Conclusion

This is a follow on to my previous post where I described a small solo game I put together to try Fistful of Tows 3.

The game was quickly concluded on the Syrian turn.   On the Syrian right the Infantry moved to get into position to fire their RPG's.   They were just out of range however.

On the Syrian left the Tank Battalions advanced into effective range of the Centurion Sh'ot in their prepared positions and unleashed a furious fire. This time the cover of the positions did not save the Israelis and three out of the four tank platoons were eliminated.

With those loses there was no way the Israelis could hold off the Syrian advance and the Syrian formations were able to advance into the Galilee. (very bad for the Israelis).

Observations

FFT3 provides a very quick, clean game. The mechanics are very simple, which may not appeal to rivet counters, but I think they're appropriate for a game in which each model/base represents a platoon of troops. In that context, the rules feel "right" to me. 

One thing I do wonder about is the  lack of command & control rules.  There are some optional rules that provide some very minor limitation on troops' freedom of action, but generally speaking your troops will do exactly what you want them to do when you want them to do it. My personal preference is that rules have some mechanism to represent the possibility that orders are misinterpreted or simply not followed in a timely fashion.   While some hate that sort of thing, I find it both fun from a game standpoint and a bit more "realistic."  

I might just take the C&C rules from Cold War Commander and graft them on to FFT3.  The C&C rules in CWC are a simple way of introducing that command uncertainty. 

As for this particular scenario, even though I rated the Israelis "Excellent" there weren't enough of them to deal with that size force.  Even with a ROF of 4, the best they can do is attack 2 different targets per shot.   That's just not enough to whittle down the Syrians before they close into effective range.  At that point the weight of numbers overcomes the Israelis' qualitative advantage.  

Paul Minson (one of the rule's authors) suggested on the FFT Yahoo Group that I rated both forces too high.  (So the Israelis should have just been "Good" and the Syrians "Fair"). 

 I chose "Excellent" for the Israelis because I wanted to represent the desperate nature of their fight.   This was for them really a no retreat situation.  They had no choice but to hold out to the bitter end.  Maybe it would have made more sense to give them a bonus on their QC roll to represent that instead of rating them "Excellent" which also provides a better rate of fire and better chance to hit.   

I chose "Average" for the Syrians because I thought making them "Fair" or "Marginal" would make things too lopsided in favor of the Israelis (and make for a not very fun game).  

 Next time I will add artillery, airstrikes and ATGM's, but the basics of vehicle to vehicle combat and infantry combat felt "right" to me.