Note: All images are of playtest art and not final. All image credits: Craig Allen, 4 PARA.

Volume 3 of Fields of Fire brings three campaigns featuring The British Army – the Battle of Arnhem in 1944, the Falklands War in 1982, and Helmand Province, Afghanistan in 2008.

[links to previous InsideGMT articles: Episode 1 – Arnhem and Episode 2 – Falklands]

Episode 3 – Afghanistan

So here we are; the third instalment of Volume 3 – Afghanistan – and specifically the summer months of 2008 in the Sangin Valley, Helmand Province. The British name for operations in Afghanistan at this time was ‘Operation Herrick’, and this was the eighth rotation of combat troops, so it was therefore known as Herrick VIII.

I wanted a campaign that would be distinct enough in a timeline sense from the other two eras in Volume 3. I briefly considered the Suez Crisis of 1956, where 2 PARA made a landing by sea, or Iraq in 2003, but the story of 2 PARA’s C Company during Herrick VIII stood out for me as something that would suit Fields of Fire well.  It’s a challenging topic to take on from a number of angles though; it’s all obviously still very fresh in many veterans’ minds, so I need to be sensitive to that and accurately reflect their experiences. It’s also a very different style of warfighting to anything that has gone before in the series and I want to be sure I recreate that as accurately as I can too. These aren’t pitched battles; it is counter-insurgency operations against a very determined, skilled, and elusive enemy. Casualty figures through the campaign should be very low, as they were in reality, but I want to get across the stress of the expectation of being suddenly engaged or of triggering an IED.

So it’s been an interesting campaign to develop, but as I’ve noted elsewhere, we’re really keen to keep challenging ourselves and bringing new things to Fields of Fire, rather than just ‘re-skinning’ previous volumes and theatres with new units. As we do that we’re also hopefully helping to educate people about new conflicts that they didn’t previously know much about too.

The Campaign

By Herrick VIII the British Army had pushed into the Taliban heartland of Helmand Province and established a number of Forward Operating Bases, or FOBs. C Company of 2 PARA were responsible for FOB ‘Gibraltar’ near Sangin.

The FOB itself was one of the most exposed in the Sangin valley. It was constructed around an abandoned compound and reinforced and expanded with Hesco bastions (large bags or cages filled with earth and rubble). Although the 2 PARA tour of duty started out quietly, after a couple of months the situation deteriorated rapidly and in June the Taliban began to use suicide bombers against patrols and the FOB, and mounted some large and very well executed ambushes.

Despite taking their first casualties, the men of C Company refused to lie down and took to aggressive patrolling in the dense Green Zone that bordered the Helmand River to seek out and engage the Taliban. In the four months from June onwards, the FOB was attacked 36 times, whilst in the same period the men of C Company were involved in 29 firefights whilst out patrolling, and came across Improvised Explosive Devices on another 22 occasions.

The conditions were harsh – temperatures were frequently above 50 degrees centigrade and the men carrying upwards of 40-50kg of equipment, weapons and body armour. Their enemy knew the ground intimately and could move fast and were dedicated; a hardcore group of local fighters and leaders who had been joined by foreign fighters – Chechens and Pakistani militants. Other local men were often paid by the day to swell their ranks, before going back to their lives as farmers; it was often hard to know who was the enemy and who wasn’t, as the Taliban fighters would often dissolve back into the local population after a firefight.

The campaign will see you both on the offensive and defensive. You will be conducting helicopter insertions, patrols, clearances of compounds, and various other missions.

So what’s new in Volume 3’s Afghanistan Campaign?

Wow, what isn’t new?!

The last campaigns in Fields of Fire volumes 1 and 2 were set in the late 1960s Vietnam. This campaign jumps you nearly 50 years forward from that – if you went the same distance the other way you would be in the First World War! As you can imagine, a lot changed in those 50 years. What hasn’t changed, however, is that soldiers are still putting their lives on the line.

One of the most obvious things you will notice in Afghanistan is that you and your enemy are not alone on the battlefield. Civilians will be trying to go about their daily lives whilst you conduct your operations. There are new activity hierarchy charts to control the behaviour of both the Civilians and the Taliban.

The mix of combatants and non-combatants around you also leads to another new thing for Fields of Fire. Whilst some counters on the map will be obviously hostile – they are firing at you – others you will be initially unsure of; Unidentified Units and Vehicles. These will also move around the battlefield and you can’t be sure of their allegiance until you get eyes-on them and identify them as either civilians or Taliban.

In modern times individual communications are now the norm. Each soldier in your company carries a Personal Role Radio (PRR) – a small radio that lets them communicate over short distances within their section or platoon. Advanced Handheld Radios are introduced in the Volume 3 Falklands campaign too, but there it was just at section level – in Afghanistan everyone has a radio. This simplifies your command and control greatly, though your HQs will still need enough command points to issue all the orders you want. Similarly, Night Vision Devices are by now ubiquitous, with each soldier wearing Night Vision Goggles on their helmet during night operations.

Casualty evacuation is also highlighted in this campaign. Although you were encouraged to move casualties back to a collection point in previous volumes, by Afghanistan there was the concept of ‘the golden hour’; those vital first 60 minutes after wounding that can make a real difference between life and death. Rather than being abstracted, you will need to call casualty evacuation helicopters onto the map and load any casualties on to them, which will give you more challenges to consider, often because you will still be in contact as the helicopters arrive.

And there’s more stuff in the campaign too – the FOB itself, dog teams and mine detectors, amongst others. But those can all wait for a future update.

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Previous Articles:

Fields of Fire Volume 3: The Parachute Regiment, Episode 1 – Arnhem

Fields of Fire Volume 3: The Parachute Regiment, Episode 2 – Falklands