INTRODUCTION

This is a set of wargame rules intended to simulate actions between about one brigade equivalent a side, supported by divisional or even corps troops where they would have been available.

The basic philosophy of the rules can be summarised:

a. That morale and leadership are decisive factors in these battles
b. Logistics is a critical factor, even in the battalion battle and is too often overlooked,
c. Communications, command and control are very influential and central to conducting a battle
d. Planning - especially artillery fire planning is a vital part of the battle, and again is too often overlooked.
e. That technology is generally over-rated and minor differences between, say, tank types have been given too great a prominence in wargame rules. I have attempted to redress this.

Once you apply this philosophy - particularly to the battles in France and the Low Countries in 1944 it turns out that the focus of games moves away from waves of tanks hurtling across the fields, but a complex interplay of artillery, infantry and tanks - carefully orchestrated within an overall plan. Artillery fire planning takes a much higher importance in STONK than in many games - as does the operation of infantry. Using the information in these rules it is possible to simulate long battles - lasting days - including the all important logistics and preparation.

To make this work, in STONK the focus is on the operations of companies - with platoons and heavy weapons as the smallest units separately represented.
This is shown on the table top by models on a base of the appropriate size - the exact number or models per base can be varied to meet your own taste and financial resources - the game is perfectly playable without models at all, substituting counters for the models (this is certainly a cheap alternative for those without unlimited money).

It is important that players think of these bases as indivisible, and concentrate on the actions of companies and battalions as a whole - and my advice is to focus on the company as your basic sub-unit; treating platoons very much as subunits.

There are a number of lookup tables in the rules that have been specially designed to combine a whole load of relevant factors into a single die roll.
This means you can play without buckets of specialised dice - one or two d10s are all you need. And you'll find that looking up a single table is a lot quicker and easier than gathering and counting dice.

When starting out using these rules it is best to start small (as indeed it is with any new rules), and try out actions involving just one battalion a side. There is a sample scenario, map and counters with this edition of the rules to allow you to do this straight away - without even needing models.

It is important to continually bear in mind the ground scale used with these rules. 1:4000 (or 1cm = 40m) and this is very small.
If the models used were to this scale, then a tank would have to be about 0.75mm long, so the size of the models has very little direct relevance to the action. Players should be careful not to be misled by this, and where possible terrain should be in keeping with the ground scale rather than the model scale. Check out your terrain by looking at an ordnance survey map to see how large villages and woods actually tend to be in real life.

On the subject of scale; in 1944, a British armoured division could, and often would, attack on a frontage of one mile or less. This would be represented by a frontage of some 40 centimetres on the table top.
Of course, this would only constitute the leading brigade battlegroup, but within the terms of our rules, this means the whole wargame could be fought out over a frontage of less than half a metre. This gives you some idea of the possible concentration of effort that could be expected, and to warn you against the old wargaming cliché of spreading your models to fill the table space available. This will produce ridiculous and unhistorical results and look wrong.

A great deal of emphasis is placed upon the umpire in these rules, and he should have a good knowledge of the period first, and the rules second.
The rules can be used without an umpire, but the key elements of hidden movement and fog of war will be lost. Without fog of war it isn't really a WW2 wargame worthy of the name. Contrary to popular practice, there is no points system, since the forces used must be historical, and placed within a realistic military context from the period. In my view points just detract from that - encouraging players to have the 'best for the points' and 'equal armies' rather than a realistic historical and usually asymmetrical battle.

The best criterion for choosing your forces is whether they actually fought in the NW Europe Campaign and a short search through one of the many excellent books on the period will settle the question.
In any event, the scenario played usually determines the forces.

These rules are not to be treated as Holy Writ; they were not written with that intention, but simply as a set of guidelines for keen WWII wargamers to fight brigade battles of the type typical in NW Europe in the period.

The interpretation of the rules is therefore not absolutely fixed, but dependant upon the tactical situation you are attempting to simulate.
Players and umpires should continually measure the results of their games with their own knowledge of the period, of what the units were actually capable, based on the history of the campaigns. You will get a lot more from your STONK wargame if you concentrate on reading up on the history in preference to using the letter of the rules to work out what to do. Rules lawyers will not find much to enjoy in STONK.

To help readers who are relatively new to the period, I have included a short bibliography and some web links at the end of the rules.

The rules are in two parts:

Part I is the bare bones with the main tables with little or no explanation - intended for the more confident wargamer or those who have already read the whole rulebook;
In the header of each paragraph in Part I is a reference to the explanatory paragraph(s) in Part II to help you navigate the rules.

Part II is the fuller explanation of the rules given in Part I, with notes and examples, to try to put the rules in their proper perspective, as well as a handy glossary of terms for those not yet fully familiar with the period.

Good luck, and have fun.

Jim Wallman
Streatham 2006