Free games: Mastering Resistance and Operation CANUCK (solo games on resistance warfare)

Partisans in Piedmont.

I’m really excited about my trip to Turin and have been learning more about the as a long-standing centre of anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi resistance. Besides the two game-related talk events, I also wanted to do something design-related about this part of the city’s history.

From 1943 to the end of World War Two, both the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) materially assisted the anti-Fascist, anti-Nazi Partisan movement. Teams of agents were inserted behind the Axis lines by submarine or parachute to make contact with the Partisan groups and brigades. The teams would work with the local Partisan commanders to: train fighters in tactics and how to use weapons, radios and explosives; arrange for drops of weapons, ammunition, food and clothing; disrupt enemy communications and logistics; gather intelligence on enemy movements, plans and equipment; and, when the time came, operate in concert with regular Allied forces… though at the end of the war Partisan brigades organized uprisings and independently liberated every major northern Italian city, often days before the advancing Fifteenth Army Group reached these objectives.

Over the last few months I have designed two games on events occurring around Turin in late 1944 and early 1945: Mastering Resistance: ORANGE GOBI and Operation CANUCK.

Mastering Resistance: ORANGE GOBI

In March 1944, a team of OSS operatives including Marcello de Leva, Ricardo Vanzetti and Giorgio Squillace was sent to organize and assist resistance in and around Turin, under the codename ORANGE GOBI. De Leva organized an intelligence gathering network in Turin while Vanzetti transmitted the information gathered back to the Allies on a radio hidden in a beehive on a farm at the village of Torre Pellice not far from the city. Vanzetti also trained teams of saboteurs to disrupt German communications and transport networks, and mobile squads of fighters mounted on bicycles, cars and trucks to conduct ambushes and assassinations. Their numbers and activity continued to increase and near the end of the winter, the team collected in Turin itself to support the plans of the local Partisan leaders for a combined descent on the city by Partisan brigades and divisions and an uprising within it. The Committee of National Liberation in Turin ordered a general strike on 20 April 1945, and five days later street fighting erupted throughout the city as part of the general uprising across northern Italy. By the night of 28 April Turin had been liberated by the Partisans, who greeted the Japanese-American soldiers of the US 442nd Regimental Combat Team when they entered the city on 1 May, one day before the complete capitulation of German forces in Italy.

The game uses the core rules for a game system called Mastering Resistance that I have been working on with a colleague for some time. The basic system consists of rules for a solo player to practice and play through a series of missions and operations typical of a covert team sent in to organize and direct resistance within a country in conflict, what the US Special Forces call “unconventional warfare”.  The idea we had was to present this along the lines the USMC tactical vignettes book Mastering Tactics, via Mike Lambo’s popular set and system of simple solitaire “book wargames” (he’s published 18 of them in the last 20 months! https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/143185/mike-lambo).

This module for a game system called Mastering Resistance abstracts and fictionalizes the work of this and other OSS teams in Piedmont during the final months of World War Two in Italy. They are meant to be representational of the kinds of activities and operations such a team would be concerned with in this kind of general situation and are not meant to be a detailed re-creation or simulation of de Leva’s mission. The module includes an area map of Turin divided into twelve districts roughly equal to the city’s current administration, in order to locate clandestine networks and targets for intelligence, ambush and sabotage.

Here are the print-and-play files for the game. Besides this material you need 8 dice, a deck of ordinary playing cards (2 decks if you are playing the 2 or 3-player experimental versions) and 3 containers for markers.

MR core rules 11 Mar 24   (OpenDoc file, .odt)

MR Playing Aid Card 11 Mar 24   (OpenDoc file, .odt)

MR Mission Bklt ORANGE GOBI 11 Mar 24  (OpenDoc file, .odt)

MR ctrs 23 july 23   (PDF)

Torino districts 12 20 July 23  (PDF)

Operation CANUCK

While I was researching the above OSS material, I also ran across mention of an SOE mission near Turin with a Canadian connection!

The team detailed for this operation was led by Captain Robert “Buck” MacDonald of Nova Scotia – which is why it was given the codename CANUCK. Captain MacDonald served in the Canadian Army from 1939 until he was seconded to the 2nd British Special Air Service Regiment in 1943. He participated in the Normandy campaign and later transferred to Italy. He and his team arrived in the area of Alba, a large town about 30 km from Turin, in January 1945. They set up their main base in the village of Castino and began to work with local Partisan leaders to train and arm fighters and arrange air drops of supplies and weapons. Partisans operating in the area were a combination of Communist Party, Action Party (Justice and Liberty), Socialist Party (“Matteotti”) and Autonomi (disbanded soldiers from Italian 4th Army) groups so it was not an easy job.

The climax of Operation CANUCK was on 26 April 1945 when their combined forces liberated Alba and forced the occupiers to surrender, several days before Allied troops arrived in the area. The above picture shows Captain McDonald in Castino the day before the battle, he is the one standing in the car.

After the war MacDonald returned to his hometown of New Glasgow where he became Crown Prosecutor. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia in 1985 and died in 1995. In April 2011 his son visited Alba with a former member of the team to commemorate Liberation Day; this was apparently the first time anyone from the team had returned to Alba since the war.

Operation CANUCK is a short game that portrays the activities of this time in an abstract way. The game is intended for solitaire play. During the game the single player (the Partisan) will draw from a deck of ordinary playing cards. The Partisan will deliberately select from the red cards drawn to execute operations representing the efforts of their forces and draw randomly from the black cards to show the Fascist, German and collaborator (collectively, “Axis”) counter-actions.

Here are the print-and-play files for the game. Besides this material you need 6 dice and a deck of ordinary playing cards.

Operation CANUCK rules, PAC 26 July 23  (Word file, .docx)

Op Canuck map 10 July 23  (PDF)

Op Canuck rules Italian 31 July 23    (Word file, .docx)

(I created the Italian-language rules by feeding chunks of the rules through ChatGPT 3.5. I have no idea if they are at all comprehensible! I am told they are, sort of.)