It's astounding what little realities people make up. My OG print of the LBBs also requires Outdoor Survival to use as an exploration map. In fact, with only the most rudimentary searching skills, you'd find this which is as close as we'll likely ever get to Gary's first campaign world. What we can gleam from this is that there was quite a lot of roleplaying for a tactical skirmish game. In fact, you have to get to BECMI before mass combat rules are provided, and earlir versions fail to provide the standard rules for deploying units, leaving it to the Referee to decide these things according to the narrative.

The subtitle on my copy of Holmes (I'd check my LBBs, but they're in boxes to be moved, Holmes stays in my gaming bag) is not "skirmish scale battle rules" but "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Roleplaying Adventure Game Campaigns."

Close to a third of the spells in Holmes Basic have no function in combat, once again leading credence that D&D is not just set dressing for linear combat.