"Gaming a tank battalion" Topic

Whst would be the best rules to game a tank battalion in WWII where 1 tank model= 1 tank, I was thinking about flames of war but I don't think I would have the table size, and since i would be playing solo the cost of 2 tank battalions in 15mm would be very high so more like Micro-armour. they sell a set Panzertruppe on Amazon would this work?
thank you

I think if you really want to put an entire tank battalion on the table you'll need to use micro-armor. The cost in 10mm or 15mm would be very high. Don't forget there's a lot more to a tank battalion than the tanks.

Blitzkrieg Commander is probably a good fit but it does not have your 1 model = 1 tank requirement.

I don't think you can fit a unit on the table in 15mm unless you enjoy having a gun fight in a phone booth.

YMMV

At 1:1 what ground scale are you looking at? You need @ 100m per platoon for starters. If you want to game the interactions of a Battalion and supports, I'd suggest 1:5 (10-15 models per Battalion) and Command Decision or Blitzkreig Commander.

FOW will work using micro-armour, 1/285. We used cm instead of inches and a rough ground scale of 1:1000 or 1mm:1m. A 8'x4' table was fine for 40+ tanks a side.

Micro-armor (1/285th – 1/300th scale), or Mini-armor (1/600th scale – you saw the term coined here first, by me) would work best for 1:1 battles.

Not sure on the rules, but something fairly simple for that many vehicles on the tabletop.

Odzial Osmy produces 1/600th scale armor.

Sorry to be dense, but how many tanks is a brigade? How many do you want on the table, gollum? My game club uses Disposable Heroes rules with 1/144 scale world tank museum tanks or the 1/144 tanks from walmart (very cheap and prepainted). We've played 30-40 tanks per side for the eastern front or NW europe or north africa. We often convert the inch measurements to centimeters in the rule book (at that scale). It's a good, accurate, detailed and fun game system for 1 model = 1 tank on a 4 x 6 or 4x 8 table. Good gaming smeagol.

Sorry, I meant how many tanks in a tank battalion?

Depends upon whose battalion. A Soviet tank battalion (of T34s) would be, nominally, 31 tanks, although that number wasn't constant throughout the war. Heavy tank companies would be half that.

US tank battalions were about 54 tanks. A German battalion would be about the same, or as much as 66+ tanks when at full strength (for a three-company battalion; a third higher for a four-company battalion), although heavy tank battalions would be less.

British armored regiments (battalion-equivalents) varied in strength depending upon the year -- potentially as many as 64.

'Combined Operations of WW2' is a 6mm scale game currently in development, which has been designed to allow players to field battalions 1:1 scale.

If you are interested you can download a playtest copy of the rules from the Yahoo Group.

link

Top Gun Ace – Micro is smaller than Mini- perhaps 1/600 should be nano-armour.

This would be, in my opinion, not an advisable level to play.
--
Tim

Soviet medium tank battalions were typically 21 tanks. Two companies of 10 each plus a command tank.

When I run Panzertruppe at conventions or at my local club I'll typically give the Americans one company of 15 Shermans and one company of 12 tank destroyers (M10, M18 and/or M36), plus perhaps some supporting units such as M7's & M20's, Stuarts, Shermans 105's, Infantry in halftracks and/or air support. For the Russians I'll give them a Battalion of 20 T-34's along with a second battalion of 20 SP-guns (one battalion may be under strength with some T-70's thrown in). In either case the Germans are given something similar. This allows for a game to be played in 4 hours or so by around 6 players on a 5x6 table.

With a solo game set up in your own home, which you can leave set up for a long period of time, you can probably do a much larger game.

I know that I'm not answering your question directly, but I hope this helps.

-Chris P. (author of Panzertruppe)

You can do a 1945 German tank battalion and end up with one or two tanks…..

German tank battalions could be anything up to 96 tanks (4x22 plus 5 +3). US and British ones were a bit smaller, and Russian ones were tiny.

I'd don't see why you couldn't just use 6mm stuff with FOW, although it isn't really designed to run forces of that size.

I've run tank battalions using WRG 1925-50 though (more commonly combined arms combat teams), and I'm sure the other usual suspects of 1:1 microarmour rules would do the trick – Panzer Wars, Firefly etc. Expect to spend all day on it though.

Thanks for the information. I guess I was really looking to simulate about proabbly 3 tanks comapnies with supporting engineers and infantry, proably about 45-50 tanks also a battalion HQ. I went over to the Blitzkrieg Commander site and it says you can play 1 model=1 vechile, iguess i might try this or Panzertruppe. Flames of War might be a good game with a company and everyone seeems to play it in the club where i occasionally play on each side in 15mm, but I am intrested in a game with a command system, even though I enjoy WArhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 , when playing historicals I like to study real life tactics used by the armies,and from what i heard flames of war is more of a 40k like game, but then again i might be wrong.

Anyone commanding 3 tank companies plus support would not be positioning individual tanks.

If you are trying to get into WWII don't try to do too much. I suggest that if you play 1:1, then play games at the level of people who might actually command a single tank (i.e. not above company commander).

Plus games with too many individual moving "units" (any period) bog down. Bigger is as often as not worse when it comes to wargaming.

Anyone commanding 3 tank companies plus support would not be positioning individual tanks.

This is what I meant when I said your plans were not, in my opinion, advisable.
--
Tim

Usually you want to handle units two levels down. So to handle individual tanks, you want to be a company commander. If you're a battalion commander you should be handling platoons.

Of course, in a multi-player game, some players could be the company commanders and one the battalion commander, etc.

If you're doing solo, I'd suggest going with 6mm miniatures so you can afford a variety of forces and just collecting rule sets to find what works best for you. You may end up mashing several together to get the exact blend you want. The good news is that the miniatures can be used with just about any rule set, since basing is not usually critical so long as both sides match.

I'd suggest giving BKC a try at 1:1 to see how you like it. FoW would work, but I don't see it working nearly as well solo. Rules, fortunately, are not overly expensive.

- Bob

Following on from Ditto Bird, although not 1:1, Battlefront WW2 (Fire & Fury) are aimed at Battalion level games and use either platoon or half platoon equivalents, ie 1 tank model is 2 or 3 tanks.

The other question really is "what's the opponents driving?"