"Pinning in FOW" Topic

I've been thinking (uh-oh)

about the pinned unit status. Once you pin a unit the more fire you dump on them has no further effect.

whether the target is hit by a single burst of small arms fire or has wave after wave of soviet artillery crashing down on them on them the result is the same. A simple pinning test and they are good to go.

I always thought that a pinned unit that takes even more fire should suffer some kind of penalty

1. perhaps they must test again or be forced to fall back

2. Need to make multiple unpin tests

Anyone have any house rules about this?

I have seen too many rules ruined by ill-considered house rules.
First, I believethat in a professionally produced set, that a lot of thought went into making all aspects work as a whole.
Second, those writing houserules often leave gaping loopholes that lead to bad feeling in a game when they are exploited.
Finally, if you get used to them, they make it difficult to play "on the road" against people who do not use your own rules.

I once almosst played Avalon Hill's Stalingrad against a kid who thought the Germans needed the Luftwaffe. Basically, it was 24 extra factors per turn that he could use anywhere. When I politely said that I would need time to "study" his rules, and that I wouldrather play it straight, he suggested 1914 instead.

If it bothers you that much, write your own rules, but don't call the "Flames of War". Call them "Quadratus' Rules".
I have "OFM Rules", and I steal from the best.

Once you pin a unit the more fire you dump on them has no further effect.

No further effect? How about casualties? I shoot to kill. Pinning is a bonus.

"First, I believe that in a professionally produced set, that a lot of thought went into making all aspects work as a whole."

I bet you believe what the nuns told you, too.

Keep reading your sentence again and again until the inherent humor is obvious.

Allen

Even back then, I recognize that nuns had two degrees of truth. Some thing were True, just because they were. And, some were True, because it was good for you.

But, repeating my REALLY important point, there is nothing wrong with shooting at already pinned troops in FoW. You can kill more of them, so that when they get re-motivated, there will be fewer of them next turn.
I see no real point in making them roll as many motivation tests as there are casualties over the magic number. It would involve totally re-writing the motivation test rules. Merely rolling the same test over and over again would totally screw up the internal logic of the game. It would make it impossible to EVER motivate them!

stick it to him Allen!

I do not play FoW against anyone other than the handful of guys in my club.

shooting to kill can be a difficult thing in FoW. dug in germans are hard to hit and with bulletproof cover small arms are laughably inefficient. Even mortar barrages do very little.

I just started playing DH/C7B and pinning effects are cumulative, I like the idea of fire slowly breaking down a unit till it runs screaming from it's position.

I also do understand that house rules might imbalance the game, but I figured some bold individuals on this board might have chanced outside the white lines.

Matt

FoW is not a simulation. It is an easy to play, fast game. If you want more in depth rules, go for some of the other rulesets out there. I call FoW, 40k for WWII. If I wanted in depth rules, I'd play ASL. They don't get much deeper than that. At least in my book. Just my 2 cents.

I have seen too many rules ruined by ill-considered house rules.
First, I believethat in a professionally produced set, that a lot of thought went into making all aspects work as a whole.

Adding house rules is something wargamers (I don't know about "gamers") since the beginning of time. Sometimes it's as you say, but that's part of how things develop.

FoW is not a simulation.

As someone who has been involved with real military simulations and as I've said many times before, no game is a simulation. It simply would not be playable.
--
Tim

"Second, those writing houserules often leave gaping loopholes that lead to bad feeling in a game when they are exploited."

Allen,

that bit there was ever funnier……..

Quadratus wrote:

[…] whether the target is hit by a single burst of small arms fire or has wave after wave of soviet artillery crashing down on them on them the result is the same. A simple pinning test and they are good to go.

Is your objection to them not having to test each turn they take the 5+ or bombardment hits, or that they can recover completely in a single turn? I could see different alternatives to either objection.

In another message:

[…]dug in germans are hard to hit and with bulletproof cover small arms are laughably inefficient. Even mortar barrages do very little.

Well, I would expect veterans in prepared positions (dug-in) to be tough to root out with small arms.

Even with that though, I find that pouring on a volume of fire knocks out 1-2 bases that can root out a veteran unit in a few turns. My favorite for this is the .50 MG on Universal Carriers.

I'd be concerned (even as a Soviet player) about making vets easier to dig out. I'd be worried even more about the resulting repercussions for non-veteran troops in the same circumstances. Cover might be meaningless for anybody BUT veterans!

I'm always interested in variations that have been well play tested with all combinations, but not too fond of being the Guinea Pig myself unless it's something I've agreed to. Always a bummer to find that my conscript troops now are completely useless, and nobody thought to test for them!

- Bob

Bob,

My objection is aimed at units that are already pinned can take lots more fire and still be no worse for wear.

I am not of the opinion that the cover is too good. I like to have my vets nestled into good cover, sharpening their bayonets, and waiting for Ivan.

I am wondering what would happen in a game if there were progressive steps to being pinned. How that would change the flow of a game. I haven't given it much thought but I am imagining commanders directing a shedload of fire at a target to the exclusion of other targets in the game (possibly to their own detriment) for a chance to drive them back or to really keep their heads down for a full turn.

I usually end up playing against Russians who fearlessly shrug off being pinned time and time again. In fact, pinning Russians is fruitless. Most of the time I am not going to hop out and assault them (I've done it on occasion but the dice gods usually fail me at that point) so they get pinned in my turn and then handily unpin themselves (with the help of their commissars)

As I sit here typing I realize that increasing the affects of pinning could dramatically affect confident and reluctant troops, to a point where the game would really slow down, but Fearless Russians with Commissars do not stay down.

I know I might be lynched for saying this, but I think the rating of Fearless for the Russians is brought about by the historical role of Commissars. To give them fearless and then allow a re-roll is too much.

End result is some schlep knee mortar guy gets shot in the back of the head and the Russians roll on.

Matt

"Cover is too good"

Cover can never be too good. If anything most wargame rules provide only a fraction of the benefits of cover. FOW among them.

If you want rules that allow you to remove handfuls of troops from the table each turn, there are some out there that do just this. No need to mess with FOW. No need to reinvent the wheel.

If you fire at a man in a fox hole, and you miss, and he ducks into the fox hole where you cannot possibly hit him no matter how many time you fire, How much more damage will to do to this soldier if you shoot 100 more rounds while he is hugging the bottom of the fox hole? (this is a no brainer).

He was pinned after the first round and remained pinned while you shot then next 100 rounds at his position. Hate to say it, but that is realistic.

You think he's going to get up and run away in a situation like this? Better think again.

mjc

@ MJC if you read my post you'll see I am NOT saying cover is too good! Thanks for sharing though :)

He was pinned after the first round and remained pinned while you shot then next 100 rounds at his position. Hate to say it, but that is realistic.

Ah, I see. Soldiers will never leave cover because if it's protecting them at the moment it will continue to do so no matter what? what happens when a mortar round comes straight down and kills 3 of his buddies? Or if a half dozen tanks start grinding towards the position. Or a grenade happens to land in his foxhole. Perhaps you better think again.

Matt

If people are pinned down by small arms fire they are pinned down. It generally requires sufficent volume of fire that standing up (to run away) will mean they die. That is what find, fix, flank, finish is all about. You pin down the target precisely so they can't run away even if they wanted to, and ideally you cut off any escape route with a machinegun. You then close assault them and they surrender or die.

If a grenade lands in their foxhole, they survive or they don't. If a mortar round kills their friends, they survive or they don't. If they are able to move to respond to these events then they aren't pinned down.

Martin, you are adding some variables to the equation. We could argue a limitless number of scenarios. I am saying that soldiers do break and run from cover even if it is protecting them at the moment. Sometimes it is not the best decision but human instincts are pretty powerful.

If they are able to move to respond to these events then they aren't pinned down.

You are tinkering with the definition of pinned. In FOW pinned troops can move away from the enemy.

Matt

Well – I'm somewhat in the middle on this one. I have a book on my shelf that talks about Panzergrenadier training, and in situations like you're describing, they were drilled to stay in their foxholes/cover as turning to run usually meant getting shot in the back and killed as everyone ran away.

I also see your point about enough volume of fire and someone might break and run – but overall, I think if artillery, mortars, and enemy small arms were all raining down on me, I'd still keep my head in the foxhole as getting out is aboslutely suicide – you just keep your head down until the shelling stops. Most soldiers quickly learned the doctrine discussed, pin your enemy with offensive fire, flank him and destroy him. So from a commander/troops point of view, you hunker down in your hole (represented by being pinned) then, since you know the enemy isn't advancing on top of you while your position is being shelled – once the shelling stops you ready yourself for the advancing infantry and look to your flanks for the flanking attacks that are likely coming (or check to see that whomever is covering your flank is still there and covering). FOW handles this fairly well – as pinned troops don't get as much defensive fire in an assault, representing them having to regroup a little after being on teh receiving end of a certain volume of fire.

People would crack under the stress of a huge volume of fire, but likely that's a few individuals, not an entire platoon.

A good example of what you are talking about was discussed in Goodwood, Over the Battlefield. In the opening stages of the operation, a crapload of RAF and US bombers flew over the field of battle and carpet bombed the hell out of everything (although in the end it wasn't hugely effective because the German army was deployed in such depth – but that's another issue). There was a unit (can't recall, I think it was a company) of Tiger tanks caught in the bombardment. As soon as it happened, everyone crawled under their tanks for protection. The first hand reports by the German unit commander indicated that some tanks were destroyed and men killed, but in a few cases people were so shell shocked that they couldn't do anything (they just sat there and shook if I recall correctly and wouldn't remount their tanks after the bombing had stopped). That was jsut a few people and didn't really impact the unit's ability to fight after the shelling had stopped – but to your point, it did occur that people became shell shocked by such large volumes of fire.

Additionally, I recall as the tanks started to advance, they did run across German infantry troops just wandering the battlefield, again severly shell shocked to the point they weren't aware of their surroundings and were all but delerious.

In regards to the Soviets – the run of the mill Soviet trooper had pretty much two options – advance towards the enemy and risk potential death, or retreat from the field into almost certain death. I think the scene from Enemy at the Gates illustrates this fairly well – this is the sort of thing that kept the Soviet's moving forward even as mounting casulties built up. The Soviet's were harsh on men retreating from combat, and most troops knew that. So is it unrealistic to think that a Commisar driving you forward, to the point where he's moving across the battlefield shooting friendly troops who aren't continuting to advance isn't good motivation to get up and keep going?

Not sure I helped or not, but thought I'd point out some examples I've read and a little about the training German troops recieved.

I wanted to add a bit about the retreating Soviets facing certain death before someone jumps on me about that point. When saying this, I'm talking about a few things.

1) blocking detatchments.

Blocking detatchments were used, but didn't necessarily just open fire like they show in Enemy at the Gates. This did occur in some instances, but it's not an every time a Soviet infantry unit retreated, they were cut down by their own men. To think that way is an obvious disregard for the facts.

Typically a blocking detatchment would be there to order the halt of the unathorized retreat (yes, there were authorized retreats). If after issuing stop commands a couple times the retreating unit didn't stop – they were within their authorization to open fire. Many times those retreating would be arrested and then thrown into the second part of my reasoning.

2) Penal battalions

Penal units came in many forms – and typically those arrested under article 277 and not killed were thrown back into penal units (there were even air force penal units, those pilots got the hardest jobs and often didn't live). I won't go into a full disertation on penal units – but if you want to see the worst of it, look at penal mine clearing units and you'll see why people were deathly afraid of getting that job. Penal units took very heavy casualty rates in a lot of instances – and many saw them as a relagated death sentence, hence the comments about either advancing upon the enemy and facing potential death or facing death by a blocking detachment or more likely through getting thrown into a penal unit.

Just wanted to clarify before I got a bunch of flak for my statement on facing certain death from an unauthorized retreat. Penal units and blocking detachments are a discussion in their own right, but in doing a little research on both of them, you'll start to see why the Soviet troops were as motivated as they were.

Quadratus (Matt) wrote:

[…] I know I might be lynched for saying this, but I think the rating of Fearless for the Russians is brought about by the historical role of Commissars. To give them fearless and then allow a re-roll is too much.

I can sympathize, but playing the Russians, I would also point out that Fearless only comes at the cost of either:

A. Also accepting Conscript ratings, and being hit at 2+.

or

B. Paying a tremendous upgrade cost to obtain Trained.

Also, from all my recent reading on the life of Soviet infantrymen throughout the war, I would say that they were likely to move forward under circumstances that few others would. I just finished reading "TANK RIDER: Into the Reich with the Red Army" by Evgeni Bessnov, and a lot of his time as a squad leader seems to have been spent urging, cajoling and threatening his men to move forward into the guns of the Germans. He even elaborates at one point explaining that the Germans would break when pressed but that you had to charge them to get them to flee. WIth no Komissar present, he'd literally haul men up by their belts.

End result is some schlep knee mortar guy gets shot in the back of the head and the Russians roll on.

That mortarman has to be part of the same unit, and counts towards unit strength like any other. And actually, those light mortars are under-appreciated. I find them more useful than a normal rifle stand (see below). Anybody removing a light mortar instead of a rifle team in the back ranks isn't doing themselves a favor.

I think there are several aspects to this discussion… In another post, Matt writes:

[…] Ah, I see. Soldiers will never leave cover because if it's protecting them at the moment it will continue to do so no matter what? what happens when a mortar round comes straight down and kills 3 of his buddies?

Those are represented as casualties due to fire in FoW, are they not? Firing at dug-in veterans, even with FP6 weapons, is NOT harmless. Anything with better than FP6 can chew them up quickly. Light mortars are with FP4+ are particularly good for this, which I think represents exactly what you are referring to here. Get that unit below half, and they have to test. If they fail, they run out of the safety of the holes.

Or if a half dozen tanks start grinding towards the position.

Isn't this already represented by the 'tank terror' test that infantry must take when counter-assaulting armor? If they fail, they run away out of their safe positions exactly as you suggest they should, do they not? Until those tanks start grinding towards them (assaulting), they're not quite so scary.

Or a grenade happens to land in his foxhole.

Grenades are close-range weapons, so I view this as exactly what is happening during FoW assaults, not at 16 inch rifle range. I recall that's part of the reasons assaults are so deadly in FoW (no saves).

I honestly think much of what you're asking about has already been addressed in the rules, just not under a heading of "guys getting pounded so badly they run away."

I do agree that it seems odd that successive pin results don't cause a cumulative effect, but I think that it's been addressed by the fact that those same incoming hits do cause damage, and that adding another detail rule might start to break other things when all troop ratings are considered.

- Bob
(who made two long-shot FP6 rolls Friday AND CALLED IT!)

I usually end up playing against Russians who fearlessly shrug off being pinned time and time again.

I'm struggling to see what is wrong with this.

How are Russian Strelky going to be able to ever win if they are pinned easily and made to flee? How would this represent their actual actions in WWII? How would this make the game more fun?

(FoW does exaggerate national differences to stop each army being a vanilla copy, but I'm with them on this. The game is more fun for it.)

And my reading of WWII (admittedly light) does suggest that dug-in German units could sit and take an artillery bombardment for hours without running away. There needed to be something more than merely a bombardment to cause a retreat.

If Soviets could just buy mega artillery (historical) and sit and pound German units into running away, how would that replicate reality? WWII would have been much shorter if the Germans could be made to flee so easily.

@ Mark Plant

I'm not sure if anything is "wrong" with the Russians immunity to being pinned. I'm not saying the Russians should be easily pinned. I was just wondering if anyone has messed around with multiple pinning effects. Don't make me get the FOW haters into this thread!

There needed to be something more than merely a bombardment to cause a retreat.

Merely?!? Admittedly I've never been bombarded by artillery, but I bet it's pretty effective at breaking the nerves of soldiers. Your scenario has Germans dug in and ready for artilley? What about a game situation where units aint dug in and get hit? How should the game reflect that?

how would that replicate reality?

I'd never expect this game (or any other) to replicate reality.

Matt

Quadratus (Matt) wrote:

[…] I was just wondering if anyone has messed around with multiple pinning effects.

At one point on the FoW forums, there was an 'Advanced/House Rules Discussion' group. I don't think that survived the migration to the new (annoying) forums though. I vaguely recall some such discussions, but I only recall that most of the suggestions there tended to have unintended consequences.

[…] Merely?!? Admittedly I've never been bombarded by artillery, but I bet it's pretty effective at breaking the nerves of soldiers. Your scenario has Germans dug in and ready for artilley?

My understanding (not having been under it myself) is that it was largely a matter of training, much like handling "tank terror". Monte Cassino comes to mind. Troops quickly learned, or were trained to know that the safest thing to do was seek the best cover available and stay put. That's not to say that a devastating bombardment would not make short work of quickly dug foxholes … but again, I think that is represented by the effect of good/low firepower weapons, accumulating casualties and platoon morale checks already in place. Shooting the crap out of rocks didn't necessarily result in the defenders fleeing.

I think the first challenge, assuming one accepts that something needs to be changed, is in defining what the desired effect is:

1. Should a morale test be required for every cumulative pin just as with double-bailed vehicles, or just one test per turn where a pin occurs?

2. Should units degrade from pinning-but-not-killing hits? You're introducing some book keeping here if so -- perhaps accumulating pin counters for every pinning hit? You could then require a successful roll to remove each accumulated counter. Alternately, perhaps just have any two pins in any turn result in a single casualty (no added book keeping), subjecting the unit to gradual degradation and the existing penalties for taking casualties over time.

3. Should 'big pins' count more than 'little pins'? How does a volley of machine-gun fire compare to a mortar barrage in this equation? 6 hits of small arms versus 30?

4. Should it apply to any pinning hit? Keep in mind, pins can be generated from sniper fire, a solitary mortar tube, flamethrowers or massive bombardment. Can I make a full company of dug-in Soviet infantry running by plinking at them with a solitary sniper over successive turns?

5. Should this change apply only to infantry and gun teams? If they are subject to cumulative effects of non-lethal fire, what about armor?

6. Finally, how do you avoid skewing the game in the favor of armor? Is this really just a response to German players fielding Tigers and Panthers to the fact that infantry is hard to kill with their mighty armor?

If we were sitting around discussing this over a beer or three, these are the questions I'd be asking before agreeing to give any house rules a spin. If there are reasonable answers, I might be game. (If you were buying, it would help your case.)

Actually I need to amend my answer to that first question: I have seen a change to the pinning rules inadvertently made by the man himself (Phil) on the FoW forums. In a question regarding the effect of pinning on AFVs, Phil botched a response and stated rather clearly (though inadvertently) that hits DID pin armor like infantry, rendering them incapable of moving forward, etc. (Chris/OgreWW2 on these forums may well remember that discussion.) It exploded into a 5 page thread, was deleted, recreated and deleted again before a locked thread appeared with an edited version of Phil's post clarifying things. Comical stuff, but there was some good discussion.

Frankly, I think armor gets off easy in this equation with FoW, so I'd personally be more interested in fixing THAT first. Let me pin your tanks with small arms fire, and I'll let you double-pin my infantry. :)

- Bob