"Of FOW's sliding scale ranges and such..." Topic

Hi all,

As I was reading the various threads on FOW and its strengths/weaknesses I was wondering about something. The abstraction of the sliding ground scale. This seems to have negatively affected a portion of the TMPers on here. Artillery on the company level playing map? Nonsense! (I agree, but I also accept that). We have to remember though that BF is in the business of (I know this will shock some of you) making money. There, I said it. Are you happy now?

OK, now to an idea I have been contemplating in my head regarding ranges. Here it is:

Why not make the ground scale versus miniature scale at 1:1? Meaning, why worry about ranges on such a small scale table anyways? There are no range restrictions to any projectile weapons on the table. Apart from the arty being on the table, would this address the sliding ground scale issues some folks have?

I am not trolling, flaming or playing/being a sockpuppet. I want to know.

That's effectively what Crossfire does – range is not a limited, though line of sight limits what you can shoot at.

If you use 6mm models you can have the same scales for the figures and groundscale and have range as a factor, certainly for small arms.

At 1/300th a 6'x4' table represents an area of ground 600 yds x 400 yards.

"Why not make the ground scale versus miniature scale at 1:1? "

The problem is that if you do that, there is no point in manouvre at all, you can just sit on the baseline and bang away – it's all short range anyway.

Many wargames artificially reduce ranges to avoid this, but without the FOW sliding scale.

Derek H makes some good points, but note that Crossfire works because there is a LOT of terrain on the table.

The problem is that if you do that, there is no point in manouvre at all, you can just sit on the baseline and bang away – it's all short range anyway.

True if you're fighting in the steppes of Russia but not if you're fighting in a town or in the bocage country.

"True if you're fighting in the steppes of Russia but not if you're fighting in a town or in the bocage country."

Agreed. Unfortunately, WW2 was fought over vast areas of relatively sparse terrain, such as the Russian steppes (as you suggest), the Western Desert, Holland and Belgium, in fact most of mainland Europe with the exception of built up areas, bits of the Ardennes and the Hurtgen Forest and the relatively tiny area of bocage in Normandy.

wellll…. the western desert is not that flat – it's surprising how often you can see all the way to the horizon, only to discover someone hid a small town in a dip you could not see.

I never play on a table where you have line of site to the other side.

Pat

"wellll…. the western desert is not that flat"

I didn't say it was flat, I said the terrain is relatively sparse (making a depiction of it in Crossfire terms difficult). Besides the Western Desert is quite varied from rocky plains to the Great Sand Sea to the coastal mountains …

You could try playing FoW with much more terrain.

Could someone describe the "sliding scale" that's being discussed? I used to have, in my home brew rules that ranges up to 10 or 20" were 1"=10 yard and beyond that, 1"=50 yards opr something like that. It worked really well for allowing house to house fighting (where shooting across a street might be at long range with just one ground scale) and ranged fire in more open areas.
--
Tim

First time I have ever heard Western Europe called 'sparse terrain'…

@Ditto Bird:

It has never been defined that precisely, but the sliding scale is exactly as you described: 1" = 10 feet for 4 inches, then it's 1 inch = 10 yards for the next four, then 1 inch = 50 yards after that (as an example).

Mark Severin
Owner, Scale Creep Miniatures
scalecreep.com

"It worked really well for allowing house to house fighting (where shooting across a street might be at long range with just one ground scale) and ranged fire in more open areas."

I'm not sure of the exact details in FoW but yes, that's the idea. It does indeed work fine until you try to create terrain for a scenario – which ground scale do you use then? With a sliding scale, whichever scale you use to lay out the terrain will be wrong at certain ranges …

"First time I have ever heard Western Europe called 'sparse terrain'…"

The phrase I used was "relatively sparse". Sparse that is, by comparison to a built up area or bocage.

And you get the old problem of unit frontages bearing little or no relationship to weapons ranges.

This plays havoc with using your battalion AT guns in anything resembling a realistic fashion. In FoW they can't even cover the frontage of a company.

Interesting discussion.

Derek, how would you handle the unit frontages issue? Can it be done? Are unit frontages different by nationality / front / time period in the war / unit status?

This rule set gets major attention here. Wow! It must be extremely complex as it seems we disect every part of it on an almost daily basis It seems to require countless debate with participation of many experts to decipher its profound nuance.

"It seems to require countless debate with participation of many experts to dicifer its profound nuance."

Either that or they are just rubbish :-) (YMMV)

To answer Capt. John Miller's question: "Why not make the ground scale versus miniature scale at 1:1?" My answer is that you lose a lot of the distinction between different weapons, short of playing on a massive table, shifting to a smaller figure scale, compressing the ground-to-figure scale, or some combination of these.

I think it could work fine up to a certain level, but when you start to add artillery, air and longer-range guns, you hit some limitations on what can fit in a typical gaming venue and still be modeled at 1:1.

If you played FoW at strictly a company-or-below level, it might work just fine. But then, you lose a lot of the toys that so many of us want to play with. (Hey, I'm still annoyed I can't take Soviet 203mm tracked howitzers!)

An interesting discussion though. If we reduce the number of bands to:

4 inches (SMG)
8 inches (optimistic bazooka)
16 inches (rifle)
Unrestricted (anything bigger)

How close to are we to a fixed ground scale? Something like 1 inch = 12.5 yards? Not completely fixed, but close?

How much differentiation is needed between 24 inches (HMG and light ATG/AA range) and 32 (tank main guns) for direct fire?

If enough scenery is provided to not allow an unobstructed line-of-sight at more than 24 inches, we can implement this easily, albeit in an artificial manner. A 300 yards max. visibility is pretty confining. But might this enough to make the game more palatable for some?

It seems to me that using a fixed ground scale would almost require some combination of:

1. Limiting the game to company-level or below (no big toys)
2. Shifting to a smaller figure scale (prohibitive for cost to many)
3. Using a significantly compressed ground-to-figure scale. (looks really silly -- mega tank park!)

Would you (all) agree?

I'm generally opposed to the idea of house-ruling in FoW simply because the ability to walk up and play with strangers at different venues is important to me, but if some generally agreed upon conventions can be used for game setup, I wouldn't have objections if advised in advance. Ditto for things like restricting, reducing or eliminating support options.

Then again, I'm also not opposed to trying out a new rule set, so long as I don't have to scrap my basing, or buy all new miniatures.* Rather than trying to 'fix' FoW -- and judging by success, a lot of folks seem capable of playing it just fine without any fixes -- it makes more sense to me to try out rules that (purportedly) 'got things right' to start with, then just see which is the more enjoyable game.

- Bob

* Well, I did jump into 6mm for BKC.

Derek, how would you handle the unit frontages issue? Can it be done? Are unit frontages different by nationality / front / time period in the war / unit status?

Only way to avoid incompatibility between unit frontages and ranges is to have a fixed groundscale. It's not difficult and many sets of rules do it quite well.

But none of them have set out with the objective of using a 1:1 figure and vehicle scale and having all arms, including artillery, on the wargames table. It is this, IMO marketing driven, approach to rules design that causes many of the problems people have with FoW

And yes, unit frontages varied with all the factors you mentioned.

There's been discussion of this here before for example here TMP link

Sweeping generalisation alert.

A typical infantry battalion attack would be launched on a frontage of 500-1,000 yards.

1,000 yards is under effective range for most AT guns.

Now think about FoW where a infantry company would attack on frontage represented by a 6' table and the AT guns have a range of 24".

Then try and use FoW to set a scenario based on the D-Day beach landings where German stongpoints, typically about 1 Km apart, were laid out to be mutually supporting.

To get this support with FoW you need to put your strongpoints under 24" apart and you have enough room to deploy a platoon between them rather than the two battalions that could fit in there historically.

It's all a dreadful mess.

bobstro wrote:

It seems to me that using a fixed ground scale would almost require some combination of:
<snip>
3. Using a significantly compressed ground-to-figure scale. (looks really silly -- mega tank park!)

Which of course never happens with FoW's sliding scale.

Derek H wrote:

[…] Which of course never happens with FoW's sliding scale.

Which is why I mentioned it. If you think FoW looks goofy now, try using a ground scale that FORCES you to bunch things up!

With existing investments in 15mm figures, the ground scale can't be too compressed.

- Bob

Derek H wrote:

[…] Only way to avoid incompatibility between unit frontages and ranges is to have a fixed groundscale. It's not difficult and many sets of rules do it quite well.

So does a base size need to be the same size as the represented unit's frontage in that case? Do base sizes for different nations or troop types need to vary? Or can a fixed base size, something less than the frontage be used, but with a 'zone of control' around it? How do so many rules that have loose basing requirements (3-4 figures on a 1x1 inch base seems common) handle this issue?

But none of them have set out with the objective of using a 1:1 figure and vehicle scale and having all arms, including artillery, on the wargames table. It is this, IMO marketing driven, approach to rules design that causes many of the problems people have with FoW.

For clarification, it's the 'marketing driven approach' that troubles you, not the attempt to represent what you describe, correct? I think it's important to separate the two. If somebody simply doesn't like Battlefront, then any number of changes to the rules probably won't satisfy them so long as it's still based on a Battlefront product.

I do think a 1:1 scale for figures and vehicles is going to be tough if all arms are on the table with a fixed ground scale, much less a 1:1 figure-to-ground scale. Derek, what rules do you think come closest to achieving this?

- Bob

"If somebody simply doesn't like Battlefront, then any number of changes to the rules probably won't satisfy them so long as it's still based on a Battlefront product."

By George, he has hit upon it!

Derek has a lot of Battlefront products and still continues to buy them. He was last gushing about his defrocked priests if I recall correctly.

I think he has stated it is the marketing driven design approach not the attempted model scale that is the issue.

Or put it another way, rules design has been compromised by marketing desires.

Until FOW came along, nobody but nobody would ever consider a need or desire to have 4 or 8 25pdrs for a desert rat Army representing a company in strength. All the figure manufacturers selling artillary models have benefited from Battlefront doing this.

This sliding ground scale thing is a way for for people who simply don't like FOW to "rationalize" their subjective feelings.

What difference does base size to ground scale matter if they're all too big? What's significant is the relative effectiveness or ability to cover ground, not whether a base on the table is going to cover 50 scale yards or 100 scale yards.

So what if I can only fit a platoon in between mutually supporting German strongpoints on DDay instead of the battalion that historically could have fit there. The tactical problem presented is the same.

The only thing I have trouble with in FOW is the on board artillery. Not because it's too close in scale to shoot, but because somebody can run a unit across the table to attack an artillery battery that would in real life have been way out of reach.

"As for on board artillery I use the across the Volga rule. It works for me. I'm cheap as well so that way I don't have to buy the artillery models !!!!!!"

You could be slightly less frugal, and use 1:300 artillery off-board. And 1:2400 for naval gunfire!

I think 1:100 or 1:144 aircraft look hinky as all get out over a 15mm table. So I'm using 1:600.

What TMP really needs, though, is a study of how many games could be played by non-FoW players if they weren't busy discussing a game they don't play.

Kevan G wrote:

[…] I think he has stated it is the marketing driven design approach not the attempted model scale that is the issue.

Isn't that a rather subjective standard? While there are a wealth of free rule sets available, 'marketing driven' can be applied to just about any commercial publisher, varying only in a vaguely defined 'degree' of crass commercialism. What makes BF more 'market driven' than <insert name of favorite publisher>? Success?

Or put it another way, rules design has been compromised by marketing desires.

So you're saying it's impossible for a 'commercial' company to produce quality rules then?

Until FOW came along, nobody but nobody would ever consider a need or desire to have 4 or 8 25pdrs for a desert rat Army representing a company in strength.

That's going to be a hard one to substantiate. I'm frequently chuckling at the number of queries to add air or artillery to the 1:1 figure-to-ground scale rules I play. The authors have resisted, but someone still wants to add bombs that will, they belatedly realized, fully cover the playing area… and they want to add observation rules to boot. I've noticed that BKC, even in the '1:1 base-to-squad' mode doesn't prevent players from loading up on artillery and air assets. Many rule sets allow players to build ahistorical combinations.

Battlefront didn't 'create' the desire by gamers to add big (and admittedly sometimes silly) things to small games, nor are they the first to 'slant' rules the direction of using figures they just so happen to produce. GHQ downlplays infantry in their rules altogether -- at least that's what I've read -- and just so happen to sell primarily vehicles. Peter Pig's PBI rules -- again, based on what I've read -- downplay armor, which PP sells relatively little of. Is the difference the degree of encouragement to do so then? [Full disclosure: I do not own, nor have I read or played PBI or GHQ MicroArmor. That said, I do not consider any of these companies more crassly commercial or unethical than any other commercial venture that has to make payroll.]

All the figure manufacturers selling artillary models have benefited from Battlefront doing this.

As have we gamers that buy this stuff! Not an altogether bad thing, is it?

In the interests of honesty and community, I think it would be helpful if posters were clear on their fundamental objections to any set of rules. If there are issues with mechanics, those can be discussed, explored and possibly improved.

Hey, if someone just dislikes a company's business practices, that's fine. I deplore Microsoft almost as much as I despise Apple (tough to make me happy) for their business practices, but no changes or innovation in their products will change that.

- Bob

I play a LOT of skirmish games, in which the rifle or muslet has a range of 24 inches, with the figure 1 inch tall. No one complains about that, and FoW is exactly the same thing.
If tanks fired at "realistic" scales, my Sherman would be across the street from your Panther, instead of 18 inches away. AND, if my Roger's Ranger was shootng "realistically", he should be in the next room.

It's a non-issue, folks, as long as the good guns outrange the poor ones, AND do it incrementally.

Taking Derek H's parameters as an honest attempt to define a viable figure-to-ground scale, I'm using his parameters that two battalions should fit easily within the range of an ATG. I'm now combing back through some of my other rule sets to see how they stack up in this whole "unit frontage" discussion.

At quick glance, BKC has the range of a 75mm ATG at 70cm. MG range is 50cm, but I'll stick with 70 for now. A stand representing a platoon is 4cm wide using the microarmor recommended basing (modified [smaller] bases with unchanged measurements using 6mm instead of 10mm miniatures.) So that space will fit just over 17 stands (platoons) wide, not quite enough to fit if two battalions (18 bases) worth of infantry are deployed shoulder-to-shoulder, more tightly if MG range is used. Derek, would that be a 'correct' depiction by your definition?

Obviously, at 1 stand = 1 squad, BKC would be more of a challenge since weapon ranges are unmodified. That does seem to be the default mode described in the book though.

Using Crossfire's 1 stand = 1 squad and recommended 1.25 inch basing, two battalions worth of infantry standing shoulder-to-shoulder would fit in a width of 67.5 inches, not accounting for support, command etc. Assuming Crossfire has the frontage thing right, how wide of a table do we need to depict a sector of Normandy?

I'll dig through more rules I own later (CDIV, Tractics, Angriff), but I found this interesting.

Anybody got other company-battalion level rules to run through this sanity check?

- Bob

It's not just how far you can shoot, but your odds of hitting anything, which get worse as the range increases. And, with armor-piercing fire, how much armor a round can penetrate falls off with range as well.

CD IV has a ground scale of 1" = 50m. Recommended basing for personnel is something like 1" square and each base is a platoon.

Battlefront WW2 has a scale of 1" = 40 yards. Again, recommended base size is about 1", mabye a little more. But each stand represents a squad or section.

So, which of these two "accurate" and "realistic" rules sets violated Derek H's rules?

(By the way, I own and like all three, FOW, CD IV and BF WW2-- I just scoff at those who decry FOW as unrealistic and gamey when compared with other supposedly realistic sets).

It's not just how far you can shoot, but your odds of hitting anything, which get worse as the range increases. And, with armor-piercing fire, how much armor a round can penetrate falls off with range as well.

Admittedly, FOW doesn't reduce the chance to hit a target with range. It does reduce the penetration of anti-tank weapons over 16", but this is a standard reduction (i.e same for 75mm and 88mm guns).

Again, I think it comes down to how much detail you want. FOW doesn't require you to look at multiple range bands to determine your chance to hit and penetrate. Does this really detract from the game. How many shots are taken a maximum range in CD IV for example anyway?

Bede19025, would you mind providing the range of an MG-42 and a Pak-40 for CD IV and Battlefront WW2? For now, I'm using the latter as the 'range within which 2 battalions shall fit'.

If we can come up with some sort of consensus as to what the size of a half-squad should be (a FoW base), and reconcile that against the range of weapons that impact infantry most (MGs), we've got a starting point. If those aren't clear, I don't see how unit frontage can be cited as a particular issue.

Thanks,

- Bob

CD IV extreme range for a pak 40 is from 18"(900 yards) to 48" (2400 yards) (10% base chance to hit)
Mg42 (they simply have German MMG) max range is 18" to 24" (again 10% chance to hit) (900 to 1200)

bobstro wrote:

f we can come up with some sort of consensus as to what the size of a half-squad should be (a FoW base), and reconcile that against the range of weapons that impact infantry most (MGs), we've got a starting point. If those aren't clear, I don't see how unit frontage can be cited as a particular issue.

Lets say a British infantry battalion is launching an attack on a frontage of 500 metres – that's probably about as tight as things would ever get – and it would be very painful indeed if they ran into massed artillery fire.

I'd suggest you'd want to represent this with bases lined up right next to each other, though you could leave gaps.

The batallion would normally deploy two companies in the front line. Each of these companies would usually have two platoons up and one back. The Platoons would have two sections up and one back – so four platooons or eight sections covering the 500m.

So about 120m per Platoon 60 metres per section or 30m per half section.

Gives an FoW frontage scale of 1" = 15m.

So the normal Fow AT gun or HMG with its range of 24" can cover 360m of front – about a third of what it should.

So what if I can only fit a platoon in between mutually supporting German strongpoints on DDay instead of the battalion that historically could have fit there. The tactical problem presented is the same.

I'd suggest you think about that a bit more.

What you're saying is that an Allied force of battalion plus assaulting two German platoons in strongpoints is the same tactical problem as an Allied company assaulting two German platoons in strongpoints.

It's not.

Allen wrote

"I think 1:100 or 1:144 aircraft look hinky as all get out over a 15mm table. So I'm using 1:600."

Can you un-americanise this for the european market? It doesmnt translate into english

"What TMP really needs, though, is a study of how many games could be played by non-FoW players if they weren't busy discussing a game they don't play."

Very easily answered. None….thats thursday night Uk time

But the Flames of War equivalent is actually one short platoon between the two strongpoints, not a whole platoon holding the strongpoint, so the (reduced) tactical problem is still the same.

"so the (reduced) tactical problem is still the same."

No it isn't, because a battalion has a whole lot more supporting fire power than a company (albeit one pretending to be a battalion)

So flames of war is one platoon short of a company???

Bobstro wrote

"In the interests of honesty and community, I think it would be helpful if posters were clear on their fundamental objections to any set of rules. If there are issues with mechanics, those can be discussed, explored and possibly improved."

been there,done that….

"Or put it another way, rules design has been compromised by marketing desires."

So you're saying it's impossible for a 'commercial' company to produce quality rules then?"

no. I didnt even imply that.

kevanG wrote:

[…] So you're saying it's impossible for a 'commercial' company to produce quality rules then?"

no. I didnt even imply that.

Fair enough. The "I think he has stated it is the marketing driven design approach not the attempted model scale that is the issue" threw me. I assume, then, you meant that it is a separate issue from the sliding ground scale.

I do find it interesting that one tends to get mentioned with the other so frequently.

- Bob

Derek H wrote:

[…] So about 120m per Platoon 60 metres per section or 30m per half section.

Gives an FoW frontage scale of 1" = 15m.

So call the ground scale 1:540 roughly. We've got a target value now.

So the normal Fow AT gun or HMG with its range of 24" can cover 360m of front – about a third of what it should.

OK, starting here, up it to 72 inches (~1,080 yards/meters). Anything bigger fires 'unlimited' range (with LoS) for all practical purposes, unless we're really worried about 20 foot tables, although we could just provide values for completeness. (I guess with 6mm figs and a 1 cm = 1 inch, this is a good idea.)

So now… with a frontage corrected, fixed-scale FoW-derived set of rules, does anything else break? Command distances (60-240m)? Assaults (60m)? Movement (probably). I think there's a pretty huge ripple effect, to answer John Miller's original query… but perhaps not insurmountable?

I still suspect other aspects (lack of opfire, etc.) will still cause objections, even if the rest of the rules fundamentally work. And at 1:5.4 figure-to-ground scale, those much maligned tank parks will still occur. Which does lead me to question the value of this exercise, although it has been interesting.

I still want to run some of those other rules through the 'frontage' wringer to see where they land.

- Bob

Ok. Since we've beat up on FOW, how about giving other rules the same treatment?

How can CD IV and BF WW2 have essentially the same ground scale but CD IV puts a platoon on the same frontage as a BF WW2 squad?

Note that the vehicle scale is essentially the same in these two games (i.e. each vehicle represents 3-4 vehicles-- a platoon).

Are these games,or one of them, hopelesly broken too?

And Derek H,which rules do do it right in your opinion?

Do it right?

PBI & Crossfire. Possibly others

And, of course, neither Crossfire nor PBI (at least from what I've heard) handle armored vehicles very well.

There has to be some way to accomodate 15mm infantry and armored vehicles in a consistent way on a standard table top.

Western Europe is Sparse Terrain?

In the 1970s, NATO did a study of the terrain of West and Central Europe. They determined that of the terrain surveyed, no more than 25% of that surveyed gave a line of sight of more than 500 meters. I can't remember the exact percentages, but something even less, on the order of 1 to 3%, allowed visibility out to 1,000 meters.

Hardly sparse terrain.

-A.

Western Europe is Sparse Terrain?

In the 1970s, NATO did a study of the terrain of West and Central Europe. They determined that of the terrain surveyed, no more than something like 25% of that surveyed gave a line of sight of more than 500 meters.

Hardly sparse terrain.

As for non-FOW players criticizing the game, you do have a point. Of course, imagine all the FOW games that FOW fanboys could get in if they would stop taking all their time to unleash venom on anyone who dares to suggest that their baby ain't the wonderful game its cracked up to be?

Those of us who play FOW but prefer other systems are in a very comfortable position. We seem to get more gaming in than either group.

-A.

"Do it right? PBI…"

I apologize for ever having thought you didn't have a sense of humor, Derek.

PBI is the game system put out by that mega corporation Peter Pig to push their large line of infantry figures, while downplaying armor, which they don't sell as much of, right? :)

Aurelian wrote:

[…] Those of us who play FOW but prefer other systems are in a very comfortable position. We seem to get more gaming in than either group.

To me it's like any other label. Usually wrong. I play what I damned well feel like, which includes FoW and others. I usually agree with about 1/3rd of any given post either way.

- Bob

PP = mega corporation…Lol

Im pretty sure Martin sells plenty of tanks, after all, he has plenty of tank friendly games too like AK47 and abterling.

…..And they sell plenty of tanks to fow gamers….

….just like battlefront do to PBI gamers, …just not the box sets, just blisters.

8-)