"Thoughts on Panzer War" Topic

Panzer War is a World War 2 wargame by Steven Lorenz. I am sure most of you seasoned grognards already knew that. I discovered this set of rules a few months ago. After kicking them around awhile I decided to post my thoughts on them. Perhaps this will help you decide if you want to dive in. I apologize for the lack of paragraph spacing. I could not figure out how to do it.

The first big bonus for this rules set is that they are completely free. That is right. Do a internet search for Panzer War 6mm and BAM! This was the big thing that attracted me to PW. I hate buying a new set of rules to decide that the game does not meet my expectations. There are supplements for using air support. All of the major factions of the war have tank and infantry stats. He even took the time to include obscure pieces of equipment. The Japanese armor lists include rare tanks that only had a few test models created. You can get lots of mileage out of What-If scenarios using tanks that never fired a single round historically.

The units in the game are based on 1/2" by 1/2" bases. The option to just write the unit type on the card is viable. You may also use 6mm miniatures to represent the models. I had to tweak the base sizes for models longer than 1/2". I used bushes to designate the confines of the base. It looked cool in that the aT rifleman was sticking his weapon out of the bushes waiting for a tank to appear. The base itself is 3/4" by 1/2". You will probably have to make bigger bases for artillery pieces. Each base represents a squad of 6-12 men. The base is an area of operation for the squad. You could imagine most of the squad up by the front right corner with the LMG section lagging behind. The scale is used in General Standard Units. This allows any size models to be used. For instance, 100 gsu is actually 100 millimeters or 10 centimeters. It works fairly well. For those of you who are a scale junky like myself 1mm equals two meters.

Infantry is a nice thing to discuss. But I think most people play 6mm WW2 games for the tanks. You can field a battalion of tanks and still keep "HouseHold 6" happy with the finances. This is where PW shines. I did the math for a 75mm gun on a semovente tank. It could penetrate 5cm of armor at 1000m. The stats for the gun and a british tank with that much armor are really accurate. I feel like it is a good simulation. Bear in mind that I am not an expert. Each gun has a penetration range band and a to hit range band. After sighting a vehicle and measuring the range you use the charts to determine how hard it is to hit and how much armor it will penetrate. If you get a penetrating hit you roll another set of dice. These are usually for Fire and mobility. If you roll high enough on the fire die the tank catches fire and blows up. The same thing applies for mobility except that the vehicle cannot move. This is a very brief run down of the sighting and gunnery rules. You will have to look at them yourself to get a better idea.

Infantry combat uses the same concepts for sighting. Combat is different in that a Kill Power rating is applied to infantry weapons. Rolling under the KP removes the stand. Every nationality's infantry has a morale rating. This determines how easily they are broken and rally. American infantry from 43+ have a +3.8.2 rating. The first number represents the breaking factor. If a gun's KP is 2 the squad will break on a roll of 3-5 on a d10. You just add the first number to get the break chance. The 8 is what you need to roll to rally on a d10. There are factors that make this easier, etc. The 2 is the Darkness is Death number. Rolling on or under will result in the squad running for the hills with no chance to rally. Suppression is +4 or less above the KP. The above infantry is suppressed on a 6. Anything higher is ineffective.

PW is a great game for simulating a meatier WW2 game. The model count is actually pretty low compared to other 6mm games. A company of 9 stands would only require 19 individual figures. Tanks are one model equals one tank. If you are looking for more abstraction and quicker play then try ww2 games by Iron Ivan or something similar. I do not want to leave the impression that PW is a slow game spent looking at charts. There are charts to look over. After a few games you will not have to refer to some of them very often. The sighting and gunnery phases play very quickly once you digest the rules. I would describe the rules as having moderate complexity with varying amounts of easy/hard parts.

The one aspect of the game that confused me is the scale. Infantry are most effective at killing the enemy at 30 gsu or 3 cm. Given the scale and base sizes this is skimpy. It occurred to me to look at the units as "symbols" or "chits". Terrain is another problem. Your houses, etc would look out of scale with the 6mm figures. Imagine that a 25 by 25 foot house is 8 by 8 meters. In game scale that would be a 4mm by 4mm house. It would be like the movie The Amazing Colossal Man but with an army of heart troubled Glenns. PW is more of a Advanced Squad Leader clone. The good thing about this is that most engagements can take place on a 4x4 table or less. The downside is that if you want to find a game with somewhat believable ranges you need to look elsewhere. I understand that this is a somewhat impossible feat to accomplish. You would need a basketball court and a big harness you lay yourself in. You would have to pull yourself across the game space on the harness to move units (Yes, I have actually considered a true scale WW2 game). If you enjoy ASL games and other tactical board wargames this may be your new saturday night thing. However, if every infantry stand is a creative diorama to design you may be a little disappointed. Though I have these opinions they are easy ones to over look. Obviously I am biased more towards scale and terrain realism than anything else. I suggest you give Panzer War a look if you are interested in trying something new.

I've played PW since about 1981. It is a very good, "crunchy" set of rules. I play Command Decision, Rapid Fire, and Blitzkrieg Commander mostly nowadays as I prefer games where a single tank model represents a platoon.

Good, honest review. Sounds like a fun tank bash-up set.

Dave

30 GSU is close to about 1" and is as precise as you can usually get moving chits around. And infantry is most effect under that because it is grenade range.

Also, Panzer War is used as a guide for Matrix Game company's Panzer Command series of computer games.

Thanks for the review.
-Steve

panzer-war.com

Thank you for posting this

I'm still digesting the rules. But I love the format. I like the granularity of the armor and penetration. My only problem is that I'm SO SLOW and trying to resolve anything. I find it hard to get over the hump and I think the only way I could use these rules is if I used a small amount of tanks. And I prefer to have games with 20+ tanks and infantry as well.

This is the basic process for one tank or AT gun firing on a tank…so I guess that's why I'm so slow.
1. Measure Range; lookup the 'to hit' number and penetration number, from 'Weapons Data Chart' based on shell type used.
2. Adjust the 'to hit' number based on modifiers in chart 'Direct Fire to-Hit Modiers'
3. Roll to see if you hit target.
4. If the target is 'hit', check the 'Additional Hit Table' to see if more than one hit was made.
5. Roll for location of hit (10 locations), find armor rating, and type of armor (rolled, anti-deflection, highly angled, spaced armor, bolted armor).
6. Based on type of shell, and type of armor, adjust penetration number using 'Variable Penetration Charts'
7. Determine if armor is penetrated
8. Roll for type of damage

Dan

I wanted to ask you what your favorite set of rules are for the 20+tanks and infantry on the table!

Thanks

4. If the target is 'hit', check the 'Additional Hit Table' to see if more than one hit was made.

You don't ordinarily have to do that as the to-hit number is followed with the additional hit numbers in small type.

Thanks for clarification Steve.

@acctingman1869

I guess I'm one of those who ate never satisfies with rules. I want tank vs tank resolution that will resemble historical results. And at the same time I look for rules that also incorporate good infantry combat. I prefer a scale of one tank =1 tank and an infantry unit represents a squad.

I like tank charts but their infantry rules are not so good. The rules which have played best for me are Mein Panzer and Jagdpanzer. Both handle large battles and still offer good infantry rules. I prefer rule sets that break down armor profiles beyond a single number representing the front, side, or rear. But often times those rule sets a) have innacurate armor/penetration data, or b) can't handle larger battles or c) are infantry centric rules or d) lack playability or e) don't have good infantry rules.

I certainly haven't tried everything. I keep looking for the next improvement over what I'm using .

Thanks Dan

I like Chain of Command for skirmish games (only played a couple but it was fun) but I'm looking for larger battles myself.

I'll pick up both rules and give them a go.

Appreciate your insight

Panzer War works well for small games. One of the more enjoyable games I played using it was a Cobra breakout scenario with a Company of Shermans and Armored Infantry backed up by a flight of P-47s versus a platoon of Panthers, PaK 40s and a 2/3 strength Panzergrenadier company. All on a 2 foot wide by 4 foot deep terrain board. It does not work well when trying to game a Soviet Tank Corps versus a Panzer Battalion at Prokhorovka.