"How Should Troop Quality Influence Our Games?" Topic

I've just bought (and been playing a little of) Battle Group Kursk (the "Kursk" in Normandy…it's a small little known French village) and while I'm really loving the game itself…I've got used to the quality of troops having a little more influence on the actual combat.

The rules employ a very effective morale system that is heavy influenced by troop quality and while I'd imagine this is probably the most relevant element I can't help but acknowledge the various materials I've read that insist that the veterans of war became more and more difficult to actually hit and remove from the battlefield.

I'm not saying that veterans or elite troops were so remarkably better shots that would necessitate a big probability modifier on a d6 but that veterans of the war were less likely to be knocked out of the battle by exposing themselves unnecessarily to enemy fire.

Whats your view?

That's why it was said not to get too friendly with the replacements. Veterans already know the drill, and will more likely be a bit more cautious in their actions than greener troops.

Having watched soldiers go from recruits to trained soldiers it becomes apparent from teamwork on the assault course to section attacks. Their use of ground, ability to communicate with each other /observe the enemy /coordinate their movement especially with a couple of "switched on" section commanders etc, gun group/commander using their initiative to ensure they are in the best position etc all improves the more they practice their drills and work as a team.

And of course in the war the "veterans" generally were less likely to put themselves in too much danger if there were better ways of doing the job,

Tally Ho!

It was observed in US studies of soldiers in WW2 that veterans let the rookies o the dangerous stuff and take the casualties. That way casualties were higher because the inexperienced troops did the exposed work. When enough rookies were killed a new draft would arrive and the former Okies became vets and were invited to hang back with the original vets.
Vets felt that you had to earn your stripes and they. Had earned theirs!

There is another thing about vets. Only a proportion of the weapons in a platoon are real killers. In a UK platoon it is the Bren teams and the sergeants with SMGs and any snipers that do the killing. The others have to lay down fire together to have an effect and all too often didn't have much effect. Only certain guys do the killing and they tend to be the vets. They use the rifle sections to create a situation in which the vets can get into cover flanking the opponent to get good shots, or at least to cover a charge by the rifle section where the rookies tend to be.
Vets are more likely to do the killing. On the other hand rookies are more likely to do the assault because they have not yet seen what an MG42 does to you.

If the sergeants are getting involved in firefights, they are not doing their job.

In a lot of rulesets you do get the multiple whammy. Vets shoot better than green troops, take less casualities and when they do get hit pass morale easier. They also obey orders better, recover from pinning faster and so on. While I agree the man is more important than the weapon, I'm not sure all these advantages are justified.

Training,experience and how long a unit has been together WITH it's current leaders should be the factors to how easy (or difficult) it is for a unit to remain under the control of their leaders. After all, isn't that what we are looking for as end results? Yet, how many games allow for checking how well leaders are doing their job in keeping the men under control?

Better trained troops know what is expected of them and what is coming. Getting shot at has been experienced and know when the battle rythmn is out of whack. They see what their leaders are doing to try to get things back on track. When the leaders fail their men, or the men do not respond to the leaders keeping their attention focused upon the fight, cohesion breaks down and so would it's effectiveness. So even "elite" units can be rendered ineffective under such conditions.

Wandering minds lose fights! Leaders have to put forth effort to keep their men in the fight! Knowing the men on a personal level (NCO's, and lower Officers) makes that job easier.

I have always hated rules that allowed two like rated units to merge and still fight the same. Units are made up of individuals and how in the H@!! could the leaders from one unit know the quirks of the men from another unit without spending some time together beforehand?

My two scheckles of rant!

Tom Dye

In most WW2 sections, the riflemen were there to carry ammo for the LMG. And I've often seen it claimed that only a relatively few riflemen actually fired their weapons in any give firefight -- and if they did they didn't aim, just fired in the general direction of the enemy. I remember reading the account of one US GI who said he really only once fired his rifle in combat like they did on the range (by which I take it he meant: actually aiming at something); which was when his squad was pinned down by a German MG. It only took him something like 3 aimed shots to kill the MG gunner, yet it was the first and only time he ever actually aimed!

I have always hated rules that allowed two like rated units to merge and still fight the same. Units are made up of individuals and how in the H@!! could the leaders from one unit know the quirks of the men from another unit without spending some time together beforehand?

Tom, I'm guessing you are coming from a modern US Army experience. How would that fit with the WW2 situation of a continual tunover of replacements. For example the US 28th ID had to absorb something like 4-5,000 replacements, mostly from the rifle regiments, but still put up a credible performance in the Ardennes.

Veteran doesn't necessarily mean a better soldier either. Some people don't learn and are just lucky. Some just knew when to put their heads down.

Some have never been placed in a situation where they've really needed to use their skills – this can happen to front line troops as well.

E.g. You could be in a motorised infantry unit and had spent 3 years rumbling through France and Soviet Union. However you could not have seen any serious fighting (the tanks or other units did more of that or you were lucky and enemy resistance broke without much struggle).

E.g. a young fresh recruit arrives at Stalingrad and within a week is having to fight for his life in brutal urban combat.

And people die stupidly – that same motorised infantryman that served in 1939-42 might die in a truck accident or to a sniper in a village they thought was clear.

Meanwhile the young recruit dies in combat after 1 month of brutal fighting.

Which soldier was the greater loss – the guy who saw 3 years active service but was never called on to use or develop his skills or the fresh recruit who had 1 month of brutal fighting under his belt?

Hi, Fred. Yes, it applies but not to such a big extent as remnants of Regiments (like ACW). By the time Armies started to standardize their basic training, we start to see some common cores of experience. Until that time, "standard" training (in the modern sense) just wasn't. That made the job of the unit leaders just that more difficult without knowing where the common core of experience and training a new guy had.

At least, by WWII, soldiers had been trained in how to fire their weapons, function within a squad environment and received some idea of who they were facing (as well as films of the day allowed). This made the job of integrating newbies into the unit easier than say in the 1860s.

Thomas Hobbes is right in principle. While the guy may be a veteran, his potential will probably not be put to use if his unit's leadership does not allow for it. Leaders are also managers. Mismanagement happens all the time. This is why unit cohesion (the unit's leadership's ability to maitntain control over the men) is predicated on the training and experience of the men and their leaders AND how long the two have been working together. The premise is that the better trained LEADER will mismanage less than a lesser trained leader.

Yes, people die in strange ways. One of my friend's father lived thru 3 active combat Special Forces tours in Vietnam but died in an auto crash within 6 months of his coming home. (He was T boned by another car that ran a stop light.) That is another subject altogether…..

Tom

German soldiers in Ww2 noted that Allied soldiers when shot at would go to ground and then get up again in the same pot whereas Germans were trained to crawl randomly to the side before rising again so the shooter could not maintain his aim .
Brits in Normandy if their officer was killed wold take up a safe position and brew up until relieved . Germans would, in the same circumstances (where command was lost) camouflage themselves and snipe the enemy. In that sense different veterans might perform very differently, but alll would do what they did rather better than rookies. That is because war is a shock that soldiers have to adjust to. Rather like no plan surviving contact with the enemy, soldiers naive opinions of what it will be like in combat are modified once the shooting is for real.
And as to NCOs doing most of the killing, yes they do because the NCOs are the guys ho have survived combat and have the best weapons.

How do you think veterans should be rated who have seen a lot of combat but been on the losing side for a while? I guess this could be a low-morale high-experience situation. Difficult to represent by a single 'morale factor', or maybe have 'raw' morale but keep the 'vet' bonuses when firing/fighting?

>In most WW2 sections, the riflemen were there to carry ammo for the LMG.

This is not true. It varied greatly by nation.

Yes, in the German army the LMG team was expected to provide the killing power, and the riflemen were there mostly to support the LMG team. But that concept was certainly not universal.

In the US Army, the BAR was there to support the riflemen, not the other way around. The firepower of the Garand was expected to do the majority of the killing, while the BAR was expected mostly to provide supression.

In the Italian army the squad was divided into rifle and LMG sections. The rifle section was expected to manuever while the LMG section layed down a base of fire. Hard to see how the riflemen were expected to supply ammo to the LMGs if they were 25 or 50 yards away, and moving independantly of the LMG gunners!

In the ruleset I prefer, Mein Panzer, almost all activities start with troop quality.

Your "to hit" number is your troop quality rating, modified by the gun type, the range, and then all those other factors (moving, cover, etc.).

Your spotting throw starts with yoru troop quality rating, modified by the range, target type, and circumstances.

Your morale throw is your troop quality rating, modified by the circumstances.

Your engineers' ability to do something (blow up a bunker, close-assault a tank, etc.) is your troop quality rating, with modifiers.

I like the approach very much. Fighting with better weapons or more troops, but inferior troop quality, is a VERY different experience than fighting with better troop quality, but inferior weapons or numbers. It helps demonstrate how a company of Pz IIIj's can out-fight a battalion of T-34's, without simply giving the Pz IIIj a high "combat factor" without regard to gun or armor qualities.

Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I like how Command Decision and Fistful of Tows handle it. In CD there is a modifier to hit and higher quality troops are much harder to kill – not to mention the morale effects for the battalion based on quality rating (rabble might run away just for being fired at, no hit needed).

FFoT has EVERYTHING (except movement speed, maybe even that) tied into troop quality. Poor troops have a morale of 7 (and need to roll that on a D6 to pass a check…) while top line troops have a morale of 2. It feels right when veterans run into conscripts – the vets fire quicker, hit more often, and pass morale checks more frequently. The hardware also is important but TQ is the most important thing in the game.

Dye4minis: Some excellent points.

A lot of it comes down to individuals as well.

All the training and excellent leadership will not convert a bad soldier in the good one if certain personality traits are present.

Unfortunately wargames seldom allow for this. Ancients and Napoleonic games sometimes have traits for poor commanders but I've not really seen it in WWII/Moderns.

Basically remember soldiers are human beings and much like the human beings in your own life (work, school) there are different personalities, different motivations etc etc.

sergeants with SMGs ….that do the killing

SMG's are not assault rifles, no matter how many Hollywood movies you've seen or 'army lists' you've read.

The job of an NCO is to command and coordinate the men in his unit, not get into private battles. He directs the fire of the riflemen and LMG group. Usual practice in British and US units was for the squad/section leader to charge of the rifle group and his assistant/2IC the gun group. In the British and German armies, his pistol caliber personal weapon isn't even capable of effective fire beyond 30 yards range!

As for unaimed fire, that's easily explained. US army tactical doctrine for squads in the assault was for riflemen to lay down suppressive fire to their immediate front, no matter if there was a visible target or not. Difficult to simulate this in a game

And in real life it's not all killing.

I've read somewhere that something like casualty rates in modern combat is 1 casualty per 100,000 rounds fired.

Tactical factors such as ground held, enemy position, terrain and weight of fire as well as psychology determine outcomes of firefights.

If the enemy fire is too heavy and you're unable to suppress enemy units flanking your position, you generally withdraw to another position, possibly under covering fire from other friendly units.

@Lewisgunner: Your posts remind me of the reason the ww2 battlefield fascinated me so much that I decided to play toy soldiers again …brilliant

@Dye4minis:"The premise is that the better trained LEADER will mismanage less than a lesser trained leader."

And this is exactly why I believe there should be a stressed emphasis on the participation of CC,PC and NCO's influence in our WW2games…IMO this is one of the real fascinations of war and is largely overlooked by many systems

@ThomasHobbes "Unfortunately wargames seldom allow for this. Ancients and Napoleonic games sometimes have traits for poor commanders but I've not really seen it in WWII/Moderns."

Thomas I don't know if you've played IABSM v3 before but it was my favourite aspect of the system: the varied degrees of commanders both good/bad and the direct influence they have over their men…I've incorporated some of their idea's to my own rules and apply with some tweaking to whatever system I use…they're easily incorporated without disrupting the balance… at least in my opinion.

@Dynaman8789 I've never even heard of "Fistful of Tows" I'll have to check it out

In a lot of rulesets you do get the multiple whammy. Vets shoot better than green troops, take less casualities and when they do get hit pass morale easier. They also obey orders better, recover from pinning faster and so on. While I agree the man is more important than the weapon, I'm not sure all these advantages are justified

@Fred Cartwright: Agreed and there's nothing worse…there has to be a sense of balance in these things. I've played games where there was such a discrepancy between the troops it felt like the justice League vs Judge Judy…senseless and pointless to play.

How do you think veterans should be rated who have seen a lot of combat but been on the losing side for a while? I guess this could be a low-morale high-experience situation. Difficult to represent by a single 'morale factor', or maybe have 'raw' morale but keep the 'vet' bonuses when firing/fighting?

That's what I like about Flames of War and Force on Force. Morale is separate from training/quality. You can have 'Reluctant Veteran' troops (say, 7th Armoured Division in Normandy) and 'Fearless Conscripts' (typically Russian 'Guards' units); or TQ d6 Morale d10 insurgents facing TQ d8 Morale d8 US Army regulars. It's a bad day when d12 troops (SEALs, Delta) show up.

Russian Guards units are Fearless Trained in FOW. It's standard Red Army in 1941-43 that's rated Fearless Conscript. >:( …. :P

Number 4 said :"The job of an NCO is to command and coordinate the men in his unit, not get into private battles. He directs the fire of the riflemen and LMG group. Usual practice in British and US units was for the squad/section leader to charge of the rifle group and his assistant/2IC the gun group. In the British and German armies, his pistol caliber personal weapon isn't even capable of effective fire beyond 30 yards range!"

We may not be that far apart number 4

It is an NCO who looks after the Bren it is the sections best weapon…. No doubt its different in the US Army with a high RoF personal weapon and low RoF LMG
In the German army it is even more about the LMG and the rifle section act as ammo carriers, but that is often because German Late War companies were tiny and mostly they were defending so MGs were the most important weapons.
In the British and I think American system the sergeant ends up leading the rifle section in an assault covered by the Bren section. The riflemen having given covering fire for the Bren to get to a flanking position.
When the assault goes in with Mills bomb and 'bayonet' the sergeant has the close range automatic weapon and thus is the most effective killer.
IIRC it was noted in the US research that NCOs did the killing. This might be a matter of weaponry, of leadership, or that often ordinary guys with not much experience could be motivated forward by example, but shooting when in close was another matter, whereas the types that survived the awesome casualty churn to become NCOs were the sort of guys who would kill you face to face without hesitation. I think those are only a percentage of the population.

At Cassino, one of the Essex regt. companies had a gamekeeper as a sniper. He would set up and bag a German or two each time, lots of patience, no qualms about pulling the trigger. Many men will not do that because seeing the face of man that you kill is quite different from shooting in the direction of others to suppress or stop them.
Often the loss of comrades converted men to being able to kill, they felt that the loss of friends justified revenge on an enemy that was responsible for their personal grief.
I
If that is the process that men go through to become killers then those that survive, those that become NCOs are very likely to be comfortable with killing face to face.
One wonders if peacetime NCO jobs after a twenty year lull (18-39) were not very different because the peacetime job was drill and paperwork and very few WW1 veterans were still in the ranks.

There are numerous studies, accounts etc which demonstrate that more experienced troops can make better use of ground which in turn reduces casualties although it is always hard to separate this from the more general factors like better teamwork which allows more effective fire & movement etc.

Many of these effects are quite marginal , but cumulatively they generate significant differences in combat effectiveness which in turn produce marked disparities in loss exchange ratios (taking account of terrain, posture etc). A loss exchange ratio of 5:3 isn't much comfort to the 'veterans', but one of 5:1 (as in WW2 east front tank warfare) or in recent examples from Afghanistan, 20:1, certainly is.

As for actual 'killing', again, the general consensus is that the bulk of his is done by a small minority of individuals/crews in a direct fire environment. At most 25%, more like 20% or less. The combat effectiveness of this lethal group is at least four times as great as the bulk of other willing participants, and ten or twenty times as much as the least lethal participants.

How you actually model this sort of thing in wargames depends on how all the variables in your combat model interact. +1 for being veteran doesn't necessarily work in all cases:)

I would be a bit wary of the US study… it is SLA Marshall and his study is, at least, controversial. Marshall was known to bend facts to fit his views. SMG are deadly at close range, but how many assault really came that close? Usually one of the two sides broke first.

Then you have the weapon itself. The Sten was poor and prone to Jamming, the Enfield was not. Alos rate of fire could be misleading. In summer 50 near Busan some British and US troops had a shooting competition, Enfield vs Garand. The Garand was laying down more fire initially but was slower to reload, while the Enfield kept up a more steady rate of fire.

As far Veteran goes, I think the term Veteran can be abused. Yes quality is important, but you also need to understand quality. But from what I have seen the idea the Veteran is harder to hit can be a bit of a stretch. Maybe the 'Veteran' is harder to hit because he is just cowering and you cannot use it for the rest of your plan, same as being hit. There is a lot of things that a kill really represent. I tend to think of 'kills' as soldier effectively removed from the battle. Maybe a recruit could be easily killed, but a veteran could be easily put out of action because he is just waiting to see what happens.

While tank kills are more easier to actually quntify a lot of infantry casualties are not, and often happens when you are bugging out or taking very heavy fire and usually that is randomly determined.

.

My only premise for 'cmbat experience' in the personal level is going paintballing. I have only been 20 r so times, but you can really see the difference between my play style and that of those who have only been a couple of times. I have run through curtains of paintballs, timing my runs etc and not got hit (OK, sometimes I do get nailed right away…) But compare that to my team mates who got humped as soon as they stepped out. In one encounter I was taking on 5-6 others and took most of them out and the last couple pulled back.

Whoopee you might say. But when I went against another friend who had bought his own marker, joined a team for fun and went every other week it was a diffeent matter. He and I got into a head to head in nearly every game and it was much more equal.

Liken thus to experienced people in any walk of life and job and see how that bit more experience really does make a massive difference in effectiveness, and in a way that mindless 'courage' just wouldn't compensate for experienced and effective troops.

All that said I can see how the following factors would effect veteran troops' ability to remain effective;
- effect of extensive fighting often without being relieved (they might be good, but just can't take any more)
- Differing leadership as mentioned above (how could a new leader lead an un familiar group of men?)

US replacements system was severly detrimental to US units becoming properly veteran, this even effected elite units that remained in the line thus making them, I would say, not really elite.

German thinking and tactics were generally superior (initially) to the alles, small things as mentioned by Lewisgunner, like the displacing/crawling 10 yards to the left or right then popping up to fire again would mean an attacker would have to re-aim at to hit. The German helment design was superior, and hence why in the 70s the US army begrudgingly adopted a very German-style helmet as their standard pattern for US the army from then on.

To sum up, experience and motivation do combine to make overall very effective troops if both are high. By the same note demotivated veterans should be almost ineffective, and handled in a good way by FoW I will admit (I don't like FoW but that is a good point) Its about troop aility, and then the desire to use that ability.

Ark3n

Arrigo, after 1914 mostly troops don't kill each other with rifles at a distance. most of the death on a battlefield is caused by artillery. mortars and machine guns. Tests of the rifles of the main combatants in WW2 showed them pretty well equal except for the Italian Carcano and the Japanese Arisakea where the ball was too small. That didn't matter to the Japanese as most of their shooing was in short range environments. of course these tests did not mean much in real conditions because most rifle shooting is not killing anyone, it is keeping their heads down and I assure you I would be keeping my fat backside really low whatever the calibre of what the opponent is shooting.
Most killing by infantry is done by the LMGs or in relatively close quarters where grenades come into it and there the SMG reigns supreme because it can compensate with rate of fire for the difficulty in aiming.

The objective of the infantry fire and manoeuvre is, as Hobbes said earlier , to turn an opponent out of a position or, if not possible, to cover an assault so that he cannot shoot the assaulting section down until it is in with grenades sags and the bayonet.
There might be an opportunity for an infantryman to kill with a single shot rifle, but it would be rare unless you met Russians or Japs assaulting in waves. even then the LMGs are going to do the real killing and the smg in close.
A further demerit of the rifle is that it is actually quite an involved process to shoot it. You have to be quite deliberate to fire and reload….an SMG is easy peasy, safety off point and click.

The combatants stuck to single shot rifles out of either the daunting problem of producing a new assault rifle mid war or because they were afraid that an auto weapon would encourage the infantry to shoot off all their ammo. After all, if your infantry cannot hit much with a Lee Enfield then at long range giving them a Tokarev is only a quicker way to waste the lead..
It is difficult to draw comparisons between today's professional Western armies and those of 1944. Today training is far far better and so is doctrine, so too management and leadership. Many of the soldiers in WW2 were naive civilians, practically untrained, not that willing and dead scared. in that situation the statistics for say rounds fired versus casualties caused should not surprise us.

Arrigo wrote:

SMG are deadly at close range, but how many assault really came that close?

A WW2 trial run at the School of Infantry (then at Barbard Castle) showed that the average soldier stood a better chance of hitting anything up to 200 yards with a Sten than with an Enfield. Given that infantry typically unmask at about 300m, but the attackers can hardly inflict losses on the defenders until they close to about 30m (according to Rowland and Speight's HA-based model of the typical rural infantry attack), the SMG seems to enjoy a substantial advantage over the bolt-action rifle at most likely combat ranges, and this was known and acknowledged at the time.

All the best,

John.

That's what I like about Flames of War and Force on Force. Morale is separate from training/quality. You can have 'Reluctant Veteran' troops (say, 7th Armoured Division in Normandy)

I always thought that Reluctant Veteran rating was an interesting dynamic. Here you had a unit that had a lot of hard combat experience in the Mediterranean theater, but who by the time they got to Normandy had felt that they had already "done their part" in WW2. Even though they were quite skilled/experienced, by many accounts they were not terribly interested in taking big risks in what they may have seen as the end phase of the war. I might recommend Keegan's "Six Armies in Normandy" for further study on this topic.

I often wondered if after the Battle of the Bulge both sides in the west should be generally rated as reluctant (save fanatical SS types)? Realizing the war was closing down and that their scarifies may not make much of an impact on a question that was all but a "done deal," how motivated might they be? On the East Front, I suspect that revenge/retribution motives drove the Soviet trooper just a bit harder right up to the end and their German opponents in the East might have had to match that fervor, for self preservation if nothing else.

Interesting discussion, VB

> their German opponents in the East might have had to match that fervor, for self preservation if nothing else.

Every account I've ever read or heard the Germans in East would say their were fighting to let more civilians escape to the western allies. I always wonder just how much of that was post war memory shifts.

There is a grave danger in trying too hard to get troop characteristics in a game. When we play, we have commanders who are Dangerous. They think, they plan and they act decisively. We have others "Not Dangerous or Inxperienced" who struggle to plan,are nervous about commitement and so lose men uneccessarily. It is impossible to make a bad general good and you are always going to struggle to make a good general bad as he will always acount for the fact that given poor troops, he will make allowances for that. That goes down the line. Good platoon comanders with good troops will be able to identify the best spots to deploy. The poor troops will not. As we the players have to be general, platoon commnders and even sections our ability to identify the best places is inate to us and would be impossible to make independent of ourselves. Thus apart from say making vets them perhaps react a bit faster if they are suppressed, you cannot realy acount for troop training as that is inate to the game.

Experience gamers, or the Fabled Platoon commander who always whips us despite not knowing the rules will always triumph ofver the inexperienced. That life get over it you will never model that credibly.

With this discussion, I have to ask, "What makes a UNIT elite?" For me, it is it's reliability. If I am the commander of a company and I NEED to take an objective, that task is going to the Platoon that has demonstarted it can perform that mission with least loss and highest success rate. That Platoon has a good combo of leadership, training and most of all, experience working together as a unit.

SLA MArshall was mentioned a few posts ago…. Another book worth a gander is "On Killing". By a different author (my copy is back in the USA) but essentially, validated the premises Marshall put forth.

Ammo expendatures: (I love this one!) A wise old general in the SYW once remarked "It takes the weight of a man in lead to kill him." Just check a battle's expendature of ammunition and divide into it the casualties created….knowing full well that most of them were probably due to arty than small arms. Reading first hand accounts of ACW battles in the OR you will find phrases like "My unit received a murderous fire!", but when you look at the unit's reported casualties for the engagement, it's usually something like 12 out of 300+ engaged!

Its' one thing to shoot at a tan; bomb a city; fire at a ship…because it is an object…not a human. It's quite another thing to see your opponent die before your eyes because YOU shot him. There was a reason why the US doctrine in WWII was bombard them with arty, then throw a lot of lead at the survivors, before you root the remainder out of the position. Still in practice today. Well, with the sequestration…maybe not for much longer…8>(

best to all.

Tom

Oops, my bad memory on the Fearless Conscripts. I don't play much on the Eastern Front.

As far as the 7th AD troops go, they have a special rule that boils down to 'brave, not stupid.' They get a re-roll on their Motivation test if you don't keep them pinned down by fire. A 5+ re-rolled is a little better than a flat 4+, statistically.

But again, I see a difference between troop's morale and their experience/ability. How many of you have dealt with folks straight out of boot camp? Those guys are 10 feet tall and bulletproof (in their own minds), and it takes a lot of work to get them up to speed for actual combat tasks.

If the SMG was not used, explain why British units in Normandy , or the German Assault units in Stalingrad increased the number of SMG's per section. Hell, the Russians had SMG battalions?

Smg's are also not easy weapons to use effectively, point and click will just empty the magazine, combat shooting requires skill and experience. The main advantage of an SMG is its compact design and ROF allows effective, close range, suppressive fire, with even a chance of causing casualties. Close in it is lethal, in the right hands.

I was told, by a SF soldier, that elite was a measure of the units self-belief and the fact it did what it was trained to do, whatever the circumstance or situation. Given most wargames units, of similar experience, have a standard move rate and ROF, with clear and unchanging combat modifiers, all they can do is add another plus to make it elite. Morale is so complex it can only be approximated, but why have dozens of armour ratings and only a handful of morale grades?

As for WWII, training did not really affect the eventual outcome, in fact I wonder which war was decided by training? Men who saw combat, rapidly became veterans, or died. As one USMC officer mused, on why Falujah was predicted to be a a tough battle, 'we've killed all the stupid ones, these are the smart guys.'

Sounds like as it was on the ground, so it was in the skies. The vast majority of German "kills" were by the experten while the other pilots were there to keep the great alive or be targets. Similarly the guys who thought they could turn with a Zero or out-dive a P-47 became victories for the other guy.

I think if we're looking to rate troop quality at say Platoon or Company level with some degree of historical accuracy I believe it needs to be primarily scenario driven.

If we look at say John Howard's D Company on June 5th we see men highly trained in a well rehearsed plan, supremely motivated, and primed for action against an unsuspecting, half asleep, and probably scared out of their wits German detachment! (If my memory serves me there wasn't many actual "Germans" guarding the bridge either!)

By that August D Company had been bleed to death by German artillery, all the sergeants were gone,the men were sleep deprived, hungry (they waited 25 days for delivery of bread) and shell shocked by the German guns, Howard believed the men's morale became so deflated that almost certainly some resorted to self inflicting injures…

How should D Company be represented? As a generic British Airborne Platoon in both?

Experience in war is a a two edged sword. Inexperienced troops may at times be naive but the solider over exposed can become psychologically and physically fatigued.

If the SMG was not used, explain why British units in Normandy , or the German Assault units in Stalingrad increased the number of SMG's per section. Hell, the Russians had SMG battalions?

Nobody has said the SMG was not used, although the Japanese and to an extent, the US Army got along without them. SMG squads were a phenomenon of the late war Eastern front with the Soviets happy to get enough firearms of any kind and the Germans using them in place of Assault rifles. If they had been such a wonder weapon tactically, then both the British and Americans would have adopted them wholesale and formed SMG units of their own.

US Infantry Divisions went to war without a single Thompson or Grease gun in the armory. Late 44, just six of them were allocated to the company as 'pool' weapons under control of the captain, along with six extra BAR's. That's not even enough 'Tommy Guns' to give one to each squad!

@Lewisgunner I think we are looking at two sides of the same coin. British section commanders were corporals nad armed with a Sten; the sergeant was at platoon level, usually carried a rifle and tried to keep the young Lt. out of trouble.

US Infantry squads were led by staff sergeants; the higher rank was a "quick fix" to give guys in combat leadership slots extra pay. Everyone except the officers carried an M1 Garand.

Thompsons were issued to tankers and half track drivers (actually part of the vehicle equipment), also to the paratroops. They were officially withdrawn from the Airborne units sometime in 44, an order that was widely ignored by the troops.

I read a fascinating book about just this syndrome, studies showed that two weeks combat was the most units could take, before starting to show a real breakdown in offensive spirit. Defenders however, although psychologically battered, were more cautious and less risk averse so increasing their effectiveness in defence. Of course if a crushing weight of fire could be brought to bear, then the psychological effects of the previous two weeks would impact on the defenders.

I agree about being scenario driven. Ellis has an account of a British AC commander who had literally fought for 4 years non-stop. The guy's morale was rock solid, treated the war as a deadly game, and by all accounts was fearless and highly effective. When his friend was killed all this deserted him, as his sense of invulnerability was shattered, rather like the character in Band of Brothers who falls apart mentally, after being shot.

How can a generic morale model even hope to simulate that? Yet it could add another dimension, if in company sized game the commanders and their units are rated individually. This would mean an umpire though, which not all gamers have access to. If you did though, you could be given a rundown of the state of your troops, more comprehensive, for effectively led troops, though only the umpire would know the real situation. It would allow another way to balance forces as well, as a platoon of veteran soldiers might have their sergeant close to cracking, with potentailly catastrophic effects on his subordinates. Or the green conscripts have a hero lurking, who in certain circumstances activates.

Soviets had SMG companies in 42, hardly late war and the PPSH 41 can put down accurate fire out to 200m. The British Sten, though much derided was a masterpiece of simple engineering and a lot easier, and cheaper, to produce than a bolt action rifle, let alone a semi-automatic one like the Garand. The US option was therefore financially unfeasible, hence the adoption of more SMG's, even more so for the USSR.

Lack of effectiveness was not the reason the Allies were lacking in SMG units, but because they simply fought in a different way, more sensitive of casualties and therefore often eschewing the direct approach and having a greater reliance and role for combat support.

Having said that in restrictive terrain the British deployment of SMG's rapidly increased. The M1 might be a superb rifle but it still is a long and cumbersome weapon, difficult to fire instinctively using WWII methods of aiming with the body, it also has a limited magazine and slow ROF.

I collect an shoot historic weapons, and my own M1 Garand was made in February 1945; I can aim it as instinctively as my old issue FN service rifle. It doesn't have a magazine, but the 8 round en bloc clips that can be loaded in seconds – quicker than pushing two stripper clips into the 10 round magazine of either of my .303 Enfields. And I don't have the training or combat experience WWII troops had.

"in restrictive terrain the British deployment of SMG's rapidly increased" And your source for this is? If they wanted more they could have asked the Canadians who were ditching them for Lee Enfields, according to this source link

"I was told, by a SF soldier, that elite was a measure of the units self-belief and the fact it did what it was trained to do, whatever the circumstance or situation."

Interestingly this chimes with David Rowlands definiton of 'heroic' behaviour in his studies in 'The Stress of Battle'. It wasn't exceptional performance, but individuals or groups who continued to operate their weapons as they had been trained to do. As the majority of other people/groups had degraded performance to a much greater extent, the 'heroic' groups performed vastly better in combat.

Wigrams 'gutful men' if you will, or the 'experten' or whatever.

From what I've read, the Soviet SMG battalions were tank riders, and their job was to protect the tanks from enemy infantry. And/or the tanks' job was to get them in close so they could use their SMGs.

@Milites: I take it you don't play Italians or Hungarians(? might be Romanians) in Flames, where you roll for motivation and training AFTER deployment.

It's really quite different from any of the other forces.

Don Lowry is correct:
quote "I always remember with gratitude our tank-mounted submachine gunners. They were brave guys. They certainly never ran along with tanks on attack or rode the tanks under gun fire as shown in movies. They were common living humans. They would hide and shoot here and there. But without them at nights we were as good as blind. They guarded us at nights." – Otroschenkov Sergei Andreyevich. Soviet tank driver, later battalion commander.

How a WWII rifle squad/section actually fought is detailed on Gary Kennedy's excellent site here link

Tests of the rifles of the main combatants in WW2 showed them pretty well equal except for the Italian Carcano and the Japanese Arisakea where the ball was too small.

Lewisgunner, what do you mean by 'the ball was too small'?

The 6.5 Grendel is very similar in ballistics to the 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser, which is quite a nice round. Fairly flat shooting, and not as affected by crosswinds as larger rounds.

And wasn't a Carcano used by Lee Harvey Oswald because it shot straight?

However, I do recall that the smaller calibre weapons were not such good man stoppers, a smaller bullet with less energy wasn't as good at putting an opponent on his back as the bigger US, UK, Germans single shot rifle offering.

I have read Ellis years ago and thus couldn't say whether the opinion was from that book or another of the many books of memoir or analysis that I have read in the last half century.

That an NCO handles the LMG is part self fulfilling prophecy and part that you get given charge of the LMG when you are a good enough soldier to be trusted with the section's main asset.

Not entirely sure why Oswald used a rifle, the window in the School Book Depository is about a hundred feet from where JFK was shot.

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If the NCO is manning the gun, he's not controlling the rest of the gun crew.

A hundred feet is pretty long range for a pistol (I know the bullet will carry further and can still kill if you get in the way of it), but Oswald was a trained rifleman – who was also court-martialed after accidentally shooting himself in the elbow with an unauthorized .22 handgun!

This is the sort of range the FBI and other law enforcement uses for pistol practice – note how close the targets are

link

And the USMC sub machine gun

The Field Manual for the M3 'Grease gun' can be found here PDF link

From memory, and as the German section (squad) focus was centred on the MG34/42, the MG gunner was an NCO, unlike in the British army where the focus of the MG was as a support for the riflemen to close with the enemy, and the section's 2iC was leader of the Gun group (Bren group) and would rely on his subordinate (a Private) to fire as directed by the NCO. it shows a subtle but significant difference between the two army's squad based doctrine.