"Faction Rules in Historical Small Unit Games: Aye or Nay?" Topic

There's a raging debate in the FoW forums over some special rules that pertain to American forces only (Spearhead and their Tank Destroyer rules). Some FoW players strongly dislike the effect of these rules and feel they cause balance issues. Others don't like the increasing number of faction-specific rules in general. And others enjoy what they feel adds color to their favorite troops.

Question: at platoon to company level (ok, battalion per side at ABSOLUTE most), what role, if any, do you feel faction-specific special rules should play?

We're not talking about special rules linked to specific weapon capability . For example, ATGMs might have special rules to represent their unique advantages and disadvantages regardless of the faction firing them.

The topic at hand is special rules intended to represent some quality unique to a given force based on training, doctrine, the ever amorphous "national character", or anything else you can come up with!

And to narrow this further, let's limit the discussion to our period of history, WWII to Modern, and small unit actions up to a company or battalion per side at the absolute most (ie at most a few companies per side and nothing close to a division per side).

We could use the following situation as our baseline for discussion:

- A bombed out village somewhere in the world.

- A reinforced rifle platoon is ordered to hold the village crossroads and bridge until relieved.

Hold until relieved…

Hold until relieved…

:-D

- A reinforced rifle company is ordered to secure the crossroads and bridge.

- the setting could be the French countryside in 1944, a village sitting on important road in Vietnam in 1968, or somewhere near a crucial combat outpost in Afghanistan in 2013.

At this level should faction-specific special rules apply beyond what can usually be covered by core rules or generic special rules? Or should individual factions be given unique rules?

For example, in the scenario above, let's say the Village is defended by Fanatical Troops such as SS Panzergrenadiers or die-hard Taliban fighters. Is it enough to have a generic "Fanatical Troop" special rule or do these forces demand something beyond that?

What's your preference, handle faction special abilities in:

A. core rules and generic special rules?

B. faction-specific special rules?

Wartopia

excellent post again. The application of the magical power syndrome that originated in D&D and has morphed across fantasy games and computer games is plain daft if you ask me. Where do these special powers come from in WWII to modern. Well it's either from

1 tactics. The whole point of a 1:1 game is to used tactics, not have them arbitrarily represented by some magical formula. better to issue guidance on how these units were used.

2. trainng – this is adequately covered in troop classification and weapons capability

3 morale ditto.

for me it's lazy war gaming if the tactics that are at the centre of the skill factor in a gaming contest are replaced by "special powers"

I object to calling combatant nations "factions."

I should have added

4 leadership – which can be provided for through a good rule system

And

5. Command and control

both 4 and 5 should not be special rules, but central to the engine of the rule set in my view.

Ivan, I think war topic was referring to different types of troops – or troop classes not necessarily whole belligerent nations. e.g. SAS may have different tactics, training and leadership CC qualities than paras or military police etc. etc..

faction-specific

And to think we used to call them "national characteristics"… !!

I'm just thinking of some examples where special rules might be good. Take the British-Indian army in Burma. In 1942 the Indian army was basically an internal security force, completely untrained in jungle warfare. Troops stuck to the roads and were easily infiltrated and cut off by the advancing Japanese. Once cut off they did not have the training to stick it out and organise relief operations. Bill Slim spent 1942 and 1943 retraining a whole army, so at by 1944, they were adept at infiltration and jungle warfare and able to respond effectively to being cut off by holding out and organising relief missions. So you would want to reflect some of this with your units. you could have a special rule for 1942 Brits that meant they needed to take some sort of morale test to move into jungle or wooded areas, and make is so that if they are cut off from their line of supply they are automatically removed from the table. however, I don't think you would need a corresponding rule to enhance 1944 Brits. Rather simply remove those inhibiting rules from 1942 to enable the player to use their best tactics without restriction in 1944.

"Special Powers" types of rules are merely a shortcut to essentially the same end effect as Archeopteryx' list of the important factors in troop performance. It is used by designers (and embraced by gamers) who want certain troop types (I refuse to call them "factions") to be better without having to explore, within the context of the game, exactly why they are better.

This distinction lies at the heart of the difference between a "historical wargame" and a "game played with historical miniatures".

Jeff

I think special rules for nations or specific fighting forces are fine as long as they are subtle and don't overshadow the core mechanics of the game.

So I think the core mechanics, the equipment, organization and morale of fighting forces should be what determines tactics on the tabletop. However, combat always creates extreme situations and there are many diverse troops that can't be accounted for in the core mechanics. Therefore I see special rules can add some flavour and account for these difference in behaviour. I think of special as sprinkling on top of the cake.

In the case of FoW, I think the special rules have ruined the game and are way over the top.

I object to calling combatant nations "factions."

All combatant nations are factions in a conflict but not all factions are combatant nations.

For example, in Iraq at any one time there were the following factions engaged in combat:

- U.S. and allied troops such as the U.K. (truly combatant nations)

- Iraqi regular troops during the initial invasion (another combatant nation)

- many different factions through out the conflict composed of irregular fighters from all around the world and Iraq itself. These included the Mahdi army, Sunni insurgents, former Iraqi regulars working for AQ, Iraqis simply fighting against the occupation, and the Kurds who are technically not a combatant nation. They fought each other and against the US and its allies.

But I do know what you're getting at and understand that the term has generally been applied to fantasy and sci-fi gaming. but in light of the complexities of 20th century combat factions seems appropriate since it encompasses regular forces of combatant nations (eg the US and NVA in Vietnam) as well as irregulars (eg VC).

Another good example is the Spanish Civil War. I suppose French Resistance fighters vs German regulars is another example.

And to think we used to call them "national characteristics"… !!

See above. In something as complex as Iraq with US regulars, "semi-regular" Kurds, Sunni insurgents, and Mahdi militia fighters "national characteristics" isn't a good description.

but in light of the complexities of 20th century combat factions seems appropriate

Well, yeah, I can accept that there are factions as you describe in modern conflicts, but WW2??? Surely not …

Well, the Nazis could break into factions: Wermacht, SS, Luftwaffe ground units, though I don't think that's usually done.

For north-western Europe in 44, you could have Monty vs. the Yanks, though that never came to blows.

Archaeopteryx,

Sorry, but I think you're drawing all the wrong conclusions and then creating silly rules to support those assumptions.

Morale tests to enter woodland?!

The Indian and British Armies sent to Burma in 1942 were tied to roads because all their supply effort was provided by MT. The Japanese placed a far greater emphasis on man-packing and living off the enemy's supplies.

As for removing units cut off from supply – well maybe, at the strategic level and once they'd been cut off for a few weeks, but certainly not at the tactical level. The British and Indian forces in 1942 fought their way out through many Japanese road-blocks in 1942, which wouldn't be possible under your 'rules'.

Well, yeah, I can accept that there are factions as you describe in modern conflicts, but WW2??? Surely not…

Well, there is the little issue of various resistance, partisan, collaborator or volunteer forces to be found in various places.

For example the Yugoslavia ended up becoming quite factionalised after the German occupation.

While the discussion and the semantical nuances of faction is interesting the fact remains in just about any 20th century conflict you had multiple combatants with unique characteristics.

The question is whether or not those characteristics show up at the tacticallevel beyond core rules and generic special rules.

Maybe we can agree to use the term combatants instead of faction.

I think Archaeopteryx's view isn't that far off for the Malayan camapaign.

British and Indian units were indeed tied to the roads because of their supply was motorised but there was also a very deeply ingrained doctinal idea that the jungle was impassable leading to panic when their positions were outflanked by the Japanese.

Those panicked retreats were both a result of poor training as most of the units were newly raised and very poor command decisions from battalion and brigade officers.

Factions? We don't need no stinking factions!

Would you rather use the single word 'factional' or the more pedantically correct 'national, organizational, doctrinal, and/or political' in front of the word 'characteristics'?

Aye, but only up to a point.

In my homegrown company-level modern rules there are three generic troop types: green, regular and veteran. This makes them better (or worse) at firing, close combat and recovering from morale effects. To this I have added various generic characteristics such as 'fanaticism' or 'marksman' that modify these generic troop types in one of the three areas above to suit historical scenarios.

For the first Chechen war, for example, in my games I give all Chechens a +1 in close combat after reading about their willingness to fight hand-to-hand. This was one of the main reasons why the Russian army came to prefer engaging the Chechens from a distance, so this simple addition is all that was needed to get both players to think about the scenarios in a similar way to their real-life counterparts.

Beyond this, I see no reason to add lots of 'special sauce'. The core of a game's rules ought to accommodate the differences between armies, nations, groups, factions, whatever you want to call them, without resorting to forcing things to happen through gimmicks.

I was trying to stay away from the silliness surrounding the term factions, but:

1. I would certainly use the term faction over the term national characteristic because I think it's ridiculous to attribute the characteristics of an entire nation to the units in a platoon/reinforced company-sized game. What I mean is, you can speak of the German Army's concept of maneuver warfare, AKA, "Blitzkrieg," but that's appropriate to an operational level game, not giving each fireteam or squad some sort of blitzkrieg characteristic because they're German, despite the fact it's a horse-drawn reserve battalion of stomach and ear rejects. I'm not trying to be obtuse, simply suggesting that the 'national' in 'national characteristics' implies all, while 'faction' might be more applicable to trying to differentiate between rifle companies of PzGren Grossdeutschland, a Waffen SS Panzer Division, and an ad-hoc Infantry Division made up of Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine cast-offs.

2. With regard to the argument against faction (in its traditional sense), Yugoslavia has been brought up, and I would submit the ChiComs and Chinese Nationalists were factions, and I'm sure we could come up with plenty more.

3. I can't believe 'faction' has eaten up so much space in this thread, and that I've allowed myself to get sucked into it, when this is a great post soliciting real opions from real wargamers about the construct of wargames. So here's my humble opinion:

I don't believe in special rules or even special units, i.e., even the *insert your favorite, most hardcore, heroic unit here* can fail/be beat. In wargame rules I do believe the way to handle it is 1) friction in command and control so the 10,000 foot general can't do everything he wants (slightly off topic but ties in with following two to make a 'game engine,' in my opinion), 2) a factoring in of training/experience (what are they capable of), and 3) factoring in morale (will they actually do it when ordered/what will they do in reaction to an adverse event).

In my mind these call for no special rules, it's just a simple set that can be dialed up for the specific scenario you're playing (historic or otherwise). What I mean is, there is no "Waffen SS are supermen."

If you rate leadership, capability, and morale from one to four you could say, in this battle they had a great leader, were highly trained and well equipped, and were highly motivated (4-4-4). The next month that same unit had p@#$-poor leader, all its replacements are of dubious quality, and they are not exactly committed to be the last German killed before the war ends (1-1-1). Of course it can be mixed as well, i.e., a mediocre leader, decently trained but poorly equipped grenadiers, willing to give the last full measure as they are defending their homes and loved ones (2-1-4). Using this mechanism you can reasonably, simply, and quickly lay out the quality of the opposing forces. In company-sized games I tend to give all the like elements the same rating, i.e., all the infantry are from Bravo company so they are rated as a company, not separate ratings for different platoons/squads, all the tanks are from the same unit so get the same rating etc…

The key to me is to keep the ratings simple with only having those three categories (which can actually be only two ratings for the 'fighting' stands, capability and morale, and leadership only for the command stands), and keep them to three to five variables, such as 'green,' 'regular,' and 'veteran.' If you're feeling particularly adventurous, throw in an 'elite' category as well, but my opinion is fewer is better (simpler is almost always better in my book).

Quite a rant…

Jack

Risaldar Singh,

At a strategic level, yes, I agree that something along those lines might be perfectly acceptable for a large-scale boardgame covering the entire Malaya or Burma Campaign, where each counter represents a brigade…

But not in terms of a tactical miniatures wargame. Suggesting that British/Indian units should be forced to take a morale check before taking cover or would automatically surrender when their line of retreat is cut is not only silly, but counter to historical facts.

No to faction rules. The main rules should have enough variations built in to be interesting.

When will Historical rule writers stop including Fantasy mechanics to appease Fantasy players who have dropped by to try a different period?

there might be a philosophical point too. special abilities are often 'bought' in fantasy games, or through special units. but in historical periods they are not bought, they are earned through training and practice. In a sense I want my 'special abilities' to be a reflection of my gaming skill, and not something I picked up at the store. So while the rules need to reflect real historical constraints due to poor tactical training, or hastily put together forces, I still want most of the game to be about the competing skills of players. Chess is the original war game, and while our games are a meld of modelling, simulation and gaming skill, they should not be predetermined by the choice of forces, and should allow us to play at being generals (or corporals) too.

For the most part I despise "faction" rules. Especially when the rules are only included in a force supplement, I expect all the rules proper to be in the rule book.

Mark,

You will have to excuse me if I have not got my facts straight, I did some work in Burma last year and got interested – read Louis Allen's wonderful book, but I am no expert on the campaign. I was just trying to find an illustration.

James

I wouldn't normally respond to a thread applying terms like 'faction' to historical wargaming (unless it was related to, say, rioting chariot racing fans or mobs in medieval Rome) …

The question as to whether all soldiers should be treated equally, or whether some will behave differently according to their national character, special training etc. is entirely different.

Re national character and special qualities, there is a delicate balance to be had between reinforcing stereotypes and prejudices (Banzai Japs and Superman SS) and reflecting the fact that people from different cultures _may react differently under stress.

Obviously reflecting real differences that affect the historical narrative is good (and part of what wargaming is about) … reinforcing prejudice is bad. And sometimes dangerous …

Phil

On the other hand, surely there are going to be some national specific rules, artillery for example, with respect to how long it takes to get opportunity fire or who can call it (the FOO only, or what about the company commander or platoon commanders?). Similar considerations for mortars?

That example goes to the heart of the matter and is an excellent test subject for discussion.

A rule covering who can observe for indirect fire missions and the response time for those missions should reside where, in combatant/faction-specific rules or in the main rules so they can be applied to any force?

In our home-grown dystopian future rules we don't have faction-specific rules. You can build any force you want to represent your post-collapse-of-global-civilization private army using the core rules.

One of those force characteristics is "C3I" level which defines the 'command span' for troops and who can observe for mortars and NLOS ATGMs. Lower level C3I represents few, if any, radios and limits observation to special FO teams (or command teams with FOs attached).

Higher level C3I levels represent troops with access to rare high tech gear which expands their command range and allows virtually any team to call for mortar fire and to direct NLOS ATGMs.

But I can see a set of WWII or modern rules using combatant/faction-specific rules to define these attributes. When we built some home-grown WWII rules we had a simple little table which cross-referenced nation (US, Britain, Russia and Germany) with a given level of arty support (ie company mortars, battalion mortars, etc.) to show stand type allowed to observe for IDF. This isn't as extreme as pure faction-specific rules such as those in FoW but it does begin to link nation/culture directly to a rule mechanism.

Re national character and special qualities, there is a delicate balance to be had between reinforcing stereotypes and prejudices (Banzai Japs and Superman SS) and reflecting the fact that people from different cultures _may react differently under stress.

That is an excellent point that I had not considered.

The Banzai example is a good one since I've seen that in wargame rules in the form of "human wave attack" rules. FoW includes the Russian "quality of quantity" rule. FoF includes rules for drug use which has had an effect on fighting in places such as Iraq.

One combat memoir I read described an Iraqi insurgent was shot to pieces and still tried to crawl down the middle of a street after his charge was brought to an end by MG fire. His legs were essentially severed and he just kept dragging himself along. US troops found numerous vials of adrenaline and 'speed' in enemy supply caches and on corpses.

I do use 'special powers' in rules as some armies were trained to do things which others were not e.g. Prussian company column attacks in 1866. Ask an Austrian battalion to deploy in company columns and they are going to look at you blankly and shrug.

In Corps level trench warfare games, I let the Germans move sideways out of their designated sectors. The British and French (attackers) do not have this luxury.

In a WW2 company level game, I would be very surprised to see Soviet rifle sections operating as separate rifle & gun groups as they weren't trained to do it. I would however not be surprised to see individual Soviet SMG gunners operating from surprise ambush positions on the flanks, as that was what they were trained to do.

'Special powers' or realisitic restrictions? Just like the buttoned/unbuttoned AFV fighting and artillery support doctrine mentioned above.

Phil's point is a good one, but I'd disagree that different 'nations' act differently under stress. People are of course one species, different military cultures create different types of warriors, but if transferred from one military culture to another, people of different nations tend to adopt the culture of their adopted force, and perform as well or as badly as any others indigenous soldiers. The foreign legion being a case in point. So for me it's about motivation (why are we fighting?), training, experience, doctrine and tactics and leadership.

A system can be devised by which these are accounted for as part of the rules engine. Allowing players by mutual agreement to develop thier own ratings for historical units they might want to deploy, and are not included in the latest book or miniature line.. Going back to my Burma analogy, I might want to create V force, a militia recruited by the Brits from Muslims in northern Burma. Their motivation was to get their own back on the local Buddhist population (something I've recently been analysing as it has had long term consequences), but since the Buddhists nationalists were allied with the Japanese against the British, this was used to create a behind the lines force… They were pretty fanatical when given some locals to kill, and had good concealment as they could meld in with the population, but they were unreliable (as their motivation was not principally against the Japanese) and did not have the training or motivation to be used in a stand-up fight… They were however well led by enterprising British officers in the SF tradition. To capture these qualities would require measures of leadership, motivation, tactical nouse etc.. You might even rate them fearless or some equivalent against Burmese nationalists, but lacklustre against Japanese regulars.. Anyhow I'm rambling on, but I think you need a system that allows you to Design in these factors, rather than some sort of add on special powers rule.

The Zulus also used drugs – it was systematised and held no stigma. I guess the old British rum ration was the same sort of thing.

I can certainly see artillery needing to be nation-specific rules (especially in WW2). The Brits have an officer ordering a battery to fire, while pretty much everyone else has an enlisted man requesting fire. IIRC, the result is more rapid rounds on target.

The Germans loved to have a fire mission preplanned on their own positions, so that when they fell back from an assault they could order an instant barrage on the "victorious" assaulters.

I think doctrinal or tactical level nation specific rules such as Lion suggests are fine – if they accurately mimic those doctrinal issues – i.e. you give the Germans a ranged-in pre-planned fire mission on their positions, not a 50% increase in artillery effectiveness when they are on the defensive. The real issue is as the Napoleonic guys say, when the "Imperial Guard" are simply rated as superhuman, because of who they are. Interestingly the Lascelle rules are very particular in making sure that is not the case (they only went into battle a few times anyway!)…

We know that during war many units, some quite unlikely, emerge as heroes or villains – whether its the cooks and bottlewashers at Imphal, the lowly Soviet riflemen and women at Stalingrad, Aussie's at Tobruk or the Free French at Bir Hakiem. Creating rules so that one group or nation has overwhelming superiority before any gaming has begun, disallows the opportunity for the players to use their own skill to make heroes out of their units too. After all usually the superiority has a reason – better generalship and leadership or whatever. The rules should unpack those reasons and mirror them, and give the player an opportunity to captialise upon those advantages and deliver a winning force or screw it up. After all their are plenty of examples of theoretically very good troops being misused – The French foreign legion and Alpine troops at Narvik, for exmaple. Just because they were badly handled does not mean that they were not potentially very good if better Generaled, as they later proved in the desert and Italy.

"The Germans loved to have a fire mission preplanned on their own positions, so that when they fell back from an assault they could order an instant barrage on the "victorious" assaulters."

These are tactics, not a special ability, so no need for a special/nation-specific rule, unless anyone thinks that only the Germans COULD carry out that tactic (we could argue for days over who actually DID do it).

I would suppose that some enterprising Italian officer sitting in a defensive position in the Desert in 1940 COULD have come up with this idea, carried out the planning and liaison to make it happen, and carried it out against a British armor-infantry attack. I would also suppose the same could be said of a Norwegian officer in Narvik in 1940, or a Japanese officer on Betio in 1943, or a Free French officer in Italy in 1944, a Brit in Normandy, an American at the Bulge, etc… My point is that any country/unit/faction COULD do it, it's not a special power in the hands of supermen. Some units might be better at it, but I think anytime a force is good at something it's generally a function of their leadership and training, which I think should be reflected in the rules.

How to carry it out all depends on how your rules work, but if making the call for arty is influenced by leadership, then use the leadership rating with a positive modifier for pre-planned targets. If the German unit involved has great leadership, he stands a fantastic chance of pulling this tactic off. If he had poor leadership, he stands a poor chance. I believe this is much more realistic than any "all forces of country 'X'can do this, while no one else can."

I've heard the attractiveness of having special rules in order to fight pick-up games is sometimes a factor, that is, the forces are 'canned' and there's no issues with pulling the toys out and throwing them on the table and whoopping it on. Similiarly, I've heard arguments against rule systems that don't have special rules because supposedly a huge burden is placed on the player to then go do historical research to ascertain leadership, capability, and morale. You can do that, and a great many folks have, but I'd say you can just as quickly and easily roll it up. Hell, I've found that just a simple conversation with my opponent (a friend, not a tournament-style foe) usually can come to an agreement such as "yes, I can see making this German unit on the Eastern Front in 1944 'X' capability and 'X' morale, and the Russians would be 'X' and 'X.'"

Phil's point is a good one, but I'd disagree that different 'nations' act differently under stress. People are of course one species, different military cultures create different types of warriors, but if transferred from one military culture to another, people of different nations tend to adopt the culture of their adopted force, and perform as well or as badly as any others indigenous soldiers.

Now you are talking military and/or faction cultures.

The foreign legion being a case in point. So for me it's about motivation (why are we fighting?), training, experience, doctrine and tactics and leadership.

The approach to and expectations of combat have been and still are cultural. How much this varies in war depends on the opponents. Even in WWII, combat was 'asymetrical' because of the different cultures involved. Think of the Germans vs Russians, or the US vs Japanese.

Bill

The approach to and expectations of combat have been and still are cultural. How much this varies in war depends on the opponents. Even in WWII, combat was 'asymetrical' because of the different cultures involved. Think of the Germans vs Russians, or the US vs Japanese.

I could see this influencing victory conditions even at the small unit level.

If a third world force takes serious casualties the repercussions in VP could be minimal. But if a western force takes serious casualties the influence on VP could be extreme.

By the same token the destruction of a western figure/stand representing a junior officer could be worth very little in VP. But the killing of a third world leader figure/stand could be huge since the informal chain of command can't sustain that loss as well.

FOW is a simple set of rules so adding complexity might be resisted regardless.

If the rules need to "make up" new and unique rules mechanics to simulate the way certain troops functioned historically, that IMO is just lazy rules writing – whether those "historical" functions are based on stereotypes or tactics that were genuinely "unique" is really only an issue for your ideological approach to what y want to get out of a ruleset.

My example would be Peter Pigs PBI rules which require any troops to roll a fairly high number on a D6 in order to launch a close assault on the enemy. Japanese troops get to launch an assault on a 3+, other nationalities need a 5+ roll. Same core mechanic, but it means Japanese are more likely to use assault than Americans.

I'm happy with that as a "faction" characteristic, and as a rules mechanic …as its a basic mechanic which is common across all "factions" but it also creates an incentive to play Japanese in a different way to Americans.

For what it's worth. I've seen a lot of differences in various nation's combat forces in the way they think and operate. I've even seen difference within the same nation's forces, sometimes within the same branch between units. I've trained with officers from Egypt, Thailand, Romania, Lebanon, and Nicaragua. I've conducted joint patrols with Russians, I've trained Jordanians, and I've served on a joint staff were I was working for a Scottish Colonel and worked alongside French, US N, USMC, and USAF officers. So yes, I've seen a lot of differences at many more levels that go far beyond simple "Morale, training, and command & control ratings". I'll provide one quick example.

During one of my schools where one of my classmates was a Romanian Major and we had to plan a Battalion level attack. He was absolutely adamant that there was no way we could be suppressing one company position with indirect fire while assault another. Indirect Fire -control, in his army (based largely on Cold War Soviet model I expect) you just did not use artillery on any anything as small as a single company. You pummeled the entire enemy battalion as a whole and then assaulted. So we had to have quite a bit of talk about just exactly how we coordinated and directed artillery fires in the US Army. It was inconceivable to him that such precision could be employed in artillery fires and ground force maneuver. So if I were do design a scenario involving Romanian forces circa 1995, I'd likely have some provisions against artillery flexibility. I might make them more limited to pre-planned fires rather than having in game call for fire capabilities.

So what? Well maybe there're room for some "special rules." Many of us introduce them anyway in or own scenario design even if a given rule set does not have them. The more important question might be more of "At what point to they become too much?" I suppose that's really up to the players to decide. But even in the most extreme cases I think you have to remember that it's your game and your toys, if you think special rules outlined in the "text" are too much…don't use them. If you don't think there's enough of them, feel free to add. Rules are just "guidelines" to be used as needed when needed.

Cheers, VB

The problem I see with the overload of special rules for each nation, is that some game systems are at their core very generic, but then the designers try to introduce the particularities of each army through special rules.

Imagine that in your system an Artillery fire mission must be pre-plotted, and then it only can be re-arranged if the company commander passes a successful roll of 6 in 1D6. Now, if you field a Forward Artillery Observer, the die roll will succeed in a 4+ result. Then you want to represent the flexibility that the US Army had when asking for artillery support, at a company level. You can either include a special rule (say: all US company commanders act as Forward Artillery Observers) or simply make the Forward Artillery Observers cheaper (in army points) to the US players than for anyone else. It would be up to the player to include such Forward Artillery Observer in his force or not, and he wouldn't need to remember any special rule particular to his army; neither would his opponent, as both know how FAOs work.

I rather like the idea of common special rules, that can be "purchased" by the gamers when building their forces, but being cheaper for some armies (to represent that culture bias mentioned by McLaddie and others) than for others.

It all depends on what the designer wants to portray with the rules, and then how those things are included within the game system.

The differences between national armies and how they are simply/easily replicated by the game mechanics are two different questions.