"Both sides make ranged attacks. Don't they?" Topic

Typically in close combat, all combatants get the chance to attack. However, in ranged attack, the "active" force gets to shoot while the others presumably stand bravely waiting for their "turn" or take cover or something else.
Which do you prefer, a set of rules that allows both sides to make ranged attacks, or a set where the inactive side waits patiently? Or another option not mentioned here?
Thanks for your thoughts.

Simultaneous. Both sides can shoot (unless surprised, etc).

I prefer simultaneous, but the apparent oddity of non-simultaneous can be hand waved away by noting that you're modeling the effect of more continuous shooting, the die rolls at a particular point in the game representing a cusp.

Doug

Simultaneous. Also like defensive fire first then offensive.

DM

So long as it works either is fine with me. After all we have no problem with the idea that movement, shooting and rallying all happen separately and in a specific order…

I like the action/reaction system used in Two Hour Wargames rules.

You might have to be careful if you have simultaneous firing and non-simultaneous movement: the side moving second shouldn't be free to edge out of firing arcs or commit other such fudges.

Both can work; it's very much dependent upon period, scale, rules implementation.

Depends on period, but soldiers are not entitled to fire back on own initiative. They must wait for a commando from their superior officer.

:))) so i prefer rules, were my troops shoot when I order them to do so.

As Rudi stated it depends on the period and the way the rules are written. For modern and WW II I like rules such as Force on Force, Battlegroup, Fireball Forward as there is reaction fire and/or opportunity fire.

Alternating activation solves this. A unit of manuever moves, shoots, and assaults. Then a unit of manuever from the opposing side. Dirtside II, Stargrunt II, Vor, and others make good use of this.

I like John Hill's system in JOHNNY REB -- and modified it in PRIDE OF LIONS -- where things happen simultaneously but in a phased sequence. Opposing units shooting in the same phase shoot at the same time, with casualties incurred afterwards. But it is possible to for units to shoot at different times in the turn. In JR a unit on HOLD can shoot whenever it chooses. FIRST FIRES happen first. Units that move shoot last and at half effect. In PRIDE a unit on HOLD/STAND AND SHOOT fires twice, once before movement and then again after movement (against a unit charging it frontally, if one is).

So not ALL shooting is simultaneous, but similarly circumstanced shooting is.

Yes I do like the way you handle this in Pride of Lions Doc. Makes for a game that keeps everyone on their toes.

"Active" ranged attacks by infantry don't fit most periods very well. In most cases shooting works better as a reaction to one side exposing themselves, since it's not very likely that two sides in cover are going to decisively hurt each other just by shooting. Maybe ranged attacks could even be removed completely from the rules and replaced with modifiers to morale rules. Anything might work depending on scale, period, and weapons.

Well, it depends on how you imagine the rules representing the battle.

The "defense" stat could just as easily be interpreted as defensive fire from the targeted unit. So a "miss" is actually just the target pouring on the blind fire and avoiding casualties for whatever the timeframe of a single turn might be.

Simultaneous fire and movement. I intensely dislike IGO/UGO.

Depends on period and level of game, as well as what you are trying to model and what you want out of a game.

In tactical armoured combat, whoever shoots first usually wins at the micro-engagement level and firing is most certainly NOT simultaneous.

Alternate or simultaneous shooting is only relevant when considered together with movement rules.

Older wargaming rules (Featherstone etc.) had a clear move-shoot-melee sequence, with an IGO-UGO turn mechanism. Alternate shooting makes sense in such a context. Simultaneous melee is the odd one out, but it was necessary, because it seems logical that when I shoot, you take hits (but cannot do anything back), but when I hit you in close combat, you can hit me back, and either of us can die. Hence, melee needs to be simultaneous in an IGO-UGO system, especially since melee was considered on a figure-vs-figure basis, whereas shooting was mostly done on a fraction-of-the-total-figures basis. If melee was not done on figure-by-figure basis (with only a small fraction of the figures getting killed instead of 50%), there would be no reason not to make melee alternate as well.

Anyway, the reason shooting resolution cannot be seen independent from movement is because of all sorts of opportunity fire, the pop-around-the-corner-and-shoot syndrome etc. Playing around with your shooting sequence cannot be done independently from your movement sequence.

BTW, all sorts of arguments "my men are not standing idle, so they can do something" is completely bogus, since we are talking about discretizing a continuous timeflow into separate phases, each with a well-defined resolution phase.
Which phase comes first, and which phase is simultaneous or alternate, is only a consequence of mechanism design and personal preference, but has nothing to do with the actual flow of the battle.
On "the real battlefield" all things are happening at the same time. Subdividing this into phases is convenient for a game, but then inserting these discretized phases back to the continuous flow of events just seems wrong to me.

All sequencing of movement and fire is artificial, and no method is intrinsically good or bad at reflecting reality. A wargame is a game, and therefore always selects certain mechanics for portraying actions in the real world. No system is free of anomalies or events that, outside the construct of the game, make little sense.

I've always thought that rigid play sequences were very artificial, but because of familiarity are viewed as acceptable . It is also true that no game has genuinely simultaneous events, and equally true that events in real battle are never totally simultaneous, equal, fair, or of the same duration.

Phil is correct that the minute rules divide up time into discrete units in order to impose playability and allow discrete decisions by the players, all games require a suspension of disbelief, just like a play or movie, in order for the players to proceed and enjoy a manageable and playable game.

Most critiques of sequencing, simultaneity ( such as it is) and the "idleness" of certain units or commands in the game are matters of preference, or, in some cases, a lack of imagination or understanding, seldom any intrinsic "truth" or "reality" to be found in the game itself.

A good game is one in which all the players agree to share a common acceptance of the artificialities in the game play, because they find it has success in modeling other aspects of war they find interesting, and enjoyable.

In the old WRG Napoleonics, moving and shooting was interleaved. One side moves, the other side can shoot at any unit that was exposed at any time during the movement phase. I thought that was one of those simple but brilliant ideas. Anything other than a musket would probably work better with simultaneous shooting, or at least allowing return fire.

So as Phil and Repiqueone say, what you are actually looking for is something more subtle – modelling a continuous process by a sequence of discrete events. Shooting cannot therefore been seen in isolation from the rest of the rules, and the shooting mechanism needs to be linked into the activation, movement and response mechanisms.

If I were to stray from my comfort zone of Napoleonics, we could also consider area fire (like mortars)and covering fire. Moving into zones with either of those going on would be hazardous to your health, but the intention of the shooting is to prevent movement in the first place

John

Thanks very much for all your thoughtful answers. I entirely agree with the sentiment that the game is an inaccurate, artificial construct of reality. I will try to implement some degree of interactive fire in my rules, but whatever system gives you a good game is a good system.

Modern skirmish is a LOT different from horse and musket.
OTOH if you read accounts of syw and naps the attacking force failing to hold their nerve and shooting too early seems to crop up fairly often.

In modern skirmish one side tends to seize the initiative and fire much more effectively.

I think the sg2 mechanics of alternative activation work pretty well as a simple representation of moderns.
I added that you can choose shooting factors to be part way through the previous activation. So similar to interrupt fire you can shoot as a unit dashes across a street you're covering BUT it doesn't stop the unit there mid street and it doesn't use up both your actions.

Playing around and experimenting with the turn sequence is actually very insightful.

As stated before, what we are trying to model is a continuous flow of events, but we discretize it in separate phases for game purposes.

Now, there are various ways in how this discretization can happen:

Classic turn structures dicretize activities, but keep all units on one side together:
E.g. Side A moves; Side A shoots; side A melee; side A morale; repeat for B.
But also sequences such as Side A moves, Side B moves, Side B shoots, Side A shoots, … fall into this pattern.

One can also discretize by grouping all activities for one unit together. Then we get games which are driven by activation of units.
E.g. unit 1 does everything, unit 2 does everything …
One can alternate between sides when activating; or draw from a deck, which is randomizing unit order.

Another variant (underused, IMO), is to keep the discretization in activities, but randomize the order of activities. E.g. make cards that say: "Side A moves" "Side B moves", "Side A shoots", "Side A morale" etc. Then draw cards at random and resolve phases in that order.

A superposition of both systems would be to discretize both actions and units, and have a random order. Make cards for each activity of each unit: "Unit 1 shoots", "Unit 2 morale" etc. Then draw cards at random. A bit unwieldy, but it might better represent the chaotic nature of a battlefield.

IMO, these variants are all part of a big continuum of possible turn structures, along several axes of design choices:
- group turn structure in phases which each represent the same activity for all units. Can be very coarse (move-shoot-melee), or at a finer level (move1, opp.shooting, move 2, morale, melee, …)
- group turn structure in phases which represent all activities for one unit.
- keep a fixed order for your discretization of turn structure, or impose a random order.
- allow control of player in determining turn order: this is mostly used when discretization is along unit axis (activation rolls etc.). But the same could be done with activity discretization.
- allow control of player to group units together in performing similar activities. Depends on period, but necessary for e.g. combined manoeuvres of several units.
- allow player to "interrupt" fixed or random turn order by reacting to events.

All of these choices can be implemented using various game mechanics (cards, activation rolls, action tokens, command figures, …) – these are yet another design issue.

all sorts of arguments "my men are not standing idle, so they can do something" is completely bogus, since we are talking about discretizing a continuous timeflow into separate phases

I sometimes say that :) when I want players to understand that a simultaneous system is different from IGOUGO and that they must not just wait and watch. But of course you are right about discretization.

I think a consistent approach across all phases in the ruleset is the most important, regardless of what approach that is.
Some systems where moving and shooting are alternating but close combat is simultaneous irk me for this reason.

I personally prefer alternating instead of simultaneous, but that's only if ALL phases work that way. So you alternate moving and taking actions. Close combat would work the same way where one side chooses to attack on their turn/activation, and the other side responds in their OWN turn.
Related to this approach I think the "phases" should be done in any order the player chooses. FORCING a player to move then shoot is silly, I much prefer being able to shoot then move or move then shoot depending on the situation.

I think if you are making an argument for simultaneous shooting then some kind of simultaneous movement should be done too, since why is that alternating but the other phase is not? That goes back to my point about consistency.

Either way I hate full army UGO-IGO, but model by model (or unit by unit) alternating activations is fast and easy enough for me.

I think the "phases" should be done in any order the player chooses. FORCING a player to move then shoot is silly, I much prefer being able to shoot then move or move then shoot depending on the situation

Yes, but if you decide to shoot at the end of the turn, and then to shoot again at the beginning of the next turn? No time has passed, it means you shoot twice at the same moment. In an IGOUGO alternate system it can look good because the target had time to move between the two shots (discretization as Phil calls it), but in a simultaneous system the target receives two shots without being able to do anything.

Yes, but if you decide to shoot at the end of the turn, and then to shoot again at the beginning of the next turn?

Right, I'm more talking about skirmish level with models alternating their activation. So by the time the model that shot gets to activate again everyone else would have already had an activation.
If they were the last model to activate at the end of a turn, and the first to activate at the start of the next turn, then yes they could get a double shot. But I think with a randomized initiative system (dice off, cards, tokens from a bag) this would be minimized.

When I said I like phases in any order I was mentally framing it from that angle. Ordered phases might make more sense for a mass army game or the like.