"Over and under rated weapons in wargames? " Topic

Bit of an open-ended topic to throw out, but I wondered if anyone had any views on whether or not we wargamers tend to over or under rate any particular weapons systems. Do you, for example, find that rules make tanks invincible behemoths, or horribly vulnerable tin cans? Are machine guns really 80% of a section's fire power, or just a bit better than a rifle?

I got thinking about this when I was watching a war film and the 'goodies' were under mortar attack. I consider the 81mm mortar to be a devastating weapon, but Hollywood would have us believe they make a bit of a puff of smoke next to the hero's feet, and he can charge on with no ill-effects.

Has any one noticed any of this 'popular perception' of weapons creeping into wargame's rules?

I think shotguns are overrated. It is possible to miss with a shotgun, and a hit doesn't mean you took a full load of pellets--you may have only taken one pellet.

Actually, the "to hit" numbers on all firearms are overrated (especially in skirmish games) because gamers expect casualties -- they don't want to roll 10% chances to hit.

I played a Viet Nam game many years ago in which I fired an RPG at a Huey and hit it. Random location roll was tail rotor, no effect. I just hit a Huey's tail rotor with an RPG and it continues to fly along like nothing happened?!

One weapon system that has interested me for a while is the light mortars that almost all armies fielded at the beginning of the war. I think we tend to discount them for the most part , possibly because almost all armies ditched them during the course of the war. As anecdotal evidence: try and buy a 28mm 50mm Soviet mortar.

The exceptions to the rule are the British 2" mortar, which is actually a smoke discharger, as it were; the Japanese Ni mortar, and, arguably, the US 60mm.

You make a good point about Hollywood artillery effects in general.

I'm with 79thPA here. Our combat is far, far too deadly by several factors. That's because reality makes a dull game. Here's a thought. Set up a D-Day scenario with your favorite rules and see if casualties for the Allies are in line with reality. All those MGs on the beaches in your average game will cause lots more casualties than they did in real life I bet…

M1 Garands are often under rated in rules produced by UK game companies.

Can't think of any others in general, plenty of particular examples from individual rule sets though.

Bayonets, overrated.

Every weapon is overrated because wargamers would not play if you had a 0.01% chance of a hit every time you fired a rifle.

Aye, to have taken 10% casualties was to have been considered badly handled, 15%- heavy losses.

Ammunition expedenditure:casualties ratios are always eye opening across all time periods including Moderns.

I remember reading that something like 60% – 70% of casualties in WW1 were caused by artillery (I stand under correction there – I am working from memory, but I think I am pretty close).

Do WW1 gamers see that sort of ratio in their games?

Wiki tells me that:

'The vast majority of combat deaths in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World War II were caused by artillery'

Is that the case in our wargames? I would suggest that wargamers completely under-value artillery, and over-value the effects of small arms fire.

Not only do wargamers want to see casualties, I believe that casualties are stand-ins for the much harder to model issues of suppression, fear of being surrounded or of being overwhelmed. All are much more prevalent with real troops
(and their commanders) than the extreme stoicism of our little lead guys.

'The vast majority of combat deaths in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World War II were caused by artillery'

Is that the case in our wargames? I would suggest that wargamers completely under-value artillery, and over-value the effects of small arms fire.

In the old WRG 1925-1950 and 1950-2000 rules artillery was pretty much useless at causing casualties. But so was small arms fire for that matter. Both artillery and small arms were good at suppression in the rules though.

ISTR reading that in WWII it took 1000 rounds of small arms (up to HMG)on average to cause one casualty. Beware of averages though.

79thPA, the rover group of C/O Scots DG was heading to Basra Palace in Apr 03, got hit by an RPG, passed through the side of a hard top Landrover, passed the nose of the most junior Officer in the Regt and out of the back door! So perhaps the RPG in question just failed to detonate!

On the other hand (literally!) a Gunner friend lost an arm, cut off by the tail fins of a passing RPG round!

Tally Ho!

I think that a lot of WWII games tended to give tank fire a little more lethality than might have been the case

I agree that we tend to give small arms a bit more lethal effects than they really had

One of the best quotes about artillery comes from WWI

"To the bitter end of the war, it remained the greatest wonder that so much ammunition could be expended without hurting anyone but the taxpayer"
- Charles Carrington, Royal Warwickshire Regiment

Back in the early 80s (when we still had lots of WWII vets around) I had a psych prof who postulated most small arms fire was shot by guys who weren't looking at the enemy (i.e. their heads were down and only weapons were exposed) so the bullets were going everywhere. Occasionally, you would have someone who couldn't handle the stress any more, so they would charge the enemy. They would survive, because the enemy wasn't looking as they shot either.
He also worked with a guy who was the sole survivor of five different Sherman crews. He was the commander and would be blown out the hatch while the other guys never made it out. Poor man was (understandably)a bit of a mess.

On a different but similar note, I was just talking to a retired police officer who was telling me of a police shootout from about three feet away. The cop and bad guy both emptied their revolvers. Neither one hit anything.

So perhaps all the weapons are overrated.

Underrated-> Grenades

David Rowlands exhaustive OR studies of both WW2 battles and NATO exercises showed that the weapons effectiveness degradation between ranges and exercises was approximately a factor of ten, and between exercises and actual combat another factor of ten.

So weapons in combat operate at roughly one hundredth of their theoretical effectiveness. Which was why frontal infantry assaults didn't work in exercises but did in real life.

There were some variations in combat degradation for different types of weapon systems, particularly crew served vs individual weapons.

Not a weapon per se, but hugely underrated in most wargames rules are the effect of flank/rear attacks. Patton estimated it tripled combat power, but its effects on casualty/loss rates are more like a factor of seven. In real life of course flank attacks are rather harder to achieve than on the wargames table, as 'in war everything is simple, but exceedingly difficult'.

Massively over-estimated (in terms of their influence on combat outcomes) are the minor technical differences between different types of tanks and guns.

I just hit a Huey's tail rotor with an RPG and it continues to fly along like nothing happened?!

Dud round (or what another poster said above). If it's an improbable outcome you're after I had one in an Early War France 1940 game I participated in years ago, a convention event where all the damage outcomes were settled by a portable computer the umpire brought for just that purpose….

One of my Char B1bis hit a Stug III smack on the driver's front visor with a 47mm AP shot at zero deflection. By all rights that shot should have simply blown through the armor and decapitated the driver, but the umpire's computer program said "no effect."

Don't ya just love this hobby of ours?!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

On a different but similar note, I was just talking to a retired police officer who was telling me of a police shootout from about three feet away. The cop and bad guy both emptied their revolvers. Neither one hit anything.

So perhaps all the weapons are overrated.

It's not the weapon that's overrated, it's the shooter. And the problem is adrenalin. i.e. fear.

I remember reading (I think it was Citizen Soldiers) about one GI who said that only once in combat did he ever fire like they did in training (i.e. aimed shots), and that was when his squad was pinned down by a German MG. With about 3 shots he managed to hit the MG gunner. I'm assuming that he meant that the rest of the war he just pointed his gun in the general direction of the enemy and banged away.

If you are talking in WW2/3: all is overrated because of the near impossibility of miniatures to take amo in consideration (anyone who played computer games or real has realized it).

Then A.t. is sometimes underrated as only supposed kills / penetrations come in. hearsay from ww2 vet, any big bang on the side or rear and we'd pull out or even leave the beast, not waiting to know if it was already on fire.

Troops control/ command is way overrated and very hard to simulate. But otherwise we'd do like Brits in Helmand on Ross Kemp doc
7 hours to maybe push away 12-20 guys with a company.

Light mortars: look at what little amo they had, yet they do shoot all game long…

Actually Mg s are often underrated in WW2 games.

Artillery did cause a lot of casualties, but I'd expect for most WW2 games it would be before your troops got close enough to start shooting. I played one game where the entire German position was blanketed with artillery fire and effects were determined before the first turn started. The idea was it broke up the defense preparations in a random way.

Grenades-underrated, not the crème puff Hollywood makes them out to be. One in a small room should be devastating.

Mortars-underrated, yes they are accurate and with a few corrections can drop them directly on the target. If they have established TRPs they should fire and hit automatically. Most wargamers or rule developers have no idea what a TRP is.

Shotguns – way over rated in particular spread patterns to engage multiple targets with one shot even if its not sawn off. Yes you can miss with a shotgun…

HMG- underrated and not employed properly at all. Its not just a big gun that fires more than a rifle.

Pistol- overrated not to many people can fire them accurately beyond point blank range.

Suppressive Fire- underrated, not a weapon but most rules seem to think a morale check is all that is needed to ignore "that noise".

Wire emplacements- underrated, unless infantry has a Bangalore torpedo good luck cutting through wire in a timely manner. If you do cut through you get a VERY narrow path you must push your men through, it will become the focus point of the enemies fire. The whole I spend one turn next to the wire and I can pass through it is a joke. Worse is movement reduced to half rate.

The old movie Dunkirk really suffers from the dismal pyroes at the end. The whole film is a deft little drama but by the time we get to the climax the terrifying stukas & artillery are raining the beaches with … little puffs of smoke.

Generally speaking, it has historically taken an amount of ammunition equal to the weight of a man fired at him to make him a casualty, though this can include high explosive, not just bullets or fragments. (This is a pretty broad rule of thumb, obviously.) The individual effects are mostly random ("the bullet had his name on it"). War games have to compress this feature in order to reach a decision in the game time available, along with numerous other parameters. In games with skirmish style combat effects, this can create seemingly unrealistic results. Realistic effects can create unsatisfying situations, as in a WWII air war game I once played where light Allied bombers could not shoot down Axis aircraft in self defense because so few light bomber missions were flown that they caused no significant losses to the Luftwaffe. It was true no doubt, but still annoying.

To be fair, the average wargaming table had 40 soldiers and 2 tank platoons roughly 27 meters apart in open terrain, so casualty rates might be realistic there :)

To be fair, the average wargaming table had 40 soldiers and 2 tank platoons roughly 27 meters apart in open terrain, so casualty rates might be realistic there :)

Well, 28mm games, yeah.

I think it's Chain of Command that has a 1"=10ft groundscale, so your 4x6 table is 160x180 yards.

At Manila Bay I believe Dewey's squadron fired over 5,000 shots from ranges starting at 5,000 yards and dropping to 2,000 on a clear, calm day at anchored targets and achieved a hit percentage of around 2.74%.

Rules that see players rolling 100 dice for 2-3 hits would be a bit dull.

Underrated: Asian leg infantry.

Overrated: Any tank named after a cat.

I remember exercises with MILES gear back in the day when I was too excited to remember to aim. Thank heavens I was a peacetime soldier.

'The vast majority of combat deaths in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World War II were caused by artillery'

Are we SURE re: Napoleonic? I recall hearing that in the ACW, more died from complications from wounds (infections, improper treatments, etc.) than from the actual effects of any one type of wound, be it bullet, bayonet or blast.

In the USA the average police gunfight takes place in three seconds, with three rounds fired total and both participants are less than six feet from each other. About 30 police are killed in the average year by gunfire and about 600 civilians are killed by police in the USA. Training, experience, and good equipment, in good condition, as well as determination make a big difference in a gunfight.

With all the various handguns available in the USA the experiential differences with them are minimal. Most police carry some kind of Glock, in 9mm, 40 caliber, or 45 caliber, but many agencies carry other handguns and many carry sub-machine guns and rifles.

I think that in close quarters combat our wargame rules are pretty valid, but not in combat overall. Gaming long range shooting shooting at targets that are under cover is boring and produces few casualties.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
SGT Says police blog

I'd say most Napoleonic casualties were caused by artillery; mind you a lot of them were when using canister!

My most over rated weapon is the flamethrower. Most rules give them way too much range. And too many bursts of fire, too!

Well, I think part of it is that we're bogged down into thinking "it only counts if he's dead". I bet a set of rules could produce results primarily in units being driven off, and still be fun to play.

"I bet a set of rules could produce results primarily in units being driven off, and still be fun to play." Weasel

I have only seen one set of rules do that Epic 40k. Once the morale value of the army was broken the game was over. It could be achieved by destroying a couple of high value targets.

I agree with spontoon – oh and the Sturmtiger is overated
also yes bayonets are great …..for opening cans and getting stones out of horses hooves ….really bad for fighting with

Taking the WW1 example, we have to be careful interpreting the overall effects of artillery on casualties. The Battle of Menin Road is a good example, taken from the Third Ypres campaign in late 1917. The attack itself was well executed under heavy artillery support. There were few casualties at the time but over the coming weeks there were heavy casualties from artillery. The German gunners were able to range in on the newly captured lines and extract the toll that was not possible during the attack itself.

During a major assault, the first wave would often not come under artillery fire. Casualties would be caused by musketry and machine guns, with the latter becoming more and more prominent as the war progressed. This reflected the fact that artillery could not be targetted too close to friendly positions. Later waves would come under artillery fire when forming up or moving forward to jump off points.

All that said, the impact of artillery is often under-rated. Picking up on the comment about Flammenwerfer/flame throwers, the German Flammenwerfer units of WW1 could stop an attack going ahead if they thought there wasn't enough artillery support. In practice, it was the heavy artillery (and other support weapons) effects that enabled Flammenwerfer to get close enough to be used.

Robert

Tanks,
-failure to account for even in a very basic way inertia of tanks. They Can't stop and start instantly. This manifests itself as failure to acknowledge that a tank on the road can move fast and sometimes and types can do so on good going, especially if running away or out of sight or re-deploying to a new known position.

Failure to recognise the advantages of head out/buttoned up. Awareness is much reduced buttoned up.

Artillery – US manuals Battlefield use is defined as to suppress and fix in place. It causes most casualties with random shelling where all the grunts are just wandering about getting food etc. Very slow rate of damage a few a day but every day. Battles are relatively infrequent. A good trench with overhead cover is proof against 81mm mortars (US field manuals). Larger calibre guns at a point cause obviously more damage but there are far less shot as ammo is a limitation, so the odds of a big shell hitting accurately are much less than that for an 81mm shell. US planning charts notes the rounds needed for a given damage rate as so many square yards per shell. As per the old adage you need to infantry to take and hold ground. Too many rules inaccurately allow well dug in troops to be shelled out of existence. I can only think of one anecdote where this happened as the fire was accurate and included 15" shells from a battle ship. The author noted the field was reduced to dust 6 ft down (how he checked was not stated).

Then comes the Machine gun. We still are not happy with MG's interpretation. Most rules are wrong by a long way, ours are still wrong. The issue is to some extent what is right? Most MG's work at their best in some sort of cross fire so that there bullets sweep a large area. For fixed machine guns on the right ground not disturbed by artillery shells you get grazing fire where the bullet can cross 600yds never getting higher than 3 ft. Very lethal potentially even in obscured visibility conditions. However the quality of the ground is key and difficult to model at wargames scales. The use of trace means that so fall of shot is easily sighted. hence range is less critical. Contemporary US manual notes on British kit that there is no advantage of getting a Bren carrier closer than 400 yds to the target as the damage effect will not increase. Ammunition supply is difficult to account for as is the period when the barrels need to be changed. Again this can impact performance by the application of norms rather than actual. Situations. In the last few seconds of an assault you may be profligate in ammo. We cheat and have a close assault rule that covers use of material in profligate quantities in the last few seconds of an assault. Again in most cases it's impossible to kill whole units by MG fire. Once that are on the ground and will not move except to find better cover the casualty rate will fall dramatically. There will not be enough ammo to make it cease to exist. This is a common problem with many rules.

There is the fundamental divide, do you want it plausible or not. Many do not want plausible as it's a much more demanding game. Some folks love MG becuse you have to think. Others just want to move and shake and like the predominance of the shake.

That just for starters don't get me started on command and control!

Speaking of tanks, MGs on tanks are generally overrated. No or very little attempt is made to consider restricted arcs of fire and limited visibility.

Overrated:Flamethower tanks – Crocodiles

> Failure to recognise the advantages of head out/buttoned up. Awareness is much reduced buttoned up.

Fireball Forward has a very good rule for that one. Tanks can not spot enemy troops unless they go CE, the instant they do they can be shot at by infantry weapons. They are allowed to fire at any previously spotted enemies too.

Pet peeve, the overwrought assumed effectiveness of rifled muskets. Over rated,

Speed of atrillery response is much overrated. but then so is movement on the battlefield. it is a good day when you get rounds on ground in a minute from when the observer decided hew had a target. And that is for the initial round, which will need adjustment. Adjustments often take longer than gamers want to mess with.

Area of effect is very often underrated. 155mm is considered to cover 50meter radius for a 50% kill, with fragments still leathal out to around 400 meters. A 4 gun battery covers a lot of a board at the scales most oftenn used.

Artillery is very bad for standing infantry or softskin vehicles. Casualties rates can be very high. yet, as soon as infantry drop on thier bellys, those rates plummet. And dug in guys as noted above are very hard to kill.

Invulnerability of tanks to Artillery is also overrated. Sure unless it is a direct hit not likely to destroy one. But it sure will strip off radio antenna, break optics like sights. mess up machinegun barrels, destroy important gear straped to the hull, and certainly not least scARE THE HELL OUT OF THE CREW.

Gamers are quite willing to accept the small chance for a destroyed tank and leave it under fire. real soldiers realize that odd things happen and stuf gets broke that should not. Besides it is a bit of a different between a toy tank and your own ass.

Also overrated is the pace of things. real troops dont have to get home before the wife gets mad, so dont luanch that bayonet chagre cause what the hell it is the last turn and I need to go. Real troops are rather patient about waiting to go over the top.

owen

We rate effectiveness on rate of sustained fire. Most weapons are about the same effectiveness except in certain circumstances. A squad firing 60 rounds/minute in sustained fire with an M1 is no different than a bolt action rifle doing the same. Most machine guns are the same rating but the ones with the higher rate of fire have a slightly higher chance of causing a causality on the initial killing burst. A MG, Bren Gun or a couple of BAR's can put out about the same amount of suppressive fire keeping the enemy heads down. If I am out of line of direct fire it does not matter if one or one thousands rounds are fired at me. They all miss and I'm still suppressed – if I choose to be.

We use a technique called "self suppression" where a unit can voluntarily Hit the Deck, go into an Improved Position or Full Cover. If an infantry unit is moving along and a unit opens up on you there is an immediate decision the defender needs to make. He can move/rush a short distance to better cover (if available) or hit the ground where they are. His causalities depend on how quick he hits the deck or how far he moves and how well trained. Either way they are in what we call an Improved Position (making full use of available cover). The next turn they can choose to Move Under Fire exposing themselves (like a squad rush) and requires a competency check. You can fire from an improved position but at reduced firepower and be somewhat exposed to fire. In Full Cover which is keeping your head down and not firing also severely reduces observation allowing enemy units to maneuver against you but you cannot be hit. There are tradeoffs and the emphasis is on suppression, not attrition. The weapons are rated for suppression and when one unit is fired at any units within 50m will hit the deck. When you hear gunfire to your front you are not going to be gawking around to see if it is aimed at you. An MG could force an entire platoon (2-3 squads) to hit the deck. Then they decide to fire back, fire and maneuver or go into full cover waiting for a mortar or gun to move up and take out the enemy unit.

In the Army Abrams tank manual for the Coax gun the first burst is called a "Killing Burst" and following bursts are called "Suppression Bursts". That's because the first burst catches them by surprise. The following bursts are designed to keep their heads down because they will be in an improved position or in full cover. Keep in mind the idea is for the Abrams to keep moving through and not stop to engage. Interesting terms.

Wolfhag

UshCha

Excellent post!

I heartily agree with your point on entrenched troops getting blasted out of their positions.

I actually think that it should be impossible for dug-in troops to suffer any casualties from ranged fire: sure, they can be suppressed etc, but the idea that troops in the open can exchange rifle fire with troops in a trench and have a chance of killing them strikes me as bizarre to say the least.

I would rather see rules that make the player find a way to suppress those dug-in troops, and then move his assaulting infantry up to clear the positions with the bayonet.

Something to remember in a lot of rules is that a figure being removed doesn't necessarily indicate a casualty but someone being rendered ineffective. All games have a degree of abstraction. That model being removed may be a section that loses coherence and is no longer effective but may be no more then one or two actual casualties.

Imperium,Wolfhag.
Being a systems modller (I do more of the rules Paul does the data for the rules)and a wargamer we made some interesting assumptions.

As an approximation, which is all a wargame is, infantry deciding to seek the best available cover from artillery and or small arms can addit defeat defeat early or be forced their, take the maximum possible suppression and take no more damage. However it take time to remove such suppressions and at that state can be easily taken by assult. this gets the old "adage first win the firefight and then assult" something like. Obviously it a bit wrong but as ammo is not unlimited this is a better appoximation than killing too many. It encourages the right tactics even if its a bit over the top.

For tanlks in the western world the adage is still observation over preservation. Thats why many tank commanders were killed by small arms fire as were many on the Israli side in the 6 day war (many tanks were just WWII upgrades). Again many (but clearly not all) don't reflect this.

Wolfhag its interesting that that we have many common themes in how we approach the modelling of a battle field. If you ever do Machine guns I would be facinated to see the results.

Also overrated is the pace of things. real troops dont have to get home before the wife gets mad, so dont luanch that bayonet chagre cause what the hell it is the last turn and I need to go. Real troops are rather patient about waiting to go over the top.

There is an equivalent of the wargame last turn charge in real life. The Germans would attempt to assault and take Russian positions before night as if they left it overnight the Russians would have reinforced it and dug in making it a much harder nut to crack.

UshCha,

John Salt has some good information on causality rates against types of cover and rates of fire. I get my "inspiration" from infantry manuals and my experiences in Marine infantry in the 1970's. Believe it or not at that time we still had pretty much WWII equipment. Our web gear, uniforms and helmets were WWII vintage. M-14's were really modified M1 Garand (which I fire today out to 600 yards), flame throwers and 3.5" rocket launcher too. The M-60 mg is basic a copy of a slower firing MG42 and 60mm mortar was same as WWII. We had M1919 mg's in training. We eventually got M-16's.

Regarding weapons effectiveness: In our game well trained and led troops when first being fired upon at short range can hit the deck going into an improved position (available cover) and return fire. We call this a Firefight and happens simultaneously in one turn. The idea is to build up firepower superiority, not about attrition. The unit that loses the firefight (puts out the least amount of firepower) goes into full cover allowing the winner to start maneuvering with another fire team. This is where semi-automatic, SMG's and squad automatic weapons come into play and are superior to bolt action. However, depending on terrain a unit in full cover can voluntarily withdraw. We generally only check for actual causalities when units are in the open, moving, flanked or close assaulted. Improved position and firing back too. We like to let players order their troops rather than rolling dice for suppression or retreats.

Wolfhag

"Once that are on the ground and will not move except to find better cover the casualty rate will fall dramatically."-Ushcha

You have it right the HMG primarily prevents movement. You can still low crawl and avoid that grazing fire. What kills is the mortars and arty used to pummel those low crawling troops. The HMG buys time for indirect fire to be brought on target.

It think that was the German tactic commonly employed. Wait until the infantry advances into a pre-registered location. Then open up with the MG, the guys hit the deck right in the middle of a mortar kill zone.