"Chain of Command - smallest force?" Topic

What's the smallest force the rules can manage well?
Can it go below platoon level?
Thanks!

You could maybe do two squads attacking one squad plus a machinegun team or something like that. A platoon plus support is pretty much the standard for COC, I think. Squad vs. squad games wouldn't be any fun, IMHO. Hope that helps,

Mike

Yeah, one squad vs. one squad you may just as well roll dice, high dice wins. A platoon on each side and you've got a GAME.

One squad versus one squad just wouldn't show up the strengths of the rules. You could run a short platoon but really a platoon a side is what the rules do best.

The big battle rules allow much bigger games if you want to go that way.

You really need a platoon, otherwise command will become a bit easy. If cost is the issue, do what I did and get a pair of Peter Pig platoon packs, they are perfect starters for 15mm and the rules work perfectly.

In Chain of Command you have on average 5 dice to activate anything between six and a dozen elements, including the leaders. If you go below this the dice will give you too much control and the game breaks. Go over this and you need to go big battle.

As for the elements they represent a full squad, a rifle team or a weapon team (mg, mortar, sniper).

We tried a game with US Recon troops in Jeeps and armoured cars against a mix of Volkssturm and SS veterans. The teams are quite small (3-5 men), but very fast and well-armed with automatic weapons and MG, so they pack a punch, but can be overwhelmed by concentrated fire if not careful. So the total number of US figures was quite small, but there were still about 7-8 active elements on the table, which is pretty much the level at which the game works best.

You could break down into smaller groups. Say you take 2 squads and break them out into smaller units.

Say 3 or 4 groups of 5-6 men, instead of the usual squads.

Partly asking as I would want to game SkirmishCampaigns scenarios. I believe most have 6+ elements per side but these are fairly small. So, from the comments this would seem to work – it's not the size of the element but amount?
And, is each tank an element, or is a platoon of tanks considered an element? Thanks.

Brucka – with a bit of tweaking you could almost get a game of CoC at Squad section level, but not sure how well it would work; I think I have come up with an answer though.

To answer your newest post – yes, the amount of elements is more to the point than the size.

The way CoC works is you have different levels for your figures. A 'team', be it a sniper/spotter, HMG, LMG group in a section, or a single tank is the smallest element.

The largest is a section/squad.

Basically each side has X number of command dice (5 on average) which are rolled. Depending on the results, you can either move a team, a section or have your leaders give orders.

The TFL have an excellent introduction to the CoC rules on youtube, so this may answer some of your questions: link

I will probably be called a heretic, but I believe with some tweaking that you can play the type of game you want.

I am even happy to email my ideas with you if you are interested.

Thank you; would be interested. Enjoy using many different rule sets and see how they game similar scenarios. Did in fact watch the videos. e-mail is bhenderson at tds dot net.

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