"Rate of Fire and Acquisition TIme" Topic

I've learned quite a bit from the discussion on penetration and damage, and I'd like to expand that discussion a bit.

How close would tanks get to their theoretical rate of fire? Or more to the point, how many shots would a tank fire in an engagement lasting several minutes? Similarly, how quickly could a tank bring its guns to bear on a target and fire? Or re-load, re-acquire the target, and fire a subsequent shot?

In my mind, there are three use cases.

1. Simplest situation. Two stationary tanks are firing at each other. Both are aware of the other's presence. I assume this is the situation that gets closest to theoretical rates of fire.
2. Tank one is in overwatch. Tank two moves into its line of sight. Tank one has to spot the enemy, bring its gun to bear, and fire. I understand that spotting would be highly variable, but I assume that aiming and firing should be fairly mechanical. Does that seem right?
3. This is the opposite of the previous case. Tank two moves into line of sight of tank one. It needs to spot the enemy, stop, bring its gun to bear, and fire. Again, I assume that spotting is highly variable, but presumably the other actions are more mechanical.

I have a few thoughts around modeling this. Rate of fire can be thought of as reload time. If a gun has a rate of fire of 10 shots per minute, it takes 6 seconds to reload. Perhaps this is the optimal time for veteran crews. An average crew might take 8 seconds while a novice crew takes 10 seconds. If a turreted vehicle can traverse 20 degrees per second, it would take 3 seconds per hexside changed (assuming a standard hex map). I assume aim time, which I consider calculating the shot parameters such as lead and hold over, to be fairly quick, perhaps on the order of seconds. Spotting, of course, is a wild card. Still, with this model, we have a reasonable estimate of how long it takes to acquire a target and how many shots we can take in a given period.

Thoughts?

(And yes, I realize this is probably too complicated for a non-computer game. I would like to understand things at this level of detail so I can think of ways to apply it to a tabletop game.)

Turret traverse is also an issue. The reason there were short barreled guns was to provide a faster reaction.

I think your interest in looking at timing of reloads is a good one if you expand it to all the aspects of reaction to a new target. You can see it play out really quite well in the game World of Tanks (free to play).

Good luck!

You may want to fit in a random factor or slightly reduce the ideal rates uniformly, to fit the unpredictable elements like the loader fumbling the shell etc.

In the event of a moving vehicle, there's also the concern of whether they take the absolute fastest shot they can or do they delay for a few moments to line up a better shot?

"The reason there were short barreled guns was to provide a faster reaction."

Actually, it was to prevent gun overhang when the vehicle was moving with the turret forward. This kept the gun from hitting anything in close terrain and kept the overall length of the vehicle short, which was a limit on maneuver in close quarters. For example, the StuGs and Jagdpanzers couldn't turn around in the narrow roads between hedgerows and couldn't usually get into position to fire through hedgerows (which would usually required a prepared firing position with a cut in the hedgerow anyhow, because of the low-mounted guns).

+1 for World of Tanks. Corp Commander has it right lots of analysis in WOT on ROF, traverse speed, aiming and reaction times.

Varies widely depending upon the range to the target, type of weapon used, crew training and experience, powered vs. manual traverse, etc., etc.

Some were superb at it, and could get off 10 – 12 shots in a minute. Others, less so.

I recall accounts of Wittmann's crew, when they were still in a Stug, moving and evading enemies, while getting their own guns on the advancing Russian tanks faster.

They were so successful, they were finally given a Tiger I, and continued on their long string of successes, e.g. 88+ kills, though I suspect that performance is more the exception than the rule.

Wittmann did do rather well against the British in Normandy as well, at Villers Bocage.

I learned tank gunnery, and crew commanding, on what was essentially a WW2 tank (the Centurion). Here's what I remember after nearly 40 years.

Typically an engagement involved firing three rounds, as quicky as possible – perhaps 20 seconds. Unless one of the first rounds caused an obvious kill, the commander would let the engagement continue, to ensure destruction of the target. After those three rounds were fired, the commander would usually move the tank, to avoid return fire, while other tanks continued to engage the enemy.

So, a theoretical rate of "x" rounds per minute was not reflective of actual tactics. Besides, the theoretical rate of fire cannot be sustained for long, because additional ammunition soon has to be retrieved from awkward places.

BattleCaptain just wrote about something that is not reflected very well in war gaming. The lack of Situational Awareness on the battlefield. In our games we know everything and exactly when it happens. So if you knock out an opponents tank gun on your first shot you move on to other targets because he's no longer a threat and why waste the ammo. In reality you keep shooting until you see an explosion, smoke or the crew bailing out, especially if his barrel is pointed in your direction.

In reality you only have a maximum of 10-15 rounds in your ready rack and most likely not all will be armor piercing. Once you use up those readily accessible rounds your ROF drops from three rounds in 20 seconds to one round every 30-40 seconds because you "have to retrieve them from awkward places" as BattleCaptain said. In most of our games you can shoot all day whatever type of ammo you want. So if you are going to use a realistic ROF you really need have a Ready Rack rule too or the guns with the high ROF will have an unfair advantage. Once your Ready Rack is empty you need to find a safe location to reload it. AT Guns do not have that problem.

I use a rule that allows a faster rate of fire with a tradeoff in accuracy. You can choose to use a more accurate Precision Fire (Ranging Shot and Bracketing) or Battlesight for the first shot and Burst on Target for followups which is not as accurate but about 3 seconds faster than Precision Fire. That's taken from US Army Tank Manuals, not me. Battlesight is good out to about 1.5 seconds TOF for the round which gives guns with the higher muzzle velocity an advantage at longer ranges for getting off the first shot. Sometimes seconds is all you need.

Fogemort, I found it very hard to realistically simulate the nuances of realistic rates of fire in a turn of 10-20 seconds. There was just too many mechanics and exceptions that it was unplayable. I now use one second increments within a five to ten second turn but each gun needs to designate when in the future they will get the round off and that is kept secret from the opponent. You never really know when the enemy will fire. In addition players are left with making a risk-reward decision on when and how to fire. When you only have a few rounds left in your ready rack and facing multiple targets you'll need to withdraw to a safe place and reload. Some players don't like that.

Also ROF and Total Engagement Time for the first shot are two different things. Total Engagement Time will involve spotting the target, rotating the gun onto the target and range estimation info (Precision Fire) or letting the Gunner fire with the sight setting/elevation that is already on the gun (Battlesight) which is about 3 seconds quicker than Precision Fire. Crew experience matters here as a better trained crew will do this quicker. The initial shot is not determined by ROF, only follow up shots. Seconds count which is why I was forced to use one second increments. Having your gun pointed in the right direction to start with helps. Using the second by second increment eliminated the need for clunky Overwatch, Opportunity Fire and firing at moving target rules since everything is happening almost simultaneously you don't need to make specific rules for them. The system takes care of that for you and we don't need things like activations.

Fogemort, are you looking to tweak the Panzer rules or trying to come up with a new firing system? I do have info on the amount of time it took crews to perform specific actions or what the manual states anyhow and can provide it if you like.

Thanks BattleCaptain, it's always great to hear from people with real life experience.

Wolfhag

About the 'Ready Rack' rule: I would assume that in any given lull in the fighting, a good tank crew is going to pull rounds from the "awkward places" to refill the ready racks.

Though the real question is how long are your turns? If a turn is a minute or more, there's no reason to worry about ready racks, IMO. If a turn is 10-30 seconds, then I'd worry about adding a delay to refill the ready racks.

Another potential consideration, if one is to get into the nitty gritty of ready rack, etc., is what is in the tube?

Depending on the time period, mission, and the expectation of what the likely opposition is going to be the gun could be loaded with HE or AP (or other depending on what is available).

I believe it has been noted that it is faster to just fire the gun and reload rather than unloading and reloading with the more appropriate ammunition. This raises a consideration of whether the gunner aims the first shot or just fires the round quickly to clear the gun, particularly as (at least in the past) the muzzle velocities of the HE and AP are different. There is then also a consideration for some AFV and guns of target obscuration due to the dust raised by the muzzle blast which could reduce the rate of fire (as well as providing the opponent with a means of location the firing unit).

Mission, etc. would also affect the basic ammo mix and the loadout of the ready rack. As I recall, for example, T-34s in an attack would have half a dozen or so AP rounds with the remainder being HE. With a 9 round ready rack, that could become a significant consideration.

Lion,
I think the best way to explain it is that there are no set "turns" where certain action segments occur like movement, activation, spotting, shooting, opportunity fire, etc. I'll try to keep to the title of the discussion and explain acquisition and hopefully explain it all.

When a player has a tank or gun that acquires a target through a successful Situational Awareness Check and wants to engage it he determines what fire control to use, what ammo he's going to fire and how long it will take to get the round off and intercept the target or move/evade to a new position. Lets use a T-34/85 for example. It's turn 20 and he spots a Panther that just came out from a tree line at 1200 meters and 50 degrees to his right moving at 20kph and wants to engage immediately and fortunately he has an AP round loaded in the chamber. It appears the Panther has not noticed him because his turret is not moving to engage him. Looking on the 85L52 gun chart for the T-34/85 he sees the quickest way to engage is a Battlesight shot taking 6 seconds but that is only good to 1000m (defined by maximum trajectory of 2 meters). He'll have to use a Ranging shot at 9 seconds but it will be more accurate because he's taking longer to get the range and aim the gun. His turret rotation is 20 degrees per second and that will take 3 seconds to get the gun on target. He has a Trained Crew which will take an additional two seconds to perform the action. Veteran and Elites are quicker and can accomplish more in the same time frame. All of this data is in one spot on their status sheet.

Total Engagement Time = Turret Rotation 3 seconds + Ranging shot fire control 9 seconds + Crew Lag 2 seconds + Time of Flight at 800 mps 2 seconds = 16 seconds. The player puts that tanks Action Chit on turn 36 (hidden from the German player) which is when he will be "activated" as that is when the shot will intercept and hopefully hit the Panther. During the next 16 one second turns that vehicle does not perform any other actions and puts a turret rotation arrow chit in front of his tank model showing the direction it is turning. Players can run 4-5 tanks at a time. During an engagement a tanks situational awareness is limited only to his front quadrant, he cannot check side an rear aspects.

The Panther is traveling at 20kph which is 6 meters per second so will move about 100 meters (6 times 16) by the time the round reaches him on turn 36. With luck he may have moved out of LOS before the round gets to him, that happens. The follow up shot for the T-34/85 is Bracketing taking 9 seconds also (this includes reload times) + Crew Lag 2 seconds + Time of Flight 2 seconds = 13 seconds and it will be more accurate than the ranging shot. The second shot will be at turn 49 (36+13). An Elite crew would take 10 seconds to do the same thing, a Green Crew would take 15 seconds. When seconds count the better crews have the advantage even with inferior equipment. There are no initiative rolls or activation's in the game. The key drivers in the game are situational awareness (spotting) and speed/reaction to get the first shot off in a duel. If you want to overwatch or opportunity fire into an area point your gun at it and you'll spot and engage quicker. No fancy or complicated if-then-else, maybe, use it or lose it, exception type rules that make your brain hurt.

To keep movement and firing in sync at the end of every 5 second turn increment vehicles designated as moving are actually moved on the playing surface by BOTH players at the same time which moves the game along a little quicker. So at the end of turn 25, 30 and 35 the Panther would be moved 5 seconds times 6 meters per second = 30 meters in each increment UNLESS he has a successful Situational Awareness Check and noticed the T-34 lining up on him and wants to do something different. These checks are done once each 5 second increment whenever the player desires and success is based on the spotting quadrant and tank commander status.

So in this example you can see the T-34/85 under combat conditions has a rate of fire of 4-6 rounds per minute depending on the initial engagement time, fire control (depends on range) and crew type. It's still a WIP and needs play testing. Some factors are real and historic and some are my best guess. The key to making a system like this playable is the play aids which I've tried to get all of the info needed to make a decision in front of the player without a lot of searching.

This post is long enough – again. Here are some links for additional info:

Sample 88L56 gunnery chart: link

Sample Tiger I Status sheet that shows engagement times on left side: link

AAR from Sacramento convention: link

Quick Start rules: link

How Overwatch and Opportunity fire is handled: link

You'll probably find a few discrepancies and conflicting factors in the attachments. Like I said this is a WIP and much is being changed and I don't update everything right away. Hopefully you get the idea.

Thanks,
Wolfhag

In WW2 there were a lot of differences between tanks in the crew tasks that were required for engaging enemy tanks. It is only post-war that the various major national blocks (NATO vs. WarPac) settled down into fairly consistent designs across various tank models. (And even then, "fairly consistent" may be an overly generous term.)

Some examples, all IIRC (so 100% accuracy is not assured):
- US Army tanks had multi speed power traverse mechanisms. So did some British tanks. In those cases you could traverse quickly to get the gun pointing in the target's general direction, and then reduce the traverse speed for fine aiming. The M4 Sherman was particularly well regarded for it's turret traverse speed.
- US Army tank destroyers M10 and M18 didn't have any power traverse at all. All hand-cranked. So the notion of using their speed for battlefield maneuver … forget it! You used speed to find a firing position. Then you waited for a target. Woe be it for you if the enemy showed up from a direction you had not anticipated. But they had large ready-racks right next to the gun, and no roof so empties could be tossed overboard as needed, so once on target several rounds could be sent downrange in quick succession.
- Soviet tanks, in most cases, had a power traverse. But it was often only one speed, and it was difficult to use for precise aiming. In most cases the gunner would use the power traverse to get pointing in the right direction, then switch to manual hand-cranking to do the precise aiming.
- Several early-war tanks didn't even have a traverse mechanism, and relied on the gunner putting his shoulder to the breech for turning the turret. In some cases there was a fine-aiming traverse, but quick traverse was done with the shoulder. This often led to differing traverse rates depending on which way the turret was swung, as the gunner was on one side and pushing the turret was notably faster than pulling.
- Late war German tanks (notably Panther and Tiger II) had turret traverse mechanisms that borrowed power from the engine. The turret traversed much faster if the engine was on and the driver applied gas to assist the gunner. So slow traverse if the engine is off OR if the tank is advancing at a constant speed, but fast if the tank is idling in place.
- Ammo and ready-racks vs. stowage varied enormously from tank to tank, and even within sub-models. Early Shermans stowed a portion of their ammo in over-track sponsons, where it was readily accessable once the ready-rack was empty. Even so, loaders tended to hold rounds in their laps when combat was expected, for faster access. Later Shermans (with "wet" stowage) had relatively small ready-racks (fewer than 10 rounds IIRC), and it was very challenging to get at stowed ammo. Once the ready-rack was depleted, the turret had to be traversed to allow the loader to access under-floor bins, or the co-driver (hull gunner) had to pull his seat-back forward to access a bin behind him (also under the turret floor). In either case it took a fair bit of gymnastics in an enclosed space, and would have been challenging in the best of conditions, much less if the tank was bumping over broken ground with the gunner screaming to get a round up.
- In many WW2 tanks the commander was also the gunner, while in others the commander was also the loader. Finding subsequent targets after the first would be slow in those cases, as the commander is not scanning and calling targets to the gunner.
- In a few tanks (notably the French tanks, but some others too) the commander was both gunner and loader, as he was the only crewman in the turret. So not only was finding subsequent targets slow, but subsequent shots on target were slow and had little added accuracy. So unclear was the requirement for turret crewmen that one French tank, the S35, had a crewman assigned to help the commander load the gun, but he was located in the hull rather than the turret -- he could access stowage and hand the rounds up to the commander, but he was not in a position to put them into the gun.

A lot of ramblings with no specific agenda other than to bring forward some of the variables.

Considering how many variables were at play, it is hard to come up with any basic rules that will apply in all cases, but it is also probably unreasonable to have a mechanism complicated enough to determine target acquisition times and rates of fire during game-time.

For example from my readings it is clear that a stationary tank that has had time to aim will put several rounds downrange before it's target can return fire. This should be built in to rules to give an accurate balance to attacker vs. defender. Unless it has a one man crew.

Probably better just to assign a ROF (rate of fire) and RTA (rate of target acquisition) value to each different model of tank.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Wittmann did do rather well against the British in Normandy as well, at Villers Bocage

(Yawn)Here we go again….. the SS poster boy made a foolhardy attack that destroyed a handful of medium tanks, a lot of barely armored transport vehicles and ended up walking back to his own lines after losing a major asset to a little antitank gun. In any other army he'd have been court martialed.

Back to the OP: there is also smoke to consider and whether on not the vehicle has a muzzle brake. The 17pdr in the Firefly was notorious for temporarily blinding it's gunner after every shot.

@Wolfhag: oof, you're running impulses for a tank game? Definitely NOT my style of play.

While I will generally defer to the former tankers, I think your variability between the different crew skills isn't high enough. With reloading torpedoes, a good team could do it in about half the time as a poor team (~8-9 minutes v ~15min for a poor team, average team in ~12min; Yes, as a side effect from other things, 3 minute turns in that game).

- Ammo and ready-racks vs. stowage varied enormously from tank to tank, and even within sub-models. Early Shermans stowed a portion of their ammo in over-track sponsons, where it was readily accessable once the ready-rack was empty. Even so, loaders tended to hold rounds in their laps when combat was expected, for faster access. Later Shermans (with "wet" stowage) had relatively small ready-racks (fewer than 10 rounds IIRC), and it was very challenging to get at stowed ammo. Once the ready-rack was depleted, the turret had to be traversed to allow the loader to access under-floor bins, or the co-driver (hull gunner) had to pull his seat-back forward to access a bin behind him (also under the turret floor). In either case it took a fair bit of gymnastics in an enclosed space, and would have been challenging in the best of conditions, much less if the tank was bumping over broken ground with the gunner screaming to get a round up.

Which that gets back to my assertion of good crews keeping their ready racks topped off when they had a lull in combat.

But with a game counting impulses/seconds like this one, I think "refilling the ready rack" is going to be a "crew stops paying attention to the outside" event.

It's faster loading small rounds. One churchill crewman said he preferred the 6pdr to the 75 because they could reload it faster. The jerry 88 round was huge by comparison.
No gun tube extractor gizmos in ww2. Turret full of fumes from one shot, let alone 3 in rapid succession.

I think noticing a target outside where the attention is focussed is much more significant a factor than turret traverse speed.

The game is for smaller skirmish and duels, not large scale battles. I wanted something to reflect the decisions and factors for a tank crew with an emphasis on gunnery techniques and a minimum of abstractions. There was not anything out there that seemed to reflect what I was reading in manuals and after action reports. To get an idea of the game read the AAR link.

Each tank status sheet shows the type of round loaded in the chamber and the player would normally fire off whatever is in there even if its not the one desired. He can reload the correct round.

The human factors that I see affecting the ROF for follow up shots (not engagement first shots) is reload time (loader), correcting aim for the last shot (gunner), sensing the round to get corrections to the gunner (commander), fire control/targeting type (gunner & commander). The non-human factors are the shell type (size, one or two piece), ergonomics of the fighting compartment and loader, using ready rack ammo or not. I have not gotten into assigning factors to come up with some formula. I'm mostly using historical references which almost never agree or state the way they came up with the figures. Smaller round will fire more quickly and are easier to handle. The two piece ammo seemed to take 20 seconds to load and fire.

So if references generally agree that a vehicle's gun ROF is 5 rounds per minute historically that is one round every 12 seconds. I have it set up that an Elite crew will do it in 11 seconds, Veteran 12 seconds, Trained 14 seconds and Green 16 seconds. The crew modifier (think of it as an action lag allowing better crews to do more in the same time frame) is elite -1, veteran 0, trained +2, Green +4 seconds. These are all pretty much subjective and a best guess as I don't have any real hard and fast information. Combat conditions are not ideal.

The fire control / targeting type used by the gunner and commander have slight differences too.

Ranging takes extra time for the commander to estimate the range and get it to the gunner to make changes. Bracketing takes time for the commander to sense the round and relay the changes to the gunner so he can make them. With Veteran Crews a Panther can do a Ranging and two bracketing shots in 22 seconds, Tiger I in 33 seconds, T-34/85 in 29 seconds. These numbers do not include turret rotation time.

Battlesight and Burst on Target are quicker with the gunner engaging without good range estimation from the Commander using the elevation and sight setting on the weapon and sensing and correcting without input from the commander, as long as he can see the round. This technique is generally used for shorter ranges of one second TOF or less. With Veteran Crews a Panther can do a Battle Sight and two Burst on Target shots in 15 seconds, Tiger I in 21 seconds, T-34/84 in 20 seconds.

I think these figures compare well to BattleCaptain in his Centurion with three rounds in about 20 seconds and with other research I've done. US Army tank manuals state the difference in engagement times of Battle Sight and Ranging is Battle Sight is 3 seconds quicker and I have that implemented in the figures.

I'm not getting into things like is the loader putting one round between his legs and another in his lap, did he slip or fumble the round and stuff like that. However, there is a fog of war rule where negative things can happen to extend firing time. I'm using a rule that firing without ready rounds will take three times as long but that's a best guess and would vary from tank to tank. So a ROF of 6 rounds per minute would drop to 2 rounds per minute. AONeill mentions fumes building up. I've read this too that tanks would fire with all roof hatches open and not keep up max ROF for more than a minute or gunners and loaders could pass out. The Panther did have a pneumatic device that would shoot air into the chamber forcing the fumes out of the barrel. Not sure how well it worked.

As you can see there is a fair amount of difference where seconds count and add up quickly and it's the players decision as to how to engage a target. I don't know any other way to reflect this than using one second increments. So far games have taken two to three minutes (120 to 180 seconds) with surviving tanks having gotten off 5-8 rounds engaging 4-6 targets in that amount of time including maneuvering time when not firing. Players were firing and moving. Starting with 12 tanks on a side with seven new players that were only briefed and not read the rules took 2.5 hours to play out at a convention with me as the umpire moving things along. That was much better than I anticipated. Since there is no orders phase as soon as a vehicle fired he could start moving, fire another round at the same target or engage a new one and he had to make that decision right away. He would add up how long his next action would take and place his action/activation chit that many turns ahead on the turn chart and hope he would not get knocked out in the waiting time. They caught on after a few turns. The suspense was in the waiting and who would fire as time proceeded from one second to the next. Since there is no sequenced activation, chit/dice pull or an IGUG turn sequence players stayed engaged and had many chances throughout a 5-10 second sequence to move and/or fire. You didn't have to wait very long to perform an action.

In play testing so far the ready rack seems to have a mostly psychological effect on the players. They seem to be afraid to take those long range low percentage shots and be low on ammo when the engagement ranges get closer. In most tank duels a tank is not going to fire more than 3 rounds to ensure a target is knocked out. A tank with 12 ready rack rounds should be able to engage in about 4-6 duels before running empty. If only 9 of those 12 rounds were AP then make if 3-4 duels. Reloading the ready rack was pretty much different in every tank like Lion pointed out. It does not seem to involve the commander who would still have his head out for good situational awareness. I'm thinking it would take 10-15 seconds to get a round out of storage and put it in the ready rack but I have no data on that as the radioman and/or gunner would help too handing rounds back to the loader. During any lull in a battle the crew would reload.

The good thing about a ready rack rule is the players can make a decision to custom load with a combination of different and limited number of AP, HE, smoke, APCR, WP, etc. It does seem to affect their decision making and keeps them from taking stupid shots which can speed up the game. By not knowing how much infantry or AT guns they'll engage will force them to carry non-AP rounds which can mean running low or out of AP during an extended tank-tank engagement. The down side is the extra ammo chits on the status sheet and tracking rounds will lead to mistakes. It seems as if the rule is not really necessary unless there is an extended engagement, when outnumbered or large engagement and a defender against multiple waves. You can also have a scenario where they start out with a partially loaded ready rack too.

I do think that this system can be somewhat simplified into a 30 second turn and allowing tanks to fire 1-3 rounds in that amount of time in a specific sequence allowing for engagement times, ROF and different targeting types.

I have not had a chance to discuss this with others so I'm interested in other sources. Opinions are welcome but good or historical references are best.

Wolfhag

In my rules, the vast majority of tanks* only get one shot on the 1st turn they fire at a given target -- that's to represent the time taken to spot and acquire the target. Only on subsequent turns of fire at the same target do they get more than 1 shot.

* The exceptions are semi-automatic guns, such as that in the PzII and most German AC's.

@Wolfhag Your system sounds very interesting. My thoughts are similar, although I want to have something at a slightly higher level. I like to start with low level details and try to generalize them into something a bit more playable. OOC, did you ever see the old AH game "Patton's Best"? It is a solo board game where you are the commander of a Sherman during 1944-45.

I'm trying to understand the timing of things at a more granular level. I'm used to games that are IGOUGO (both with and without opportunity fire), activation based, or phased. The difference between shooting first and second is either a function of turn sequence or random luck. What really struck me was the Tiger scene in "Fury", where both sides were scrambling to move and get shots off before the other. After playing around a bit with World of Tanks, I get some of that same feel. Who shoots first is almost as important as who shoots best, and the whole sequence of aiming, firing, and reloading produces a lot of tension. Most board and mins games really penalize movement, resulting in die rolling slug fests. I don't think that is right, as even if the movement is small, such as shooting then backing up to reload, its something worth considering.

I'm actually pretty happy with the "Panzer" series, although I like the miniatures version more than the new GMT version. (I do love the crunchiness of the original, as well as the plotted moves. It takes a lot longer to play, though.) The order of firing in Panzer is done through a simple initiative role, so individual vehicles don't modify it. Perhaps some sort of Gun Duel rule would be interesting. I'm also working on my own set of rules, although it remains to be seen if they will go beyond the experiment stage.

BattleCaptain's comments made me think that 20-30 seconds is a reasonable amount of time for a game turn. The scene with the PaK 38 in Brazen Chariots probably took about 20 seconds, factoring in the ATG's rate of fire and aiming times. I assume that anyone that sits still for more than that is just asking to be hit.

I really want to thank everyone for the comments. I've found them very informative.

So if references generally agree that a vehicle's gun ROF is 5 rounds per minute historically that is one round every 12 seconds. I have it set up that an Elite crew will do it in 11 seconds, Veteran 12 seconds, Trained 14 seconds and Green 16 seconds. The crew modifier (think of it as an action lag allowing better crews to do more in the same time frame) is elite -1, veteran 0, trained +2, Green +4 seconds. These are all pretty much subjective and a best guess as I don't have any real hard and fast information. Combat conditions are not ideal.

And while I would defer to the actual tankers for exact numbers, I really think your quality modifiers aren't big enough.

It's my understanding that the cited rates of fire were for average trained crews, not veteran or elite/ace crews.

So if your average crew is getting 5 rounds per minute (12 sec/round), an Ace crew may be down about 6 seconds**, while your raw crew might be lucky to reload-and-fire in 18 seconds.

**I vaguely remember 10 rounds/minute being the uber-elite goal rate of fire that is still in use today. It takes one hell of a gorilla of a loader to move that fast with 120mm shells. I read here of one loader that fast who could hold a 120mm shell in each hand at arm's reach.

Fogemort -
re: Who shoots first is almost as important as who shoots best, and the whole sequence of aiming, firing, and reloading produces a lot of tension

I think the overwhelming axiom determined by most armies then and especially now, as exemplified by the US Army, and actual former "treadheads" who post on TMP, has been that the most important factor in winning a tank duel is getting the shot off first. This realization has significant ramifications. And, seems to be coroborated if indirectly by some of these posters on this and other threads.

- Tibor

Lion,
I'd changed the reload times back up again as I had lowered them the last time. I think you are right that they are a little low. As to the crew quality modifiers I'm leaving them alone for now unless I can get some hard data.

My definitions for crew quality: Elite is a combat proven veteran crew that has been working together in the same type of vehicle and know it well. Veteran is a combat proven crew but not together long enough or familiar enough with the vehicle they are in to be called elite. That could qualify as Average. Trained is a crew with no or very little combat experience or new to the vehicle type. Green crews are conscripts thrown in with minimal training and familiarization. The base numbers are for Veteran crews which is why the value is zero.

One of the problems I'm having is getting some hard data for the ROF for the two different types of fire control/gunner targeting: Bracketing and Burst on Target. Maybe there is really no difference. Then there is the theoretical ROF, realistic under combat and then one loader confined in a tank which is what I'm going after. The ROF time is more than just the loader getting the round in the chamber. It also includes the gunner and commander communicating, gunner making changes, etc to take into account to get the right feel between different tanks. Of course that could be taking place while the loader is reloading too. If the guns ROF is quicker than the crews ability to re-engage additional time is added to the reload time to get the shot off. If the reload time exceeds the crews time to re-engage I use the ROF time which is what I use for two piece ammo that takes about 20 seconds to reload. From looking at videos firing AT guns it looks like the quickest ROF you can get with a semi-auto breech under absolutely ideal conditions is a round every 5 seconds for 12 rpm even for the FLAK 88 with multiple loaders. Some sources have the German 75 ATG rated at 14 rpm which could only be achieved with multiple loaders handing ammo to the loader and the gun firmly emplaced. It appears a tank loader could at best do half of that. I'd give AT guns a slightly higher ROF because of extra loaders unless they are being fired on and suppressed which would half their ROF as it looks like only a gunner and one loader could fit behind the shield.

The loader in most tanks is the newest and most inexperienced crew member. He's expected to reload an 85mm to 90mm round weighting about 45 pounds or a 75mm that weighs 30-35 pounds doing it about a dozen times in about 90 seconds. Sherman crews were supposed do 20 reloads in one minute which few could achieve. I saw where an M1 tanker said 40 pounds was the upper limit that a round could "easily" be handled. Most duels or engagements are over in 30-90 seconds so it's not like you need an Olympian endurance reloader unless the battle goes on for more than a few minutes without letup. I am working on Fog of War cards that would have a negative impact on reload times and crew efficiency. It appears it takes 15-20 seconds and sometimes longer to reload a round from a storage location after the ready rack is empty of the desired type rounds and that usually means another crew member helping hand rounds back to the loader. It could also mean firing HE instead of AP because it's the only round available in the ready rack to load right away.

I currently have it set up that with a Veteran Crew the best a tank with a 70-90mm gun will be able do one round every 8-9 seconds.

Thanks,
Wolfhag