"Suppression and Firepower" Topic

Should a soldier with more firepower be harder to suppress?

One of my favorite rules set, THW, uses this assumption. When a shooter engages a target, the ROF of the weapons (or in some special cases, particularly for explosives, an assigned number that is usually higher than most regular weaponry) are compared and if the shooter has a great value the target is essentially automatically suppressed. If they are equal or the target has a greater value, suppression is determined by a skill test for the target.

So an LMG shooting at a group of riflemen pretty much automatically suppresses those who are targeted, while a rifleman shooting at an LMG is more likely to just make the LMG return fire. Also, a grenade can be thrown even if targeted by an LMG (due to the special rule) allowing daring soldiers to make such an attack.

It 'feels' right, and it makes some logical sense (if I have a machine gun I probably shouldn't be ducking back every time I receive some fire from a rifle), but I'd like a more solid basis.

Are troops with greater firepower inherently harder to suppress, or are they only harder to suppress because they are more likely to suppress their enemy first?

To provide a less mechanical form of the question: A soldier is peaking out of a ditch in a firefight. A bullet hits close to him. Is the chance of him ducking back into the ditch greater if he has assault rifle and not a SAW?

Read SLA Marshall's Men Against Fire. Some of the numbers have been questioned over the years but I believe that the findings are still valid.

Basically the better a soldier can throw out fire, the more likely he will.

Makes some sense to me, especially if the rounds sound, or appear close.

Though you also need to factor in available ammo too, since some with little ammo will be inclined to waste it on suppressive fire.

Although this is one element of causing suppression I'm not sure it is actually the most important. To me it seems that awareness and quality of training are equally important.

If you don't know where the enemy troops are or cannot put effective fire on them then all of the firepower in the world is not going to suppress them.

I also tend to not like anything that just takes a single element of the equation and makes it automatic. Although it is hard to model in a tabletop game better troops tend to displace and reposition frequently thus limiting their opponents awareness of where to put effective fire.

Some years ago a fellow at the club ran a basic Stalingrad factory skirmish game.

Company level. Each player had a squad. As I recall 5&6 was a hit and 3&4 suppressed. Cover or prone reduced by one. Automatic weapons got more shots or a better hit number, but that was about it.

I argued to the GM that crew served weapons were historically less likely to be suppressed. but he wanted to keep it simple.

I feel that it wouldn't have complicated things that much and would have increased the 'realism' a bit. I prefer games that at least give some idea of the reason for real world tactics.

"Are troops with greater firepower inherently harder to suppress, or are they only harder to suppress because they are more likely to suppress their enemy first?"

irl it is a combination of both, they are more likely to put down more fire in any case but may also benefit from better cohesion (for crew served weapons) as well as the influence of weapons-pull on aggressiveness (and weapons-push on their target – every gun is an 88 and all that).

'Brains and Bullets' by Leo Murray goes into this stuff in some depth. I particularly enjoyed the story of 'shouty' the MG42 and its crew of The Five Grenadiers. Perfect example of crew cohesion and weapons push.

How you model this sort of things in wargames varies with what sorts of complexity and outcomes you want.

I quite like the relative firepower approach though, as it recognises that firefights are just that, a fight, and not unit X 'taking a shot' at unit Y.

I have seen various game mechanisms take this approach, but the most obvious is DBA where (almost) every combat may result in adverse results for a weak attacker.

Group, Range, Indication, Type of Fire!

Much must depend on the ability to apply effective fire against the enemy, whatever the weapon system. Once the commander has won the firefight then he can implement the manouvre plan to take the enemy position. A well trained Infantry section will be able to put down much more effective fire than an untrained section.

Tally Ho!

for a real world example of training and numbers over coming fire power: take a look at the 1997 LA bank robbery shoot out. the police being out gunned and out armored kept returning fire the whole time. they never just hid in place and stopped fighting they keep moving and shooting back and helping the wounded. They were on the very bottom of the fire power curve in that fight. I would say you have to have fire power and training worked in to the suppression out come.

YouTube link

Would someone please explain "weapons-pull" and "weapons-push"?

I didnt go to Military Academy! ;)

Thank you.

Of course, a crack shot with even a bolt action rifle can end the fight pretty quickly, if he's on target, so…..

Weapons-Pull: The better the weapon a man has (compared to his mates), the more likely he is to fire it (and also, apparently, the more weapons he has).

If it is a crew-served weapon, even better, because there is likely to be a positive effect from crew cohesion and there is also less likely to be a reduced affect from aversion (reluctance to fire on other human beings).

Weapons-Push: If the enemy has better (perceived) weapons, our side is less likely to fight.

Should a soldier with more firepower be harder to suppress?

I would say no, but close.

I like the Charlie Company rule were its based on the number of hits your squad has taken. So a squad with an LMG team has a better chance of rolling hits and so a better chance of pinning or surpressing. Usually if someone is killed, the rest of the squad is pinned or surpressed.

Thanx Whirlwind. I wonder if it might not be that the heaviest weapon receives the most incoming fire because it's the biggest perceived threat. It's also probably the easiest to spot?

Thanks for responses, everyone.
So, to give a bit more of an idea of what I'm working with:
This is a very low level game.
The idea is to use it for XCOM-ish tactical combat, RPGs, and so on.
I play and enjoy other games at this scale (Chain Reaction FV is pretty close, TFT's Melee is close but for fantasy/premodern combat) but great as those games are I wanted to see how a game with a bit more focus on the individual actions played, and also wanted to represent things like stealth and spotting as part of the core of the system and not as additions. So far using the rules I have the play tests of 4-13 men a side (all with rifles, SAWs, SMGs, and other fairly light small arms) have lasted just under an hour-- a pretty good zone to be in.
Anyway, on to suppression:
Weapons have a ROF value (which represents effective ROF more than any mechanical value) and a Suppression Value (which incorporates the scariness of the weapon and also things like its actual mechanical ROF).
Regular shooting involves rolling 2d10 against the shooter's skill for every "shot," with both passing resulting in a "hit." But the defender then gets a chance to reduce that hit to suppression-- generally they get either one or two dice to throw against their own skill (depending on the cover they are in), and if any of the dice pass they survive. Soldiers that survive being fired on then take a suppression test-- they roll a number of dice equal to the suppression value of the weapon that targeted them + the number of shots that "hit." If any of these dice fail they are suppressed.
There are a few modifiers due to action:
A soldier who is stationary can take an Aimed Shot (ROF 1, choose to reduce the number of "to-hit" dice by 1 or the number of defensive dice by 1), or Suppressing Fire (+1 ROF, +1 Suppression).
Soldiers who are targeted by someone they have LOS to and have spotted and are not in the most defensive position they can be (they're peaking around a wall, or standing in the open instead of prone) can choose to Take Cocer when they're targeted, and can then add 1 die to defense but are automatically suppressed.
Suppressed troops can't act or react for the rest of that turn, and the next turn can't activate on their own (a leader can get them going) but can react. They also automatically duck into cover to be fully out of view-- but being fully out of view, as long as their "position" is in LOS, still allows one to be targeted (it's just that the number of defensive dice is very high-- 4) so that once someone is suppressed you can keep shooting at them to make them keep their head down. If they crawl around while not in view this ability is lost, however (so it's better to be suppressed in terrain that doesn't also pin you down-- don't take cover beind a barrel in the middle of the street!)

The question then, for these rules, is whether your weapon's suppression value should actually mitigate suppression against you? As it stands a SAW is more likely to shoot than a rifle because of the structure of a firefight (the SAW with SV of 1 + 1 when stationary is very effective and suppressing clumps of enemies who will then be unable to shoot at the SAW) not because the SAW gunner is inherently harder to suppress. One reason to change this might be to make it that those who are the first to get a shot in aren't as likely to win the firefight (if they have a suppressing weapon) but on the other hand it seems fairly realistic that, all else being equal, the ambushing side tends to be the one that wins the initial firefight…

If one takes this approach I believe troop quality should be more important than weapon ROF.

Search YouTube for "Syrian Firefight". There you will find incontrovertible evidence for SLA Marshall's assertion that only a few soldiers fire their weapons, at least when it comes to untrained militia.

In video after video Syrian militia fighters are shown clustered under cover in squad-sized groups. One or two will poke their head out and blaze away with a few rounds. It's not aimed fire and it's not sustained fire by the entire group.

Then search YouTube for videos of professional soldiers in combat such as US Marines. Then you will see them deployed in a line with all troops able to engage the likely target and often attempting to achieve fire superiority with everyone firing.

In both cases the fighters/soldiers are armed with fully automatic weapons. But the untrained, undisciplined militia generate a tiny fraction of the firepower generated by the professionals.

In fact, it's why it's not always desirable replicate all of this too accurately since games (that's GAMES) quickly become entirely one-sided when modeling militia vs well trained regulars in modern combat. It's simply no contest and why in the real world such militia rely more on IEDs and ambushes followed by a quick exit from the battlefield. Sometimes gamers do want that experience and we try to allow for asymmetrical warfare in our games. But on it's not always entertaining to know the outcome of a tactical game before it starts (ie one side will inflict a few casualties on another and then immediately retreat thus ending the game).

Now, assuming equal skills, then superior firepower wins the day. There's a very good reason that your average soldiers are issued automatic weapons (eg M4s and M249s) and not rifles designed primarily for accurate fire at long ranges (eg a bolt action Springfield M1903).

The question then, for these rules, is whether your weapon's suppression value should actually mitigate suppression against you? As it stands a SAW is more likely to shoot than a rifle because of the structure of a firefight (the SAW with SV of 1 + 1 when stationary is very effective and suppressing clumps of enemies who will then be unable to shoot at the SAW) not because the SAW gunner is inherently harder to suppress.

It depends. I think that if considered as a solitary factor, a SAW gunner isn't harder to suppress than anyone else. But the SAW gunner's overall participation should be higher, so it might not hurt to roll it into the suppression mechanic unless there is a better place to put it in your rules.

@Visceral Impact Studios:

Maybe. But in the above example are your USMC under accurate fire?

People interested in this really can't do better than read Brains and Bullets, which Martin Rapier referred to above; plus the links in this thread may be helpful: TMP link

"Maybe. But in the above example are your USMC under accurate fire?" Probably not if fighting the militia in the example!!

Tally Ho!

I'll probably leave it as it is, for now. It comes out to be that shootier guns are more likely to fire (this is partially just a natural result of weapons that are more suppressive being more likely to suppress the enemy and then be able to continue firing suppressively, and partially that it is pretty basic tactical intelligence to use those weapons in a way that gives them more opportunities to fire), but even more that better troops are more likely to get in the fight, and that happens regardless of suppression (better troops are harder to suppress, but more importantly they're more likely to be able to activate once in contact).

All of this is without any solid morale rules, mind you, beyond the basic activation system and the effects of being targeted. There are currently no effects for being close to a friend that was targeted (although in practice suppressing fire will be spread to any nearby soldiers), and no effect from casualties (beyond the negative effect this tends to have on cohesion for activation and total firepower). For this sort of game I think the proper addition would be a special "panicked" status that can come up with casualties or perhaps particularly heavy fire-- the way shooting works it makes sense that suppression wouldn't apply unless someone was "targeted" (indeed studies I've read and videos I've watched support the idea that real suppression happens when shots are very close, and the rest is better represented by general activation rolls for troops who are in contact).

Similarly weapons like sniper rifles are good for aimed fire, which means they don't currently do much as suppressive weapons (except against those they target) mechanically, but in practice a sniper in the distance is hard to move against because he can just take aimed shots at anyone who exposes themselves and can be very lethal unless everyone stays down.

Now to just hammer down those close assault rules…

To echo Visceral Impact Studios

Take the Falklands – Outnumbered Paras with SLR vs Argentinian conscripts with automatic weapons. Its a morale and professionalism thing.

But the British accounts are full of incidents where very good British infantry was suppressed. I am not sure that I can see any good reason for making the Brits harder to suppress. Suppression might not actually be a function of morale and/or training* (but recovering from it might).

I don't think it is that clear that the FN-FAL was that much much of a battle-winner over an SLR either.