"Treadheads After Action Report " Topic

SacConX After Action Report

It was a pretty small gathering, only about 300 people. I was able to get two games in with a total of three players.

Treadheads is a low level tank skirmish game in development. It uses a 5 second turn with one second action phases. Basic game play revolves around players determining how long it will take them to engage and fire at an enemy target and they are "activated" that many one second turns in the future. Things like overwatch and opportunity fire work themselves out without needing specific rules. Engagement and firing time is determined by turret rotation to get your gun on target, crew expertise, time of flight and aim time. Players can decide to take less time to aim at a tradeoff of lower accuracy. Seconds really count in a free for all not knowing when or where the next shot will be coming from. Neither side knows when or if an enemy tank or gun will be firing but if its gun is pointed at you it's just a matter of time. If you see someone getting their gun on you do likewise or start moving.

The first game was two players who knew almost nothing about tank warfare. I took a few minutes to explain the game and go over their status sheets and go over a sample turn. The Germans started with four Panthers and the Russians with four T-34/85's. It was a head on meeting engagement starting at 2,000 meters with flat open terrain with some small intervening hills that could block line of sight. Both sides with veteran crews fighting unbuttoned. The scale was 1 inch = 25 meters. Tanks were moving at 25-35kph which equals about 50 meters in a 5 second turn.

Both sides started closing the range because of the small chances for a hit. At 1600 meters they opened fire. Both sides missed on their first shots with the Panthers getting their shots off a few seconds before the T-34's. The Russian had his two tanks on the left flank start a flanking maneuver behind some blocking terrain while the two on the right flank engaged the Panthers. At this point all four Panthers decided to engage the two static T-34's as they were better targets. A T-34 got a hit on the Panther glacis which bounced off and both Panthers missed their first shots but were getting the range.

The Russian seeing that his hits were having no effect decided to close the range and the Panthers tracked them rather than firing at a moving target. The two T-34's on the left flank continued their flanking maneuver. The T-34's advanced to engage at 1400 meters with one missing and one bouncing an 85mm APC off the top of the Panther mantlet. One Panther scored a hit on the middle of the T-34 mantlet and the penetration of 135mm easily penetrated the 90mm of mantlet armor knocking out the T-34. The other Panther scored a hit on the turret side armor but a lateral angle of 70 degrees it slid off without penetrating. The T-34 fired back a second later striking the Panther on the lower nose armor with an armor of 130mm and it bounced off with a penetration of only 93mm. Both Panthers fired back getting penetrating hits on the turret and glacis knocking out the second T-34.

The Panthers then turned to face the two flanking T-34's coming into LOS. The range was closed to 900 meters. Both sides opened fire almost simultaneously. A hit was scored on the T-34 cupola killing the tank commander and the crew bailed out just seconds before they got their shot off. The other T-34 fired and the round hit the turret roof of the Panther ricocheting off the ventilator. One Panther put a round through the turret mantlet knocking out the last T-34 and another Panther put a round through the glacis. Game over. Total playing time about 60 minutes and 95 seconds (turns) of game time. The T-34's could get off one ranging and two bracketing shots in 29 seconds. The Panthers could do the same in 20 seconds.

The players seemed to catch on pretty quickly. Even though the gunnery charts have a lot of information they eliminate the need to look up different modifiers. They liked the idea of using the gun sight transparencies to aim and see the results, especially the close misses. Using the accuracy cards to randomize the final location of where the round lands from the aim point eliminated a lot of die rolling. The biggest thing was that there was always some type of action for both players as tanks are moved in a mutual movement phase and there are no set turns. You can't walk away for 15-20 minutes while others move or fire. The players didn't seem to have a problem running four tanks and keeping some admin work on the status sheets using dry erase markers. The feedback is pretty much the same as the last two conventions. However, we didn't get into any of the more complicated rules. No one, including me running the game had their head stuck in rule books.

The two players wanted to go again and we picked up a third player for a second game where the German Panthers got trounced taking about 90 minutes to play through. I can post an AAR report on that one if anyone is interested.

I'll post some pictures but the terrain and figures are not impressive. I used 1/144 scale Dragon and Tank Museum miniatures. The terrain is my spray painted drop cloth with some Styrofoam hills. The benefit is that I can get feedback more on the game and mechanics and not the overall visual presentation. At KublaCon and PacifiCon we'll have some killer terrain and Bolt Action miniatures in a huge tank-infantry battle.

Here are some pictures of the second game. You can see there are no counters or dice on the playing surface. Only movement arrows showing the tank is moving and in what general direction.

Images of the shots on target:
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Images of the playing surface of the second game:
Two IS-2 burning after taking hits in the turret ring: link
The two IS-2's in hull down position that did most of the damage and could not be knocked out:
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Battles end with all four Panthers ablaze and T-34's on the right coming over the hill: link
Close up of the four Panthers:
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Overview of games end. The T-34's are on the left just outside the photo:
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Wolfhag

Very interesting Wolfhag. I'd be very interested to see the AAR you mentioned along with a description of the core mechanics would be nice too.

Thanks (or should that be tanks…I have a flat Irish accent after all ) for sharing :)

Sounds interesting! Table is huge; looks good at 1/144.

Thanks for sharing your report, Wolfhag.

I'm definitely interested in your rules.

Wasn't able to make it to the convention.

I suspect there might be some other people in the Sacramento area that didn't get to check out your rules, that might be interested as well. There are at least a couple of wargaming clubs up this way, and both have people that like WWII gaming.

I'll check it out, and let you know on that, to see if we can convince you to run a demo for us, if I can get enough interested parties, and if you'd be willing to do that in the future.

Would love to see a modern version as well.

E-mail me at:

topgungrav AT yahoo d0t com

if you want to discuss further.

Thanks guys.

From my experience one of the problems that makes tank-tank games difficult to play is syncing up the movement and firing. For example, a game that has a 30 second turn. In that amount of time a typical tank in average to ideal conditions can move from 200 to 300 meters and most tanks can get off 2-3 rounds. The problem enters in as to exactly where that moving target is going to be engaged and how will it affect the shooters ROF. It does not matter whether it is an IGYG or using a chit pull activation system. The problem remains the same. That's how I see it anyhow. The target may have moved out of and back into LOS 2-3 times during the turn moving 200-300 meters. Where do you put it to be fired at? Half way? Three quarters of movement? What die roll modifiers do you get? Some rules have opportunity fire "cascading" where one shooter activates another shooter who activates a third one, etc. So in effect you may be breaking the 30 second turn artificially down into 5 six second turns. It's kind of like having a Wild West shootout game where a guy can start from the bordello upstairs, run down stairs and across the street and into the saloon all in one turn and have 3-4 guys get a chance to shoot at him and him shoot back on the move. How do you decide where and when the shots take place?

My solution is to use one second time slices where firing can take place at any time and moving units have a movement arrow to show movement and direction but the movement is performed or "synched" every 5 seconds. We can even take it on a second by second movement basis if needed. Let's say a target is moving at 35kph (about 10 meters/second) and in turn 28 (3 seconds into a 5 second turn) it is shot at. If there is a blocking LOS or hull down position the target was moving towards that is less than 30 meters away the target player can assume moving 30 meters in turns 26-28 and is out of LOS before the shooter can get the round off or before it actually arrives. That happens in games. It's one of the reasons we use time of flight added to the firing time formula because it's not when you shoot – it's when the round arrives when the damage is done. Remember, seconds count. Any questionable situations and ties go in favor of the defender.

Tango: I've shown the game to a few other M60 and M48 tankers. They get it right away. They should, the mechanics, terminology and nomenclature is mostly from their manuals. You are right about the Russians and being buttoned up. I just didn't want to do that to a new guy in a demo game. I should have done it in the second game and would have given the Panthers a fighting chance. Being buttoned up appears it gives an advantage to your enemy to get off more shots in the same period. All shots from buttoned up tanks get a negative modifier to their accuracy letter too.

Regarding aim time. Most of the information I got from Army FM17-12 March 1977. The key info was a Battle Sight shot takes about three seconds less than a ranging shot. Five seconds as opposed to 8 seconds. I use that as a basis for generating the other numbers. Aim time for Ranging and Bracketing also assumes the tank commander sensing the round and communicating the adjustments to the gunner when bracketing. Burst on Target is the gunner sensing and making adjustments without the TC. It's a few seconds quicker but a little less accurate. Is that how you experienced it? I was a Marine Grunt, not a tanker. We had M-48A3's with the 90mm gun. The follow up shots are affected by reload time. Initial shots are not. Follow up shot minimum time is reload time plus a few seconds. Burst on Target is generally a few seconds quicker than bracketing fire. I admit some of the figures are somewhat subjective. Any help or info appreciated. The IS-2 with the two piece 122mm ammo has a reload time of 25 seconds which is also the aim time. Some tanks can get three shots off in that time.

I've read about a few WWII encounters at 25 meters missing the target because the gunner hurried the shot as the target was rotating their gun on him at the same time. In this game a snap shot has a 2 second aim time but you roll a D10 and add that to the accuracy letter. An accuracy letter of "A" at a range less than 100 meters can go to a J or K which would give about a 40-50% chance to miss. A somewhat extreme situation but it can happen.

War Panda. Give me a few days to cut and paste my notes for a more detailed description.

Mako 11, I'll send you an e-mail about Sacramento. I'm in Pleasant Hill. I could use some help at KublaCon and PacifiCon as we are expecting 16 players.

Wolfhag

The problem enters in as to exactly where that moving target is going to be engaged and

he target may have moved out of and back into LOS 2-3 times during the turn moving 200-300 meters. Where do you put it to be fired at? Half way? Three quarters of movement?

You can't time-slice your way out of the box.

The solution is abstraction of firing phases. Allow tanks to fire simultaneously and let the dice decide which timeline wins out.

In an era when you had to halt to shoot, I doubt that tanks went scooting around at 20-25 mph while engaged in combat. It takes time to build up speed and to slow to a halt. The faster you go, the longer it takes.

What I am reading on the WOT blog and Russian archive sites the Russians actually were trained (or at least encouraged) to fire on the move. They test each of their tanks on the ROF and other ability to fire on the move. I guess they were going to use the law of large numbers to get hits.

Testing of Lend-Lease tanks involve firing on the move.
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donlowry,
I used 35kph as a high end example not a norm. I'm not sure about "scooting around" but there are references to a tanks dash or burst speed which would exceed the normal max speed for a short period most likely moving in a straight line. This is probably the driver shifting into the next higher gear than normal. This would be about 5-10kph over the normal speed. I've asked a few tank drivers (who admit to never having been in combat) how fast they would go to get out of imminent danger. Their response was "as fast as I could and then a little faster".

I totally agree with you on the slowing down part. From watching some tank videos I'm using deceleration to stop as 1 second per 10kph of speed for most light and medium tanks and 1 second per 5kph for heavy tanks. You can't stop on a dime. As far as acceleration I can't really tell from watching videos. From what I can tell it takes only a few seconds for a Sherman or T-34 to hit 15-20kph pretty quickly but that's under ideal conditions. That's the problem with the tank videos so you can't always draw conclusions from them because it's always on good ground.

Wolfhag

I find I agree with Mobius.

I think this time-slicing may be an interesting way to examine after-action reports, but it would not be very useful to me as an approach to gaming.

Yes, it is / was often true in tank-vs-tank engagements that a matter of seconds made the difference between success or failure, life or death.

But that does not mean that the tankers involved had several minutes to contemplate each second's action, or to plan for each 5 second slice of time. And to make a game that does that must give a highly distorted view of combat.

A Sherman had a faster turret, faster reload time, and better gunner's view than a Panther. If it mounted a 76mm gun it also had less dispersion. A Panther had better magnification and clearer optics, and a flatter trajectory conveying a big advantage in vertical displacement when it shot at anything more than a few hundred yards range. A Sherman had a better chance of keeping it's gun approximately on target on the move, but a Panther had a far more stable suspension, with less rocking once the tank halted to take a shot.

And … ?

The results were a Sherman would probably get the first shot off if the Panther's gun was not already oriented in approximately the right direction (whether the Sherman's was or wasn't), but at more than about 5-600 yards the Panther could probably achieve the first hit, unless it was taken by complete surprise.

Probably. In both cases. It's just a matter of relative probabilities. And so it can be abstracted, as it would have been for the participants ("I got the shot off before he did", not "my rotation was 2.48 degrees of arc per second faster than his, and as our direction of approach achieved an increasingly acute angle my rotational advantage accelerated …. ").

Do I need to know that my round was .6m left and .8m high? As the tanker (or the tanker's platoon leader) all I know is the round hit the , there was a big flash, and the tracer went skyward. Let the OR guys find where the tank was hit (if it is wrecked and left on the field), I don't have time to think about that 'cause I got about 5 seconds to figure out what we're gonna do in the next 1 minute, not 5 minutes to figure out what we're gonna do for the next 1 second.

Gaming is fun, and this game sounds entertaining. But when I wargame I like games that give me at least some insight into the soldier's or commander's challenges. I'm afraid this one wouldn't.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

War Panda. Give me a few days to cut and paste my notes for a more detailed description and the core rules.

Mako 11, I'll send you an e-mail about Sacramento. I'm in Pleasant Hill. I could use some help at KublaCon and PacifiCon as we are expecting 16 players.

Mark,
Thanks for your feedback. When I was working on this trying to fit the info from tank manuals and gunnery into a traditional type game turn I was running into a lot of playability issues such as: IF he does this THEN you do that ELSE you do the other thing. How does one type of fire control and aiming interact with another? I didn't want to just abstract them into a set of die roll modifiers. That's been done by many others before me and nothing I could ever improve on some of the already published playable rule sets out there. I didn't see any point in competing with them. Someone suggested one second increment/time slices which I thought was absolutely absurd. Then after tinkering with it I found it solved many problems.

Here are a few things that I feel that justify it:
- Made overwatch and opportunity fire playable with no additional overhead, rules or exceptions/abstractions. This is a very big deal.
-Enabled split second decisions IF the crew was aware of what is going on around them without artificial interrupts, die rolls, command chits or other artificial rules (artificial as in you won't find them in a military manual, AAR's or Tradocs). How can you make split second decisions when you are abstracting a 10, 20 or 90 second turn?
-Gave a good simulation of engagement speed using turret rotation, tactical advantage and crew expertise without the need for abstractions. This only works in conjunction with the Situational Awareness concept that does somewhat randomize noticing the enemy and gives an advantage to the side that can flank their enemy or be in a good overwatch to intercept them. That's not much different than any other games, just different mechanics. If you think turret rotation speed is not that important in a tank duel then we can agree to disagree. I agree it is not important to the Company or Battalion Commander but is to the tank gunner, especially if his is slower and needs to rotate further than his opponent.
-Gave a good interaction between players with better crews performing actions quicker than poorly trained crews. Abstracting that into a die roll modifier kills the flavor of a game that is pitting one crew against another. That's my opinion but it should be done in a game reflecting a higher level.
-Using the small increments of time to perform an action, aim and rotate guns, etc eliminates the need for totally random activations, an IGYO sequence or a fire/move and move fire sequence. I know this goes against current game philosophy where there are all types of mechanics for random activation to simulate FOW. I applaud them as a move in the right direction. I just don't need them at the level I'm portraying. So far Situational Awareness Checks ensure a player is not aware of 100% of battlefield activity and gives better platforms and crews an advantage. It's still a work in progress so I'm open to ideas.
-The most positive feedback I've gotten from players is that you can't walk away from the game. Everything the other players do may impact your current position on a turn to turn basis and you may need to perform a Situational Awareness check to make that split second decision to respond. A "turn" can take one second or a few minutes to play through. No waiting for your number to come up and activate. The second most positive feedback is the gunnery system using dispersion and aiming at scaled images of the target and seeing where the round landed. That visual feedback is something only accomplished in video games. No one has suggested dropping it because it is not needed, too complicated or should be abstracted.

I'll agree that you don't "need" to know within .1 meter where the round hit but with a system based on dispersion of the round and not a To Hit # that's the way it is. I can convert dispersion values to a % hit chance but didn't go in that direction because that's what everyone else is doing. The dispersion gunnery system also makes playable and eliminates hit location and special damage die rolls. It eliminates target size and aspect modifiers. Why should I abstract all of these things when it seems to work simple enough as it is?

Everything you said I agree with for a game simulating a higher up commander who is only a spectator in tactical combat not interested in the details at the lowest level of tactical combat or exactly what each and every crew is doing. Treadheads is not that type of game. You can't have it both ways. If I start abstracting all of the things like you suggested it's not really at that lower tactical level anymore and it completely loses the feel. Seconds count in a low level tactical engagement so I need to count seconds to be consistent. New and experienced players have not gotten hung up on it as it is really just a turn.

I have a couple of former Army and Marine tank crewman from the Cold War era (M48 & M60) that I consult with and have reviewed the system. They said in a duel or engagement it's over in three shots, normally less. Whoever fires first normally wins. If you missed on the second shot you should have probably been moving to another position and not shooting. So far they've given me the thumbs up regarding the experience and results the game delivers. A tank Company or Battalion Commander would give it a big thumbs down – he should. The stuff the game is about does not concern high level commanders, only the guys in the turret and tank. You can't have it both ways. I'll post the core rules in a few days and if you are still interested take a look. But if you want to be commander ordering around platoons or companies I agree Treadheads will not work for you. No hard feelings.

Thanks,
Wolfhag

gives better platforms and crews an advantage.

Aren't you abstracting by having the crew behave like a single unit? If you are going to play on a second by second basis shouldn't you individualize the crew? See what exactly each and every crewman is doing?

Also, shell storage shouldn't be abstracted either. Each shell has a location that takes a specific amount of time to access. So when that shell has been used there is no longer a potential that it will ignite if hit by fragments. So it should be tracked and marked as vacant when the shell is used from it. The loader, depending on his skill level will take longer and longer to load the gun as the more accessible shells are used up. Now, if the tank is penetrated when it is low on ammo the player will have to see if only vacant shell locations are in the path of the incoming projectile.

Mobius,
Thanks for reading my wordy posts and responding.

I think there is a game where each turn you check to see if each particular crewman has performed their duty. I haven't gone into that level of a role playing game for each member of the crew. Crews are assumed to be performing their normal duties. Commanders are observing, gunners looking through their gun sight, loaders loading or waiting to load. I'm not going to the level of the player ordering each crewman to perform a function and check to see if he does it or not.

However, each turn a tank fires there is a 5-10% chance something (mostly negative) could happen to the vehicle, gun or crewman. That's in the deck of SNAFU cards. It could be the loader slipping/fumbling adding to reload time, shell may get stuck, loading HE rather than AP. The driver could pull out or go in reverse without an order because of a miscommunication or panic. The commander may flinch and duck back into the turret for a number of turns or become distracted, may not have spotted the tracer to adjust, may get off a better shot by an above average estimation of range. The gunner could get off a below or above average shot, have a misfire, etc. There may also be a mechanical problem that pops up. Those are just a few. How often it happens is arbitrary but severity is based on crew training and mechanical reliability.

I'm seriously considering an acquisition roll for the gunner when engaging a new target. So switching targets will not be guaranteed. For a player controlling 4 tanks that should be an additional 6-10 die rolls in a game but would make it interesting. It would add a delay of about 1-6 seconds, in severe cases up to 10 seconds.

The commander is also abstracted regarding his observation abilities. I'm not going to the level of the exact direction he's looking every second! When they perform a Situational Awareness Check unbuttoned they normally have a 20% chance for sensing in full 360 degrees, 40% for the front 270 degrees (blind in rear 90 degrees), 60% for front 180 degrees (blind in rear 180), 80% for front 90 degrees (blind in rear 270 degrees) and 90% in the gunners view a 15 degree slice of the front 90 degrees. These numbers are somewhat arbitrary as I don't have any solid info. I'm assuming the commander is oriented to the front for the vast majority of the time. Best chance to the front arcs of course. All % numbers are about halved if buttoned up. The Situational Awareness rules end up delaying the commander being aware of something anywhere from a few seconds in the frontal arc to 15-20 in his rear arc on average. No guarantees and just enough to make it interesting. If you approach on a targets flank there is about a 30-40% chance he won't detect you right away, about twice that if buttoned up. Assistance from the other crew is abstracted with a better chance to the front 90 degrees. From my readings the other crew did not contribute much in the way of observation in the heat of battle but I'm open to examples or specifics on vehicles.

All friendly and enemy units and activity is noticed within the spotted arcs if in LOS out to max detection range. No checking for individual units. Still needs work.

If engaging/firing on a target the commander can only detect the front 90 degrees. If a specific threat is indicated like a radio message the commander can have a 75% chance to be aware of it if unbuttoned. All spotting is limited by max detection range and LOS of course. The SA rules have not been thoroughly play tested.

You have a good point with the ammo storage. The target aspects that are aimed at show ammo storage locations. I did have a layout for the different storage locations and loads for each vehicle but did away with it after shrinking the status sheet to an 8.5x11 inch. I do have ready rack storage tracked by single rounds on the status sheet, turret and hull racks. Michael Green's book on the Tiger I has some good info on reload times and accessing different ammo storage locations. In the game each vehicle does have a reload time if ready racks are empty (has not happened yet in 1:1 engagements) and amount of time to take a round from storage and get it into the ready rack. To reload from storage or put a round from storage into the ready rack Based on Green's book I've assigned 20 seconds for most turreted tanks with ammo up to 75mm ammo. Assault guns seem to have better access and the loader more room to work so they are mostly 15 seconds. Again somewhat of an abstraction and arbitrary at this point. I think determining the three dimensional capacity of rounds in each storage location on a 2D sheet of paper will be above my talent level to reflect in the game. But I do think I have some room on the status sheet to give a better representation of other storage locations, I'll look into that. I recall reading that firing when the ready rack was empty cut the rate of fire to about 1/3 or maximum.

Thanks,
Wolfhag

To whom it may concern:

I received requests for the core rules (OK, so just one request) that should be up tomorrow. In the meantime I'd suggest reading this manual starting on page 105 section 9-4 precision gunnery. It's what I based my gunnery system on and it will make a lot more sense if you read the differences between precision/ranging firing and battlesight
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There is lots of good stuff that should give you house rules guys some ideas.

Thanks,
Wolfhag

Here are the files I promised last week. This is still a WIP with some rules not written and other incomplete. I'm hoping to get everything I need into it soon. Play testing is to determine what works best with the main goal of an easy to play game. While there is a lot of detail it's pretty easy to access and there is a minimum of looking up modifiers and performing calculations. While there is a lot of info on the charts it's mainly base numbers computed out for 100 meter range increments. The players only need concern themselves with the range column.

I'd suggest you view them in this order:

1- Video of vehicle booklet: YouTube link

2- This covers the main game rules giving detailed explanation of the game sequence, crew duties, gunnery, movement and more: link

3- This file covers how the game is played and detailed explanation of the mechanics: link

All of the art work is mine done in MS Paint along with some screen captures. I'm not an expert but am looking for people with 3D and technical illustration experience that may want to help out.

I did have someone more professional than me review the rules so I hope it is readable. This game is much different the other you've seen. It is not the typical abstraction with a base to hit # and various die roll modifiers for additional realism. We tried to have a more physical model using a time and motion method rather than a structured turn or activation sequence. There are a few problems and anomalies that need to be worked out. Hopefully the more people that see it will help identify and solve any problems and short comings.

Thanks,
Wolfhag

Thanks Wolfhag. Looking forward to checking them out