"Upcoming Team Yankee FOW Rules Blunder?" Topic

Hopefully, this issue will be caught in time, and remedied, before the rules release, and hardcopies of the rules are "locked and loaded" with the printers, or the final PDF variant (if there is one), is approved.

I was just reading the weekly news release regarding these rules, and was a bit taken aback by this statement, in the rules design overview:

"Dash movement (I guess doubling?) is much faster and the only downside is you can't fight".

You can see the rest of the overview here, most of which I applaud, since it seems they are looking to make Cold War gaming friendly, to even casual players of the rules, and to speed up the games:

link

However, I've noticed what I believe to be a major blunder in one of their concepts to their rules, for late period, Cold War land combat gaming. I'm writing here to see if you, and others agree, in the hope that if so, someone at BF will see this, and address the concern, before the game rules are released.

Hmmmmmm, you can "dash" with vehicles presumably, that have the latest in modern, computerized, tank gun stabilization technology, for permitting firing accurately on the move, AND yet you can't "fight" when using that option?

I think someone seriously needs to go back to the drawing board to "re-think" that one. If true, for modern battle tanks in TY, this will be an even worse blunder than the no op-fire capability in their WWII rules.

I can see it making sense for infantry, self-propelled artillery, older early-Cold War tanks with very poor or no effective gun stabilization, etc., but not for the Team Yankee, mid-1980s era tanks. That's what they're built to do.

They should be permitted to fire at any point during their movement phase, while on the move, if desired.

Oh, and not to add insult to injury, but I do hope they fix my major pet peeve with their WWII rules, and come up with some way to permit units on "overwatch" to fire at any point during their opponent's movement phase, since that is a major tactic used by NATO forces as well, while on the defense, with weapons and vehicles like ATGMs, West German Jaguar and JagdPanzer Raketes and Kanones, M901 and M-150 with TOW launchers, FV-438 with Swingfire, helo gunships hovering at NOE or treetop level and armed with ATGMs, main battle tanks in hull or turret down positions, and infantry with various antitank missiles and RPGs.

What do you think?

Perhaps "normal" movement is pretty darn fast.
Remember that no strict scale, in either time or space, is given in Flames of War. All speeds are relative and not explicit.
What exactly does 12" for a "normal" tank speed mean?
In the Cold War it's a lot faster. Then doubling that…

Just a guess. I'm not likely to buy any of it.

In FOW normal movement is supposed to mean moving in short dashes with short halts during which firing is done. Double movement is moving in travel mode without regard for the enemy and hence without firing. Even modern tanks don't fire accurately while actually moving at high speed.

Opportunity fire is easy to include in a board game but harder in a miniatures game. FOW doesn't include it except for point defence as a way of speeding up play and making attacking play easier. Sensible terrain setups can make the lack of opportunity fire rules less of an issue.

I buy the lack of op fire for WW2 for speed of play.

But as you say for TY what the heck does NATO do without it?

As it happens I've never seen a very good Op Fire rule for miniatures anyway.

I get that perhaps tanks can't move at their fastest speeds, and fire on the move accurately, unless the ground/road is very even and reasonably level.

However, I suspect that they can move at quite a good clip, and still fire very accurately on the move, say perhaps anywhere from 1/3rd – 2/3rds of their maximum speed (perhaps 50% of their max. speed, on average).

I'm not 100% sure about that, but have seen video clips of tanks moving over quite rough terrain, and their barrels don't seem to waiver at all from the target.

Perhaps some M-1, Leopard II, Challenger, or T-64/T-72/T-80 tankers can chime in here and confirm or dispute my thesis, if that's not giving any secret intel away. I doubt it, since I suspect our enemies would be fully aware of our modern tanks' capabilities from both open sources, and on-line hacking.

Dashing is doubling, representing the unit focusing solely on movement.

Remember this game is all about "faster! faster! more bang!".

Yes, storm in a teacup here…

'Dash' is probably what they refer to in their WW2 rules as doubling – as has been said above, entirely non tactical movement – gun locked in travel mode, crew head out, etc – a road march situation. No way you want them to be able to fire in that configuration.

Nothing to see here….

It should depend on the situation. Take a troop of 3 tanks moving forwards in bounds. Speed and distance will depend on terrain and tactical situation. At all times there will be a foot on the ground in the form of tank/s on overwatch as the other/others move as fast as they can, however even the moving tank/s will be observing, looking for targets and indeed engaging if required. The drivers is responsible for moving the tank as smoothly as possible, with the commander's guidance. The Commander is a busy man!

Tally Ho!

Dash is probably a bad word to use, "non tactical move" is probably better,

Tally Ho!

Maybe they should change the word "Dash" for "March"

It all depends on how TY puts "dash" in context. An M1 is capable of over 100 mph if something "breaks" on the speed governor, but it can move and shoot effectively only up to about 35-40 mph. Over that speed and the crew is a little busy hanging on for dear life. So a modern tank can dash at very high speed from one point to another, or it can move at high speed and put a hole in the target at the same time.

Can tankers with experience of firing on the move chip in here? My experience with hard-core sims like Steel Beasts tells me two things:
1) It doesn't matter how stabilised your gun is, the faster you move, the faster new terrain is revealed, and the more chance there is of being shot by someone lying in wait. The tank can only safely move as fast as the crew can visually scan the new terrain.
2) Even almost invisible barrel wobbles translate to complete misses at the ranges these vehicles are designed to fight at.
My expectation of modern warfare is that vehicles will either be crawling along at walking pace or slower, or booking it to the next bit of cover, and any shooting on the way will be very chancy. But I'd appreciate people who've been there relating their experiences.

Just as a rules question…
I have no problem with limiting what tanks can do if they exceed "normal" speeds. If you can do everything you can normally do at twice normal speed, why bother to have a normal speed?
Maybe they can walk and chew gum at the same time, but can the also juggle?

Surely target identification and prioritisation (spotting for want of a better word) become significantly more difficult at higher speeds even if gun stabilisation makes a hit possible (or even probable)?

So, reduced hit probability and/or a requirement to pass a spotting check before you can shoot (target cover status and firer speed taken into account) would differentiate between speeds and answer Winston's point above.

With Full Stabilization, the gun does not "wobble". M60A3s and M1s can pretty much hit what they aim at 20mph cross country. Yes, it is easier from a short halt.

And that was from my experience in 1985/86

These tanks do not appear to be moving at full speed

YouTube link

So you likely can fire while moving, just not when moving as fast as you can.

All FoW rules are tournament based and are not designed to actually represent resemblance to realities. By that I mean they are "gamey" and designed to give quick and "satisfying" results, as opposed to crunchy realistic ones. IMO, if war was really fought as FoW games go, no one would have any armies left after a battle or 2.

I can see where they may make exceptions for the ultra-modern tanks, like the M1, but there's no way an M60A3 circa 1985 is going to be firing while moving double time. Maybe it has a stabilized gun for firing on the move, but as someone said earlier, the crew inside is hanging on for dear life. No way the loader is going to do his job traveling at speed (I'd also be worried about getting caught in the recoil behind the gun if the tank was pitching to and fro).

Some of us are veteran tankers. The stabilization system in the M60A1/A3 will keep the gun within 3 mil accuracy at 5 mph. 1 mil is 1/10th of a degree. That means it will hit within 3 meters of the aim point at 1000 meters range. It is designed to keep the gun pointed about where you wanted it to facilitate firing from the short halt. The advanced stabilization in the M1 was designed for true fire-on-the-move. Its accuracy was less than .5 mil at 25 mph, so it will hit within 1 meter of the aim point at 2000 meter range. A T-64 is 2.17 m tall, so an M1 should hit a T-64 in the open more than 95% of the time on the 1st shot from 2000 meter range while traveling 25 mph. The M1A1 and A2 had better stab systems.

Badger's comment #1 is valid. The greater the speed, the harder to spot targets. That is why the West concurrently designed systems that enabled the TC to designate targets remotely and systems to hand off targeting information from 1 tank or weapon to another.

wizbangs see Sabers answer. That is my 1980s M60a3 experience as well. More accurate at the halt yes, trained and shot on the move +/- 20 mph yes. Much depended on a good gunner and the relative roughness of the terrain of course. Hanging on for dear life in an M1 going 40+ mph done that and I agree hard to shoot accurately.

Question still is what are they trying to represent in TY with the dash move. I mean even with firing on the move you still have someone on overwatch to spot targets, oh wait….

Many thanks for those responses guys!

"broken" govenor or not, there is no way in hell a m1 can go 100mph.

John, tell that to the MPs a Ft Knox who clocked it with radar.

Thanks for all of the great responses, and detailed info, guys.

Great stuff!!!

The 35 – 40 MPH of the M1, firing on the move, is equal to, or faster than many conventional tanks, and IFVs.

I can see it still being able to hit a target almost all of the time (at least more than 50% of the time), given the 25 MPH accuracy, quoted above (assuming perhaps that a doubling of the speed quadruples the inaccuracy – so perhaps a 2 meter spread error of 6.5 feet from dead center on the target).

Seems to me that then the Leopard IIs, Challengers, and possibly the T-80s might be able to do the same, or something similar as well. I imagine British and German kit to probably be on par with that of the US. Not sure about the Russian/Soviet stabilization system (perhaps not quite as good as that of the Abrams, but reasonably similar – slightly less accuracy at around 25 MPH?).

Can't see tanks moving with their guns in "travel-lock" mode, any time there might be a possible encounter with enemy forces, especially once the "balloon goes up", so that should probably be discounted. Perhaps, for a scenario just prior to the opening of hostilities, and in the opening hours, like a Spetznaz encounter, etc..

I do agree that in some cases, a rule for travel mode speeds might be useful, and that it would/could apply to most older tanks when moving fast, since they can't fire accurately on the move.

However, I'd hate to see the same restriction(s) applied to advanced armor, which as you can see from the above, can fire very accurately while advancing, or on the move, like the M1 can, and I suspect the Leopard IIs, Challies, and T-80s probably can do as well, also.

Oh well, I guess there are always "house rules" that can be invoked to deal with that, if needed.

Wow, that is a very impressive speed for the Abrams!!!

I would have thought perhaps 70 – 75 MPH would have been the absolute limit. Excess power is a wonderful thing, especially when you need to dash somewhere quickly on the battlefield.

I agree, "March" would be a preferable term for the high-speed movement, without firing. Units firing on targets moving like this, at steady speeds should probably get a bonus to hit them, if they have a computerized fire control system (probably no bonus if using the mark 1 eyeball, and just tracking the vehicle manually, since fast movement compounds the chance to hit in those cases).

"Dash" should be reserved for those units quickly scooting from cover to cover, in short bursts of speed, with brief halts, in order to provide them with more protection from enemy fire. I would suggest that for this type of movement, there should be a negative modifier to hit targets moving like this, since they are frequently changing speed, and probably direction too.

So, does anyone know about how well the Leopard II and Challenger fire on the move?

T-64, T-72, T-80?

Man, I'm gonna need more tanks, and IFVs for targets!!!

I suspect BF and other manufacturers will see that as a plus.

Just a little back story on the 100 mph M1: in 1980, the civilian engineers were taking one of the initial production models to a range for testing every day. Being tankers AND engineers (a dangerous combination), they did a little tinkering to save time traveling back and forth. The tank trails followed the roads and they went right through a speed trap.

Can a tank sustain that kind of speed? No way. The vibrations are brutal and a sudden bump could seriously injure the crew. Paved roads can be worse than dirt trails. I had an M60A1 sprint to 50 mph on a paved road at Riley and it took us the rest of the day to tighten all the loose end connectors and center guides on the tracks. The point is, armored vehicles can put on surprising bursts of speed when necessary. Can they fight at that speed? No way.

So you likely can fire while moving, just not when moving as fast as you can.

Yup, that's the gist of it. I spent most of my time as a driver on Abrams A1. Yes, we could hit on the move, but it was all about giving the gunner a stable platform. Yes, he has a computerized gun site, yes the gun in stabilized, and yes, the gunner is well versed at his craft, but…

It's really hard to get a target radical on-target while the driver has you holding on for dear life! Now maybe my gunner could put a round on target when I'm on tac idle and blasting along at 30mph, but that would only be if I'm driving on a nice flat interstate in the middle of an equally flat and open country.

Drop the road, have me driving across country with hills, dips, ditches, tree stumps, big rocks, and whatever else nature has to offer and you can kiss accuracy good-bye. The gunner needs a nice, steady platform so he can put metal on metal.

So in my opinion, this rule is valid. If the standard tank move is 12" a standard speed where the driver is moving but trying to stay stable then yes, the Abrams and other modern MBTs should be able to shoot without too many problems. But it's just not happening at double that. AT that speed is the tank rushing to get into position and the driver isn't even trying to give the gunner a stable platform. It's get there fast so the gunner can do his thing when you get there.

Can a tank sustain that kind of speed? No way. The vibrations are brutal and a sudden bump could seriously injure the crew.

Absolutely! I gave my gunner a really nice goose egg on the noggin from hitting ditch while doing a sagger dance. The TC told me that the I hit the ditch so hard that the gunner's forehead slammed against his sight and he still got knot even with the padding! Pretty scary how energy moves around in a tank going at even a modest 25mph!

The Laws of Physics is an evil task master and human bodies tend to take 2d place in the competition. On a night move under blackout drive, we had a tank rear end another at about 5 mph. Most of both crews were injured, including 1 we had to call the medevac for.

I suspect that a dash move will not allow any firing.

If we feel that the rules are broken when they are released, we can surely tweek them to some extent. That will be part of the fun.

"broken" govenor or not, there is no way in hell a m1 can go 100mph.

Same engine as in a Huey helicopter (as in most parts will interchange). You have a 6,640rpm output shaft on the engine going into the transmission on the T53. When the transmission is built for Diesel engines spinning at 3000rpm and will get you to 60kph or better at 3000rpm, how fast do you think you will go at 6640rpm?

The governor is there to protect the transmission from blowing during peacetime. Guess how many Abrams have an intact governor right now? (Answer: Not a single Abrams that was deployed and hasn't been overhauled since returning.)

Depends upon the distance of the dash, I suspect.

Dash for a few seconds, from one covered bit of ground to the next, then go on "overwatch".

If just 10 – 15 seconds of movement in a one plus minute turn (or multi-minute turn), I'd say the tank crew should still be able to fire, once at least, if desired. Perhaps a skill-check roll to see if they can acquire an enemy target, before firing, just for grins.

The problem with "dash" would seem to be that it favors the side with the most toys….and we know who that will be in this game. Soviet quantity vs NATO quality.

I will stick to the old Combined Arms set by Chadwick (well supported and updated by various issues of the old Command Post Quarterly), or use board games like conversions of Arab-Israeli wars from Avalon Hill to minis….someone put out stats for all the armor for the early-mid Cold War using those rules. Some of the new ideas in the latest version of Chadwick's Command Decision set could also be added to Combined Arms to streamline/improve those rules. These games look great using 1/285th minis. I also find 1/600th and 1/700th aircraft look very good flying over the micro armor battlefield!

Some video of a Chietain "dashing" here!

YouTube link

YouTube link

Tally Ho!

it may be prudent to put the speculation away and see what the rules actually say rather than make a judgement about the mechanics based on 'flavor text' or 'sales fluff'

It's a game mechanic that abstracts what the unit is doing that turn. Arguments for and against whether a tank can or cannot fire on the move at high speed aren't really applicable as "dashing" in the rules isn't about simulating tactical movements.

it may be prudent to put the speculation away and see what the rules actually say rather than make a judgement about the mechanics based on 'flavor text' or 'sales fluff'

Good grief – surely you don't expect FOW haters to actually read the rules or, God forbid, try a game before sounding off do you!

I for one shall buy a set and put them to the test, however I shall ignore the fictional element!

Tally Ho!

"I for one shall buy a set and put them to the test, however I shall ignore the fictional element!"

So you'll be gaming the NATO/WARPAC war of 1985 just as it occurred then? No fiction whatsoever? Good for you! ; )

No, I shall be using the correct ORBATS and TO&E,

Tally Ho!

"So you'll be gaming the NATO/WARPAC war of 1985 just as it occurred then?"

lol

No, I say again, I shall be using the correct ORBATS and TO&E from the period, not those from a work of fiction!

Tally Ho!

Looking forward to trying them out in 20mm though

If you want to go 20mm then the forthcoming Battlegroup NORTHAG might be the go. If their WW2 series of rules is anything to go by, they have much more granularity slightly lower down the command chain. Not exactly skirmish rules, but more at platoon level, unless you've got all day – ideal for 20mm. We'll have to give them a spin at the Hall of Heroes Matt mate!

As Bruce alludes, there are a number of rule sets out there and on their way, much depends on available space, scale and level of abstraction that you want. It is a case of giving them a go, perhaps at different scales, as I shall probably try TY with 6mm,

Tally Ho!

Oo NORTHAG! Saw a demo of that at Wargames South looked nice. I will get a copy of TY though.

Having been a Scout on Bradley's I can say it can haul some butt and still lay 25mm rounds on target on the move. I have seen Abrams do the same thing on the gunnery ranges in Germany. They are speed governed to about 50mph I believe. They have no problem punching holes in targets at that speed moving cross count. I talked to a friend that was an Abrams tanker, he said it can do a 100 without the governor on it but the result is a blown engine pack.

As to overwatch, it is often raised by players used to other sets of WW2 rules. The problem with it is that it hugely advantages the defense and then you could not have equal points games, but would have to provide the attacker with substantially more points than the defender.

i presume that FoW deals with Overwatch ( how GW is that) by giving stationary tanks full RoF. If you advance you are generally getting only one shot, if you stand for the next move, then, if you survive you get two shots. Doubtless the authors think that balances the incentive to attack with the ability to defend.

In FOW I think of bounding overwatch as the ability to move in the assault phase for highly trained armies – Germans, Israelis – effectively you fire at full ROF stationary without movement modifiers then retire a short distance in the assault phase.

The whole overwatch area will be covered in a set of rules, depending on the abstract level. In the UK any advance or withdrawal will always include a tank/tanks providing covering fire, for the period the old Troop/Platoon tactics video is superb. At a higher level think a Troop of tanks providing cover fire for the rest of the Sqn,

Tally Ho!