"THREAT Wargame Rules" Topic

Just found the THREAT microarmor rules by Mike Norris and Gary Mills(as found here: link ).

How well have these aged, especially in terms of the accuracy of the data. My current gold standard for tank/AFV data is Fistful of TOWs 3, but these rules seem a little simpler and might be good for a game with a bunch of novices.

Anybody got any battle reports or (more likely) stories from playing them back in the day?

Any informal reviews or things to look out for?

I use to game with Gary when I was stationed at Ft. Riley from 1985-88. We use to run large battles with Threat, (i.e. Division sized battles). We ran a Large Soviet attack and air mobile operation in the Post Sim Center on a huge 16' x 24' (maybe a little longer)terrain table).The biggest problem is the spotting rules which in large games could bog things down depending upon the knowledge of the rules by the players. Required someone to play artillery chief for the Soviets. I never minded doing that. I would build a fire mission list to support the attack and brief the commanders that it would require them to keep a certain speed to their advance. It saved on having to try and call for fire. Always had to remember to plot down time for the batteries to displace and set up so counter battery fire could be mitigated. Everyone on the receiving end of the BM-21 hated to see the pattern placed onto the table. I liked the AA rules, very simple with a few modifiers. The most important was aircraft altitude: very low, low, medium or High (IIRC). The player firing AA rolled three dice, one to acquire, one to hit and one to damage, all at the same time. Each die was a different color. You couldn't hit if you didn't acquire, couldn't kill if you didn't hit. Being down low was a safe thing to be but it could limit the range of some of the nice weapons like Hellfire.

Depending on what weapon you were firing, things could be very lethal, very fast.

We did, over the course of two different weekends, a Soviet Divisional attack against a West German PG Brigade+. I missed the first weekend where the Soviets got hammered right after they entered the board. The following weekend the Soviet players were demoralized before the game began as they expected the same thrashing. I gave them a little pep talk, pre-plotted all of their heavy artillery, (mortars were on call), and we proceeded to roll the West Germans back. The rules reinforce sound tactical thinking. Much of the information is dated now but it gives a very good feel for things back in the late 70's into the 80's.

I too played with Gary & crew while I was stationed @ Riley 84-86 & Threat was my intro to micro armor – the data is very accurate for the period – unlike commercial rules (my favorite back in the day was GDW's Combined Arms) Threat pretty much requires a skilled & knowledgeable umpire/moderator especially for larger games

I downloaded them, and want to give them a try.

Wish they had gun and armor stats for some of the older models though, so have been considering trying to come up with them.

Of course, if anyone's done that for 1950s – 1970s era armor, etc., I'd be interested in seeing your house rules/stats ideas.