"WWII rules with "squads concentrated shooting?"" Topic

Hi all, I'm a newbie at wargames and just getting started. After hours upon hours of reading about different rulesets I fell for "NUTS!" because of the interactive structure of it all (reaction fire, duck down and so on) instead of I-go/You-go.

But I'm missing one thing in the rules: To be able to gang up with, for example, four figs from one squad and thus having the firepower * 4 instead of it being just 1 on 1 the entire game.

Any suggestions to rules that have this feature and is similar in interactivity to NUTS? I'm also looking for it to be 1 miniature equals 1 soldier. And that the rules are suitable for a newbie :)

Would be nice if it also had rules for vehicles, air and sea.

I will be using 28 mm miniatures.

What kind of "sea" rules do you want for 28MM?

In NUTS, don't you roll one or more dice for each soldier shooting? More dice would equate to more chances to hit the target.

Remember in Nuts! you can activate in groups allowing you to shoot with multiple figures at one time…

I've been looking for a nice set of WW2 aircraft carrier combat rules that will work for 28mm.

I understand your point, but isn't concentrated fire essentially an individual firing a weapon, multiplied by several individual events. The fact that more people are firing at one target increases the odds of affecting the target because you are rolling the dice more often with regard to that target. I don't know how NUTS! works, but I can see a situation where there are four shooters who get results of: shock, shock, none, and light wound. I assume that the two shocked results turn into something like a pinned or retreat result. If the shooters had fired alone, you would have had only one of those results (obviously). To shorten the game, I can see throwing all of the shooters' dice at once. I think that there should be rule (especially with a leader) that allows the groups to fire and determine their results in sequence, before any other actions are taken, but I'm not sure there should be an added benefit for group fire.

PBI does this … as it is area based, all the fire targets an area, not on-to-one …

Bit of a culture shock for players who like rulers of course

Phil
P.B.Eye-Candy

Just to clarify, with groups firing in Nuts!, don't you still have to resolve the attacks model by model, since every shot incurs a potential string of reactions? I.e., a fireteam of five riflemen shoot at an enemy MMG: the first attack misses, the MMG passes a Received Fire test and shoots back, killing the first rifleman and ducking back the third rifleman since the MMG has multiple Target dice but missing the fourth; the fourth returns fire (as a reaction… He hasn't taken his normal shot yet) and knocks down the MMG gunner; the third, fourth and fifth riflemen then take their normal sequence attacks and so on? Or am I misunderstanding the rules?

Achtung Minen – Close. All firing on the target is resolved before the target takes a reaction test. So 5 riflemen acting at the same time based on the Rep of the Leader would fire at the same time, resolving hits and damage. The MG then takes one Reaction test and suffers the worse result.

Kappan – If you have an equal number of shooters and targets they pair off one on one. But if you have more shooters then after each target has been targeted once, you can fire with more figures on one target. Again, all fire at the same target is resolved before a Reaction Test is taken.

Also, are you using the Outgunned rules that is based on rate of fire?

Yep Phil is correct. PBI gives concentrated fire Square v square

martin

If I am understanding the OP right, are you looking for a game where the fire of all 5 men (or whatever) would be resolved on a single dice roll, rather than 5 individual shots?

Thanks for the answer, Ed, that makes more sense. Nuts! remains one of my favorite skirmish systems for WW2, although I probably play more Chain Reaction games with Heavy Gear mecha these days than anything else.

To the OP, Nuts! and all CR games are eminently modifiable. Why not just tweak the rules to your preference? For instance, group soldiers into fixed fireteams with unit cohesion and then resolve all shooting and reaction tests per group instead of per model. You could easily say that four riflemen fire as one Target 4 rifle weapon and can spread out their attacks in the usual way for Target 2+ weapons. (Don't change the Outgunned Rating though as this may have strange effects.) If you have an LMG, then make the group just the gunner, loader and maybe a fireteam NCO leader, but only the LMG ever fires (the rest of the crew are busy loading and directing fire). It's less granular than the original system, but it might allow you to play with more models on the table.