"Team Yankee Game Scale - Weapons Ranges?" Topic

I am under the impression that they are using a logarithmic scale for weapons, but wanted to check to see if that is true, or if there is a specific, stated scale for the game, e.g. 1" = 50 meters, or 16" or perhaps 20" = a kilometer?

As an example, 8" for the AK-47/AK-74, and RPG-18 seems to me to be about 200m, or "effective range" for these weapons (300m max., probably). 12" for the AR-15, LAW, and RPG-7 (perhaps the LAW should be changed to 8", for "effective range). For these examples, the game scale seems to be about 1" = 25m, unless their max. ranges are being used, which could then perhaps double these.

For the tanks guns and ATGMs, it seems like 16" – 20" eguals 1,000m, given that the published 125mm gun for the Soviets has a 2,000m effective range, or 32" in the game. Assume 2,500m for the US 105mm gun, which works out nicely to 40". The TOW missile has a maximum range of 3,750m, but only a 48" range in the game, which if using the above, works out to a 3,000m "effective range" value, or 80% of its maximum.

The 16" band seems to be where a lot of scale compression takes place, since the BMP's 73mm gun is only effective to about 500m (max. range is double that, or a little more), and the 7.62mm MG is accurate to 500m – 600m (max. for it is about 1,200m).

20" seems to be about 1,000m – 1,200m, based upon the effective range of the .50 cal MG, which has a max. range of about 2,000m.

It appears to me that for most of the weapons, other than perhaps small arms, that "effective ranges" for the weapons are in use, and that definition seems to be somewhere between 67% – 80% of the max. range. For small arms, it appears that maximum ranges for those are being used, since the ranges are much longer for them, relative to the heavier weapons (or, they're using "effective range" for them too, but giving them a 2X range bonus relative to larger weapons).

Do the rules specifically provide a stated range scale, and/or time scale for turns, or is that just ignored, and/or left open to conjecture?

You'll have to go back to Version 2 of Flames of War to see any mention of time and ground scales. It's in the "Design Notes" on page 256.

There it had time as being a command "cycle" of 15 minutes to maybe two hours.

Ground scale was "approximately":
4" = 25m
16" = 400m
32" = 1600m
64" = 6400m

Version 3 of FoW did not include any "Design Notes" but as all game ranges remained the same it's reasonable to assume that this philosophy was still applied in Version 3 as well as the following Vietnam and Arab-Israeli expansions. The "non-linear" ground scale approach appears to have survived into Team Yankee as well.

Mako 11, I did a bit of play testing years ago and we were never told the formulas for how these things were worked out. We came to the conclusion that "its just a game" and everything was modified just to get the feel right.

I spent quite a bit of time and energy to get the Soviets to be an effective force, which is why I fell out of love with the game in the end. I may go back one day and try again with a Brit force for a change.

Does TY use even points for both sides or is one sided favored on points?

Thanks for all the replies and info.

The reason I ask is I want to come up with some ranges for earlier kit, not in the current game, so am trying to slot them in where appropriate, e.g. RPGs, ATGMs, other tank guns, recoilless rifles, etc., etc., so it's helpful to know what scales they're using, or at least a rough approximation of that.