"Is "return fire" as important as "op fire"?" Topic

I'm working on my home-brew and wondering what people's feeling are on allowing players to fire in reaction to fire, as opposed to only movement. I'm thinking of keeping it to only tanks and AT guns, but perhaps infantry should not be excluded. Do you play with return fire mechanisms in your games?

If somebody shoots at you, do you shoot back?

Depends entirely on your turn sequence. If it's IGOUGO, then 'return fire' happens in the next player's turn. If it's Two Hour Wargames, reaction to fire (including return fire if appropriate) is a key feature of the 'Chain Reaction' system.

Its almost a prerequisite for me liking and wanting to play a ruleset these days. Everything reacts all the time can get a little much depending on the group, but the rules need to have at least an overwatch system. the fire in reaction to fire can get a bit dicey, but I would say yes if the unit is on overwatch. if you want it toned down a bit, allow only suppressive fire in reaction to fire.

That's one of the big problems with some WW2/modern rule sets. Nearly all tactics from 1918 onwards involve fire and manoeuvre. The whole idea is to suppress the enemy to give you freedom of movement. In essence this means locating the enemy (probably the most difficult part) putting a sufficiently large amount of fire down to put his head down and stop him shooting back, followed by a slower rate to keep his head down (suppression). In theory if you have done this properly you can waltz up to the enemy trench wearing a pink tutu, doesn't generally work out that way though.
A lot of rule sets don't allow for this, and it's a case of you shoot at me – I shoot back – you shoot at me etc etc. Not sure if this is what you meant, and it's from a mainly infantry perspective.

It's a nice touch but I must admit, whether its realistic or not, I don't tend to notice its absence.

One thing I'd worry about, from a design perspective, is that most fire in wargames is far more effective than it ought to be, so allowing "double fire" can make things pretty grim.

I have found opp fire/reaction fire often slows the game to a crawl. Can you react to the reaction to the reaction to the reaction?

Fire in games is usually better than in real life simply to speed up the game. Its deadly dull to keep banging away and nothing really happening!
I think a lot of rulesets (including my own: link ) -are a compromise between reality and playability.

I guess the answer so far is that there is no consensus lol

I'll keep tinkering. Slowing the game down is my biggest concern. In my game fire results in suppression far more often than removal. In theory,I'm allowing units to fire in reaction to fire, once, just as they are currently allowed to react to movement. No reacting to reactions.

Keep it coming if you have any other thoughts.

Herkybird- Thank you for posting (or reposting) that link, looks like great stuff.

In the Peter Pig WW2 set "PBI" ther is opportunity and return shooting.
Opportunity is just based on being close whilst return is predicated on being shot at. Thus a small group of rifleman seldom open up fire on [powerful targets for fear of being shot back at.
Opp and return shooting allows infantry to get on with combat without the need of the player to direct them to do so. In a way infantry will get on with the fight when close or provoked.
So yes to both types of shooting

martin

Opportunity fire is, to me, overrated in games. Often it's used as a "free hit" rule and sometimes more effective than aimed fire. I think it's more important to have rules for pinning enemy units fired upon than opportunity fire, which shouldn't be better or equal to aimed fire because it is spur of the moment and an opportunity. So I would say no to return fire, maybe for opportunity fire and yes for pinned units.

Agree with ubercommando. I used to demand that games broke up the sequence of play with interrupts, opportunity fire, return fire, prep fire, whatever, or otherwise they're not historically accurate, harrumph!

But in my dotage I've come to understand that forcing players to play through these actions is inferior to just allowing them to make their own decisions and do these actions, themselves. All those sub-phases are really redundant, and when you think about it, it's just a way of saying, "I shoot twice and you shoot three times each turn."

I no longer think that's superior to a plain old IGO-UGO sequence. If you shoot me, and I want to return fire, well, that's what my turn is for.

I think that it is time to think outside of the rule box. There are a lot of bright people here. Why do it the same old way?
Every once in a while, someone comes along with a new concept: no ranges (fire the length of the board), keep acting as long as you have the initiative, success begets success. Igougo evolved to complex turn segments, to interrupt fire.
How about a whole new concept? Maybe it's time…

d88mm; Hear hear! :) That said, the only thing I'd add is that occasionally I find that a lot of people dismiss old tradition for shiny new processes that after a while don't seem to offer results that superior to the old crotchety way.

For instance, I used to be all about alternating activations until I realized how much longer it took to get through all the units, but the additional markers on the tables, etc. I only last year read about Featherstone's "I move, you move, we shoot simultaneously" resolving stationary shooters first. How great is that! Not nearly as flashy THW or others, but incredibly simple and effective, and FAST. That said my turns are influenced more by Crossfire than anything else, so who am I to talk…

In my inquiries of persons who have actually been in combat, when I asked them why they fired back their answer was universally "to get them to stop firing at me."

How you do it though is tricky. I suspect that cheesesailor 77's idea is best. Or, give the shooters first an additional dice or whatever.

Featherstone also proposed a "You move, I shoot then I move you shoot" sequence, which also works well. I think the " move, move, simultanious shoot works because there are twice as many moves per shooting, and someone said in a previous post that "it's all about the moving" and I agree.

A few rules assume that all fire combat is an exchange of fire, so if you initiate fire combat you may lose the exchange. DBX is the most obvious example, but I've also seen it in e.g. Hurrah Stalino.

5Core Brigade Commander takes an interesting approach, basically moving in the presence of an suppressed enemy is dangerous, but not lethal, so you don't do lots of complex calculations to resolve it. Essentially it is a bit like making a random movement throw when in contact with the enemy.

In a well-designed game return-fire and op-fire are not just seperate mechanics, they are strongly connected to the turn sequence and also the terrain density.

In a typical IGO-UGO sequence, return fire is what you do in your own turn. Perhaps it's more fun to split the firing resolution over both halves of a full turn, but I guess that's a matter of taste.

Op-fire only really is important when your terrain density is high, and you should be able to shoot at something moving in your arc-of-fire, but the coarse discretization of the turn sequence (IGO UGO) doesn't match the fine discretization of the terrain on the table, such that you can move from cover to cover without the opponent getting a shot.

All subphases in a turn (movement, fire, melee, … and their order) are a discretization of time. All terrain features, scenery, cover, footprints of units, movement ditances, on the table are a discretization of space. If both levels of discretization do not match, the rules need patches to allow for fine-grained actions that cannot be properly resolved within the chosen levels of discretization. Opportunity fire is such a patch.

(BTW, this is also one of the most common causes of a different appreciation between players for the same ruleset. Players do control their own table setup, and hence granularity of terrain. Sometimes it doesn't fit the intentions of the ruleset. Rulesets should be more clear about their underlying assumptions about coarseness of terrain representation. Some do that, but the majority does not.)

How about a whole new concept?

I don't know whether it's completely new, but how about getting rid of the fire phase altogether? Assume fire happens all the time. When troops move in the fire arc of the enemy during their movement, roll for losses due to "moving through the enemy fire arc". No seperate firing phase needed, it's part of every movement action.

Whether this would produce a fun game is a different question ;-) But at least it would put the emphasis in a wargame where the emphasis should be: moving toy soldiers around the table. Manipulating and moving troops *is* the core of miniature wargaming. Everything else is just rolling dice and resolving actions that were triggered by manoeuvre.

A few rules assume that all fire combat is an exchange of fire

It's also interesting to note that traditionally, the melee phase is always thought as being a mutual phase (I can kill you, but you can also kill me), but the firing phase is assymetric (I shoot at you but you do not shoot back).

This has been a rather fundamental issue since the dawn of wargaming, and has largely driven rule mechanics for combat resolution. You need different mechanics for an action in which either only one, or both, sides do deal damage.

If you would make both actions symmetric (both sides deal damage), you can use the same mechanics (perhaps with different base statistics) for both types of combat. You see some of that in larger-scale games, where there is no meaningful difference (due to firing ranges being small) between firing and melee. Cfr boardgames, in which combat is resolved between adjacent hexes.

In some of my house-rules for modern infantry firefight we do not have a seperate melee action. Everything is resolved by the same firing action – sometimes at extremely close range :-)

I have toyed with rules designs which simply model 'weight of fire' in various zones. All such fire is automatic against elements which enter them. The weight of fire is determined by the number of unsuppressed enemy elements in range.

It is similar to the approach used in Phil Yates 'Operation Brevity', where it is assumed that all units engage all other enemy units in range automatically, and you simpyl add them up to generate a (non linear) firepower roll against each and every target. Close and ranged combat are all subsumed into the same mechanism, it is really rather clever although I found the impulse unit activation systems a bit cumbersome (and a little frustrating for anyoen who isn't German!).

Like Phil, we also use exactly the same mechanism for fire and melee in our grand tactical rules, although the outcomes can be very different if in close combat.

I have been toying with the idea that if a unit is fired on that unit also fires, basically simultaneous die rolls. Still figuring out how it all plays out.

"Every once in a while, someone comes along with a new concept: no ranges (fire the length of the board), (…)"

I did that in my rules. Got rid of most weapons stats that way (lesser chance of a hit as range increases…)

Martin – Operation Brevity was really interesting. We liked the mechanics a lot as it meant bullying up on a defensive position became very risky, due to the amount of fire coming back your way.

The activation/turn sequence never worked for us at all though.

Our rules which are IGOUGO still have reaction fire. In our games ( Maneouver Group) you really can only take ground by assault. That can only be done when you have won the fire fight and the enemy is sufficiently suppressed by fire to allow you to assault.

Don't forget firing back is not always the best option. In some cases the only option is to get off the killing ground. We allow that too. Due to the way the rules work there needs only reaction fire as this covers over watch as well without it being a "free shot".

Cheesesailor7,

I reread your rules. I think if you are going to be using a response type rule you'll need to rewrite your activation rules. I personally think a reaction rule is needed or a unit may be fired upon by a number of enemy units before they can take action.

In a small unit game like HoF a unit should be able to react at least by falling back or hitting the deck taking full cover without some type of initiative or activation. When getting ambushed or shot at in the open troops don't need to wait for an order to do something, even if it means running away.

I'm using a turn with five phases and pinning suppression generates a delay in phases to perform certain actions. Falling back is an automatic option when being fired upon. Wanting to continue to advance under fire requires an Aggressiveness Check (similar to a morale check but different) and can result in decreased movement or forcing the target to seek cover..

Small arms fire is handled at the end of 5 phases and is handled comparing "volumes of fire" and defense/cover, not the typical "to hit" with DRM, cover saves, etc. It's more about pinning than causalities. A target can always fall back and once out of enemy LOS can remove pinning pretty easily. However, you'll give the initiative to the enemy and allow him to freely maneuver for a few turns.

An example of opportunity fire would be an enemy unit first moving into your LOS. Pinning markers will delay your observation and shooting allowing the enemy to move from cover to cover. Moving against an enemy that is not pinned is dangerous.

I could post an example but it's pretty long but detailed.

Wolfhag

Steve, can I send you the current version of my re-write? It's been evolving significantly since last year's version thats on the site, and just recently I decided to try a very different approach in terms of shooting/saves etc. Would be interested to have your input.

cheesesailor,
Sure, PM me for email.

Wolfhag

Thanks! How do i PM?

There should be a small "P": in a gray square next to my name on my posts. Click on that to send a PM.

wolfhag

No small P in gray next to anyone's name for me :/ Any idea why that would be? Anyway, if you have a moment, my email link is at the bottom of my retroboom website, so feel free to just send "hey" and I'll reply if you'd rather not post your email in the thread.

Kamphgruppe Commander allows, withdraw, opportunity fire, and return fire. In the first two, you have to activate to execute. Return fire is automatic, but you roll the activation number to determine if it is simultaneous or not. Doing any will affect your ability to take action in your own turn, so sometimes you do nothing, it's your option.

No small P in gray next to anyone's name for me :/ Any idea why that would be?

I believe you have to be a supporting member to use the PM function on TMP:

"Mostly, you get the satisfaction of knowing you've helped out TMP. You can post sales notices on the Market Boards, and can participate in Lounge discussions (a special Supporting Members-only forum). You will also be able to send Personal Messages to other Supporting Members."
TMP link

Ah, thank you :)

Cheesesailor…can we get a shufti at your rules as well? In return, if you like, I can send you one of a selection of very dull books that I've written…I've suffered for my scholarship and now it's your turn….
You can mail me at….
thathistorybloke@outlook.com