"Tanks in defence" Topic

It's interesting that in the last few topics on tank spacing the spacing of tanks when skirmishing with the enemy was never addressed. A tactic used from Holbart's time in WWII through the Israeli 67 war and into the cold war
never seems nowadays to get a mention in many game rules. It was covered in Barkers WWII rules which in hind sight were innovative and ahead of there time.
So how do you cater for tanks in defense and their need to switch positions? This may also touch on your engineering provisions which aids swapping positions by employing counter mobility installations.

A bucket load of smoke and obstacles.

Tanks in their prepared position cannot take hull shots when the firing unit can only see the turret. Once they move, then they are moving and any shot can hit them. If they popped smoke, moderns, then put the screen out. It is possible they will back up far enough to lose the covering.

Who is Holbart?

During the defensive phases of the Eastern Front campaign in the Soviet Union, German tankers developed the tactic of creating multiple pre-prepared firing positions. The aim was to create these positions in locations that enabled tanks to shoot and then scoot to another position. Stealth was key. This is hard to reproduce on the tabletop. The attacking player should not know that the tank has exited a position. Nor should he know when and where the tank will reappear. In some game scales it does not matter. A 'tank' stand will represent a platoon spread out over a significant area, which can allow such tactics to be abstracted out.

Robert

Deep Horse

After graduating from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1904, Hobart was commissioned in the Royal Engineers. His sister married the future British field marshal Bernard Montgomery. Hobart served in India and then fought in France and Iraq during World War I, where he acquired a record as a brilliant but independent-minded officer. Believing that tanks were the future of ground warfare, Hobart joined Britain's newly formed Royal Tank Corps in 1923. He became a colonel in 1928, and in 1934 he formed and took command of the 1st Tank Brigade, in which post he developed new tank tactics in the context of mobile warfare.

i.e the man who invented tank tactics.

Monk2002uk,
While nothing is perfect on a table top, you can assume line of sight is broken and the tank needs to be re-spotted before it can further engaged. While the effect can be abstracted out perhaps, tank stands would need a Sabot base to account for the additional frontage required for this type of deployment.

Aaah, Hobart. I know about him. I was wondering who Holbart was. A typo then.

At 1:1 you could do something like this.

Defender deploys X positions for each tank – based on how many the defender had time to build, access to engineers, suitability of terrain etc.

These positions are placed on the table top, but with no vehicle. A position may not be spotted until at close range or it is used to fire from (mark it with smoke).

With a simple chart defender marks in which position each of his tanks is. Each turn they may move from one position to another, but may only move "one space" at a time (like a subway line – you can go one stop in either direction).

Meanwhile the attacker spots the positions. If a position is spotted, and contains a tank, put the tank on the table and play on. Otherwise, mark the position as spotted. If a tank re-enters the position it is spotted but is still concealed/hull down/in cover or whatever.

Again, with platoon/company sized stands, this is something I tend to factor into troop quality considerations.

More experienced troops are more likely to have better alternate positions, can jockey more effectively etc. So it is something which affects their saving throws and/or target modifiers.

At 1:1 it is very hard to model jockeying without a ton of rules unless you don't penalise movement and firing (which can then become overpowered), or you give some units 'magic powers' like the FOW Tank Destroyer rule (in fact, allowing units in prepared positions to teleport to an alternate position might work quite well, subject to some sort of skill roll).

I guess the question is do you want to model the outcome (shoot better, harder to hit, move around magically) or the mechanics of how they actually do it?

I like Crispy's ideas!

And Martin's last sentence/paragraph has the heart of the matter!

If you are going to allow concealed firing positions and not put the position or model on the table you should give the attacker the chance to smoke, prep fire or recon by fire on the suspected locations.

This would also be a good chance for tanks like the Sherman to show their indirect fire capability advantage.

Using Shoot & Scoot to alternate firing positions conducting a fighting withdrawal or delaying action is most effective if the enemy is advancing down a road as it is easier to slow him down. Doing it on a wide front is more difficult.

The other difficulty is when the attackers get into effective range you are going to only get a chance to fire a few rounds before scooting. At 32kph a tank is moving about 50 meters in 5 seconds. By the time you get settled into the new position if they kept advancing they'll be inside your effective range – unless of course they've run into minefields or tank hunter ambushes.

I think in defense (not fighting withdrawal) the Germans mainly had tank units in reserve as "fire brigades" to eliminate enemy penetrations. Only infantry would be in the MLR and their task is to suppress the infantry and let the tanks continue into the secondary defense line where ATG ambushes and tank hunting teams were waiting for them. If the enemy made it through this AT zone they would be counterattacked by the mobile/tank units.

Other info: link

I've run games like this and I used an 18 foot long table and a scale of 1 inch = 25 meters. The FOW and BA games I've seen would have a hard time with a real fighting withdrawal.

Wolfhag

The difference in tactics in WW2 and Cold War tactics were striking.
As a rules writier one of the most significant obstacles to getting a scenario to play properly, is for the commanders to use the tactics of the era. Some try to use Napoleonic tactics in the SYW or Modern tactics in World War 2.
Using the wrong tactics will add the wrong flavor to a scenario.

Since we are talking WW2, I will focus on it. For example those of you who watched the Pacific mini-series, the Marine assault across the open ground at the airport/field was conducted without smoke cover which would have been used today. So many needless casualties due to attacking without smoke. It made me ill. however that was the attitude of the day.

Did they defilade in WW2? Yes, but not as common as gamers want to do. Tank tactics was one of maneuver with much of the cannot stop me attitude by the Germans knowing that most Allied rounds in the West could not penetrate their tanks.
Americans had one or more tanks in their company, often the XO tank, (since he was doing resupply runs) had it. These were used to make hasty firing positions. A platoon may have a dozen or more prepared for a 5 tank platoon. These would be a primary and secondary firing position. that is by the book but seldom were the Americans on defense long enough to get full use of a defensive position.

Though they were used during German counter-attacks. Stable defensive positions were left to the infantry for both sides while tanks were grouped as rapid response groups to exploit an enemy's weakness or plug a hole in friendly positions.

The one thing i wish a manufacturer would make would be the German style pillbox with a tank turret on top that they used a lot in Italy.

I think in defense (not fighting withdrawal) the Germans mainly had tank units in reserve as "fire brigades" to eliminate enemy penetrations. Only infantry would be in the MLR and their task is to suppress the infantry and let the tanks continue into the secondary defense line where ATG ambushes and tank hunting teams were waiting for them. If the enemy made it through this AT zone they would be counterattacked by the mobile/tank units.

This jibes with what I've read. The Germans were very fond of pak fronts and counterattacks. If you're playing where 1 model = 1 tank, at anything larger than 6mm scale you'd need a pretty big table to do all of this in one game. With 20mm stuff, I'd do only one of these phases at a time:

1. The front line breakthrough, where the defender's objective is to peel off the attacking infantry, so that if the attacking armor goes on, it goes without infantry support.

2. The pak front, where the armor runs into antitank guns, mines, etc., and/or maybe a dug-in StuG/Hetzer or 3.

3. The counterattack, where defending armor tries to finish off any attacking armor that made it thru 1 and 2.

I think an interesting mini-campaign could be made by linking these 3 phases, so that whatever attackers survive 1 go on to 2, etc.

An interesting rule in the old AH Tobruk Game. Was once your AFV stopped movement, you rolled to see if they were defilade. As the board mostly reflected the open desert and in many cases you could not always see the smaller bumps, slopes, etc. That could provide some cover. Until you were next to or on top of it.
I had found that to be generally true at the NTC in some situations in the late '80s.

The pak front, where the armor runs into antitank guns

You saw something like that used in NA by the DAK. Where they placed AT guns in depth. With the lighter caliber, shorted ranged in the front ranks like the 37mm. Then for example 50mm behind that, then 75/76.2mm and finally 88s. Depending on what was available of course.

As the Brits would pursue withdrawing Panzers. They'd run into this AT defense In depth. Which in many cases didn't turn out too well for those UK Armor units. But as always the learning curve was steep at times …

But once the AT guns did their work … the Panzers could counter-attack if required. Now that the UK AFVs had suffered significant attrition …

…with platoon/company sized stands, this is something I tend to factor into the troop quality considerations.

I fully understand why. With platoon/company sized stands I can hardly understand how you could do other.

This is one of the reasons I don't play platoon/company sized stands with miniatures. I WANT to see how the battle was fought, not just move some abstract pieces around and throw some dice.

Why did Germans win against everyone in 1939-42? Their opponents had tanks with notably better armor and/or guns in many cases. And their opponents had greater numbers of tanks in many cases. Yet the Germans won consistantly.

With platoon/company sized stands it is almost impossible to get to historical results without just putting in a "Germans are uber" factor on all their die roles. I find that very unsatisfying. Yes it works, but who cares? OK here's the rule: these guys win. Now go play. Not much fun.

In the case in point here, I would propose that a simple hidden units modification would make almost any 1 to 1 unit scale game work. Just replace the units with chits. Give the player enough blank chits to put a chit in each firing and alternate firing position. If the chits are spotted under the rules, replace them with the models. If not, leave them as chits. When a model (spotted) pulls back out of site it can be replaced with 2 chits (one real, one blank). Move the chits as you see fit. The oppenent will very quickly lose track of where actual known units went.

Easy to do. Fits with almost any ruleset. Adds a very palpable "fog of war" effect without any tables or look-ups or die roles, or rules saying "Sorry, you can't shoot him because your guys suck and his are uber."

Just my $0.02 USD worth. Use, discard or ridicule at your discretion.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Mark 1,

I think the big hurdle to overcome in games is the delay element for units being ordered, especially for changing a units orders based on new developments in the battlefield.

The French Generals were back in their chateaus and the German generals near the FEBA. I don't know of any games that can really simulate the Germans getting inside the French Observe, Orient, Decide and Act Loop. Our games tend to be mostly attrition based which can only mean better die roll modifiers for the Germans.

For example: The Germans identify a gap in the French defenses and can react more quickly to get some mobile reserves through it and force the defenders to fall back without actually assaulting them. While falling back they expose themselves to Stuka attacks. The German keep the pressure on them not allowing them to form a static defense. Not a lot of attrition but a lot of friction.Probably not a lot of fun for some people too.

The hidden unit thing is a no brainer but when I suggest it I'm met with resistance. People want to get all of their toys on the table and take pictures. Pictures of sparsely populated tables with chits sitting around is not the experience people are looking for.

The only games I've played with a real combined arms defense in depth were on a 30 x 8 foot table with micro armor. It was a new experience being able to bypass defenders and maneuver through gaps.

Wolfhag

You saw something like that used in NA by the DAK.

The Germans used it on all fronts, and the Soviets learned to copy their style.

To follow up on my previous post:

If you want an armor vs. armor meeting engagement, do step 3. If you want armor vs. a more-or-less static defense (with perhaps some SP ATGs on defense with prepared positions), do step 2. If you want armor against light AT weapons, like panzerfausts and panzerschreks, or bazooka or PIATs, or AT mines and satchel charges, play step 1.

But I still think doing all 3 (sequentially, unless you have a very large table), as a mini-campaign would be great fun.

Spearhead covers command limitations quite well.

But at the end of the day it comes down to Germans changing orders on a 2+, and French changing them on a 5+.

Similarly, there are various ways to skin the tactical competence cat – bunging in a load of stuff about leadership and training differences (East Front Tank Leader had a very interesting take on this), explicitly modelling leaders (e.g. Squad Leader, IABSM), completely ignoring it but making certain weapons really, really good (e.g. Tobruk), or just factoring it into unit ratings (e.g. Panzerblitz, most boardgames on the eastern front you care to mention).

The net outcome is very similar though, one side will be 'better' then the other at 'doing stuff'for a given force ratio/posture/terrain. This can either be modelled by very explicit mechanisms, or by various levels of abstraction.

I am also interested in how battles were actually fought, but at an ultra tactical level that is fraught with difficulty due to the high influence of psychological factors. Higher level actions lend themselves more to numerical quantification.

The Germans used it on all fronts, and the Soviets learned to copy their style.

Yes, it was a good tactic. And in NA it was used to it's fullest with much open terrain …

Martin,
The only thing I disagree with is assigning a dice roll to to determine getting inside your opponents decision loop. Die rolls are a chance occurrence. Performing an action more quickly than someone is not chance as it can be quantified.

I understand that in combat encounters the FOW, friction, etc influence this but it does not increase or decrease the chance, they shorten or lengthen the time spent completing the loop. I think that's a big difference than a chance.

For example: One side uses a vehicle courier to carry a message from the FEBA up three chains of command and back. That can be quantified with various modifiers to shorten or lengthen the time. The courier can get lost of killed.

The other side has radio communication and only goes up and back two levels of chain of command. That can be quantified with various modifiers to shorten or lengthen the time. Radio communications can get jammed or break down.

The side with the radio is going to have a vast C&C advantage most of the time in moving through their decision loop getting their sub-units to the "act" stage before their opponent. There are many factors and player decisions that effect the outcome, that's what I think makes it interesting.

Unfortunately this does not seem to mesh well with the types of game that use a structured turn sequence or randomized activation. I don't know of any games using a system like this to determine activation for sub-units.

I've been working on using it for a WWII small unit 1:1 system where the vehicle/gun crews and infantry teams are able to act by moving and/or firing depending on their tactical deployment, observation and training modified by environments factors, friction and suppression. There is a small random aspect to it but player decisions on deployment are more important.

I have to break the game down into small time slices but all units interact within each others loop. It creates a nice FOW because you never know exactly when your opponent will act/activate. It does away with traditional structured turn sequences, randomized activation and command interrupts without the need for special over watch and opportunity fire rules.

Regarding tanks in defense using this method. Using tanks in a counterattack behind the FEBA will allow better tactical deployment and attacking the enemy flanks and rear. You detect them first giving you the chance for the first shot and maybe a nice ambush. Their loop is longer, yours is shorter. This is different than the anti-tank units suddenly appearing to ambush.

Wolfhag

This is an interesting thread but drifting off the topic which was about realistic (or at least plausible) frontages for tanks in their various postures.

The debates about simulating getting inside an opposition decision loop are interesting but as has been said not always possible as some levels.

What does fail in some rules is timing. In our rules (MG) a well deployed reserve unit can get into a designated position faster that an enemy deployed unit can re-deploy to a particular position. This is due mainly to the better differentiation between combat movement and deployment movement. This is sort of getting inside the oppositions decision loop to some extent, but of course is not the whole story. Again realistically if you force an artillery commander to have an artillery plan he can enact it generally much faster than an ad hoc plan that has to be resourced and priorities agreed and set on an ad hoc basis. This can conflict with what some players want as it demands at least qualitative decisions to be made in advance. i.e which observer is allocated priority for calls and ammunition and who has FDF points. All this is grist for the decision loop debate but can fall foul of players desires, as without an excessive random element the poorer player will lose out rapidly with little hope of redemption.

UshCha2,
The OODA Loop is all about timing. Timing is different than accuracy and movement rates.

For example: Two adversaries have stumbled into each other initiating a meeting engagement. The side that deploys first from a march column and initiates a flanking maneuver will be in a better position than the enemy even if their movement rates are equal. This will force the enemy to respond putting them on the defensive and giving the initiative to the side that deploys first.

Seeing an opening in the enemy lines means a unit with a faster OODA Loop should be able to commit his reserves first whether they are cavalry or tanks.

That's the simple version. There are many other variables and SNAFU's that can occur.

Sorry if I hijacked the discussion (again?)

I'll start a new one based on a write up I did using the OODA Loop in a 1:1 tank-infantry game.

Wolfhag

Wolfhag,
I am not diasagreeing wiuth what you are saying becuase it is all about timeing. Some games fail even on basic timeing like deployment and re-deployment times. If thsat is already wrong then the rest is not fixable.

We find that the decision loop is a lot about a generals decisivenes about when he is prepared to commit to a change of plan. It is impossible to make rules to make a cautios or slow reacting general a fast on. While some rules attempt this I considet it wrong headeed.

Because of the modular nature of our terrain be it 1/144 using Hexon II or our own cardboard at 1/7,2 maps can be precise and easy to produce, so hidden movement and hidden deployment is easy. This adds sufficent fog of war to make it hard. The inherent communication in MG makes slower command structures for the less well tarined treops.

Add fog of war and traffic jams all inheternt without extra rools and the time lags of bad generals soon becomes all to real.

UshCha,
I think we are both in agreement, especially about making a cautious general a decisive one.

One of the reasons I don't like giving leaders a rating of something like a poor general is successful on a 5+ and a good general on a 3+ is that a poor general can be as efficient as a good general. Success die rolls are not entirely unrealistic and are a good abstraction but in the end it's not really about how good they are it's about a chance of being successful.

I think to reflect timing in a game you need give units or leaders a "timing" rating that would be quantified in game turns or phases, not a die roll modifier or % chance to perform in a game turn.

So a decisive general with good communications issuing an order to a good regiment to deploy might historically take two hours, it can be quantified and not entirely to chance. A poor general with a poor communication and poor regiment might take 3.5 hours to perform the same action. The good general is deployed before the poor general so the poor general needs to change orders taking longer and creating more confusion in his troops.

Of course being behind in the loop the entire game is not going to be much fun for a player so there should be some factors to even things out but in reality war is not fair.

Certainly there are many factors like the environment, chance of couriers getting lost or killed, poor lower level leadership initiative, etc that can increase or decrease the amount of time.

That's how I see the timing aspect and getting inside the opponents loop.

In an attempt to stay on topic let me give an example: A tank fires at an advancing enemy tank unit from a hidden position and wants to fall back to an alternative position. If the enemy can be slowed down or delayed (obstacles, minefields, other AT fire) it will give him more time to relocate and get into the new position. If the enemy is not slowed down by the time he gets settled into his new position the enemy may be right on top of him. I see this as a timing issue and not a chance occurrence.

Now if the attacker was in a movement column and the defenders firing forces the column to tactically deploy he has slowed them down and while they are deploying he'll have a more time (not chance) to fall back.

Wolfhag

There are two different timing questions:

1. The time it takes to do something (e.g. to move from here to there), and

2. The time it takes to make/transmit information/decisions/orders (e.g. to tell a unit to move from here to there).

At the tactical end of the scale (squad/platoon) no. 1 is more prevalent/important. As you go up the chain of command, no. 2 becomes increasingly more prevalent/important.

From an armored cavalry point of view, telling people to move from a to b takes a lot of practice. Most of the time you cannot not see. More than 2 or 3 of your 11 vehicle platoon. And if the infantry and scouts were deployed outside the tracks then it was a bigger delay to move to a point and redeploy again.
In the armor platoons we did a lot of follow me situations.
It also was a practice of excercises going with half or less of the radios working because it was estimated that most of our radio antennas would be blown off by artillery. In actuality our radios were prone to breakdown and we never had a full load for an excercises or deployment.

By the way a big issue and time consuming was having to send contact and recon , bridges, minefields, roads, to the company. Each was lengthy and a lot could happen in your area and to your platoon while you were sending them up or collecting them from deployed scouts.

Wargamers can be a bit sterotypical in thiet approach to games. To be fair its not easy to get everyting into a single evening. If you can re-set a board up for a couple or more weeks (having a modular terrain and a 10" tablet to record all the troop positions (distant shots) and status (closer shots) helps enormously), you can get all sorts of fog of war and chances to screw up drcsion making and the standard of training becomes an issue in complex deployments and wheather you can use them.

This sort of effect can be achived by changing the configuration of a gameing table. Make it effectively 22ft by 3 ft by putting a board edge in the middle. Causes more chaos and bas/slow/inaccurate decisions to be made than any rules. The recon only ever gives half the story and at a high cost in time even if its looking in the right place.

I don't get the point for making the table narrower. What does that achieve, other than limiting maneuvering?

If we really wanted to game the problems the French had in 1940, OODA is not a sufficient acronym. For the French you would need OODDAA -- observe, orient, decide, distribute, assemble, and THEN act. While the entire loop was the problem, was in the distribution and assembly that the most egregious snafu's occurred.

(Yes I know my added D and A are included in the A of OODA. I's just playin' with ya. But seriously, in the French reliance on "deliberate offensive action" not only was the Observe and Orient process too slow, but the Act had far too many steps before anyone actually did anything on a battlefield.)

Most of the OODA loop should be external to the gaming table, unless one is running a division-scale game. When our games focus on battalion or company-sized clashes (meaning perhaps 1-to-platoon or 1-to-1 game scale), any OODA failure needs to be modeled into the scenario.

Typically once they are in combat, OODA no longer affects the decision-making of battalions, companies, platoons, or squads/tanks. At their level it is command friction, whether in terms of communications between command elements or in the command control of non-command elements. These things can be modeled in the game.

If you really want an OODA-inspired game, consider putting a powerful unit of Char-B tanks in the railyards of Town A. Put the crews of the Char-B tanks in a convoy of trucks entering the board on a road that is reasonably close to A. Give them orders to man their tanks, fuel their tanks, and march their tanks to Town B, to coordinate with the infantry in Town B, then to deploy in combat formation for a counter-attack on the Germans holding the bridge in Town C. Give them a deadline for launching their attack based on an artillery prep that will take the form of a rolling barrage fired from the start-line all the way to the bridge of Town C, which they are to follow closely in their advance.

Now put a modest German pioneer detachment at the bridge in Town C, and reasonably strong mixed Panzer/Grenadier/Jaeger force in Town B. Put the French infantry, reduced by 1/3rd of their numbers and in disarray, in the woods behind town A. French artillery has already begun to re-deploy, so when the appointed moment arrives, no artillery will be fired.

That's your scenario.

Now add some command friction and control radius rules, and you are ready to go!

The part you model into the game is relatively simple. Most rulesets have friction and control rules. If you want to understand the impact of losing on the OODA issue, you need it in your scenario. Doesn't mean that the Char-B is any less impressive on the battlefield. Doesn't mean it should get an artificially low armor or gunpower rating. It impressed everyone on the battlefield when it went into action according to plan. But the French often got caught flat-footed, with the Char-Bs unmanned, unfueled, or marching blithely around un-aware of German forces in their area, under orders that made no sense given the reality on the ground. If you want to model that, you need to put it into the scenario, not in the rules.

Just my $.02 USD worth.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

@donlowry

I don't get the point for making the table narrower. What does that achieve, other than limiting maneuvering?;

Defense in depth or proper reconnaissence. It doesn't actually limit your manouevring – rather, both attacker and defender will be fighting over a narrow frontage much greater depth.

(In Manouvre Group, at least, you can't make rushes down the flanks regardless of board width, whether it's effectively 3' (x12') or 4' (x6') or 6' (x 6 or 8'), since unless the defender deploys very badly, there is no safe route that won't get you killed without clearing it first. Manouvering is thus about finding or creating a route and the shape of the board doesn't change that, just where the elements covering the shape are placed.)

What it gives you is a very different sort of game. As you can't shove all your tanks in a line (not wise in the real world anyway), it forces the defender to defend in depth, and the attacker to have to basically work around the board.

If you will forgive the dirty, heretical sci-fi elements, this is the (144th) MG game I put on at Hammerhead last month, using this principle[1].

In this specific case, the board represented a narrow pass that ran down from the top left and wrapped around itself until it overlapped, essentially distorting the board from what would in "reality" been more like a circle to fit on a 6x6'. (I.e., it meant you couldn't cross the border in the middle, since that was the "table edge." (UshCha's more traditional approach effectively means the "u" shaped board represents a straighter stretch of terrain – usually down a road, since battles are still principally down transit routes.)

The attacker did not know where any of the defenders were (hidden deployment), and so had to properly recon around the board and deal with enemy units as they found them. And rather than doing this over a 6' length, it meant that the distance they had to explore over was 12' instead.

Of course, this sort of game is only possible is you have movement speeds that allow you to cross the board in a reasonable time-frame. If your movement speed only allows unit to cross a regular board in three or four bounds of straight driving at full speed, you'd never get done.

(MG's maximum speed is simply "as fast as you like, but frack help you if anyone sees you, 'cos if they do, you is a dead man, mate." The attackers could have simply driven to the other end of the board in one go. However, as every single unit the passed would get to shoot at them (and they couldn't do anything about it) the entire force would likely be dead by the time they'f got halfway there..!)

[1]Incidently, this game was only saved by UshCha's aforementioned "take photos of the game on his tablet," since when we got to the convention, my oppo and I found we had lost the map (and quite a stack of the paperwork, frag knows where or how – I'd put it in the boot of the car the night before and we've never found it). Fortunately, the first time we'd set it up for a test-run UshCha has taken loads of photos of it while he did it for his game, and and we were able to reconstruct it from his pictures. I have since bought myself a tablet…

Aotrs: OK, I kinda see what you're doing, but it seems a waste to not use all the table, even if you put a big blob of uncrossable rough terrain there or something. I play 1-1 in 20mm, so it's hard enough to get a playing surface that's large enough to give ranges other than close and point-blank, so I rebel at the idea of making the table even narrower. That's my viewpoint.

Did you ever see the old WW2 movie "A Walk in the Sun"? A US platoon, after landing at Salerno, moves inland for (apparently) a few miles to blow a bridge, so as to slow any German counterattack on the beach. And first they have to take a sturdy farm house, used as a German strong point that guards the bridge. Interesting scenario. My problem with it (as with your narrow-table scenarios) is: what's happening on the flanks? I wouldn't think an infantry platoon would normally strike out on its own with no regards for flanks and no attempt to maintain contact with other friendly forces on those flanks.

Mark 1: Very well said! That's kinda what I was getting at when I said the time to make decisions and transmit them got more important as you go up the chain of command. As you so aptly demonstrate, by the time you get down to company or platoon level, those problems should already have arisen, and thus be built into the scenario. Unless, maybe, you're doing a campaign.

Ah, but you DO use all the table. Just not at once. You'll still use it all over the course of the game. (If you think about it, that's not different to a regular board, as there are bits – typically the edges along which people deploy – that will not see much use past the first bound.)

UshCha is more the expert on moderns, but as I undertsand it, at MG's ground scale, you are actually starting to play over the real-world distances these sorts of battles are fought at. But yes, battles are fought over narrow frontages, principally down roads – you still really never make an assault across truly cross-country. It just doesn't work logistically.

More open terrain in MG further actually gains you nothing and in fact generally IMPEDES your manouvering. Because open terrain is easy to cover with the defender's weapons. Open space is generally space you just can't use, unless you want to make a suicidal charge across open ground.

(And they have tried those sorts of scenarios, occasionally, I believe. But as I understand it, you need SIGNIFICANTLY more Russians and on the part of said Russians, the manouvering is more "charge and hope to frag some of you make it to the flanking positions" (but I'm sure UshCha could explain better).)

Accuracy of weapons fire in MG also attempts to simulate the real world rather that was decided by some arbitary game mechanic (i.e. "start at 50% hit rate and scale" like many systems, from Dungeons & Dragons to even my own starship rules do), so with no cover, the chances of missing are considerably less. (Mutually moving vehicles to-hit is only 6+ on D20 with stabilised, modern firecontrols. Moving at "anywhere you like" (transit) speed makes that principally an automatic hit.) Nor are there range bands (only effective range), as such (though penetration drops off at range), so in MG, you can't, as you can in a some games, unrealistically dance about at range, relying on the enemy missing due to range penalties or something.

Ah, but you DO use all the table. Just not at once.

You do? Then I'm missing something.

But yes, battles are fought over narrow frontages, principally down roads – you still really never make an assault across truly cross-country.

But there's more to a battle than movement. For instance, most ATGs and, for that matter, MG's, were sited so as to fire into an attacker's flank, not his front -- for which you need some width of front, and something other than completely open terrain (to conceal the ATG/MG). As I said, units rarely advanced with no concern for their flanks.

I think there are a number of issues here. The long boards are all done using a ground scale ale of 1 mm = 1 m using 1/144 models. This makes a the narrow board 900 wide. As in Europe battle ranges if you are lucky are 500 to a 1 500m and less sometimes. Coupled with the complex issues of streams and such outflanking is no t that practical. Thus you now get platoons deployed in depth. ATG deploy flanking roads with terrain covering it to the front. The nature of European terrain is that in many places it cannot be crossed at speed due to the ground. 15 mm and above we ill always be difficult due to the sheer scale of the models.

accepting some limitations you get a board some 900m wide but some 6km long. That adds lots of uncertainty and allows for such things as phase lines to actually exist on the table.

RudyNelson,
That gives a pretty good image of coordinating tank movement. I can just hear the howls from players if they had to conform to that.

I started a discussion about alternative activation using the OODA Loop and Time & Action formulas. I reactivated it if anyone wants to join in.

TMP link

Wolfhag

I think there are a number of issues here. The long boards are all done using a ground scale ale of 1 mm = 1 m using 1/144 models.

OK, that's a whole different scale from what I use. I use 1:76 or 1:72 models and a ground scale of either 1" = 2 yards (true to the models) or 1" = 4 yards (to get a little more wiggle room). I can see where your ideas would work at your scale.

Dolowly,
You are very close in at that scale. It's more like the original crossfire ethos where effectively everything is in range. Max on the board can only be about 500 yds corner to corner. That is barely the frontage of a platoon in defence, about 500 yds. The platoon occupying the centre 250 yds the rest being dominated by fire.

You are right a narrow board would not work at either of your scales.

From what I've read, 500 yards was about the best line-of-sight you could get in NW Europe, which, in my rules, is close range for tanks and ATGs. (100 yards or less is point-blank.) Not for small arms, however. A platoon of defenders is about what I usually use, give or take.

Donlowry battlefield ranges can realistically get to 1500 yds in Northern Europe, Higher values and the intravisibility falls rapidly. That is the chances of seeing any one point from another decrease rapidly beyond 1500 yds. Hence for mobile operation we concentrate on terrain that give 500 to 1500 yds ranges. Hence a board that is long but 900 yds wide is an acceptable compromise for the significant increase in the death of the battlefield that is modelled.