Visceral Impact Studios | 19 Jul 2016 6:39 a.m. PST |
So the many excellent replies to the AFV Armor Granularity thread got me to thinking about the same issue as it relates to weapons. Many, if not most of us are probably pretty happy with small arms being grouped into categories such as rifle, assault rifle, LMG, MMG, HMG, etc., and not worrying too much about finer distinctions unless playing a detailed skirmish game. So we're talking about platoon to battalion level games here. What about guns and missiles? Do you require that a game models the fine details of a particular model of tank gun and its many different ammo rounds available? Or are you happy at the other end of the spectrum where you have light, medium, and heavy tank guns? Let's use WWII as an example. In terms of effect on armor, you might be able to generate broad tank gun categories as follows: Light (37-50mm) Light-Medium (57mm) Medium (75mm) Heavy-Medium (88-90mm) Heavy (128mm) You would probably also add various flavors within each category to represent relative barrel length/muzzle velocity. So Medium might consist of Medium-Short, Medium, Medium-Long, and Medium-XL. Then you would assign historical weapons to each of these categories. A Panzer IV H's 75mm gun might be a Med-L while a Panther's gun a Med-XL In some cases a weapon might be assigned a category based not on it caliber but on its performance. So both a Tiger I's 88mm gun and a 17 pdr might be Heavy-Medium guns. The upside of the broad categories is simplicity. The downside is that you have a harder time capturing some important distinctions between certain weapons unless you add a bunch of special rules which sort of defeats the purpose. Or is a compromise of some kind your preferred approach? |
Weasel | 19 Jul 2016 6:51 a.m. PST |
Broad categories are fine by me, with a few tweaks based on performance. If using a numerical system, I find that guns typically fall into de facto categories anyways |
Mobius | 19 Jul 2016 6:54 a.m. PST |
Armor granularity should go hand in hand to the same level. My rules gives each weapon its own table row. When converted to a computer game the weapon has its own file. |
boy wundyr x | 19 Jul 2016 6:57 a.m. PST |
In modern games for me it becomes more of killed/not killed rather than worrying too much about anything in between, and range becomes the bigger factor. The real fly in the ointment though is ammo type/quality over time. |
Visceral Impact Studios | 19 Jul 2016 7:00 a.m. PST |
Totally agree with both of you. At one point we went the category route as we did for "Age of Madness". But then in recreating certain historical weapons we ran into problems with issues such as AT performance vs HE performance. Two 75-76mm guns can have virtually the same HE performance but radically different AT performance. And then you get the odd bird which lacks an HE round! Ended up going with each weapon having its own row (as Mobius suggestes) with the numbers naturally falling into categories anyway (as Weasel states) and having a notes column for any truly special circumstances. But the data itself accounts for the vast majority of differences. |
John Treadaway | 19 Jul 2016 7:10 a.m. PST |
I've played Phoenix Command (back in the day) where I specifically remember gawping at the distinctly different charts for the FN rifle employed by Argentinean forces (amongst others) and the British L1A1.* Madness, utter madness… So – my short answer in all of this – is less is more! John T * which – semi and fully auto options aside – are about as close to being the same weapon as you could possibly get: there'd be more differences based on how well they were maintained or how old the ammunition is… |
Legion 4 | 19 Jul 2016 7:12 a.m. PST |
Those categories sound about right for me … |
Darkest Star Games | 19 Jul 2016 7:25 a.m. PST |
Ok, so the guns have catagories. But what about the ammo types? The Pnz IV, even the G and H model, had something like 6 different AP rounds to choose from over the years. And HEAT rounds perform drastically different from AP and HE rounds, not to mention all of the specialized ammo that has come out over the years making even the Isreali Shermans able to take out more advanced tanks… I know there were games in the 80's that had all sorts of categories and charts and slope-to-angle-or-strike-for-penetration calculations, etc. If you start tracking one thing granualy, you'll have to track others, and as said above: that path leads to madness. |
Blutarski | 19 Jul 2016 7:39 a.m. PST |
" If you start tracking one thing granualy, you'll have to track others, and as said above: that path leads to madness." True words. It might be worthwhile taking a look at Barker's old armor/infantry rules, wherein he grouped weapon performance into categories in a manner similar to that which he used for tank armor. He did good homework for the time in which he wrote the rules, although recent scholarship may suggest a tweak here and there is now required. B |
Visceral Impact Studios | 19 Jul 2016 7:42 a.m. PST |
I think the ammo issue can be handled with the line-item approach pretty well. If you have a line for an American 105mm/L51 in 1985 then maybe you assume that for the anti-tank stat you use the optimum round. That same gun might have a different value in 2015. Otherwise, for a company-level game, you're getting into which round a single tank has in its tube at a given moment and tracking what it has in its racks. Too much detail at that level, no? OTOH, treating all 105mm/L51 guns as the same from their infancy to today and across all armies would be a bit much. Really good example is Iraq during Gulf War I. Yes, they had 125mm/L48 guns. But there ammo was made locally and of very poor quality. There anti-tank effectiveness should be lower than the 125mm/L48 guns used by the Russians. |
Rudysnelson | 19 Jul 2016 8:04 a.m. PST |
If you can be seen, then your tank can easily be destroyed but Saggers or main guns. A common training point to my cavalry troops. In regards to modern fighting it is different than Cold War tactics. We had fire and forget missiles and the on-wire guided to the target missiles. Today they have guided and smart missiles as well. A lot depends on the troop level of the combat. An artillery round of a 155mm landing near you will have the same impact as an 8 inch in regards to soft targets and troops. To tanks is different depending on how close it landed. The same goes for the 81mm mortar and the 4.2" mortar. |
UshCha | 19 Jul 2016 8:53 a.m. PST |
Your gun data should be integrated with your armour system. If you have differences of penetration that are significant with respect to your armour thickness granularity you reflect it. If its not dump it. The system as a whole needs to have the same level of detail in all aspects. |
Mobius | 19 Jul 2016 10:03 a.m. PST |
Broad categories lead to dull, boring and bland. I'll take madness over that. |
Mako11 | 19 Jul 2016 10:42 a.m. PST |
Used to be true during the Cold War for tank guns and Saggers, but towards the very end of the Cold War that was no longer true. Lots of shots to the fronts of the latest tanks might bounce, and/or fail to penetrate. Same goes for the early ATGW missiles as well, including the Sagger, TOW, etc.. I agree with Mobius. |
goragrad | 19 Jul 2016 1:30 p.m. PST |
I like my graularity. Back in the day Tractics grouped the AT guns into subcategories based on barrel length and bore. While we used the rest of the game, we individualized the penetration charts. |
Wolfhag | 19 Jul 2016 3:49 p.m. PST |
VIS, It looks as if you are duplicating the Squad Leader gunnery chart using the caliber and barrel length, not a bad way to do it. A simple way to determine accuracy is with muzzle velocity and range bands set using time of flight information. So a gun with a muzzle velocity of 1000 mps would have X accuracy at 1000 meters. A gun with a muzzle velocity of 750 mps would have the same accuracy at 750 meters. The range bands could be .25 second TOF = Point Blank Range, .5 second TOF = Very Short Range, .75 second TOF = Short Range, 1.0 second TOF = Medium Range, 1.25 second TOF = Long Range, 1.5 second TOF = Very Long Range, 2.0 second TOF = Extreme Range. Maximum effective range for most guns was 3-4 seconds TOF. Wolfhag |
Visceral Impact Studios | 20 Jul 2016 11:39 a.m. PST |
Actually we're doing stat lines for specific guns. But conceptually we're keeping in mind muzzle velocity with respect to accuracy when developing our short and long range bands. The rules focus on tactics and the troops rather than small details between gear. For example, the stat line for a 75mm/L48 would look like this: Short: 4 bounds Long: 8 bounds Firepower: 3d6 Vs Inf: 5 Vs Inf+Cover: 4 Vs Vehicle 11 Notes: Stun, Brutal The length of a bound varies with figure size. The Vs values are what you roll or less to damage a target after subtracting mods for range, vehicle armor, etc. Stun is a morale bonus and Brutal a vehicle casualty bonus. The actual table has rows of guns and the columns use little icons such as a tank for Vs Vehicle and an Infantryman for Vs Infantry. The chance of actually hitting and avoiding firepower is based on shooter and target quality (accuracy and fieldcraft respectively). The information is presented in the order used while taking a shot: 1. Am I in range? 2. How many dice do I roll? 3. Shooter roll to hit (accuracy) and target roll to evade (fieldcraft) 4. Apply 1 friction token per effective hit (more for scarier weapons like flamethrowers, snipers, big HE, etc) 5. Roll effective hit dice for casualties vs inf, vs inf in cover, or vs vehicle I should note that concealment and cover are treated very differently. If you're hiding in tall grass and not doing anything you'll get a nice fieldcraft bonus. But if the enemy does manage to put effective fire on you you're toast. And if you're firing from a stout building you're giving away your position and will be easier to "hit" but small arms are nearly useless for causing casualties against such targets. So you suppress those targets and then either assault or roll up with 105mm HE. |