""Fixing" the tank parking lot" Topic

So this came up in another discussion.

What is the "parking lot"?
We'll define it here as a game where it is advantageous to put tanks base-to-base, because it maximizes the amount of firepower you have in one location.

Is it a problem?
Only if you think it is, but I'm a tinkerer so I thought I'd offer up a few solutions IF YOU THINK IT'S A PROBLEM and get people talking with their own thoughts.

Once again, the parking lot is not a problem if you don't think it's a problem in your games.

Solution 1:
Damage carries over.
This works best in unit-based games and was the solution we used in the FiveCore systems: Basically, lucky attack rolls will inflict "spill over" damage on nearby targets, discouraging bunching up.

Solution 2:
Morale penalties.
A lot of older games (the ones with long lists of morale modifiers) force morale penalties or morale checks on nearby units.

Solution 3:
A lot of board games and hex/grid games apply movement penalties for having too many troops near each other.

Solution 4:
A mechanic I toyed with a while back (and could have sworn I had seen another game use already) is that a good shot permits another shot to be taken immediately at the same or another target nearby.
This works well in a skirmish game and reflects that the gunner doesn't have to adjust their sights very much, just swing the gun a bit and punch it.

Solution 5:
Big, sexy barrage templates.

I love placing a big template over a bunch of bad guys.

Solution 6:
Attack bonuses.
This is sort of a variant of 1, but some games, especially skirmish ones, will give a to-hit bonus when firing at a group of targets.

Thoughts on the above?
Options I have missed?

Missed shots get to roll again at any other vehicles within 1" (or other distance)of the original target. if there are 2 vehicles within the distance then the attacker has to roll 3 attacks as misses to miss them all.

Small tank on a big base works too. But much to be said for the barrage template.

It's no problem at all. It's an artifact of model scale vs ground scale. In "reality" the tanks are many yards apart.

You have many solutions in search of a non existent problem. If there is any problem, it's purely visual.

I like solution 1, especially if you have units firing on units. Easier to dish out damage faster to bunched targets. Target acquisition is easier. It abstracts solution 4 as well.

On top of that, add Solution 5, there is a reason for intervals between soldiers in a chow line and tanks maneuvering.

I like solution 3, but not sure how best to do it at a skirmish level. It should certainly apply to anything at 1 stand = platoon or higher. A unit takes up a LOT of space when road marching, especially when worried about air attack. A Motorized Rifle Regiment could easily take up 30km of road if on a single route.

Winston, you do have an excellent point. Which is why I prefer 6mm or 3mm for armor actions.

5 and 6 work best for me, though 4 helps as well.

7 – the GM announces that a FO has declared the unit a Priority Target, and a battalion of artillery will immediately respond to his call, for any units not maintaining at least a one vehicle width dispersion between each other.

Particularly evil GMs will declare that the unit is sitting on a Pre-registered firing point, so there is no need to roll for artillery round deviation. This is recommended for offenders who don't get the hint the first time around, when they've become a "Priority Target".

Said "Pre-registered" firing points may be fairly numerous, so players/commanders are warned to exercise good judgment when moving units, or arraying them in defensive cover.

For the Modern, Cold War games, they can also attract the attentions of attack helos and ground attack aircraft as well, outfitted with appropriate armor killing munitions.

Lots of explosion and oily smoke plumes are recommended for the tabletop, again to press home the point to those tempting fate.

It's not a problem for you Winston. The OP said only if you have a problem with it. Just squawking ident.

I like the template idea.

Alter the ground scale.

If there are concerns that there are too many tanks in a given area consider altering the ground scale to match the figure scale (i.e. at 15mm treat 100 cm as 1 kilometer, at 6mm treat 33.34 cm as .1 kilomter, &tc.). Now players can (literally) only put as many tanks on the field as there is space.

Granted this can make problems in some situations (an 88 can reach and hit targets quite easily in most gaming spaces), but it does solve the OP issue.

And the easiest and absolute BEST solution to this non-problem-- TAKE LESS TANKS!! 8)=

5 & 6 sound the best. I already do 5, and adding in 6 sounds quite sensible!

Fewer, surely?

Nazrat, stop making sense!

+1 Winston Smith

Mr. Smith is correct. Altering the ground scale to closer to 1-1 or using small tanks only makes crowding worse. A 20mm tank using a normal ground scale takes up enough space to represent the tank and surronding dead space so there is no crowding. If the ground scale is 1-1 then tanks can crowd together and you need more rules to resolve the problem. Same for small tanks as too many can fit into to small a space.

TomT

Put the tanks on bases.

Basing them makes their "footprint" even larger.

Plus, I hate the look of vehicles on bases, excepting perhaps at auto shows, where female models are around to distract from the silliness of them being placed on a pedestal.

Bigger tables with the same number of tanks will help too. I think that when the first shot hits over a certain number and then the firing player gets another shot immediately is a fine rule. Spillover fire is good too. Modelling tanks brewing up that force the nearby tanks to roll if they are "blank" inches from the tank blowing up is an excellent way to penalize the player doing tank parking lot thing.

We'll define it here as a game where it is advantageous to put tanks base-to-base

I think you should define it as "a game where it is advantageous to put tanks hub-to-hub". As others have pointed out, this problem is largely aesthetic, and tanks based with some extra space around the model look fine if the bases are in contact.

I'm one of those people who hates tank parking lots on battlefields (unless it's a strafing mission on a tank repair depot…). OTOH, I empathize with people who prefer the skirmishy look or style of gaming without bases – I feel the same way about naval miniatures. Cognitive dissonance is a natural consequence of being human… :-)

I prefer grand tactical levels of play (where a single base of miniatures is a platoon or larger), and at that scale, the base footprint can be a critically important way of representing unit operational area, and base-to-base contact can be a critically important way to represent various kinds of unit coordination.

- Ix

"Mike target, Mike Target, Mike target!" ;)

Solution 5:
Big, sexy barrage templates.

I love placing a big template over a bunch of bad guys.

probably the most "realistic". Why you don't do it in real life

Yeah, my solution to people bunching up, whether infantry or vehicles, has always been the handy artillery template. Particularly in Vietnam games, where I can deploy a 12x12" "LP of Doom!" from a helo and remove most of a battalion of infantry.

Dropping a battery of 105mm guns on a bunch of Panthers tends to convince the big cats to spread out.

I'd really like to add rules for higher-priority targets and pre-registered target points to Flames, since my local gaming group doesn't seem impressed by the Battlegroup rules (which do include them).

You forgot to include Jabos!! Yep, hub to hub tanks make a great target for fighters making ground attack runs.

1. Warn off the hub to hub formation before the game.
2. Then make it hurt when they violate the warning.
SBminis guy has the answer to the problem.
One to three Flights of Fighter-Bombers thank those guys for the gift. Done. If the same crew is playing, you will never see the problem again.

I like mixing in all of 1,4,5,6 and add in they block each others LoS/LoF and turning.

George Blackburn describes in his book Guns of Normandy a lowly OP subaltern could call in an SOS. An entire AGRA could drop tons of shells on a space the size of a football field. 25 pdrs, 5.5 and 8 inch guns, any within range. That would create quite the artillery response. He did this once. The German attack was destroyed.

B-b-but…everybody knows HE fire can't hurt German tanks…….. :)

number4, yeah, right

Wrgmar, had an uncle that called a ToT of 21 battalions of US Artillery. Let that sink in

Number 1. Simple, works for bunched up infantry too.

And this:

Once again, the parking lot is not a problem if you don't think it's a problem in your games.

Large quantities of off-table artillery are sometimes considered "unglamorous" in certain wargaming circles, often by owners of painstakingly painted King Tiger battalions or T34 brigades, but that artillery does a wonderful job in encouraging prudent dispersal of pretty much any elements on the tabletop.

Also … +1 to Queen Catherine for pointing out the apparent general lack of respect for terrain. In order to have a defense, you first need some defensive terrain. I have seen more than my healthy share of games played on the equivalent of Walmart parking lots.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

Sabre6, no offense intended. Both the U.S. and British/Commonwealth artillery had perfected their craft. The Americans could rain a multitude of shells feared by the Germans.
One particular German Normandy veteran I talked to reflected that the German artillery had 5 to 15 shells per gun, per day, whereas the Americans would rain shells without reservation on any target their spotter planes could see. Shooting down a spotter plane was useless as within a short period of time another would appear.
I just remembered what George Blackburn wrote in that the entire 2nd division 6 battalions of 25pdrs, and the entire AGRA, 2 – 25 pdr, 4 battalions – 5.5 and 2 – 8" battalions responded to his call.

What you need to do is define your ground scale. The recommended minimum distance for tank spacing is 40 yds. So at even typical 6 mm ground scale of 1 mm represents 1 m tanks should be at 40 mm spacing. Now What you do if one tank equals say a platoon is more difficult. However even then your "tank" should not take up less frontage than that plus a bit for other reasons like presumably at such large scales you have certainly in parts of Normandy have hedges that are too far apart. On many cases this would cause tanks to space out further. This spaceing is because the hit probability for a target already hit 40 yds or less away is in effect 100%. This would be the same as a platoon of guns shooting at a two platoons in that spacing. This remains a truism even now.

The ground scale has to be fairly close to reality – 1:1000 for 1:300 scale is good. Then have an arbitrary rule to enforce realistic spacing. Unless on a road/track in column AFVs need about 50-100m to operate freely. I would only allow one of the AFVs within 40m of another to move/fire.

So if you hub-to-hub your tanks only about 1/2 or even 1/3 can shoot.

Having some artillery support is also a given. There should always be the risk of it and a clumped target should increase that chance.

It can be a turn off when watching FOW games. Why use models at all if the final result is going to look rubbish?

One solution in games where AFVs work as a clump rather than practicing fire and manouvre as individual vehicles would be to use a ratio of 1:3!

Tally Ho!

Surely…

If you bunch tanks up and you're ok with it then you don't need rules to stop it, and if you don't do it, you also don't need rules for it.

So… Wouldn't the ones applying the rules to stop it be the ones who don't do it anyway? ;)

Seems to me to generally be players that bunch stuff up, don't know any games that offer a specific bonus for close up units. Too much stuff on too smaller a table seems an issue.

Thing is, if you are having fun, does it really matter…?

This is only a "problem" where the size of vehicle models relative to ground scale allows them to bunch in a manner their contemporaries would regard as suicidal.

The reason it is suicidal is it presents a target rich environment which allows direct fire weapons to engage them rather closer to their theoretical performance maximum than typically seen on the battlefield (generally performance is degraded at least 90%).

So give direct fire weapons extra shots at bunched up targets, lots and lots of extra shots.

I remain unconvinced by the use of artillery, as WW2 era tanks were virtually immune to artillery fire, even direct hits, unless it was 6" calibre or larger.

You could leverage spotting and introduce an acquisition phase.
Pretty much the same as free shots, but…
Make it take time to acquire each new target unless they're within x of each other.

You could also give second shot bonus over x metres / medium range + and apply that to targets within x of previous targets.

1 if overspill is in the rules, otherwise 4. I use 4 in my own rules, and in other rules that don't have it!

Drop the figure scale, i play 10mm and used a 12' board for a demo game at reading.

Then again the German player did seem to bunch up during attacks..

PDF link

As mentioned several times above, its all about ground scale and figure scale.

Miniatures are inherently inaccurate and the larger the size of miniature or the more things each miniature represents the greater the inaccuracy. It can only be corrected, if indeed it needs correction, by making the figures inordinately small or the playing space inordinately large. Boardgames mitigate this "problem" by allowing stacking of counters. Thus having unit concentration more accurately reflect appropriate ground scale.

I like miniatures. I'm not "stacking" them, playing on a tennis court or using cake sprinkles to represent armored formations. I guess I will have to live with some bunching.

Oh, nice AAR Andy P!

Well done, Andy P. Hats off to you.

B

One thing that could be consider in addition to penalties for clumping is to also increase the range of weapons. That'll remove one of the reasons for a player to clump, getting everyone in the squad into range.

George Blackburn describes in his book Guns of Normandy a lowly OP subaltern could call in an SOS. An entire AGRA could drop tons of shells on a space the size of a football field. 25 pdrs, 5.5 and 8 inch guns, any within range. That would create quite the artillery response. He did this once. The German attack was destroyed.

Along with the hill it was cresting?

Wrgmar, had an uncle that called a ToT of 21 battalions of US Artillery. Let that sink in

Ouch. 21x12=252 guns… Sounds almost like the Battle of Thala Pass, but that was arty in direct fire killing tanks. 12x155, 24x105, 12x75mm on halftracks, ~8x 37mm AT guns, and another 36 various British weapons. Not like the other approach option the Germans had was any better, as that approach was guarded by a battalion of 90mm AA guns.

Lion of the Stars – it was actually a wood. George Blackburn saw masses of infantry and tanks forming up for an attack on the 2nd Canadian ID lines. He called an SOS. All the 2nd Div guns and AGRA fired on this target. He could not believe the destruction.

21x12+252 guns. I calculated that myself, WOW!

Whether an SOS or a TOT, it sounds like a short game indeed.

;-]

B

If they really don't get the hint, these get deployed:

AND, for Weasel, since he knows I'll use them:

One other problem. Tanks close together = good chance for tanks to crash into each other.