"Tank Decision Tree " Topic

Fred you miss the point. If you were expecting fire from the flank you would not take that disadvantage. As a commander you would have improved the survival rate of your forces, you would be the better commander.

That is not the situation you set up in your example. Your example was explicit in stating that the commander was expecting fire from one flank and set up accordingly only for it come from another flank. Hence disadvantaged.

If you want to get a real flavour of what it would really be like to fight this type of action, limit the thinking time between activations to 30 seconds; a tank could go a hundred yards or more in that time, so even that is getting it easy.

Rules like Command Desicion played at one stand is a platoon have turns of 30 minutes. You could change formation several times in that timespan.

If you're playing a game with 1:1 vehicle models, why are you having to specify what formation your vehicles are in?

Are they not physically in that formation on the table? If not, why not?

Fred you miss the point. If you were expecting fire from the flank you would not take that disadvantage. As a commander you would have improved the survival rate of your forces, you would be the better commander.

Sounds like bad planning to me. If you're expecting contact from a flank, then why have you been ordered to drive forward exposing your flank? Why aren't you driving toward the threat and presenting your forward arc toward it?
What are the units supporting you to your flanks doing?

Gents,
I think this has been an interesting debate with clearly differences of opinion. Thats good not bad, if there were no differences of opinion there would only be one set of rules and we would be poorer for that. So at this point I will draw a veil over this thread. Thankyo for your time and effort.

Perhaps another time it would be interesting to look at scenarios threats and stactical solutions to meet that threat, but that will require time and eeffort I do not have just at the moment. Furthermore that will need to be very specific about the size of the forces involved for it to be useful.

There are several references in this thread to ‘your rules'. I may be missing it but I don't see anywhere what they are called and whether they are commercially available ir just something you use yourself. It might help the doubting Thomases amongst us if we knew where you were ‘coming from', because nothing I've seen you write on TMP sounds like fun to me. Maybe being able to see your rules might change my mind. Thanks.

Gents,
I think this has been an interesting debate with clearly differences of opinion. Thats good not bad, if there were no differences of opinion there would only be one set of rules and we would be poorer for that. So at this point I will draw a veil over this thread. Thankyo for your time and effort.

Agreed … we can all agree to disagree or even agree(!) and move on. As always, I believe in gaming [and in life generally] Do What Works For U … Not me …

UshCha,
In the past, you've posted many thought provoking ideas about war games and your rules. I'd suggest you post a short summary of the your rules you'll be discussing and how they handle that particular aspect of combat. That way there is less of chance for a "breakdown in communication".

Wolfhag

Yes it is probably helpful to speak in terms of actual game mechanics intended to produce an appropriate simulation effect.

So to kick off I'll cover how Combat Command covers these issues:

First we stick too our level of command: a platoon is the atomic unit and a player is a Battlegroup commander (roughly a battalion). As no Battalion commander should be or even could be responsible for the position "formation" of individual tanks this is left of our abstract platoon commanders who are assumed to at least attempt to use the best formation based on mission, terrain, enemy dispositions and their troops abilities. Battalions commanders generally have access to varied assets so the player is responsible for using the correct asset to overcome various tactical problems – the essence of combined arms and maneuver warfare which is our level of interest not sweat beads in the eye of a specific gunner.

Miniatures are left on the table as hidden deployment cause playability difficulties beyond its apparent useful ness. You cannot target an opponent though until you come within certain awareness ranges unless they move or fire (and if they can make a stealth rule they can sometimes remain hidden even if moving).

The sequence of play is integrated with sides alternating in both movement phase and stationary and moving fire phases with troop quality determining who goes first. Since the turns are 15 minutes units would exchange fire – the most important concept is who gets in the first effective shot and all things being equal that's the going to be the best quality troops (taking in to consideration their equipment limitations).

We just successfully ran the Battle of Hannult at NashCon (history's first big tank battle) which pitted nominally mechanically superior French tanks v. better organized German tanks. A tricky though vital concept to simulate. Since the game system covers the minutia, players can concentrate on applying general tactical principles so experienced with manipulating specific rules is not as important to outcome as in many games. Important for conventions games where not all players have prior experience.

Thomas J. Thomas
Fame & Glory Games

Thomas,

In DePuy's book "Attrition" he defines an "Action" as two forces neither larger than a battalion or smaller than a squad. He defines it as lasting a few minutes or a few hours but not more than a day. An Action is part of an Engagement lasting a few hours to a few days and a Battle that can be a few days to a week.

He defines a "Duel" as shooting between two machines/vehicles and lasts only a few minutes. It is frequently part of an action.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because UshCha's Maneouver Group uses 1:1 vehicles and defines a turns as:

A single bound represents about 1-2 minutes of movement plus 0-13 minutes of delay (the time taken to issue orders etc. For campaigns it is recommended that a bound is taken as 10 to 15 minutes.

I have a copy of the CC basic game v3.9 rules. It states a turn lasts 15-20 minutes. Combat Command has a stand representing 4-6 vehicles and 40-60 soldiers.

Disclaimer: I have the rules for both games but have never played them. I'm just stating the differences stated in the rules.

Personally, I don't think you can make a fair comparison between the two. From my reading the rules in both games pretty much meet the designers goals – which seem to be different based on the scales used. It appears to me simulating an "Action" is going to be different than simulating a "Duel" or series of duels but there can be some overlap too.

Wolfhag

Someone asked me how long a bound was in sg2ww2.
It depends.
In theory, all activations can be simultaneous.
So that would be the time it takes a unit to shoot and move.
How long's that?
Ummmmmmm.
Long enough to fit the interesting things AND the boring things.

I was tempted to make a number up. I guess this is how the turn durations are arrived at in some rules.

Wolfhag, interesting set of definitions and not one I was aware of. Certainly our rules would cover in a normal game about 10 to 150 minutes so just about an engagement. Interesting that in some ways I agree with Thomas Thomas that the who shhots first is a key driver. The way our system works tank exchanges are quick and bloody unless sensibly one side desides to pull back and re-position.

Infantry fight for longer taking a village can take a long time, as it did/does in the real world.

The Hidden troops thing may be a competence thing. We would never turn up to a convention with Maneouver Group as a game its not designed for that. Its whoely unsuitable for folk with no clue and no time to learn.

to us a game without actual hidden troops at all lacks credibility, However it takes time (several games at least) to learn to read terrain and work out where the enemy might be. Blinds is the next step but even that takes learning. Begginers become blind obsessed even if they are obviouly placed in a daft spot so are either a dummy or easily dispatched. Again diffrent games have differnt target audiences. A bit like the infamous "Tank Parks" some can take, it some detest them, each to their own.

Ushcha, from what I remember of Maneuver Group, it has fairly limited arcs of visibility, particularly for buttoned up vehicles. It also has varying armor arcs, and spotting rolls.

Given all that, why do you need to specify what formation your vehicles are in, when they should physically be in that formation on the tabletop?

Lion in the stars, we don't actually specify them you are correct they get there by default. But nonetheless they are critical to real tactics. You cant do without them even if you have to impose them on yourself. The communications system, though simple encourages players to have there own terrain imposed "command radius" as it would be in other games. At higher level games you need formations, as I don't see how you can get the "physics" of the drivers that generate the need for formations we use to apply at higher level games.

"Shoot, move & communicate" …