"Rule sets with the most modern equipment" Topic

I am in the process of trying to set up a game that covers hypothetical battles that could occur from today to the next couple of years. I am currently trying to learn or relearn several different sets of rules to determine which would suit what I am trying to achieve. The one failing common to all is that their equipment lists are fairly outdated and by that over 5+ years old. I can make adjustments for outdated BMS technology, etc. but I am having trouble recreating equipment updates. I'd like to know which rule sets have the most up-to-date equipment lists even with the understanding that some of it will be "guesstimates" of capabilities/armor/etc. I want to then convert this to whatever rules I select to use for the games.

For some of the equipment that very little is know at present (the Russian T-14 Armata is a good example), I will create three categories of stats: claimed capabilities, detractors estimates of capabilities, and something in the middle. There is a method to my madness as well as a reason.

Fistful of TOWs 3

Yup, nothing beats Fistful of Tows 3 for everything under the sun. Extra Crispy is correct.

What size battles?

I'd suggest Tomorrow's War for platoon-to-company engagements.

I've got a copy of Fist Full of Tows 3 on order so I'll see how that stacks up. Thanks for advice Lion in the Stars but the scale shouldn't matter for what I am looking for. My breaking down the mathematical pattern of equipment statistics, I should be able to replicate the pattern to correspond to any rule set provided of course the rules designer used a logical pattern to create the stats initially.

Realy you are asking for estimates of capabilities, not really rules. I would try tank net, those guys can give you a good g estimate of what they can do. It's then an easy job to write the mods for any changes. Like Arena easy to write rules if you understand it's actual limitations like how many targets at once.

Maneouver Group has not covered it for this reason, easy to fix IF you n understand it's effect. Even Bar armour is difficult. Certainly it's effective vs RPG 7 and near clones. It could be useless against say a Carl Gustaf with a stand off fuse. No clear statements from authorative sources about its effects on ATGW's and it's not any good vs self forgeing rounds that initiate further out than the bars.

UshCha – I have access to real world data and real world estimates. (e.g., percentage success rate of active vehicle d dense systems versus fire & forget ATGM, and so forth). However, When rules writers such as yourself model armor strength, weapons penetration, and other items you generally have a pattern to build up a piece of equipments stats. I like to take those stats from various rule sets and "reverse engineer" those patterns and then fill in the missing equipment gaps. I also compare the patterns to known real world information and real world assessments. This helps me to determine the suitability of the rules to the games I am putting on for others to play.

testofbattle.com/upload/bob for equipment and rules for modern addition to command decision:test of battle

Privatematters, this may help (or may not). A typical modern tank will have a manufactures hit rate of 95% on moving targets. Our hit rate is 30%. Now this is based on the fact that even an IGOUGO system like our is not perfect in phasing. WOLFHAGS gunnery system may be closer but too complex for us. To compensate we dropped the accuracy. Again not ideal as its anecdotal evidence, a TV documentary on the Challenger covered it's performance on the range. It scored 11 hits out of 20 but they admitted to some issues with the system. So in a less than perfect world for various reasons we feel our accuracy is not unreasonable. This may help in assessments of new weapon systems and how to model them.

With respect to armour as you are aware this is based on equivalent thickness of RHA. The increment is again a guesstimate based on 2 issues.
1) angle of armour although not as critical for some rounds is not negligible. However we did not want undue complexity in angular assessment as this soon gets into 3D geometry not we thought usefull. Therfore it is always an approximation.
2) If I recall, it's a while ago, the standard deviation of a good modern gun penetration is about 4% of the nominal armour thickness. So an all told but excessive assessment at 12% either side of mean. This implys that a linear function of armour level is not usefull. 4 mm on 8mm armour is a lot more powerful than 4mm on 400mm of armour.
3) lighter vehicle came in similar ranges of armour thickness so also helped to define the definition.

Now chemical energy weapons are much more complex in the way they behave and we did approximate this even more based on the limited data we have. It seemed logical to use the same system if only to reduce complexity. However some judgement is required. How do you cover a weapon with duel charges that actually penetrates less RHA but defeats active armour.
We were not prepared to accept a massive complex matrix in possibly 6 or more dimensions referencing weapon type, number of chargers, penetration of RHA, standoff distance, target armour thickness (RHA) and active armour type. If this was necessary in a serious simulation it may be one case where a smat phone and a bar code reader or equivalent would be an advantage as it would easily read the matrix based on the target and weapon systems so identified.

All the best Brian