"How to handle combat in built up areas in 6 mm" Topic

Question for all you 6 mm gamers out there. How do you handle combat, especially infantry, in a built up area. I am primarily looking at areas like the center of cities, multi story apartments, offices, stores, etc.. Games like squad leader are easy as there are usually only one building per hex and units can have markers indicating which story they are on. In larger scales you can have buildings which come apart so each level can have the forces deployed placed on that level. Here is the best ideas I have seen or thought of myself.

Small scale buildings which come apart at each level. Impractical as by the time bases are included each story would run 10 mm in depth. Plus what material would you use to make them sturdy enough to hold based infantry? Maybe someone has made this work.

Ignore the building and assume infantry in the adjacent area is in the building. Treat the infantry as in SL and give them a marker to indicate in the building and further which story they occupy. Outside basing becomes difficult when exact position(s) become important, such as which side of a building they are on, what is their facing, etc..

A variation is an external "holder" for the miniatures which gives info such as level by how many "layers" up on the holder the mini is. I have seen pictures of SL where the forces in a building are on something akin to pizza box plastic holders. The ones put in the middle of the boxes to keep the lids from sitting on the pizza. Again unless they become quite unwieldy showing exact level and position is awkward.

One idea I have, but consider it a poor substitute is a separate map or chart where the forces in the building are placed off board and show their exact location. I do not like that as they are not on the game board and in the case of a game where most of the board is built up like a down town core, it would be as large or larger than the game board itself.

For now my last idea is never do combat at the miniature level in built up areas not able to be handled by your usual procedures. Not an idea solution but perhaps the most suitable. The troops enter the central city block, roll on this table, chart or have a dice duel for control and loses.

In the Conflict of Heroes game system they just consider the entire hex to have the terrain of the central image. So all figures in hex "X" are treated for all purposes as being in, say, brick buildings. Then if extrapolated to a game board and hexes where retained all forces in that hex are treated as having the same defensive or offensive limitations and benefits of that terrain type. Since I personally like hexes for a number of reasons, including this one, I lean this way but am interested in how others have solved, ignored or by passed this issue in their games. Thank you.

"….never do combat at the miniature level in built up areas not able to be handled by your usual procedures".

I think that is the ultimate moral to the story.

That said, plans/drawings of the buildings and floors seem like the 2nd best option to me.

3rd best is actually placing the minis on the maps/plans.

You might also consider the scale of ops you're going for. If company level+ in size, I'd argue that as the commander, you don't have finite control over the individual fire teams/squads, so perhaps just noting they are in contact in the building should be sufficient, and you come up with an abstract way to game the outcomes instead – like say the combat resolution for the boardgame, "Risk".

Of course, given you are using SL, my guess is that won't be an attractive option either.

Like "Thres" said depends on what scale game squads or platoons per stand? If your doing skirmish good luck. Smallest scale we ever tried was Squads. They were either in the building or not. tilting them on each side of a building for multiple squads. Too many inside one meant you were BIG target for lots of arty or air as the building might collapse on your head. Hope this helps.

I think it depends what a stand represents, and how granular you want to get. Personally, I don't think I'd worry about who is on what level. You are either on the defense, or on the attack.

Squads, weapons teams, teams or leaders per stand. I don't use SL but know its mechanics. I prefer a method with fewer tables and charts myself.

Just looking to see how YOU are handling it, if at all, at the present time for ideas on what ACTUALLY works.

I mostly do stand=platoon in 5/6mm, so BUAs hold a single stand, though they may be adjacent. At the end of a close-combat round, they've either been driven out or not. I think if my emphasis was fighting in urban areas, I'd break out the 1/72 individual mounts instead. I don't say it can't be done in 5/6mm, but the combination doesn't strike me as a good fit.

For 6mm I play 1 stand = 1 squad with a close to 1:1 figure scale : ground scale ratio.

Larger buildings I treat as area terrain that provides cover and elevation as appropriate and place my miniatures on top. Smaller buildings I will group into a piece of area terrain that I use the same way, intentionally choosing structures of a similar overall height to provide a stable platform for the miniatures.

This has served me well so far, as in 6mm I'm more interested in the company's frontage than what story any given fire team is on.

For 6mm WW2 we use BUA rectangles covered by loose houses which have thin walls and no floors. Simply place the building fully or partly over a stand of figures which is in the BUA. If it is a flat-roofed Middle East building one can also have a second stand on the roof.

In 6mm, infantry combat is resolved at the squad or section level, and infantry are simply considered to be the in a building, thus receiving cover from it. Doesn't matter how many stories, infantry are assumed to be where they need to be as long as there are windows / openings for them to fight from. The stand is simply placed on or adjacent to the buildings that are occupied.

If I want to handle infantry combat in more detail, I jump to 15mm with individual infantry and buildings with interior detail.

In the past, I did individual 6mm infantry and then stands in detailed buildings with removable floors and roofs, but it can be tedious to handle.

All we do is 6mm … with stands of 3-6 troops per base. You can get real involved with urban warfare rules. Basically we try to keep it simple.

How ever many Inf stands fit on the structure is how many are in the structure. We don't worry about floors that is much too "tedious" as noted.

I wouldn't overthink it. Troops in a building/ruins get a defensive bonus when fired on. Once an opposing unit gets within grenade range, say 25m or less, it should revert to whatever close assault or melee mechanism your rules incorporate applying an appropriate terrain modifier again.

Now if your rules don't have a close assault/melee mechanism…

I do like the process in Jagdpanzer's Second edition for example.

I played 1 stand = platoon. The size of the building determined how many stands could be in that built up area.

I used to trace my buildings outline on card board and cut them out. That way I could replace the building with it's card board outline, instead of putting several stands on the building itself, to show where each stand was in relation to the others.

I suppose I could do the same thing to show multiple floors. I'd place them next to the building off to the side and mark each floors level. My two cents worth.

With squad level games we use hollow paper buildings. Mostly single story houses. You place the small stands inside.

Long ago I had used cardboard town layout with house and buildings outlined with pen lines. But its a little hard to have hidden placement. This abstract was workable but didn't have the aesthetics of 3d houses.

Now some interesting issues. As all have said in most games the buildings represent several so some approximation is necessary.

We don't fight 1/300 but do fight 1/144 which is not that far out.

One of the issues and I was in the US in a Hotel 30 floors up, is that its hopeless for shooting unless its lots of streets away the angle you have to shoot down is so big you end up exposed to hit the guy below. So if you assume that limitation then you have already simplified it a bit. We assume that buildings with more than 3 floors is a bit pointless because of the above. As an example here is a 1/72 scale card building, we would consider tall enough.

link

link

I can't be accuse of advertising as they are WAY to big but show about the practical limit in floors terms and it was the quickest way to get a few pictures.. Although these a are card (300 gms) they will hold 1/72 metal figures so card buildings are perfectly possible.

Two ways to do this, the 1/72 standard have windows big enough to at least fit single figures in no problem. It might be possible to do this with 6mm bases with a bit of creativity. Multi level buildings probably only need the first few floors to be re-moveable as they are the only ones that can be fought from. Why would you sit in the 30th floor vulnerable and no real help to the guys lower down?

The other issue again assuming plausible rules is that main streets normally need to be modeled even if you have the rest defined as "just" built up areas. A machine gun or two can dominate a straight thoroughfare for 1000 to 1500m depending on the type. This isolates the sections, key in Urban combat. In the remaining narrow streets ranges may be down to 10's of yards so abstracti0n may be acceptable.

However whatever you do the combat in a BUA will be very slow. Tanks fighting each other Outside the BUA will finish long before you get far in a BUA. For that reason we tend to Never have more than about 10 to 15 buildings even at 1/144 or else it becomes a slow grind, as indeed it is in the real world.

I use a 1 base = 1 platoon in my games. I tend to use smaller scale buildings – 2mm scale. The inf bases stand on top of the buildings. It would also work at the squad level as well.
It may seem strange but the smaller buildings are closer to the ground scale and are detailed enough to look good.
I've posted some pics here

allhellletloose.co.uk

Stephen m, Has this thread clarified your thoughts on this issue?

I played in a 6mm Team Yankee tournament at CANCON this year. We placed bases angled up against the buildings they were in. I had individually based SMAW teams and I refused to put them into the buildings even though they would have been better protected. Try firing a SMAW inside a building. I insisted on placing them on the corners of the buildings instead, for realism.

Sorry. I have this going in 3 different places but life is interfering. I will review all and post a link to my conclusions, same as I did for my armoured trains thread. Thank you all for your input.

I could add. After extensive playing at 1/72 and 1/144 we limit vilages to 10 to 20 buildings without gardens. This may appal modllers buy we are players. At that we rarely space houses more than 2 vehicles appart at model scale. to keep the sight lines restricted as in the real world. Wider roads makes the modllers feel better as they need less houses to fill and area and you get to see the troops better. However this is a triumph of modlling over realistic gameing as the sight lines become genrally to long at grund scale, you pays your money and takes your choice. Our style allows a representation of a village that allows long sight lines along the road and short in other direections. It allows for such things as Uparmoured noted that look illogoical otherwise.

The houses are treated as having floors but we dont assume the door depicts a door as the houses are far too large for that.

We do limit the number of troops in a house that can fire out on each side using available cover. We use one figure/weapon system per window. So a base of say 3 rifles and 1 LMG team could fire out of a house with four windoes faceing in the desired direction. This is done as in the real world there would be lots more houses, but most not of tactical value and it looks better and playes very well and real world tactics are approximated.

The limit of 10 to 20 houses is simply a pratical limitation. With less than 10 houses spaced as stated, you get a "wargames" village where the sightlines are unrealistic and the tactical advantages of an uban area are negated as all houses can be targeted from outside the Urban area. This is the style beloved by moddlers as they use over detailed houses with gardens that look great but are hopeless tacticaly and almost always there are too few.

The upper limit is set by time. Urban warfare is slow and ponderous and even getting towards the 20 housae level it can become tedious if the focus is on an all arms combat of which the village is only part.

Please keep in mind the following is my interpretation of the responses from three different groups, The Miniatures Page, The Wargames Website and the 6 mm game group on Yahoo groups. I am also coming at this from an infantry centric point of view for gaming purposes but still trying to consider vehicles in built up areas.

So a few new ideas and lots of opinions. No one answer held sway but the least used was hollow buildings and put the minis where they would be. The closest split seemed to; be just consider the built up area as area terrain and give a general defense bonus to units there, and; bypass that concept, abstract it out of game play at the scale you are working. Converting it to a 2D or different scale for built up areas was somewhere in between, it was done but rarely. Putting miniatures against occupied buildings and coming up with some method of displaying their locations was also somewhere in the middle.

An interesting discussion came up on the 6 mm yahoo groups about having entire games in built up areas but no real approach of resolution was put forth. I like that idea but back to the drawing board with respect to method of making it work. The ideas put forth were variations of those already expressed.

So for limited terrain in an otherwise larger battle I guess I will go with built up areas being given a general terrain bonus, in my case given to both the attacker and defender if in the built up area. Since ranges between units BOTH engaged in the combat will be much reduced from combat in open terrain close in weapons such as grenades, shotguns and SMGs will up the effective fire power making attacks also more dangerous. Perhaps, in the real world, there would also be more combat occurring so that would also increase the leathality. As for vehicles I can see them getting a defensive bonus as well but no offensive bonus. My opinion is they can use better defensive positioning but their main weapons would not be any better closer to the action, commanders MAY be more likely to be buttoned up so reducing any sighting benefits and the sights of weapons such as bow mounted and coaxial MGs would be poorer in close combat. Yes the external weapons would be more effective but in my opinion that would be negated by a reluctance by crews to expose themselves.

I'm with Mobius (I use 1/285 scale paper buildings) and UshCha (level of abstraction) but a realistic portrayal of urban WWII or modern city warfare is pretty difficult unless you reduce it to a man-to-man level.

I ran a few games at team/section level at 28mm with the multi-level laser cut buildings, beautiful stuff. However, the players were wanted to break down their teams to perform different individual tasks in different directions. Tactically it would be ok but it made the game much more difficult to run.

Then you had opponents in adjacent rooms: Can I fire through the wall? Can I make a hole and drop a grenade? Can I break down the door? Can I reinforce the door? etc.

Then there is modern MOUT: PDF link

At Camp Lejeune we had a "combat town" we trained in complete with a fake water well that led to a tunnel. I'll tell you, when in a room your Situational Awareness is almost zero. To get a good field of view you need to be next to a window but then you are easily seen and silhouetted. If you sit 10-12 feet back from a window in a shadow someone can crawl right up to the window unseen. Ideally, you need two guys at the edge of each window observing diagonally out of direct LOS. I think you'd need almost an entire squad to cover a house in 360 degrees.

What's the ideal offensive frontage of a reinforced infantry company (two up and one back)?

There are specific tactics to use, are you able to simulate them at the scale you are gaming? What constrictions do the ROE's have on you? Can you throw a grenade into every room? If so, do you have enough? Do you need to worry about civilians?

My son was involved in a number of room clearing operations a few years ago and showed me the proper tactics for taking and clearing an avenue of approach, room or doorway, pie-slicing, etc. I'm not sure how you'd do low-level tactics like that unless it's man-to-man.

One time they tossed two frags into a room. He was the first man in the stick and two bad guys jumped up right after the frags went off and let loose with AK fire. One round ricocheted off his SAPI plate but they kept going. He said clearing rooms and alleyways was like playing "whack-a-mole" and the guy behind you is the one that will most likely see the bad guy first. It was his first combat and he vividly described tunnel vision and was glad some experienced guys had his back. I'm sure there are others reading this that had similar experiences.

The trick is going to to the right level of playability and realism to communicate the right feel to the players, it's hard to do that with just die roll modifiers. I don't have any solutions. Maybe there is something to borrow from "City Fight" link

Wolfhag

Wolfhag

Forget how to quote so my poor imitation.

quote(Wolfhag)

Then you had opponents in adjacent rooms: Can I fire through the wall? Can I make a hole and drop a grenade? Can I break down the door? Can I reinforce the door? etc.

endquote

This is well past the level I want to play in 6mm at. I will not buy into more scales so this level of detail will either be ignored (most likely) of if done then with something else like snapshot.

I like all the ideas but they have to work in 6mm and not as the primary part of a battle. Hence my sum up reply. Thank you for the input and maybe, if I can find a suitable opponent, I will try some games at that level.

Infantry in a firefight involving enemy in a structure in the 6mm rules we use. Those in the building get a "hard" cover modifier for incoming fires. E.g. -2 to hit

Infantry close assaulting a structure, i.e. bases touching the building. E.g. -2 Close Combat Assault roll(s) …

K.I.S.S …

I've been thru MOUT/Urban Combat Training a number of times while on Active Duty as a US ARMY Inf Officer, '79-'90. At both Platoon and Company Levels. As well as part of Bn Ops. This system I mentioned is basically close enough to "reality" and workable at the same time.

Typically in 6mm you are playing a one-to-several unit scale.

Even if it is an infantry-centric game, one stand = several soldiers. Might be stand = fire team, or stand = squad, or even stand = platoon. But normally at 6mm you are not playing skirmish level, with 1-to-1 unit scale (stand = soldier). 6mm is just too fiddly for most folks to play that way.

The core issue I see is that any time you move up from 1-to-1 towards 1-to-several, you are abstracting away some of the detail.

Almost all rulesets commonly used for 6mm gaming do this. The challenge is to apply consistent levels of abstraction.

I prefer to play at the stand = squad level. Others have different preferences. I suggest that seeking a solution for 6mm might not be the right approach. Better to look for a solution for stand = squad, or stand = platoon, etc. Hardly matters what the measured scale is, at least in terms of game play. 6mm or 15mm matters little, if the game unit scale is stand = squad you probably want to use the same approach.

When I play stand=squad I don't want to know which soldier tossed a molotov at the tank, or which soldier is firing from (or into) which window of a structure. All of that detail should be abstracted away. I also don't want to know who has a gun that can take a bayonet and whether that bayonet is fixed or not.

What I want to know is that a squad composed of riflemen and an LMG team is in the building. They get cover modifiers when they fight. If enemies enter the same building, it is, for level of abstraction, no different then when they come into close contact in a trench, in the woods, or in a field. They are now in close combat. Call it melee, or HtH, or whatever you prefer. If you want to give a modifier for being in the building, give it to BOTH once the opponent is inside the building (but not until they get inside). If you want to give a modifier to the troops that were in the building BEFORE (because they are behind the furniture, or in the upper floors, or whatever) I'm OK with that.

All it is, for me, is close combat. Bring firepower onto the building to suppress the defenders. Once you have suppressed them, get into the building and engage them in close combat. That's the level of abstraction I want for urban infantry combat. Doesn't matter to me if Sgt Rock threw a grenade down the stairs. Don't need that in the rules, don't want that in the rules. If I crave that narrative, I'll write it into the AAR before I post it in the Battle Reports thread.

Infantry combat within the building, with who is in which room behind what wall with how many doors or up the stairs … abstract it all away for me please. No different than whether it was Sargent Rock or Private Pebble who tossed the satchel charge onto the tank's rear deck (and whether he forgot to pull the fuze, or threw it so hard it slid off the other side and blew up harmlessly on the ground). All I need to know is that my squad close assaulting with an adder (for having engineering stores), but failed to make their roll.

If I was at stand = platoon I would probably also abstract away the individual buildings, and go for the gray square = built-up area with a couple structures scattered about just for visual appeal. At a stand = squad I still want to see the individual buildings, just as I want to see the individual tanks or trucks. But detail beyond that is abstracted. Which crewmen are in the turret, or which squaddies are upstairs in the building … I just don't need it in the rules.

At least that's my take.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I don't really love Team Yankee but I like the level of abstraction for 6mm. 1 stand is one fireteam or 1 support weapon. That's probably as small as you can practically go at 6mm?

Anyone using individually based 6mm guys? I thought about it but I'd like to see it first.

Yes, for 6mm we play one stand = Fire Tm of [3-6] Infantry men and vehicles = one vehicle.

Now if you wanted to do clear out the enemy by floors, you could do it in the same way as I described. But it makes more "sense" to just go with the "abstraction" as I explained.

Yeah thought so, thanks Legion

Well you COULD do individuals in 6mm. Based at 1/4" square or round. Game area limited to maybe a couple feet square and a squad or two per side.I am being forced to look at this as many of the current rules are based around single figures.

Personally I like squads down to fire teams or weapons teams per base. I could see a leader as a single, or preferably a two man command stand. I have been experimenting with metal stands (cut tin and now coins) with the thought that "leaders" could have a very small magnet and be physically "attached" to the unit they are in command of.

Another thought (something I have seen somewhere not my idea) is a thin piece of wire sticking up from the base to provide a means of picking it up without damage. Of course this adds work and other issues come along with respect to clearance under terrain, harder to hide, etc.. I have tried a 3/4" long common nail and am looking at fire teams to squads based on nickles. In Canada about 3/4 I have gotten are magnetic. For smaller teams or leaders dimes are all magnetic. I haven't tried this yet myself but full squads or large weapons teams could be based on quarters.

I started down this route for moving minis on game day, or to cons I was going to use sheet magnetic material lining the bottoms of my transport containers. I have a package of magnetic material in the size and shape of business cards. One side has glue on it. You were to adhere your card to them, give them to your clients and they would put them on a fridge, locker etc..

templates are your friend

Anyone using individually based 6mm guys? I thought about it but I'd like to see it first.

I've seen it a couple times, I think it was Precinct Omega, basing individual troops on tiddlywinks.

I like the way FFOT handles it – good balance of abstraction. TBH (IMO) if it's anything but fairly abstracted at 6mm scale then the scale isn't being used to its best advantage (ie big scale games), 15mm+ is for squad level detail.