"1/285 to 1/300 - widest used ruleset(s)?" Topic

OK, probably nobody really knows this, but do we have a general feeling for what rules are most popular for this scale?

Are there any distinctions by theatre, eg a favoured western desert set, eastern front set, etc?

Based on a limited subject sample, I would say Spearhead or Command decision.

I would say that Blitzkrieg Commander is popular in my area. Also, Fist Full of TOWs (yes, FFoTs does handle WW2).

Mark

I would say no clear favorite. It will be very, very localized. Round here all of thos mentioned are played, as is Flames of War.

BKC IV seems to work well and our group gets a lot of inquiries whenever we post something about our games with it.

Testing Rommel. It's quite promising

Before we designed Fire Ogon and Freire. We used Tank Charts. Some other rules used were the format from Panzer/Armor/88 game which worked well but was slow.

Spearhead for us

Command Decision and Spearhead.

Mostly Command Decision and Fistful of TOWs for us, but we have played I Ain't Been Shot Mum! in 1/300th too.

Cheers
David

Spearhead.

Spearhead. Lots of write-ups and photos on Keith's web site:

ww2spearhead.wordpress.com

Robert

I only see IABSM in 6mm around here. Nice rules for 1 to 1 company level games. Ground scale is close to 1/300 too.

Well, when I started out oh so many years ago in that scale no question it was Angriff. Based on what I have seen at conventions over the years am guessing Command Decision.

I would say no clear favorite. It will be very, very localized.

I will +1 to that other Mark's statement. Even as we see here in the thread, and what I see in other fora, and in my own gaming in years gone by … there is no clear favorite across the board, only on a localized basis.

Years ago there were fewer choices, so each major ruleset might have captured a larger portion of the (smaller) 6mm gaming market. But now, I would guess that no one ruleset is used for more than perhaps 15% share of the games that are going on.

When I started there were probably two major rulesets. I played WRG, which was one of the two. By the mid-1980s there were perhaps 10 or 15 sets, and WRG's New and Improved rules were but one of many choices. My copies of Command Decision, Tank Charts, Challenger (in multiple revs), GI Commander, Firefly, Jagdpanzer (v1) and several other rulesets date from that time. I was not satisfied with any of them.

Since the early 2000's I have played three rulesets that have not yet appeared on others' lists: Panzer War, Jagdpanzer v2, and Mein Panzer v2. I recommend any of these three. My preference is Mein Panzer, which is better suited to what I want to see in my games. I loved Panzer War, but it is best used for relatively small numbers of stands per player (perhaps 10-15), and I prefer games that are somewhat larger (perhaps 25 stands per player, and multiple players per side).

Micro Armor the Game (MATG) also gets pretty good marks from the folks who play it, although I never have.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

To what extent are you committed to a given 1/300 ruleset by its basing requirements?

To what extent are you committed to a given 1/300 ruleset by its basing requirements?

It will vary by rule set, but in general I would say: a little bit, but not much.

I would divide rules into two broad categories:
A) 1-to-1 unit scales
B) 1-to-several unit scales

Some rules will specify 1 inch squares, and measure from the stand edges, or some such. In that bringing figures mounted on pennies (19mm rounds) can lead to complications.

But more often, it's just a matter of 1) Did you put the right number (and variety) of infantry on a stand, and 2) Did the rules require you to label the stand in a particular way.

I feel I can address 1, for both A and B rule types, with a minimum of attention / care.

I personally game at one-to-one unit scales (A type). But even here there are some rules that define an infantry stand as a squad, and others that define it as a fire-team (or half-squad or section or whatever you want to call it). While I was in the transition zone years ago, when I hadn't settled on one or two or three sets of rules, I started basing my infantry 4 figures to a stand. I can say that stand represents a full squad, or a fire team. Makes no diff to me. Of course I need to think about LMG figures to go with my riflemen -- do I base separate 2 man LMG teams, or put an LMG on the stand with 3 riflemen, or put the 2 man LMG team on the stand with 2 riflemen? OK, that's just not too hard to figure out -- I put standing / advancing LMG men with 3 riflemen, or prone LMG 2 man teams with 2 riflemen. In either case it represents a full squad with LMG in a squad-based ruleset, and a half-squad with LMG in a fire team based ruleset.

My WW2 Red Army infantry was based using this approach. I have a bunch of prone LMG teams if I need, but most of the infantry is advancing LMG men on stands with standing / advancing riflemen. Then I have a whole bunch of stands of 4 riflemen with no LMG on the stand. If the rules are squad-per-stand I have a full battalion. If the rules are fire-team-per-stand I have about 2 companies. And if the rules are 1-to-many (type B), where a single stand represents a platoon, who the F--- cares? Take a squad stand and say it's a platoon. It's abstracted enough that it hardly matters what's on the stand.

But in more recent years I am so firmly resolved on the squad-based 1-to-1 unit scale that I don't bother with the extra rifles-only stands. 4 men = a standard squad. 3 men = a special purpose full sized squad (10 man HQ, or engineers, or big gun crew, whatever). If I ever wind up in a fire-team based game, I'll just have to borrow someone else's infantry, or have only half of the force I want to have (with twice as many LMGs as they should have).

And vehicles? Eh -- a single model can represent a platoon as well as a single base. I don't base, and if the rules say I must have some written info I'll make a paper chit for the unit to sit on.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Thanks Mark.

I am not keen on basing except where necessary. Infantry usually need to be based either because there are so many or because they'd fall over if you didn't. Basing things where that doesn't apply – items you use in smallish numbers and that don't fall over, such as tanks and ships -- thus strikes me as gratuitous.

Then again I got into gaming chiefly because I wanted to put to use the existing toys I had. Buying toys I didn't have or making them look less like the original toys is thus a bit of a no-no..:-)

Fist Full Tows 3 & Micro Armor the Game

The issue with this question is rules designed for 15mm can also be used with 1/285, but if we focus on the types of rules which were really only designed for 1/285 scale I would suggest spearhead, followed by BGMR. I base this on subscribers to the old Spearhead Yahoo group, which has moved to IO:Group and a BGMR competition which occurred in the UK last year. I suspect after this we move into FFT3 territory. Al these rules are in IO:group.
A lot also depends on what scale you want to play as there are a lot of players who game in the privacy of their own homes with friends. In this category a lot of different rules are used using a wide range of scales. I created a set of videos covering every set of rules I could find, if you search for "Micro Armour Game System" on utube you will find them, make sure you start with Part 1.
I have also noticed a lot of rules rise and then fall, Flames of war, which is for 15mm, is currently in the falling stage after being king of the hill for a long time. In the 1/285 scale zone LWRS, or its reformatted bewegungskrieg, use to be very popular ten years ago, but have really dropped today. I personally like LWRS and this set of rules hits a lot of sweet spots, both are on IO:group. Panzer Korps has been slowly and steady rising in popularity, but I can't say they are really that popular and are really focus on 15mm so may not count. This is also on IO:group.

Basing: After avoiding basing as much as possible for years I have decided to base everything these days. The most common base size is 3cm (or 1 inch) wide and 3 cm (or inch) or more depending on the figure depth. This seems to work with every set of rules I have tried and even in rules which group "bases" into a single Big-Base, such as BBBW2B by Bob Mackenzie, my bases fit into a base-tray very well.
Several Spearhead players base on 3mm MDF bases, which are thick enough to allow you to place a label on the edge, which makes them look like professionally based diorama. As a result I am rebasing by figures using this idea. I did a number of videos on basing and in one I show examples of this. If you search on "Making MDF bases for Micro-Armour" you will find one of the videos. These days I buy professional manufactures MDF bases and I think they look great, as well as making game play a lot easier in terms of picking up bases.

In the 1/285 scale zone LWRS … use to be very popular

Light Water Reactor Sustainability? link

Lincolnshire Worlds Railway Society? lwrs.uk

Inquiring minds want to understand your postings, but TMMLAs make it difficult.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Here you go Mark
link

Thanks Marc. Now at least I have some ability to understand the post.

And … that's an interesting link. A survey of "Operational Level" rules, coming to 22 different sets just for that level. Well actually 22 sets that purport to be, or might be considered to be, at the operational level. Clearly the site author feels some are more tactical than operational.

On the linked site it is suggested that Manny Granilo's Panzer Korps is actually tactical, being based on one = company unit scale with 2 hour turns. I was gaming with Manny in the days when he was putting his rules together. We were beta-testing the Jagdpanzer V2 rules, using microarmor models. Those were tactical rules. I remember Manny suggesting that with the emergence of 3mm pico-armor models, it just made so much sense to put 4 or 5 models on a stand, and have an actual operational-level multi-battalion or even division-level game.

I mean, yikes, if Panzer Korps is tactical, how does one classify Mobius' rules?

I find it interesting to see how many gamers associate microarmor scales (1/285, 1/300, 6mm, however you want to measure it) as being geared to 1-to-many unit scales.

Until the last few years I had always seen it as quite the opposite. If I want one tank to represent 5, or 15, or 50 tanks, why would I choose a little-bitty tank model? (Unless of course it was small enough that I could put many on one stand.)

I remember buying Chadwick's Command Decision (back when v2 was kind of new). There was specific reference given to how a one-to-many unit scale for your miniatures allowed you to field all those lovely 1/72 scale models, and how you didn't need to use those tiny micro-scale thingies to fight a tank battle of realistic scope.

Conversely, for me, as I wanted to have games of realistic scope with 1-to-1 unit scales, I needed to use micro scale vehicles so I could get a few companies on the table and not have them sitting wheel-to-hub shooting it out at 50m ranges.

Yet I see so many gamers these days who assume one-to-many unit scales are microarmor's normal domain. Even GHQ went that way with their Microarmor, the Game (MATG) rules.

I don't really get it.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

LWRS is lightning war Red Storm, the link is groups.io/g/LWRS

The rules scale is 1 element = 1 company, similar to Panzer Korps. There is additional supporting material on groups.io/g/Bewegungskrieg

I think is was original designed in NZ and was popular in the UK.

Light water reactions, i never saw that link?

You will have to directly speak to Steven Balagan to confirm, but I think when he speaks of tactical or operational, he is talking from a grand perspective. Thus Panzer Korps may be tactical because it still only dealing with a single tactical operation, which is part of an operational whole. Thus Operation Citadel was operational and Battle of Prokhorovka was tactical.
A better way to look at scale is to look at the scale of an element, or Base, and the scale of the whole force you would be expected to command. As in most case the number of elements you will command is about 50, you can work this out very quickly. Flames of War are squad element and battalion level conflicts. Thus Panzer Korps is company scale element and allows you to command a division, in most cases. But it probably remains tactical as Steven implies. I cover this in more detail in youtu.be/UyRkf8JSwVU.

Scale comment concerning what scale an element, or model, should represent. This is an interesting point, what is the best "figure" scale, is it 1 to 1, or is it 1 to many. It really depends on what you want to achieve and what type of game you want.
If you want two lines forming up and sniping at each other, then scale is not very important. You can achieve this with any scale. But if you want a game when most of the playing area is used then you run into a few problems.
The British estimated it took about 4 hours to fight your way over 500 metres with a 3-1 advantage. This was based on fighting in Italy, so if we look at German Panzer advances we get greater distances, but it still takes several hours to get through the enemy. If you play a set of rules where each game-Turn represents 90 seconds you have a real problem. Its difficult to play more than 12 game-turns in a reasonably time frame, so not much can occur within that 18-20 minute time frame. Some rules may cover this by claiming each game-turn telescopes out to 5 minutes, which still gives you only 1 hours of real time.
Skirmish rules do not have this problem and can span the entire playing area, but these types of conflicts have a very unique flavour. If you want a front line and a scale of 1 element to 1 vehicle, then you need to make sure each game-turn represents at least 15 minutes, which will allow you to launch an attack and advance across most of the playing area.
Flames of war understood this, so while they do not provide scales, the best estimate is one game-turn is from 15-30 minutes, which allows you to play a game along the long axis and advance from one player edge to the other. It gave you a lot of movement and that was fun. But it achieves this with playing around with reality a lot and many players do not like this very much. I still think 3rd edition give you a good game, but I am not much of a FoW fan so my opinion may be worthless.
Blitzkrieg Commander may be suitable from a scale point of view, but I really find the rules structure unpleasant. BGMR, or battlegroup, seem to be the most popular, but they are focused on modern conflicts and my brain hurts each time I look at the rules.
This is rather strange, but I am going back to the original WRG Armour & Infantry 1925-1950, using Ian Shaw's army lists. I have reformatted the rules and am reworking them so they becomes more useable, but I will be honest I have no idea if this will work. My last project failed miserably, so its always possible this will as well. But apart from these experiments I mainly use LWRS and Panzer Korps, using scenarios, and I get a good game. A lot depends what other players using in your area. Here its mainly FoW, Panzer Korps and LWRS. It may be different in your part of the world.

Mark;

While there were other references I picked this one because I thought you might get a kick out of the link.

And seems we share an admiration for Manny. We have corresponded forever and he has come out a number of times to RECON or HURRICON where I had the pleasure of running a number of Panzer Korps scenarios with him. We do have a running battle on his valuation of American equipment, like the Sherman, but we came to a gentleman's agreement. When he comes to Florida we use slightly upgraded numbers if the US is in the mix and when I finally get back to California will use his numbers. I did make a few contributions to 2.0 and did do some proofing and typical Manny he gives me credit as one of the play testers for 2.0

I consider the link from balagan, Steven Thomas' website, a very good review of available rules and how they fail to be operational :) Of course that is Steven's definition of what "operational" means, which people may disagree with, but he provides pretty good reasons of why almost no ruleset can be considered Operational, and why most are what he considers "grand tactical" (e.g. Rommel), "operational-map-and-tactical", etc.

I encourage anyone interested to look for his definitions (and also look for his Crossfire scenarios and articles if you like that game). If I remember correctly, a game must have supply lines and logistics as a core element for him to consider it operational, which makes sense to me.

The good news: he is working on his own ruleset (likely free, if his other rules are any indication), to be called "Deep Battle".

I know I sound like a shill, but believe me -- I'm just a huge fan (of both Crossfire and balagan).

To what extent are you committed to a given 1/300 ruleset by its basing requirements?

Returning now to the question of basing, with some further info on my approach…

I am not keen on basing except where necessary. Infantry usually need to be based either because there are so many or because they'd fall over if you didn't. Basing things where that doesn't apply – items you use in smallish numbers and that don't fall over, such as tanks and ships -- thus strikes me as gratuitous.

This is largely my view as well.

Here are a platoon of Pershings next to an infantry battalion mortar battery and two AAHMGs. I don't base my tanks. Not a fan of basing vehicles unless it's something that really needs basing, like a horse-drawn wagon or some such.

I might add that basing of infantry and infantry support stuff can help not only because they are so small they'll fall over, but also because it's a little hard to see what's what for every move and every shot.

Here is a US Army infantry company of 3 rifle platoons, a support platoon, a company HQ, and an attached combat engineering platoon.

I don't put unit labels on my stands. At one point, about 30 years ago, I did start putting labels on my stands. I was all into building proper TOEs, and wanted to know that a rifle group was the 2nd squad in the 3rd platoon of "B" company. But alas that made my force far less flexible at game time (what if my scenario calls for the remnants of two badly beaten-up platoons of a "lost" company to form up with my "B" company, but I don't HAVE any stands labelled as "F" or "G" commpany?). So I gave it up. Fortunately my current preferred ruleset doesn't need to know much more than which are the platoon / company / battle group command stands, and the game turn structure pretty much keeps track of the rest for you. But I do like to have at least some basic info available to me.

And so …

Four figures to a stand indicates a standard full-sized squad.

Three figures to a stand indicates a full-sized special-purpose squad. In this case it is an engineering squad, with mine-detectors.

Two figures to a stand indicates a half-squad sized "team". In this case it is a flame-thrower team.

My Company HQ is a full sized special-purpose squad. If you look at the full company pic you may also observe that the platoon HQ elements are half-squad sized. The radio antenna tells me that the company HQ has radio comms, but I will know it is a company HQ because there are two dots on the back rim of the stand (not visible in this pic).

I identify HQ/command elements with 1 dot for Battlion, 2 dots for Company, and 3 dots for Platoon. The dots are a reasonably low-vis color … in this case I think I used brown. If the stand were more temperate (like my Romanians) I might have chosen forest green. Not very visible to my opponent on the game table, but very easily observed by me when it's time to take my turn.

For my guns I have taken to basing the crews, but leaving the guns loose. Note that the crews are 3 men to a stand. If they become separated from the guns (allowable in my preferred rules) they can be easily identified on the table as a special purpose squad-sized group.

But keeping the guns loose has other uses, even if the rule set you prefer doesn't provide for separation of the crews from the guns. In this pic you can see a battery of 6 75mm field guns of my Romanian force. But these same stands can be used for my 100mm Howitzers. And my Romanian kneeling gun crews might serve 37mm Bofors AT guns, 47mm Bohler AT guns, or 75mm Pak97/38 AT guns, depending on the scenario. Oh, and I've just bought some 75mm Resita AT guns, which can go into my ready forces box as soon as they are painted up, with no need to paint up and base up more gun crews.

Just my techniques. I'm sure others have other approaches. This approach is working pretty well for me these days.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

BTW, for me the rifle company pic provides an illustration of why I am so strongly in favor of 1 stand = 1 squad rules, as opposed to 1 stand = 1/2 squad (or 1 fire team) rules.

In my pic above the rifle company comes to something like 23 stands. Under the rules I use that number could be reduced somewhat, as bazookas can be issued to rifle squads instead of being tracked as separate fire teams, and so also platoon HQ elements can be integrated with one of the squads of the platoon. So a company could be anywhere from 17 to 23 stands.

In my own experience, games go best when each player doesn't have much more than maybe 25 pieces. So if I want to stick to reasonable TOEs, with 1-to-squad basing I can pretty reasonably have each player running a company with some attached assets.

Also, at 17 to 23 stands per company, the infantry company is not too far out-of-what with most tank companies.

With rulesets I've played in the past, where infantry was based at 1-to-fire team levels, it required 30 to 42 stands for an infantry company. The game flow if we tried for combined arms engagements was all too predictable. The tanks would role out, move around, exchange some shots. The trucks / APCs would role towards their destinations. Then the infantry would debus, and the game would come to a screeching halt. We'd get maybe one more turn in before half the gamers had wandered away to grow beards or get married or something while we waited for the guy running the infantry to finish moving and taking all of his shots with 40 different stands.

I observed with WRG long ago that games were either companies of tanks with one or two platoons of infantry, or one company of infantry with maybe one or two platoons of tanks. But it was just impossible to run a game with companies of infantry and tanks at the same time.

Now my games flow very smoothly with a re-enforced company per player, with any mix of armor, infantry, and artillery. Still slow down a lot when aircraft appear, but that's OK because they don't appear but once or twice per game.

Just my thoughts. Your scaling may vary.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Thanks @Marc33594 for the link to my review of "operational" game sets. And thanks to @andresf for the endorsement.

@Mark 1

I mean, yikes, if Panzer Korps is tactical, how does one classify Mobius' rules?

Other folk use "operational" to mean different things but I use it to mean the level of war lies between strategic and tactical. This hierarchy is widely accepted, although not universally as some folk argue there is no operational level and warfare jumps straight from tactical to strategic. Examples of operations at this scale are Operation Barbarossa, the Battle for Moscow, Case Blue, Operation Uranus, Operation Citadel, Operational Kutuzov, and Operation Bagration. So my definition of Operational Level of War is: "the planning and conduct of campaigns, involving large numbers of men (entire corps, armies, or army groups, or whole fleets at sea), covering thousands of square kilometres, and taking a long time (days, weeks or months)." Many rule sets that claim to be operational fail against this criteria. That doesn't mean they are poor games, just not operational by this definition. They are tactical.

So @pfmodel is exactly right …

Thus Operation Citadel was operational and Battle of Prokhorovka was tactical

Going back to the original question from @4th Cuirassier

OK, probably nobody really knows this, but do we have a general feeling for what rules are most popular for this scale?

I only know four groups of people that use 1/285 to 1/300. Two in New Zealand and two in the UK. The rules these groups use are:

Group 1: Crossfire and Spearhead
Group 2: Crossfire and Spearhead
Group 3: Crossfire
Group 4: Crossfire

Mind you I'm kind of biased because I'm a Crossfire fan (like @andresf). So the people I talk to are usually using Crossfire.

I generally agree with @Mark 1's on squad v fire team. That is one of the reasons I like standard Crossfire. Like @Mark 1, but using Crossfire, I can say

Now my games flow very smoothly with a re-enforced company per player, with any mix of armor, infantry, and artillery

My stands for Crossfire are the conventional 3cm x 3cm for infantry.

But fire teams do have a fascination for some folk. Stands as fire teams is a common Crossfire 1:1 variation. I even do this for my Portuguese Colonial War games, but I continue to have doubts about this.

However, for my operational games I have gone way up … In an operational game a stand is either a division, corps or army depending on the nationality and game resolution. That is "operational"

There is a assumption in this thread that @4th Cuirassier was asking about WW2. I guess that is true. If not then Baccus have tons of rules for 6mm for other periods.

BTW, for me the rifle company pic provides an illustration of why I am so strongly in favour of 1 stand = 1 squad rules, as opposed to 1 stand = 1/2 squad (or 1 fire team) rules.

I have to agree with this strongly. According to Ian Shaw a 1944 German Grenadier Company could consists of 28 elements,
2 x R/SMG.Com.Grps(R.ATG), 3 x Panzershreck, 3 x R/SMG.Com.Grp(R.ATG), 6 x LMG, 6 x R/SMG.Grps(ATG), 1 x R/SMG.Com.Grp(R.ATG), 1 X MOP Team, 2 x 81mm KGW34 Mortars, 3 x MMG.
My optimal standard scenario has a Russian battalion consisting of 1 x tank and 2 x motorised companies attacking a German infantry battalion. Because of this half squad scale the number of elements makes it impossible to complete a game in a reasonable period of time. To get a game I dial down the number of companies per side to two, which is still large. From personal experience the optimal size for a game is an average of 100 elements, for both sides, maximum. Even at two companies, once we include some supporting formations, the force mix is too large.
I am rewriting the rules using more up-to-date game systems and terms. My first version is using the same army-lists as Ian Shaws WRG lists and then I will create a version where the squads are actually squad sized, 8-12 men each. All your comments on this matter I agree with strongly, but going to 8-12 man squad scale requires new army lists. No matter how good a set of rules are, if it lacks supporting equipment lists and army lists it will always fail. That will take more effort that writing any set of rules, as I have discovered creating army lists for platoon/company scale rules. If I ever complete it I will post it in the BGMR‌ site, as that is where the survivors of the old Yahoo WRG site ended up.
I did neglect to include Cross Fire in my list, it does seem to have some traction in the east coast of the US, but I must admit never seeing much activity outside that area so I never considered it as popular. I was not aware it was played in NZ/UK, which is rather interesting.

While I have not seen many games using these rules, GHQ WWII Micro Squad The 1:1 scale game 2nd edition is available from the GHQ site for free. This includes army lists, which I must admit seem reasonable although some aspect do confuse me. I think when it uses the term infantry platoon, you are suppose to understand this consists of 3 infantry elements?
It has the same issue of game-turn length being too small, thus conflicts will quickly bog down, but unless a set of rules uses a game-turn scale of at least 15 minutes this will always occur. As a result this may not be an issue from your point of view.

Our own rules allow 1 to a team and 1 to a Squad. In an assult the Squad is prefereable so keeps the bit count dowm. In defence its not really possible to get a defence that looks like the real thing as the SAW/LMG's may be placed in alternate positions to take advantage of their ability to cover a wider frontage. In the end its personal preference as is figure to Ground scale.

We find a linier factor of between 5/1 to 7/1 ground to figure scale suits us, it allows a tolerable approximation of terrain and does not end up with ranges that look too close to be confusing.

I have to confess don't use 6mm very often but we have done so. I have seen 6mm using say 15mm ranges. However this can lead to some interesting issues. Not the least built up areas, have 4 times as many houses, assuming you are depicting the same area on a real map. This to me makes it an even longer game, without in my opinion making it more interesting. Urban slogs tend to be unimginative after a while one you are in and ploughing through the sameness that is a housing estate.

I have to agree with this strongly. According to Ian Shaw a 1944 German Grenadier Company could consists of 28 elements,

I have to disagree just as strongly. It should consist of 18 elements. No more, no less.

Actually, I looked on the wrong page. 18 was the standard company. The Grenadier company is 21 elements.

Ian Shaw creates his army lists in a manner which allows you to mix everything up, so working out what goes into a grenadier company is not easy. For example, a German Grenadier Company consists of 4 platoons, one of which is a heavy weapons platoon consisting of a command, mortar and MMG squad/section. Ian breaks these up into 2 command elements, once of which is a MOP, 2 mortar elements and three MMG elements, making up 7 elements.
You need to add this to the basic infantry platoons, which has a strength of 7 elements. Once you add the company HQ you end up with 33 elements (5 + 21 + 7). I was in error because I only counted 2 platoons in the company, I am not sure why I did this?
Infantry Company HQ of
2 x R/SMG.Com.Grps(R.ATG), 3 x Panzershreck 70pts.
Up to 3 Infantry Platoons:
PHQ 1 x R/SMG.Com.Grp(R.ATG), 1 x LMG. 70pts.
3 Sections: 2 x R/SMG.Grps(ATG), 1 X LMG.
Up to 1 Infantry Support Platoons;
PHQ 1 x R/SMG.Com.Grp(R.ATG), 1 X MOP Team. 120pts.
1 Section 2 x 81mm KGW34 Mortars.
1 Section 3 x MMG.

Once you add the company HQ you end up with 33 elements (5 + 21 + 7).

The list as quoted looks to me more like:
5 + (3 x (2 + (3 x 3)) + 7 = 45 ???

You are correct, i neglected to add the PHQ elements. Damn maths.

Actually the Grenadier would have 2 LMGs per squad. When leaving their halftracks they would not leave one behind.

Actually the Grenadier would have 2 LMGs per squad. When leaving their halftracks they would not leave one behind.

The organisation list that was quoted above is not for Panzer Grenadier, it is for an infantry company and comes from Shaw's German List All Theatres 1944-1945.

The list as quoted looks to me more like:
5 + (3 x (2 + (3 x 3)) + 7 = 45 ???

Hence my preference for one stand = one squad rules.

I played WRG rules throughout middle school and high school. There was no real question of which rules to use, because I didn't know there were any other rules. That was the one stocked at the one hobby shop I knew of that stocked micro-armor, and that was the only source I had for addressing my addiction/obsession.

Most of our games in that time frame (mid-1970s) were all armor. I was a bit of an innovator among my gaming buddies, in that I started adding aircraft (all scratch-built at that time), and eventually artillery and infantry. Neither GHQ nor C-in-C offered infantry yet, and these were the only 2 brands stocked at my local hobby shop. But my father did a lot of business in Europe, and during some conversation about family he mentioned my interests in wargaming, and one of the folks in his London office mentioned that there were UK vendors. So he wound up bringing home a catalog for Skytrex 1/300 models. Now I was able to buy all kinds of stuff -- artillery, trucks, and even infantry through mail-order. Oooh, my supply resourcing jumped to an altogether different level than my gaming buddies / adversaries.

But alas, it was really hard to figure out how to play with infantry when my game-time adversaries fielded 30 or 40 tanks (mostly Tigers and Elefants).

Can't say as I did much micro-armor gaming in college (did play some epic games of Star Fleet Battles, but that's a different topic). After graduation I started to get back into wargaming, but with an expanded horizon and more sources. I went through half a dozen rulesets, and by the second half of the 1980s came back to the now new-and-improved WRG rules.

By this time I had a much better knowledge base. I understood unit organization concepts. Having read Team Yankee and Brazen Chariots, etc. etc., and having bought some equipment and organization guides (mostly from Enola Games), I started to get into building proper unit TOEs.

GHQ and C-in-C offered infantry. And I found H&R and Scotia in the UK. So my infantry formations started to grow.

And … by the same kind of counting as quoted above, I wound up with 43 stands for a Red Army rifle company.

Putting 43 units on the table, even with WRG (which are pretty fast-play as far as micro-armor rules go), was about all I could handle. Well, OK, I needed to add some AT guns, and some artillery, and / or some other support. So maybe 50 or 60 stands? And with all of that on the table, I could have about the same combat capability as an opponent with 6 or 8 tanks.

Meaning … I was either the guy who stopped the game dead in it's tracks (50 vs. 8 pieces to move), or I was the guy who always lost by a wide margin (my force of fewer than 50 pieces being desperately weaker than an opponent's force of 20 pieces). It was never a good game.

I don't doubt that the rules produced some good infantry-vs-infantry battles. But I never had any of those. My opponents for micro-armor always wanted to put tanks on the table, and the rules just didn't mix armor and infantry well at all.

It was only when I got to the point of having some squad-to-stand rules, where an infantry company with some attachments came down to 25-30 pieces (and with some better scenario building!), that it even began to make sense to have infantry integrated into my micro-armor games.

Hence my very pronounced preference for squad based infantry.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Apologies, as i am more familiar with German nomenclature i was mentally translating infantry company to Grenadier-kompanie. I should of stayed with Shaws description. Yes my list is a German Infantry Company 44-45.
While i will give WRG a go with its half squads, i also prefer one element is one squad. I did discover another set of rules (in another thread here) which looks very interesting. Mein Panzer, which originally came out in 1999 and i think there is a 2nd edition. The sequence of play is very innovative, the fire combat pretty standard, but the scale is one element is one squad. The time scale is 6 minutes per G/T, which may be a bit short, but if you are used to WRG's 100 seconds then that should not be an issue. The ground scale is a bit hard to pin down, but looks like 1:1000 or 1:2000. When i complete my WRG project i will get a copy of Mein Panzer to check it out.

I am a big fan of the Mein Panzer rules.

You are correct to observe that they are on the second version, so within the Mein Panzer users the current rules are often referred to as MP2. The biggest change from MP1 to MP2 was the move from fire-team basing to squad basing.

In my opinion the sequence of play has a very positive impact on the game. In MP you have elements (the individual gaming pieces) and units (assemblies of some number of elements -- typically a platoon-sized formation, but could be a battery, or some ad hoc formation of 3 to 5 elements, etc.). The turn involves impulses in which one unit is activated by each player. The player gets to choose which unit to activate, and the impulses continue until each unit has been activated one time (unlike some other activation-based rules where there is some card or die roll to activate units). After all impulses are completed (each player has activated every unit one time) you do the end-of-turn / start-of-turn tasks (morale tests, removing suppressions, etc.).

All players on one side activate one unit at the same time. If the number of units controlled by different players is not exactly matched (ie: player 1 has 5 units, while player 2 has 6 units), then the number of impulses in the turn is set by the player with the fewest units, and other player(s) will activate 2 units per impulse to make up the difference (so in the example above there will be 5 impulses per turn, with player 2 activating 2 units on the first impulse, and then 1 unit per impulse after that).

This approach gives you a built-in and appropriate mechanism for un-balanced force sizes. If you have more units than I do (ie: 6 units vs. 5), you will be more powerful through part of the turn, and will more easily set the tempo of battle. If you have more gamers (more commanders) than I do, (ie: 2 players with 5 units, vs. 1 player with 5 units) it will be even easier for you to keep me off balance. But in both cases the game moves just as quickly (ie: 5 impulses per turn). And you feel the loss differently when you lose elements within your units (ie: 1 squad lost for each of 3 platoons) vs. when you lose a unit (ie: 1 platoon of 3 squads lost). Lose a unit and you lose an activation, and the balance really starts to swing to your opponent's advantage.

It is a quick and uncomplicated mechanism, that keeps all players involved throughout the turn (no sitting around with nothing to do while the other side measures and moves 43 stands). It also makes you think and build your tactics in terms of your force structure, as while you have squad-based stands and individual vehicles and support weapons, you move and shoot them by platoons and batteries. And it makes it hard to "game the edge of the turn". By this I mean it is hard to choose to do exactly the thing that your opponent won't be able to react to because you know where the turn ends, and what happens when the next turn starts. In MP you basically have a very limited ability to anticipate when on opponent will move or shoot any unit in relation to when you might move or shoot any unit, except at the very end of the turn where you each might have only one unit left to activate, and even then you don't know which unit your opponent will activate first at the start of the next turn.

Each time a unit activates it gets to perform one action. This might be spotting (if there are no spotted targets yet), shooting, moving, or performing some other task (for example calling for artillery, performing an engineering task, or rallying). If the unit is within command control range (close enough to it's chain of command) it also gets a "bonus move". The bonus move can be split up, so a unit can move 1/2 of its move distance, perform its action, and then complete its move. And if it does no other actions it can move 2 times.

Again, it is a simple and uncomplicated approach that gives a lot of flexibility for how the tame flows.

In MP almost all die roles use d20 dice. Focusing mostly on only one form of die simplifies things, and a d20 gives a lot of flexibility to manage unlikely results -- the 5% chance is always a part of the game. The number you try to make with your die roll, for whatever purpose, almost always starts with your troop quality rating for the unit. Really. Shooting starts with your troop quality, with the accuracy of the gun and the range being modifiers to the troops' ability to hit their target. I like this. It fits the adages I have so often heard by veterans, that any weapon is only as good as the soldier using it.

Overall a set of rules that play fast, keep all the players involved throughout the turn, give you a view of the individual squads and tanks, keep you focused on the tactics of the platoons and companies in your command, and mix infantry, armor, and support weapons very nicely.

I have settled on about one re-enforced company per player, but with these rules I can easily build up battalion-sized games with multiple players.

Some of the best games I've played were with these rules.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Thanks all. Yes, as per OP, I'm mainly all about WW2 and my thinking really was to understand whether I can acquire forces before knowing what rules they'll play to. If a popular rule set says glue three tanks onto a 2" base, this would say not. It doesn't sound like it.

Mark you make a really interesting point as usual. I really like arguing with you because even though I always win you make me work hard for every point*. Why indeed do we assume one teeny tank (1/285ish) has to equal many while one big one (1/76ish) has to be one? From my own history, I reckon it's because the scale of the bigger model encourages individualisation of both tanks and figures. The smaller scale items are a lot more anonymous at normal distances and there is also maybe the temptation to think Well, I am so much further along to having a whole panzer division on the table that maybe I could go the whole hog, say one mini = 3 tanks and then I really do have a whole panzer division on the table.

I also recognise your point around tabletop forces tending to be too many of something – too many tanks or whatever. I quite like the idea of 1/76 games featuring scratch forces and 10-second moves because then you sorta handwave all this away and you can individualise the figures and the vehicles. Of course it's then just a WW2-themed semi-role-play rather than a representation of any actual battle. But given how cheap they are, you can of course do 1/285 as well…

* I am totally kidding but in typed messages it's not always obvious :-)

The turn involves impulses in which one unit is activated by each player. The player gets to choose which unit to activate, and the impulses continue until each unit has been activated one time (unlike some other activation-based rules where there is some card or die roll to activate units).

I first encountered this type system back in the 1970s. I guess I followed a math expert on the logic of gaming it. That was to ignore firing at units that have already fired but to concentrate only on those that haven't fired yet in the turn as they are the ones that can do damage from that point forward.

I guess I followed a math expert on the logic of gaming it. That was to ignore firing at units that have already fired but to concentrate only on those that haven't fired yet in the turn as they are the ones that can do damage from that point forward.

I guess there are a variety of tactics that one might try, that do indeed revolve around game/rules effects rather than the actual combat we seek to model with the rules. But I have not found the particular approach described above to be particularly useful.

It might work in the limited case of two opposing forces sitting static in their positions exchanging fire. It doesn't work well at all with battles that involve maneuver or other dynamic events.

Case 1:
Side A is defending a position, and Side B is advancing. In such a case I have found it profitable to advance with a portion of my force, while leaving some units as a base of fire. If the Side A player adopts the approach of shooting at those units which have not yet activated, I would quickly adapt by activating my Side B maneuver elements first. He will then generally be shooting at the more distant Side B units, (those who have not yet activated will be the base of fire elements or the maneuver elements that have not yet advanced), hence reducing the effectiveness of his own fire. And he will also be failing to shoot at the units closing in on his position, which are in fact the greater danger to him. I predict Side B will easily overrun the Side A position.

Case 2:
Side A is making use of the tactic of firing at the units that have not yet activated, and Side B has begun withdrawing, whether because the Side B player is seeking to fight a retrograde action from successive fire position, or needs to get out from under superior firepower to regroup and/or remove suppressions. As the Side B player I would be activating (and withdrawing) my most valuable units first as a part of the withdrawal, leaving the rearguard to activate later in the turn. And to my happy discovery, the Side A player will let them withdraw with minimal hindrance, focusing all of his fire instead on the rearguard. And if I do set up a base of fire further back, I can then pour my fire on to his elements as they advance, and he will largely disregard my firing elements again in favor of the rearguard, which I chose not to activate until late in the turn.

So while I understand the "math" (maybe should say "statistics and probabilities" as the appropriate sub-field) approach, I expect that it will not generate a one-size-fits-all advantage. Rather, it just becomes one of several considerations of the "who do I activate next?" and "who do I shoot at?" decision cycles.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

All game systems have issues and the combat-unit alternating move/fire system is no exception. That sequence of play has been used for a while and rules such as LWRS use it, for example. The main benefit is to attempt to simulate simultaneous movement and fire combat and ensuring both players are always engaged. The disadvantages are the difficulty to co-ordinate more than one combat-unit and the issue listed above with fire combat targeting. I also find in an attack/defence game many of these benefits are negated, as the defender is normally static. But the system works well and that is all that counts.
Putting the alternating sequence of play aside the main innovation is the combination of movement and fire combat, with the opponent executing opportunity fire when eligible. I will need to read the rules fully to determine how far the designer has gone down this path, but if a player has a choice of moving or firing per action we have achieved a high degree of combining movement and fire combat. This is something rules designers have rarely done, although some have gone partially down this path, such as Corps Commander in the mid 1980's.
The advantage of such a system is we can build-in battle-tempo variabilities within the game system, rather than create separate rules to force it. A player can expend all his actions on fire combat, or on movement. Thus if there is no fire combat an element can move a great distance, but once in contact his movement dramatically reduces. The same applies in reverse, if there is no movement and you are grimly defending, all you are doing is firing as fast as you can. It allows you to have game-turns which represent a greater time frame and as a result you can simulate more of an actual engagement. It takes a few hours to push your way through a defensive line and as its hard to game more than 12 game-turns, you are have some fixed limits you need to work within.
I will need to read the rules to determine if this guess is correct or not, but in the board-gaming world, SPI first tried this idea in the 1970's and while it was hard to get your head around it, once you did, it really increased the decisions a player could make, without increasing the number of rules.

From what I remember it is like the Sword and Flame model. But in that game both sides had the same number of units.