"Rates of Fire in your games" Topic

I'm curious the maximum number of times a tank would be able to fire in a game using your rules. That's assuming he lasted the entire game and fired every chance he had in a target-rich environment.

Wolfhag

Well that depends on which of my rules. And how many turns. Basically a tank would get to fire twice each turn, but that might impact it's ability to do other things like move. It's actually a more complex discussion than a simple number answer.

Mostly in rules I use, "a tank" doesn't fire: a tank platoon engages targets, which is different.

Are we talking 1:1 skirmish here? In which case I doubt the rate of fire for a 20mm main gun and an 88mm would or should be the same.

A 1:1 game about 2-3 hours long. If movement and shooting are separate let's say all shooting and no movement.

Wolfhag

Hmm, so my still-in-testing game can run through turns pretty fast. Say 30 turns for a game with one "shot" per turn (really one engagement since the turns are a couple minutes long). There is a 1 in 6 chance you could hit two different targets so let's say 35 enemy targets engaged in a game if all you did was shoot every turn. Good thing I've been play testing with early war tanks or they'd run out of ammo!

In our games you fire once per turn. So, sometimes the rate of fire is once every 10 minutes. Other times (if we are eating or drinking) it might be 45 minutes between shots.

Interesting curiosity. If the if the tank platoon comander was having a picnic with his company commander, within 60 yards of two of the platoon commanders tanks that were were stationary for the entire game, those tanks could fire 6 times a bound. All the other tanks in the company could shoot only twice per bound. However all of the folk having the picnic and the tank(s) would need to be unmolested for the entire game amd have no other command jobs to do.

A reasonable game with competent players is about 10 bounds so about 60 rounds per tank.

In a tank on tank engagement anybody firing more than 10 rounds would be either a tactical Genious or VERY lucky.

In my homemade rules, most tanks can only fire 1 round per turn. Pz IIs, ACs, et al with semi-auto cannons, c. 3 rds.

The WWII land games I play (Crossfire, FiveCore, Chain of Command) all use some version of a variable-length bound, so not every unit is going to get to act each turn, and some a single unit can sometimes act more than once. Since the number of turns a game could take varies wildly, you could theoretically get into the high double-digits with them. (And since both Crossfire and FiveCore have abstracted combat mechanics that focus on the *effect* of fire, the actual number of rounds involved could easily be higher or lower depending on how you interpreted the combat results).

In practice, though, that would require the opponent to do nothing but move fresh targets into the tank's LoS for it, because the amount of firepower that would be sent downrange in the process is more than enough to wipe out an entire opposing force in most of those games.

I think the most I've fired with any one AFV in an actual game is around two dozen times, which would have been a Pz. IV in a company-level Stalingrad '42 game using Crossfire. For platoon-level games, a little more then a dozen from a T-34/75 in Germany '45. Both of those examples occurred in scenarios where the attackers had significant armor support while the defenders consisted of infantry dug in for a desperate defense with minimal AT assets.

Otherwise, I'd guess most tanks in my only games end up firing a number of rounds in the single digits, as tank v. tank gunnery duels are decided pretty quickly and the first or second HE round will convince all but the most die-hard infantry to relocate.

In all my games tanks get 1-3 shots per turn, max.

Multiply by number of turns.

In Panzer War it's not so important on how many times a tank can fire, but how many times it can hit a target.
It would depend on several factors. The number of turns of the game. ROF of the tank.
See in PW a single roll for a gun fired can score multiple 'hits'.
This is to get past rolling for each individual shot fired. As it was found game time is dependent on dice rolling I tried to use a single roll to generate one or more hits. There is a minimum number roll required for a single hit. But if the die roll is higher by a value than this minimum number another hit can be scored. And this continues at a value for additional hits after that such that for a stationary firing tank it can roll for hits up to two times a turn. It is theoretically possible for a 75mm Sherman to score 10 hits up to 340 meters in a 75 second turn. A 75mm Panzer IV can possibly score up to 8 hits under 480 meters in a turn. I haven't done the math of average number of hits but I suspect it is north of 4 hits under 500m.

At one time my rules had a choice of rolling once or twice per turn getting only one or two hits. But one of the early play-testers was a M60 Patton loader who wanted the game to reflect his training. His training had his tank hit 3 enemy tanks in quick succession within I guess it was 15-20 seconds. So eventually he worn me down and I came up with the multiple hit rule without having all the die rolling.

Don't sweat it. If ammunition availability really bothers you then have a simple mechanism to decide if a unit has run out of ammunition. I don't think there are many accounts of WW2 units actually running out during a battle …

We generally don't take that into account, as we play 6mm. AFV everybody is assumed/considered to have enough ammo for the game.

Was rereading the old AH Panzerblitz rules last night. One of my first tactical wargames. There was an interesting rule for mortars and some howitzers. You could fire at 3x your Attack Factor once, then removed from the board. As you used up all your ammo, burned out your tubes, etc. And your were counted a being destroyed and the enemy got the points/kill.

Extra Crispy,
So is a turn about 30 seconds?

Don Lowery,
How long is a turn?

Wolfhag

If using a 1:1 scale set of game rules, if you then know the supposed time length of a turn, you can then make some realistic assumptions of what a tank could fire, all depending on the tactical status of the tank (type, quality of crew, movement status, fire control equipment, need to move turret, etc.).

Since most of use want to play a game rather than a simulation (in general), the ROF should be what feels right for the scale of play. 1:1 scale should be treated different than when 1:5 or 1:15, or each vehicle is a battalion, etc.

One thing I have not often seen in games is a tank or ATG firing repeatedly into the same target. I don't mean firing and missing, then stopping firing once a hit is obtained. I mean the situation where the gun scores a hit and keeps on hitting the target to make sure of it.

You read about this a lot and it makes sense, because why would you assume you have finished it off with one hit? Unless the thing blows up you don't really know what damage you did. In most games I have seen you plink the tank with one round then find another target and plink that. Unless you have visibly wrecked it, or you have just hit a Marder with a round of 152mm or something, I always think guns should fire on the same target until they've registered 3 or 4 hits or the thing has gone boom.

Maybe the rules didn't reward this behaviour. With AT rifles it's the same. AIUI the Russians would have two or three of these fire half a dozen rounds apiece into a target to make sure of it. In games it seems more usual for the rifle (always one rifle) to fire, score its best possible hit result once (usually this is to immobilise the tank) and then, having done its worst, it looks for another target.

If a weapon can fire multiple times in a turn well and good but I wonder if one should maybe be limited to one target per turn, or something.

Don Lowery,
How long is a turn?

Abstract, but not long. And, no, I don't keep track of ammo supply, if that's what you're wondering about. The game is too short to worry about that (and so is life).

In an abstract game I don't worry about ammo supply but a gun stoppage rule would represent some kind of gun firing problem. There isn't any ammo counting unless it is special rare ammo like APCR. Then basically you have to count it or it would be fired every time. The use of a mini dice next to a tank would show the quantity.
This of course is a 1:1 tank game. You wouldn't do something like this if each model was a section or troop or more.

In our tactical rules (a derivative of WRG 1925-50) any element can fire once per turn, we don't track individual shots, so I guess any one element, be it a rifle group, tank or anything else could fire as many turns as there are turns in the game.

As someone wise once said, the only limitation on ROF in post 1900 warfare is target availability.

The only game I've played which tracked each shot was AHGCs 'Tobruk', and even then, no-one ever ran out of ammo apart from smoke rounds and APCR.

irl the the endurance of a battalion in combat is typically 2-4 hours before it needs resupply, and a rifle company is quite capable of firing off its entire ammo load in ten minutes. I gather in desert battles it was not unusual for tanks to return to echelon to bomb up while the battle was still going on. I suspect an awful lot of shooting just outside effective range was going on, a very human trait:)

It's a step towards realism to somehow track ammo use. It's fiddly, players hate the paperwork but if you can find a way to do this without it slowing play to a crawl it will have benefits.

Players take crazy shots that in real life would be passed up. This also slows the game down so there is a balance to find.

I track ammo for belt fed machine guns like the German lMG34/42 in my games. It's a little fiddly but it allows me to represent them at their historic level without making them overpowered.

If players take crazy shots there is something fundamantaly wrong with the rules. Folk in the real world don't take crazy shots, they give your position away and you die. Ammo is not the solution something more fundamental is wrong.

Even with the MG42 actal ammo may not be the beat way. If you need a lot of ammo you need folk to fetch it. German platoon had a horse and cart. They probably needed it near to the MG42's or lots of men are not firing as they are passing ammo.

The US HMG's needed to have there jeep and trailer within 500m at the extreme and be able to transfer the ammo to the gun.

Playing with the ammo may well not be the best solution allocating folk to carry the ammo may end up a more plausible model and no "house keeping".

We have added gun jams when firing. This would reflect stoppages and ammo depletion. This is just a very bad roll of the to-hit die. So when trying to do a crazy shot the chance of gun jam with the same roll has to be weighed.

Well speaking of a crazy shot. Story of 8 km hit from a Tiger.
link

Its interesting for instance a US HMG platoon WW2 had 3 guns widely spaced and each had a trailer. Interestingly there normal rate of fire was 150 RPM. If a gun needed to change barrels or failed temporarily, the other 2 communicating with each other upped the fire rate (possibly to even 300 rpm) to keep the target under the same weight of fire. Ergo perhaps gun jamming is the wrong approach and almost certainly too common in a war game compared to the real world.

I have found that actually getting Machine guns modeled is quite difficult, their siting and use is far less simple than rifle fire, there key abilities like FDF's are not modeled well in most rules. Phil Barker at least made a stab at it in his 1925 to 1950 rules but many rules since then have failed even to get to that standard.

It's always easier to start a firefight than to stop it, folks in the real world take low-probability shots *all the time*, even when in isn't in their best interest to do so. Beyond the psychological strain of being shot at without shooting back, there's probably a bit of a gambler's fallacy involved, and the payoff (hitting your target) is pretty valuable.

4th Cuirassier, I too would like to see that kind of repeat fire into the same target. It requires a level of fog of war that a lot of players don't seem inclined to go for, though, and either needs a GM or trust that your opponent won't lie about the hidden damage result.

I agree machine gun fire is poorly modelled in most games.

In WW2 – machine guns did not mow down attacks like we often imagine. What they did was stop or slow movement. A defence could be unpicked if a sufficient superiority in numbers and firepower was available, but it could be a slow process. Less skilled or unmotivated troops might fail altogether.

Mostly, machine gun fire killed or wounded targets one at a time – only if they could get a crossfire would it be likely to hit more than 1 or 2 with a single burst.

Something I have noticed playing games is many players game the rules. For example, they take a lot of low odds shots early in the game to run down the clock. Then they can say they didn't lose when it is time to pack up and go home.

The troops might also be taking such shots of course – fire discipline is not a given. But it shouldn't be resolved most of the time because the impact would be marginal at best.

From my gaming experience, ammo supply is not a problem. I tracked ammo rack usage at first but in a small engagement with an ammo rack of 5+ rounds, it didn't really impact the game. Historically, ammo racks were reloaded when there was a lull in the action so there is no real need to track them. You could start a scenario where they are short to begin with.

Crews were careful to open fire because it would give their position away and could attract an artillery or mortar barrage. I just finished reading two books written by Russian tank and anti-gun commanders. They mainly waited until the enemy was within range close enough to ensure a first shot hit.

Some interesting feedback on the RoF. In your game, has an effort been made to recreate realistic rates of fire? Panzer War seems to have done a good job. Are all of the multiple shots at the same target?

Do MBT and Panzer use a rule similar to Panzer War?

Is simulating a historic RoF important in a 1:1 game to you or is an abstraction good enough?

I came across this. It's from the US Armor School and seems to be a scoring matrix to see how effective crews are in engaging targets.

So if a target is engaged at 1000m the crew needs to get a hit within 6 seconds to get a score of 100. It looks like a score in the left column in the green zone is ideal, yellow zone passable, and red zone a failure. It gives you a good idea of a rate of fire for an Abrams. However, I did hear of an Abrams crew member claim they could get three round off at the same target within 15 seconds. How? They start with one in the chamber, one between the loaders legs and one in his lap (I think this violates safety procedures). After the one in the chamber is fire, he loads the one in his lap and then the one between his legs.

Wolfhag

In Panzer War if the stationary firer has a movable turret hits after the first can be allocated to other targets within 50 of the last target hit. Thus possibly going down a column of target vehicles. If the firer does not have a movable turret then all targets hit must be within 50 of the original target.

It's not in the rules but we let someone with 3 hits forfeit one hit if the next target is over 50 but under 100 away.

Wolf +1

Thanks Legion.

Mobius,
I've always felt Panzer War did a good job at modeling a realistic rate of fire which was one of the goals of the game I'm working on.

I think the Rate of Fire can be affected by various factors so is somewhat variable. For the first ranging shot the amount of time estimating the range can be variable, so can the gunners aim time. A hurried shot at a target 25m away can result in a miss and historically it did occur.

A rate of fire in combat is also determined by how many consecutive targets you engage and the ranges, the direction they are in and how quickly you can identify them through the gunner's narrow field of view in his gunsight. Panzer War seems to address that but I have not see other games that do.

Typically, to engage a new target takes additional to detect it, aim, and fire. I use a rule that if a new target is within 100m of the last target, within 15 degrees (gunners FoV) and less than 800m the new target is already in the gunners FoV, can be quickly engaged and use the same elevation setting so he is already ranged in on the new target if he hit the last one. At least that from some of the AAR's and narratives I've read.

I let the player make a decision to shoot quicker but with an accuracy penalty. This is based on the fire control types and aim time in the M60 tank manual. This makes the rate of fire even more variable and harder for the opponent to predict. This can modify the historic rate of fire.

I use a D20 for determining his and a 20 is a SNAFU that can result in jams, misfire, etc.

Wolfhag

Your new target rule is very similar to ours. Our target rule is within 50 (scale of 100m) and within 450 (scale 900m) of a previously engaged target or overwatch point it is not a new target.

We use a D10 but for rolls of '1' or '10' an additional roll can extend this to a '0'-'-4' or '11'-'15'. For those who have played WRG Armor rules you will notice a similar back-up second roll system. I don't like D20s as they don't settle quick enough. A SNAFU would be less than '0'.

I like the D20 because it gives a greater range of results. I can also get a result of 1% to 5%. Low numbers are best. When rolling a 1 the player can roll the D20 again. A 1-4 = 1%, 5-8 = 2%, 9-12 = 3 %, 13-16 = 4% and 17-20 = 5%.

It's hard to quantify how often a SNAFU would historically occur but in my game, the more shots took the greater the chance of one occurring.

The SNAFU plays a variety of roles in the game with some abstractions and injects some "color commentary" into the game. It also seems to provide a lot of entertainment for the players and some suspense whenever a player rolls the dice to shoot as no one is sure of what will happen. They occur but do not unrealistically dominate the game. We normally get 3-5 per game and makes it interesting.

First, they occur when a unit is shooting which is the worst time it can happen can and has some historical basis for that. Also, there is a pretty wide range of results and I've tried to use examples from accounts I've read. Results can be from "Loader slips when reloading, he spends 1D6 more seconds to reload" which extends the amount of time to for his next shot. The gunner accidentally fired the coax machine gun instead of the main gun (another slight delay), driver panics and starts backing up which throws off the shot, gunner loses the sight picture and takes additional time to regain it, the recoil system overheats and must cool off, the loader passes out from fumes, loader loaded the wrong ammo type, etc. In my game seconds really do count and SNAFU's will affect a gun rate of fire.

Wolfhag

I guess 8 or 9 shots per tank in the conditions you mentioned, using Disposable Heroes I. Double that for Disposable Heroes II and Battlegroup.