"Why Not 1:1?" Topic

I'm getting back into gaming….have got naval forces WWI & II, & ancients using DBA.
Years ago, I had a large US WWII task force & WP tank regiment.
I can understand the validity of using a figure scale of maybe 1:100 or 1:250 for historical infantry focussed games at short ranges in densely packed formations
But why use figure scales for modern? Why have a single 1/300 T72 model represent a platoon or a company? The structure of a WP division is the same as a company….(3x3 + HQ + support)

It just comes down to the size of battles you wish to portray. Using 1:1 to fight a battalion level or higher engagement means you need a super large table and your turns will take a long time to play (as there is so much stuff to move/fire etc). If you want to fight a division vs division then a model representing a platoon or company makes it viable

I always fight 1 to 1 using 1/144. That lets an experienced player get a company battle group done in an evening. Bigger battles spanning lots of hores and requireing reserves and much more thought take a few eveings. Never liked other than 1 to 1 for modern you need a map not a table for larger units, except maybe for 2mm but then the tactical level is not really there for me.

"It just comes down to the size of battles you wish to portray. Using 1:1 to fight a battalion level or higher engagement means you need a super large table and your turns will take a long time to play (as there is so much stuff to move/fire etc). If you want to fight a division vs division then a model representing a platoon or company makes it viable"
Andrew LA….that's what I mentioned in my original post….is the doctrine of a division different to that of a company? Seize & hold ground? Outflank? manoeuvre units of battalions rather than platoons?

If I want to deploy a couple of Motor Rifle Regiments, then doing it at 1:1 is not feasible. If I want to deploy several divisions, it definitely isn't feasible.

If one base can represent 5,000 Napoleonic Infantrymen or Alexanders Companions, I don't have the slightest issue with one base representing a tank platoon/company/battalion/brigade (depending). We know roughly how much space they take on the ground after all.

Fighting with a Division has very different considerations to fighting with a Platoon though. Everything takes ages, the chaps need to to be fed, watered and maintained, and air/artillery takes on an ever greater significance.

Modern Warfare has a lot going on above the 1:1 level it seems to me. Calling in an MRL strike at 1:1 level pretty much dominates the entire table, for example. Air strikes the same – a flight of A10s at 1:1 scale is potentially a game killer perhaps. If you play divisional level then you have the full range of Electronic Warfare, Artillery, Engineers, Command & Control differences, Doctrine differences, Drones, Air strikes, Choppers etc on the table at the same time and playable in a reasonable time and table size. I play Modern Spearhead which does this with each model representing a platoon (Cold War Commander and Fist Full of Tows are at the same level). There is nothing wrong with 1:1 level at all. I just like the big picture view in terms of the higher level options. There are trade-offs in all this as the rules will abstract a lot of lower level stuff if you play at Divisional level.

Depends on the scale and size of battle. Arty/ MRL/ CAS will generally have happened by the time of close combat, so should influence the forces on table, pre game. It is ok for armour and nice to see troop tactics, mutual support and one foot on the ground. However rather tedious to try to and pepperpot forwards a platoon of infantry!

Tally Ho!

Not sure it's used anymore but gamers used to talk about "bathtubbing" a battle. This meant using small units to represent large ones so you could refight a big battle. For example you could use one regiment for each division and re-fight Gettysburg without needing a thousand units or a 40 foot table. But it mean accepting the abstraction as divisions and regiments do NOT act in the same way.

So whether you refer to a model tank, or stand of infantry, as a tank, platoon or company, your rules just need to account for the ways in which each unit is different. Does a tank company really have "side armor?" At 1:1 you might worry about ammo – AP versus HE. Or whether you can fire the main gun and the MGs at the same time. If a model – 1 company, that would be impossible.

I have used 1:1, 1:platoon, and 1:company rules. I have also looked at 1:battalion rules. It all depends on the size of the battle being fought. At Medina Ridge a US division with ten combat battalions engaged the augmented Medina division with 14 battalions on a 30km front. In order to fit this on a 10 foot wide by six foot deep table (Iraqi forces were deployed in depth) a ground scale of 10cm to a kilometer (1:10,000) was needed. Rules used were a company per stand and even at that scale there were over 50 companies per division on the table.

Battalion per stand rules usually incorporate logistics and can cover multi-day battles. Company per stand rules can also cover multi-day battles and some logistics.

There are differences between the tactics used for 1:1 games and larger scale. Larger scale games usually need some sort of reserve instead of committing everything to the front line in order for defenders to respond to breakthroughs or attackers to commit additional forces to accomplish a breakthrough.

Warpac assault tactics were multiple waves against the intended point of attack.

The same reason you don't use 1-1 for other periods if you want to game actual battles instead of skirmishes. I don't understand the confusion.

"40 foot table"

That's what I went with. The largest game I ever played on my old table 7 feet wide X 16 feet long with a parallel table 14 feet long and 30 inches deep with two bridges connecting them went 6 months. We played every weekend one or two or even three days about 12 hours each day. We had about 20 people play usually about 6 or 8 at a time on any given day as people had jobs and families and stuff.

WWII Soviets attacking a German town, Germans held the whole board at the start of the game. All of my WWII Soviet collection vs all of Natokina's WWII German collection. It was about 1,000 vehicles: tanks trucks, etc and about 3,000 infantry. All HO / 1/72nd scale.

We had a grid over the table to hang our aircraft from, with as many as 60 planes in air at a time also 1/72nd scale.

It was epic.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

I use 1:1 mini per real vehicle for WWII and the Cold War, and have no issues with battalions for attackers and companies for defenders.

In 1:144th – 1:300th scale, you can use either 1" = 50m/yds., or 1" = 25m'yds. for scale (or cms./mms if you prefer).

Many attacks are done on narrow fronts, so the above battalion-sized attack done by the Soviets during the Cold War can be played out on a 6' wide tabletop.

I've seen more than a few WWIII Germany 15mm games. The at start deployments always looked like a car dealership inventory lot. Dozens of tanks lined up, mud guard to mud guard 10 wide by 20 deep.

A pretty off putting first impression.

I am doing 1:1 Bolt Action, but only because that is what people here play. But I prefer company scale and up. I want to fight the larger battles like El Aleman, Battle of the Bulge, Kursk etc. I would rather do Command Decision. I want to make more strategic decisions.

I find 1:1 a bit overwhelming because just about every figure has a different weapon and it is hard for me to keep up with it. 1:1 players tend to be obsessed with points and what you are suppose to have in your platoon. Too much detail for me.

"I've seen more than a few WWIII Germany 15mm games. The at start deployments always looked like a car dealership inventory lot. Dozens of tanks lined up, mud guard to mud guard 10 wide by 20 deep"

Oh come on, they were just reneacting the Queens's Jubilee parade in Sennelager, 1977!

Tally Ho!

79th PA "The same reason you don't use 1-1 for other periods if you want to game actual battles instead of skirmishes. I don't understand the confusion."
The difference is the amount of figures & ground scale. In eg Napoleonic, a battalion would have a frontage of approx 150m with c600 men. Modelling that at 1:1 would be a trial. Modelling a WW2 company of British infantry in defence, about 20-30 stands at 1:1, frontage of 1000m.
The only advantage I can see is being able to use higher level assets- EW, Brigade level arty, a/c

You are assuming that people want to game WWII at a small scale. How can I have a brigade or division on the table if I don't get away from the 1-1 ratio?

Modeling a company in any time period is still a skirmish game.

There are ludicrous games out that claim to be 1 tank + 1 platoon that are utter failures as they still use 1 model tank and a daft ground scale that looks like a 1 to 1 game.

The point is what do you want to play?

A company attack is about on a frontage of 500 to 1000. Its usually as said, in waves and at this level tactics dominate with just lip service potential to logistics. so a battalion attack with several waves could be done on a 6ft by 8ft deep table at 1/144 or 1/300 models and smaller perhaps with 2mm scale but it could get a bit fiddley.

Above company level the simulation increasingly become a resource/logistics game, where the trick is where do you want to fight, for how long and with what level of resource given you are now in control of a front far wider than any possible attack you can launch, so you have to stop an enemy who may attack you someplace else. Have you got sufficient reserves to stop that?

They are wildly different games, if done properly they need wildly different standards of terrain, You can't play a plausible game at a high level with terrain that looks like a skirmish game, the real world does not look like that. In Germany the villages are about 2k apart so you nee LOTS of them On a 30km front you need about 15 across and as you need at least 20k depth so 10 deep. That's about 150 villages (Plus or minus about 50). Lots of main roads and minor roads which to a large extent dictate where resources like heavy artillery can be placed. Mortar batteries are well on table generally.

We play a strange mix of Low and high level but it is a compromise (perhaps even a sort of "bathtub" where you get a bit of all levels, but logistics even simplified is quite difficult.

The only high level games I have seen have3 way too may flaws for my liking. Spearhead to me is a failure, even the suggested battlefield have no relationship to a real world map and no credible approach to logistics.

However I live in hope somebody gets it reasonable.

I was bought up on the WRG rules from the 80s, troop scale 1:1 & a ground scale of 1mm=2m. A 4'x 8' playing area therefore had a game area of 2400 x 4800m. UshCha mentions terrain density in West Germany & I fully concur.
My 'goto' book at the time was David Isby's "Weapons & Tactics of the Soviet Army" which talked in some depth about maximum lines of sight & engagement ranges being generally a few hundred metres with the occasional vista out to 2-3km. So a company level game….with maybe a battalion of WP troops against a company of NATO at 1/300 and 1:1 worked out perfectly.

Dolphinless +1

The thread Convoy organization I just put on says its all why 1:1 Is in any ways the best. Without really strange long bases up to 1/2 a tank gun range long you could not get a representative convoy length. With such long bases you would need odd rules about shooting at the "vehicle" present and you would need Sabot bases if the convoy did close up for instance.

All the large scale rules I have seen fail dramatically to represent the sheer scale of the deployment of units, particularly on road.