Home Forums Modern How much detail?

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  • #5407
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    So for a platoon level game where vehicles will feature, but in support roles, how detailed do you want your vehicle stuff?

    “APC – Tank – Big tank”?

    “light, medium, heavy” ?

    Exact armour ratings meticulously calculated?

     

    My impression is a lot of modern era gamers are pretty particular about those things but maybe that is mistaken?

    #5415
    Avatar photokyoteblue
    Participant

    Passive armor, reactive armor.. Mine resistant …big can of worms…

    #5438
    Avatar photoBarks
    Participant

    I, personally, prefer the ‘heavy/ medium/ light’ approach to ‘178mm of RHA at an angle of 63 degrees’.

    #5439
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    I, personally, prefer the ‘heavy/ medium/ light’ approach to ’178mm of RHA at an angle of 63 degrees’.

    When firing on a fairly sunny day at an altitude of 340 feet above sea level 🙂

    #5509
    Avatar photoMartin Lefebvre
    Participant

    My main gaming group likes Disposable Heroes which uses pre-calcualted armour equivalents in discrete zones and hides the math to the end user.  However, if I were to create that system from scratch would be to add a probability curve to the shell penetration values rather than a linear increase in multiples of d10 pips.

     

    On the other hand, my other group likes Bolt action where there are 6 classifications of armour (Softskin, Armoured Car, Light, Medium, Heavy and Super-Heavy).

     

    Personally, I prefer Disposible’s method of doing it, since there is less arguing about where you put your curve for grading the tanks and it’s more time-frame independent.   A T-55 in 1950 has more or less the same front plate thickness than t-55s in 1991, but I would argue that compared to the competition, it drops from a heavy to a medium over time.

    #5513
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    You actually raise a great point:

    If the time frame is very long (say ww2 to today) then it becomes very hard to rate every unit, because the ranges are so huge. How do you account for everything from a WW2 half track to an Abrams tank ?

    In a more narrow time frame, it becomes a lot easier to manage because odds are units will fall into a small number of categories.

    Of course, if using categories (light, medium etc.) an easy fix is to just include notes on what falls into what category in a given time frame. As you say, a T55 was a heavy tank at one point but wouldn’t be considered one today.

    #5517
    Avatar photokyoteblue
    Participant

    You could just do both kinda, fast play Light, Medium, Heavy . Then the extra chrome could be the 12mm at 34 degrees V 37mm firing case hardened ammo. at 500 yards up hill both ways.

    #5519
    Avatar photoPaul
    Participant

    An advantage of a simplified system is that it is easier for a reader to stat up their own vehicles. You might not provide me with stats for a Ratel, for example, but it is far easier to assign it stats myself if it is covered by a few simple, plain English descriptors and maybe a few unique traits (something along the lines of D&D 3.5ed feats, just for vehicles. For example: bogs down easily, open topped, mine-protected, etc).
    The reality is you are unlikely to be able to stat up every vehicle there is (a Rhodesian crocodile? The A-Teams van?) if your rules cover an extended period of time, so the ease with which somebody can add in stats for their own vehicles should be considered.

    Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!

    #5602
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    Paul – big fan of that way of handling stuff. “Traits” if you will. As you say, it does make it far easier to figure out what a vehicle is supposed to look like in game-terms.

    #5705
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    There seems little point in having more categories in your rules than were used by real soldiers. In a tanky platoon/troop game, the TCs will want to have a pretty good idea of what enemy weapns are dangerous to them at what ranges. So, consider the armour thicknesses of German tanks in WW2. Pz IIIs and IVs were progressively up-armoured from paper-thin (15mm) armour to 30mm, then 50mm, then 70-80mm standards of frontal protection. Add in Panthers, Tigers, Elefants and Jagdtigers and you need at least a further four classes of protection — in fact, the same number of armour categories as the WRG WW2 set uses. A three-point scale probably won’t do for that.

    On the other hand, if you’re an infantry platoon commander, a tank’s a tank. SPI’s “Patrol!” distinguishes onlt tanks and APCs, and the WRG’s splendid old “Infantry Action” rules use light/medium/heavy for tanks, based on their weight and the year (cutoffs are 12 and 25 tons up to 1941, 18 and 40 tons up to 1950, and 25 and 50 tones thereafter). In neither case does such a broad-brush approach seem to harm the game at all.

    All the best,

    John.

    #5724
    Avatar photoNick the Lemming
    Participant

    I, personally, prefer the ‘heavy/ medium/ light’ approach to ’178mm of RHA at an angle of 63 degrees’.

     

    Definitely. The simpler the better. If I have to get out the calculator, slide rule and Whittaker’s Almanac to see whether my shot has any effect, the rules aren’t for me.

    #5728
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    Appreciate the feedback. This is from the perspective of an infantry platoon commander.

    When I did vehicle rules for FiveCore, we were mostly just worried about APC’s and light tanks so just had “armoured” and “tough”.

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