Another 1976

[Lagartija Mike]

I’m considering getting into Modern, especially Armor, via an alt history that posits wildly different changes after the Russian Revolution. The technological level would run the gamut between ww2 and mid70s. Any suggestions as to rules?

[kyoteblue]

What size/scale do you want to use and platoon/company/ brigade ???

[Mr. Average]

For larger scale battles I highly recommend Cold War Commander. As I don’t normally play skirmish, with the exception of the Quar games, I can’t recommend but they’re all over the place these days.

[Rules Junkie Jim]

Spill the beans wrt your wildly different changes.

As to rules, are you looking for skirmish or mass combat? Given the year you’ve chosen (and it’s a good ‘un), maybe see if you can find WRG’s first edition of their “modern” armour rules from 1975, though you can download the 1985 version for free:

http://www.wrg.me.uk/WRG.net/History/OLDWRG/Modern.pdf

Tankwreck by Vandering Publishing would work OK for this period, though it’s more aimed at 90s scenarios.

If you like to keep things very simple, Pz8’s 2 page rules have a 1950-75 version in here:

http://panzer8.weebly.com/uploads/4/6/7/2/4672947/pz8_rules_collection_v3.pdf

It’s good for quick games, kinda fun, very armour-orientated.

[Sparker]

Battlefront are releasing their Cold War ruleset in October, which I am really excited about. In the meantime my suggestion, if you are looking for authenticity, would be the Canadian Army’s ‘Contact’ rules, which they developed from the WRG rules. Published by John Curry at the ‘History of Wargaming’ project.

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[Lagartija Mike]

Hey Kyote! I was thinking brigade+ (btw it’s a regal p!ss watching that mammoth mope grind his jaws about my identity, have it in his face and still get it wrong).

Mr Average, thanks I’ll check it out. I’m completely new to the period.

RJ Jim, thanks I’ll look into them, I’m leaning toward mass combat on the premise that more tanks means more fun. Beans? Please clarify and I’ll be happy to shine light wherever you might desire.

[Rules Junkie Jim]

The beans of your alternative history – what’s happening in your 1976? I’m interested to know. I’ve had a notion on the back burner (on a very low flame) for gaming a modern setting where the Austro-Hungarian empire is still on the go and picking fights (or having fights picked) with its neighbours, big and small. To date this project has mainly involved reading over miniatures catalogues and mulling what I could use as hardware, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of it.

[kyoteblue]

For Brigade 6mm/1/300 and Cold War Commander…shrug.

[Lagartija Mike]

Jim, 1976 is a mess. Russia is splintered between a Makhnoist Ukraine, a Stalinist Russia up to Urals, dueling White Russian states in Central Asia and Siberia with capitols at Samarkand and Magnetogorsk respectively. Not to mention the giant Tantric Jonestown of Baron Ungern’s surviving Mongolian Empire. China is balkanized into a Qing rump empire in North and Central China, the Chinese Republic south of the Yangtze, and a Manchukuo broken free of Japanese domination. Japan maintains an empire in Korea, the Phillipines and parts of Indonesia.

North and Central America are dominated by the United States (including much of Canada), a resurgent and powerful Maximilian Empire of Mexico, a diminished Confederacy, Quebec Free State and the small but powerful Talking Cross Republic of Yucatan, and Tejas….

I’ll expand on South America and Europe later…

[William Jones]

My post seems to have disappeared so I will try again.

Agree with Mr. Average on Cold War Commander.  Sounds like a fun and complicated AU.  Are tac nukes going to be a thing?

[Steve Johnson]

CWC gets my vote.

[Iain Fuller]

Have you thought about using Fist Full of Tows 3? – it is pitched at Brigade level (1 stand = 1 platoon), has an easy learning curve and has stats for both WW2 and Cold War kit included as the ruleset covers both periods. If you have a few players it can also handle Divisional sized battles well and there is also a good Yahoo group to support the rules.

RJ Jim – funny you should mention using the Austro-Hungarians, I very nearly went down this route too – I was going to equip them with Austrian and Czech kit with FUG’s as well and use the Swiss Pz61/68 as tanks, probably with Swedish aircraft too. Rest of Europe was going to be as it was at start of WW1. I actually have a ‘historical’ Austrian Cold War PanzerGrenadier Brigade done using H&R’s new models – the Kurassier model is very good and the Saurer APC’s aint bad too.

What I’m actually doing now is just assuming that WW2 didn’t happen somehow and so no Warsaw Pact and those countries have different kit – one of the problems for Cold War gaming for me is the boredom of always having one side with Soviet (or near as) equipment. I’ve just started on the Poles and will bung a few pictures up on here when I’ve finished a few. I figure that I could either go down the route of doing campaigns of WW2 using modern stuff (the thought of a modern DAK and Italians vs Brits and Commonwealth in the desert particularly appeals!) or Europe vs Soviet Union.

My blog: https://tracksandthreads.wordpress.com/

[Rules Junkie Jim]

Mike, that’s a great AU, charged with soft metal tank possibilities. I love the idea of modern(ish) White Russian states, and a Mongolian empire guided by the wisdom of a deceased psychopath mystic toff. At least, I assume he’d be deceased. America’s looking ripe for interesting games too.

Iain, I’d been thinking along the same lines as you about equipping the Austro Hungarians, though I’d forgotten the Pz68. What are you using for your Poles?

I like this alternate history malarkey, following the logic through based on historical precedent can throw up some interesting scenarios, and novel uses for old metal.

[Iain Fuller]

Jim –  I’m going to try and base each ‘new’ TO&E on real life ones with their equipment but with some tweaks.

My Poles are based on Nigerian equipment mix but with some slight changes as I wanted them to have Vickers mk.3 MBT as their main tank – figured that the Poles would have their ‘own’ tank and there is a history of them using Vickers tanks, I am thinking on what other tank to use as their most up to date one – I wanted to go with the Brazillian EET-1 as turret was developed by Vickers.

APC’s are a mix of Austrian 4k4’s and Grizzly’s – wanted to use Stormers as well but had problem with models – recon will be a mix of AML’s, Scorpion-90’s and VBC-90’s.

The good thing about doing this that I like is that you can use kit that didn’t get taken up by armies in real time line – as long as there’s a model for it, at the moment I’m quite gutted that there’s no OF-40 tanks in 6mm!

My blog: https://tracksandthreads.wordpress.com/

[Lagartija Mike]

Jim, thanks! I like the A-H idea too! BTW where can I go to get an idea about available equipment, my military knowledge runs dry after the mid 19th century.

[Iain Fuller]

Wikipedia is surprisingly good, search for ‘Cold War Weapons’ and you’ll be able to bounce around from there.

Getting hold of an old ‘The Military Balance’ for a year around when you want to set it in would be an invaluable resource as well.

My blog: https://tracksandthreads.wordpress.com/

[Rules Junkie Jim]

Mike, for some bedtime reading you could also see if you can get a copy of Jane’s World Armoured Fighting Vehicles by Christopher F. Foss, like this one;

which as luck would have it was published in 1977. It lists most (maybe even all) armoured vehicles and their variants available back then, and what countries they were in service with.

Iain, that looks like a good modern equivalent of 30s Polish gear, and it gets the Vickers MBT on the table, which is great; I love that tank. I’ve made so-so stab at a Vickers Mk7 using Scotia’s Osorio turret on their Leopard 2 (uparmoured) hull, and it looks OK: fine for imagi-nations.

BTW, I hadn’t realised the OF-40 was so different from the Leopard 1; I’d always thought it was a licenced Leopard 1A4, but on closer inspection it appears that isn’t that case. So, yeah, the OF-40 would be nice in 6mm!

 

[Lagartija Mike]

Thanks guys, will do. For my first game I’m leaning toward some kind of big armor action between the declining but still capable Confederate States of America (basically the traditional Confederacy plus Cuba but without Bourbon Louisiana) and the Appalachee Autonomous Military District versus Imperial Mexico and the Republique Hatiene in the weak but volatile Tejas Free State.

[Iain Fuller]

Jim – thanks! I did buy a couple of Osorio’s and was going to use it as is but there’s something about the gun on it, were yours really long and thin? The Finns are going to get the Vickers too by the way (also might substitute it for the Leopard in Canadian or Australian armies). As for the OF-40 I guess I’ll have to use a Leopard 1a4 as a proxy unless it is on H&R’s to do list…. a Palmaria SPG would be ace too!

Mike – would be good to check out an AAR or some piccies?

Tim – that is exactly what me and a mate at school did, we used the WRG rules and whatever models we bought with a rule that we could not have what the other had. Unfortunately my Panther/Leopard force was never a match for Andy’s Chieftains but a few valuable lessons were learnt about indirect approaches and the need for flanking!

Also good to see that I’m not the only one doing this – gives me some impetus to start the old blog!

My blog: https://tracksandthreads.wordpress.com/

[Rules Junkie Jim]

Iain, yeah the gun barrel on the Osorio is long and thin and annoying. It doesn’t look so bad when you put the turret on the larger hull of the Leopard 2, but if I make future versions of this I might try clipping off a short length of gun, or maybe doing a barrel transplant with the Leopard, though its barrel is overly chunky. But for all this imagi-nation/alternate history stuff I tend not to worry so much.

BTW, I find myself checking the H&R website on a daily basis (at least) to see if they’ve released anything new.

[Lagartija Mike]

Tim, not sure about the tech mix yet but there’s something about the late 60s/70s drab aesthetic that appeals to me.

Any recs for scale and ranges, I’m basically a 28mm ancients thru 18th century guy.

[Iain Fuller]

Mike – I’d go with 6mm as you can get a lot of tanks/vehicles/troops on the table and do large scale battles without needing to hire a hall to do so! Check out the following companies: Heroics & Ros, Scotia Grendel, GHQ and C-in-C. The first two are UK based and are 1/300th and are quite cheap per model, quality of the models does vary but once painted up and based nicely look fine; the last two are 1/285th, US based, more expensive but mostly better detailed – I don’t have any of these so going by reputation and photo’s.

Jim – I’d like to hear more about your stuff/take a look at it, do you have a blog at all? BTW – I’ve clipped a bit off the end of the Osorio’s gun and it has made a great difference.

My blog: https://tracksandthreads.wordpress.com/

[Rules Junkie Jim]

Don’t have a blog, Iain, and still haven’t acted on my plans to post pics here via flickr several months after first considering the option

[Etranger]

Aren’t “You” meant to have a range of 15mm modern figures and equipment….. 😉

More seriously, CWC would do a good, although slightly abstracted rule set for this period. You can use the troop lists etc to ‘mix and match’ armies too, which would help for Imaginarmies. A slightly left field option might be to try AK47.

For modern/ultramodern figures there are large ranges from a number of manufacturers in 6mm, 10mm, 15mm and 20mm. 28mm tends towards skirmish type games in moderns, probably because of the weapons ranges etc. There’s some stuf in 3mm (1/600) too. Personally I stick with 15mm, which is about as big as I’d recommend for modern era, being a compromise between detailed models and the ability to put sizable forces on the table.

There have been a couple of board games covering a Second ACW over the years. Somewhere in the storage I’ve got an old SPI folio game refighting it in the 1940’s & there have been one or two others.

[Lagartija Mike]

I’m a sucker for detail so as large as possible would be great, though 28mm is going to be problematic unless I repair to a quonset hut. I’m still weeding through rules options and equipment eras/types, I’d like a strong visual mix but I’m not sure how it would play out as a simulation.

Also, while I’m sure das Hogfuhrer has his tinfoil hat tuned to 11 on this and every other site I’m not Khurasan/Larry Dunn. I say this categorically so when the denouement of this long-form farce is finally reached Ubu Roi has even more than the usual mung on his public face.

[Lagartija Mike]

Quick question for the armor specialists: are the components of the Italian Ariete realistically interchangeable with the OF-40?

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