1991 Persian Gulf War

Part 3: Modern Equipment Ratings

by David Nilsen

On the Brink of a New World Order

This is the final installment of the 1991 Persian Gulf War supplement begun in CPQ#4.

A few additional rules are required to translate modem equipment ratings into Command Decision 2 terms as follows.

Rules Additions

1. "TOCs" described in the Part 1 and 2 organization tables and on the data tables below are Tactical Operations Centers, and are treated the same as staff radio stands in the CD2 rules.

2. HEAT and HESH rounds follow rule 11.3, "Hollow Charge Weapons."

3. Infantry units and some autocannons have a Fire Modifier (FM) listed with them, +1, -1 or none ("-"). For infantry units these indicate the reduced firepower of small stands or the increased firepower available to modem infantry in the form of grenade launchers, etc.

This number is added to the chance-to-hit number according to rule 6.1, but is in addition to the numbers listed there. Forexample,the25mm chain gun (25 CG) HE round gets its listed +l in addition to the +l given for autocannons on the Small Arms Fire Modifiers table. Note that the +1 listed with HMGs and HAAMGs is not in addition to the HMG modifierlisted on the Small Arms Fire Modifiers table, but is a reminderthat that modifier applies tothe weapon.

Equipment Data Charts

The following Gulf War data charts list Command Decision 2 information for the weapons of the Gulf War. The format is a modified version of the Equipment Data Charts which appeared in the CD2 boxed set, changed to allow for the additional parameters required for modem weapons. For example, please note that the weapons ranges are different, and longer, than those used in the CD2 booklet of World War H equipment. It is clear that a number of Command Decision/Combined Arms gainers out there play a somewhat hybridized version of CD/CA/CD2 when handling modem topics, and these charts will show some of that hybridization. Owners of CD2 will be well aware that CD2 is ultimately intended to take the place of both games, but the sheer volume of "modem" (depending upon who you talk to, "modem" can mean anything from post-1945 to 2000) armies and equipment makes it a prohibitive venture to issue definitive guides to all "modem" armies at the same time. The following equipment charts function as the first installment of our incremental approach to rating the world's modem forces. Because of the combatants involved and the equipment used, these ratings will have uses for CD2 players far beyond the 1991 Gulf War.

Weapons and Vehicles are grouped according to nationality: Iraqi, Coalition Arab, and non-Arab Coaltion (with some duplications where a weapon or vehicle is used by more than one nation), by broad function (tanks, AFVs, artillery, etc.) and are listed roughly in order of increasing caliber. Vehicles are listed according to the weapon with which they are armed. Light-grey screens are used to highlight vehicles armed with the same weapon. Where vehicles are armed with more than one weapon, weapons are separated by a thin-ruled line.Weapon sizes are usually in millimeters (mm), or inches, except that missiles are given by name without their diameter.

Type lists the type of weapon, with its general characteristics noted (howitzer, field gun, etc.), followed by the weapon's weight class in parentheses. The abbreviations used with tank guns are a holdover from Combined Arms, and are retained for their descriptive value. Vehicle guns are listed with the vehicles they are mounted on. Where a vehicle has both towed and vehicle-mounted versions, separate lines are listed for both.

Speed Rd/CC gives the vehicle's speed in the form "road speed/cross-country speed." Towed indicates a towed weapon, Man-pack indicates a heavy infantry weapon (HIW) carried by its crew, and Cargo indicates a weapon carried in a vehicle and set up by its crew rather than towed. The letter "A" following a movement rating indicates a vehicle with amphibious capabilities; the letter "S" indicates a vehicle with snorkeling capabilities.

Armor is the vehicle's game armor rating in the form "front armor/flank armor." Soft indicates a soft-skin vehicle; =' indicates that an armor rating is irrelevant. A "w" after the armor rating indicates a wheeled vehicle; an "o" indicates an open-topped vehicle. Some vehicles have a parenthetical front armor rating. This is the vehicle's hulldown armor rating (rule 7.15).

Night Vision indicates the presence of night vision devices (rules 4.5 to 4.56). "A" indicates Active IR, "P" ndicates Passive IR, "L" indicates Light Amplification, "T" indicates Thermal Imaging, and -" indicates that no night vision equipment is fitted.

NBC indicates vehicles which are equipped with NBC systems (rule 26.3): "Y" indicates yes, "--P indicates no.

Armament indicates the weapon mounted on a vehicle or towed carriage. In some cases, a dash is used where this is irrelevant. Mounting codes are: C: Casemate, H: Hull, R: Rear-firing turret weapon, T: Turret. Turret is used for all mountings with a 360° traverse, and includes mountings such as pintle mounts for machineguns as well as true turrets. The notation TT indicates a weapon mounted on a turntable which thereby has 360° traverse. Descriptive weapon abbreviations include AC for autocannon, AG for assault gun, CG forchain gun, DG for demolition gun, G/L-L for Gun/launcher-laser sights, LP-L for low-pressure gun-laser sights, SB-C for smoothbore-coincidence sights, SB-L for smoothbore-laser sights, SB-O for smoothbore-optic sights, TG-C for tank gun (usually indicating a rifled weapon)coincidence sights, TG-L for tank gun-laser sights, TG-O for tank gun-optical sights, and VAD for Vulcan air defense gun.

Cargo Capy lists the transport and towing capacity of vehicles. The number to the left of the slash indicates the vehicle's transport capacity in stands (or cargo capacity in tans), the Roman numeral to the right indicates the highest weight class that the vehicle can tow. A dash (-) in either position indicates that the vehicle has no capacity there.

Rnd lists the types of rounds a weapon my fire: HE: High explosive, HEAT: High explosive antitank, HESH: High explosive squash head, APC: Armor-piercing capped, APDS: Armor-piercing discarding sabot, APFSDS: Armorpiercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot, APFSDSDU: Armor piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot depleted uranium, Cann: Cannister.

ROF lists the rate of fire of a weapon. The notation "s" indicates a stabilized weapon (rule 7.4). An asterisk (") with the ROF number indicates that the weapon may not fire in the Opportunity Fire Phase.

5", 10", and so on are the weapon's direct fire characteristics for a given range. The firstnumberis the to-hit number (roll it or less to hit), the second number is the penetration. If a weapon has no listing here, it is solely an indirect fire weapon and has no direct fire characteristics.

HE Data gives the weapon's high-explosive fire characteristics. The first number is the burst area in inches, and the second number is the HE fire value.

IDFData lists the indirect fire range in inches and/ormiles. No listing indicates the weapon has no indirect fire capability.

SAData is for small-caliber HE weapons, and is given in the form SA:X" where X is the effective range in inches. This means that the weapon's HE round acts as small arms cut to the effective range of X inches (and a maximum of 2X').

The Infantry and Machine Guns charts list the movement allowances of various types of personnel stands (Walk and Run), their rates of fire (ROF), Range (effective/extreme), fire modifiers (FM, which are added to the chance to hit in addition to those listed with rule 6.1), Medium (MAW) and Light antitank weapons (LAW) carried, surface-toair missiles (SAM) carried, and the size of the stand. Vehicle mounted machine guns are also listed on this table, with their ROF and Range figures. The FM number given for heavy machineguns is simply a reminder to use the HMG fire modifier, and is not in addition to this number.

The Antitank Missiles, Hand Held Antitank Weapons and SAM Charts show the game characteristics of various infantry-carried and vehicle-mounted weapons.

The Helicopters Characteristics charts list helicopters by type with the following criteria: Attack indicates the helicopter's air attack factor, Defense indicates the helo's air defense factor, Strafe is the number of dice used when strafing ground targets, Ordnance shows the antitank missiles carried (if any) as well as whether rockets are carried (indicated by "R"). ROF is the rate of fire used for firing antitank missiles, and Air-to-Air shows the air-to-air missiles carried by some helicopters. Stands shows the cargo capacity, in standard size stands (or tons of cargo). Load shows the Internal or Slung load of vehicles/weapons thatit may carryin standard weight class terms. A helicoptermay carry either stands or an internal load and either an internal or a slung load. Thus a helo could carry both stands and a slung load. NAW stands for Night and Adverse Weather performance. A "-" here means the helo can fly in good weather daylight hours only; "F" (Fair) means it cannot fly at night during steady or heavy rain or snow, nor during the day during heavy rain or steady or heavy snow. "G" (Good) means it can fly in all conditions except heavy snow (day or night) and heavy rain (night only).

    Chart Notes and Downloads

    The rest of the article consists of CA charts of various equipment, all expressed in terms for use with CA rules.

    Although we shrunk the image as much as possible, the magazine's use of particularly tiny type imposed a limit on just how much we could compress the image. In the end, we ended up with images roughly 800x1000 pixels.

    We suggest that, if you are a CA player, you may want to save these charts directly to your hard drive--wait for the image to appear, move your cursor over the image and right click your mouse. A pop-up menu will contain at least one item marked "Save Picture As..." or the equivalent. Click on that and use the next pop-up box to navigate through your hard drive to place the image in the subdirectory where you keep your other CA files or graphics.

    If you are NOT interested in CA, then the following files will not make make much sense. -- RL

1991 Persian Gulf War Supplement: Part 3

1991 Persian Gulf War Supplement Part 2

1991 Persian Gulf War Supplement Part 1

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