Most wargaming rules suffer from delusion, they are 'Games' but they like to think they are some sort of super accurate 'Simulation' of real life. As Games, they can at best produce results that "Mimic" real life, but they can never accurately reproduce every little effect that created those results. However many rule sets do this - They make the mistake of thinking if they reproduce 'every' little factor the result 'must' be realistic, regardless. WRG 1925-50 and Firefly are classic rule sets that fall into this category. Every single individual vehicle and Soldier (alright Fireteam) gets represented. It takes 1 hour or more to play one turn (usually representing 30 seconds to 5 minutes) and in the space of about 1-3 turns (i.e. 1.5 to 15 minutes) whole "Battalions" or "Groups of Companies" get annihilated to the last man - a somewhat unrealistic effect. Now you are probably wondering where I am going with this, well, 'All' wargames start out as Skirmish Games (1:1), but some (Spearhead, Command Decision, Korps Kommander) use the scaling effect (i.e. 1:4, 1:5, 1:10, etc.) to make the forces represent Coys, Battalions, Brigades, or larger (rather than Platoons, Coys, Battalions). Once this is done it is very important to make a conscious decision about how the mechanics should be adjusted to allow for this "Scaling-Up", since everything becomes a bit more blurry, individual weapons are less important than the firepower of the whole, and so on... Spearhead (SH) and Command Decision (CD) chose to deal with this in different ways, For example Command Decision chose to give stands varying strengths (# of hits) while Spearhead chose to say all stands are capable of sustaining identical casualties (i.e 1 hit or 2 part hits). Basically in most areas Command Decision is about twice as complex and conversely twice as much closer to a skirmish game than Spearhead. Anyone who's into Napoleonics and has seen Paddy Griffith's great stuff from 30 Years ago will know where I am coming from, he wrote 3 sets of rules, using the same troops and similar mechanics to represent Skirmish, Battalion/Brigade/Division, and Army level games. In the Highest level game no casualties were ever inflicted, hits basically forced enemy units back and caused morale checks! Now, finally, we get to Brian's question about the gunnery (and we will use AT fire as an example for brevity). The first thing to remember is that SH combines the effects of "To Hit" and "Effect" into a single roll - So we can arguably say that each of these factors determines about 50% of the final factor (e.g. Suppressions imply you are on target but not getting many penetrations). However it must be remembered that we are not talking about the fire of 1 gun, we are talking about 4-6 weapons. Each of these has a different level of barrel wear, the shells (and their propellant) will probably be at a slightly different temperature, every weapon will be at a different angle (none will be exactly horizontal), each will have minor variations on Gun Sights and even gunner competence, all of which will contribute 'to the overall effectiveness ' of the firing of the unit as a whole. What's more firing in the 300-1000 yards area is generally acknowledged as not having significant differences in "To Hit" probabilities, at least not significant enough to worry about when you are calculating the fire effect of several weapons into a single result (excuse me if I don't quote sources). Therefore it is not possible to simply take a weapons theoretical performance and use that to determine the probability of a hit. In fact the factor really becomes a bit of a "Hash Total" of lots of effects. In CD I and II quite involved tables were used to determine weapon effectiveness at various ranges, and these were somewhat unnecessary. Let us take a comparison of the basic probabilities of a PaK 40 from both CD II and SH. In CD the PaK 40 will hit 90% (up to 500 yds) 70% (up to 750 yds) 40% (up to 1000 yds) 30% (up to 1250 yds) and 10% (up to 2500 yds) However the PaK 40 gets 2 roll the dice twice, so (excuse the crudeness of the calculation) we could say its probabilities are: 180%, 140%, 80%, 60%, and 20%. Now let us use a Sherman (Armour 9) as the target comparison: Probabilities will be: Up to 250 yds - 20% Kill, 30% 2 Hits, 30% 1 Hit, 20% no effect. Up to 500 yds - 10% Kill, 30% 2 Hits, 30% 1 Hit, 30% no effect. Up to 750 yds - 30% 2 Hits, 30% 1 Hit, 40% no effect. Up to 1500 yds - 20% 2 Hits, 30% 1 Hit, 50% no effect. Up to 2000 yds - 10% 2 Hits, 30% 1 Hit, 60% no effect. Up to 2500 yds - 30% 1 Hit, 70% no effect. Okay, so now if we mesh the two together we see that the PaK 40 has the following "overall" probability of hitting and harming the Sherman: Up to 250 yds - 36% Kill, 54% 2 Hits, 54% 1 Hit, 36% no effect, 20% miss. Up to 500 yds - 18% Kill, 54% 2 Hits, 54% 1 Hit, 54% no effect, 20% miss. Up to 750 yds - 42% 2 Hits, 42% 1 Hit, 56% no effect, 60% miss. Up to 1000 yds - 16% 2 Hits, 24% 1 Hit, 40% no effect, 120% miss. Up to 1250 yds - 12% 2 Hits, 18% 1 Hit, 30% no effect, 140% miss. Up to 1500 yds - 4% 2 Hits, 6% 1 Hit, 10% no effect, 180% miss. Up to 2000 yds - 2% 2 Hits, 6% 1 Hit, 12% no effect, 180% miss. Up to 2500 yds - 6% 1 Hit, 14% no effect, 180% miss. Finally we need to convert this data to something comparable to SH. If we use an "Average" Stand (i.e. 2 Hits) we get the following results (using "Suppression" where one is scored): Up to 250 yds - 90% Destroyed, 54% Suppressed, 56% no effect/miss. Up to 500 yds - 72% Destroyed, 54% Suppressed, 74% no effect/miss. Up to 750 yds - 42% Destroyed, 42% Suppressed, 116% no effect/miss. Up to 1000 yds - 16% Destroyed, 24% Suppressed, 160% no effect/miss. Up to 1250 yds - 12% Destroyed, 18% Suppressed, 170% no effect/miss. Up to 1500 yds - 4% Destroyed, 6% Suppressed, 190% no effect/miss. Up to 2000 yds - 2% Destroyed, 6% Suppressed, 192% no effect/miss. I have dropped the 2500 yds off the list because SH does not permit firing to this range and therefore it is not of value in this calculation (although I would point out that CD requires you to throw 100 Dice to achieve an "effective" hit of any sort at this range, which begs the question of why bother having it in the game!) Anyway this compares to SH which has: Up to 1200 yds - 33.3% Destroyed, 33.3% Suppressed, 33.3% no effect/miss. Up to 1800 yds - 16.6% Destroyed, 33.3% Suppressed, 50% no effect miss. To compare these we need to translate the results into actual vehicles, so we will say Suppression = 0.5 of a vehicle destroyed. We therefore get: Up to 250 yds - CD-1.17 SH-0.50 Up to 500 yds - CD-0.99 SH-0.50 Up to 750yds - CD-0.63 SH-0.50 Up to 1000 yds - CD-0.28 SH-0.50 Up to 1250 yds - CD-0.21 SH-0.47* Up to 1500 yds - CD-0.07 SH-0.33 Up to 2000 yds - CD-0.05 SH-0.33 Finally, if we bring these into SH range bands and pro rata/average the CD values in proportion to the range we find the result is: Up to 1200 yds - CD=0.675 SH=0.50 Up to 1800 yds - CD=0.072 SH=0.33 Here you can see the crux of the matter - CD is more destructive at close ranges - Hence CD players often complain that SH fails to allow for firing at close range. However they never seem to pass comment on the fact that their firing is 400% more effective at longer ranges. Remember too that this is just a snap shot, If the CD target were Elites, you'd be down to a close range result of 0.33, which is considerably worse the SH, but conversely if the target were Green it'd be virtually a guaranteed kill every time you fired! Just out of curiosity, if we prorata/average proportionally the results we see that the *net* fire power of the two as: CD=0.474 SH=0.444 Unfortunately I don't own a set of CD III, but what I have seen and heard it definitely seems to have been heavily influenced by SH (or whatever sources originally influenced Arty when he wrote SH) since it has now reduced firing to 3 ranges, and got rid of the multiple ROF complexities. (Personally I see absolutely no need for these - if your ROF is higher, just increase the likelihood of hitting/damaging etc.. There is absolutely no need for rolling "buckets" of dice like some god-awful GW product)! And here is the crux of the problem Brian describes, CD uses a "Skirmish" level combat system with a reasonably complex morale/quality system - The result being that great emphasis is put on the firepower of individual stands, and at close ranges it is "expected" that you will completely annihilate your opponent (and I'm speaking from experience). Furthermore CD turns are 15 mins from memory, SH 15-30, so you could argue that CD weapons, at close range (1200 yds) in 30 minutes of "game time" will inflict 250% more casualties assuming PaK 40 firing at "average" Sherman (2 hits). Because CD uses a D10 there is a much more finer scale of effect, and this too can be quite noticeable. Essentially 'both' SH and CD use linear tables - You throw a D6 or D10 and make very similar adjustments. The results are a nice even progression, which admittedly CD II tried to influence by the extreme range factors (re: my comment above - A PaK 40 at over 2000 yards must literally throw 100 dice to get a hit (either a single or double) on the front of a Sherman). However the CD progression has a slightly more pronounced curved than SH (because of multiple ranges), although this may not be so noticeable in CD III. At the end of the day I guess I'm saying that the effects even out - CD is more effective at close range but worse at long, it also generally creates far more casualties (and IMHO and Experience causes units morale to break a bit too easily) but requires you to roll buckets more dice than SH - so if your friend is a dice rolling maniac you won't have much chop changing his mind. In reality the firing is a very small factor in the rules comparison - what is more important is: 1. Orders - SH has a good command system that forces you to define Axis of advance, Start line, Objective, Start Time, and Unit boundaries (re: the CZ). CD on the other hand has nothing except a half-hearted unit boundary type effect because of the command radius of the order chits. 2. Changing Orders - SH has a system which creates a few challenges for Order Changes (including how many per turn) - Its not perfect (and I feel a little too harsh on Italians, late war Russians, etc) but at least its there. In CD there is no restriction, as long as you have stands to issue order chits you can do whatever you like, individual companies (and stands) can go swanning off wherever they like, and so on... 3. CZ & Support Fire - SH has a system which (reasonably) clearly defines unit boundaries, and assigns fire zones and lanes of fire (albeit abstractly through the CZ and the Support Fire rule). CD is far more conventional and does not specifically define either of these factors - which are very significant for military forces. 4. Simplicity and Speed of Play - SH is considerably simpler (and that is not a bad thing) and faster to play than CD. On this subject, I've been doing some research on Armour & Gun performance and it is possible to have a weapon that can penetrate 5" of face-hardened armour but not 4" at a given range and velocity, which kinda makes a little bit of a mockery of complicated tables (like those in CD II) and is why I feel SH has the right approach - a sort of "Hash Total" of the overall effect. 5. Appearance - CD games look bloody awful with all those damn order chits and casualty counters!! Having said all this I'm not anti-CD and I'm still willing to play it if that's what the people I game with want, but it just doesn't compare to SH for micro games. Likewise, if I play 20mm, I'd far sooner play a nice "beer & pretzels" type game (i.e. Rapid Fire) than muck around with the complexity of CD. Back to Frontline Vol. 1 Iss. 2 Table of Contents Back to Frontline List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Rolfe Hedges This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com