Command Decision has excellent army lists, used not only by CD players but by others as well. The only thing they lack is a comprehensive point system. If you have ever matched a W.W.II USSR Regiment or Division against a German one you know Reg Vs Reg doesn't work. I have worked out what I think is a reasonable system. It requires a little math to use, but what point value system doesn't. I will give some common unit values later, and explain the system now. There is one option to consider. CDII uses troop quality in armor units, but CDI does not. I originally developed these for CDI, and had to go back and modify the equations for this change. My basic design goals were that an infantryman of the same quality was the same value in any army. Second,that I believed the three major tanks of W.W.II, the (German MKIV, the Russian T-34, and the U.S. Sherman, were of roughly equal quality. I decided that the lowest grade of infantry would be one point, and the above three tanks should come out about equal in point value, and I was hoping for a relatively low point value. As it came out, it was about 34 points for a company of U.S. infantry, and 40 points for a Sherman. One of my conventions was to relate things to the Sherman with 75mm gun. Where I comment on a ratio, that vehicle is considered to be the point of comparison, the value 1, or 100%. Comparably speaking infantry came out as below, for 1944. Nation Company Battalion USSR 8 54 Germany 26.4 127.6 German Pz. Gren. 49.6 226.8 U.S. 33.8 184.4 U.S. Armor Inf. 71.6 340.2 My point values are computed as follows. For infantry I decided to take into account the number of hits a troop can take, their chance to hit, the Anti Tank modifier and rate of fire modifier. I ignored morale. The factors I worked with provided five basic groups, and adding morale to the mix raises it to 15. I also ignored the SMG fire factor of some troops as the range involved is short, and it would again increase the number of groups greatly. The formulas: Add the two hit effect numbers from the Troop Quality Summary (TQS) chart to the A/T fire modifier, and then divide by three. Add to this the number of hits needed to eliminate the stand, and the rate of fire modifier, if any from the TQS. This is the basic cost of a stand of infantry. green: 2 trained: 3 experienced: 4 veteran: 6 elite: 8 The other things to consider are engineers (which cost 2 extra points per stand) Recon stands and Forward observer stands (which have only one figure, but cost full price ) and weapons such as machine guns, A/T weapons and indirect fire weapons. Machine Guns and indirect fire weapons Their Range in inches is divided by 10 and then multiplied by the rate of fire. This gives their value which is then added to the crew value. A/T weapons This is the same method for guns, and is as follows. A. Add all the accuracy number (remember to keep track of - and + numbers) Divide by nine. B. Add all the hit numbers and divide by 9. C. Take any HE hit factor and multiply it by the area it covers( ex. HE factor of 4, with an area of 2"= 4x2= 8) Add all these together for an A/T weapon. Add the weapons value to the basic infantry stands or crew stand point value, and if is a double crew stand increase the crew cost by 50%. That is your basic val ues for crew served weapons. Now we have to add in command costs. For the commander add the value of all his men plus any equipment and vehicles under his command. Find the Square root of this and add in the commanders stand value. Right, the higher up we go, the more that commander costs. Staff stands cost the same as a commander at the next lowest level, plus any vehicle he has. So a battalion staff costs the value of a company commander. Back to those guns. Artillery pieces are computed as above, then the cost of crew stand is added in. The cost of an artillery unit would be all the guns, vehicles, crew, and FO in it, as well as any command and staff. Naturally there is at least one gun that doesn't work in the formula. The German 20mm AA has no A/T factors and comes out to a minus number. Buy enough and you get a free Tiger! Everyone else's 20mm AA have A/T factors and work in the formula. I decided the 20mm AA was as least as valuable a weapon as the German 20mm L55, and rate it the same, 3.2 pt. A quad 20mm is rated at 12.8, which is probably too much, as the firing rate is not 4 times as high. Armor Tanks are a little more work to compute. Lets look at the formula under CDI, since a lot of people seem to stick to it for armor. The three tanks basic values came out as below. MK IV h: 31.6 T-34/41: 30.5 M4 Sherman / 75: 32 As I said I felt these should come out close to each other and they did. The Method. Add armor values, gun values, and the square root of the cross country speed. This is the basic value, shown above. Then we use an adjustment factor for the resistance to HE explosions, and one for turretless vehicles. Armor value is the frontal values, added to the side value. Where there is more than one frontal value work out the average, and use it as the frontal value. The gun value we worked out above. Don't forget to add in the machine guns' cost. The HE adjustment are Light xl, Medium x1.25, Heavy x1.5. Turretless AFV are multiplied by .75, after the above adjustment. Soft vehicles use the same calculation, pretty simple as they don't have armor and mostly don't have weapons either. We also add in the cargo capacity, and the towing capacity. Light tow capacity is worth +1, Medium +2, and Heavy +3. These factors bring the Sherman to 38.4, the Mk IV to 37.9 and the T-34 to 38.1. If you were buying single tanks you would round them all to 38. For a battalion you could use the raw number and round later, but it is only a few points at best. The only other factor is in the few vehicles that are amphibious. Charge an extra 10%. Incidentally some other popular AFV's would come out at BT-5A=15., KVI/41 = 52., Panther = 71, Tiger = 67. Some common guns are valued as follows, German 50mm/ L60 = 6.8, and a 75mm / L43 = 12.8, the 88 = 17.4 The Soviet 45mm/ L66 = 9.0, and the 76mm / L 52 = 13.2. Back to that change in CDII, crew quality in AFV. Troop quality accounts for about half the value of infantry, but giving it this much effect in armor seemed foolish. A green Tiger crew will beat all elite Sherman crew with ease. I decided on a 10% increase in the value for each extra hit, or chance to inflict a hit, above that of an experienced level crew. Conversely the green and trained crew get negative modifiers. So an elite crew increases the cost of an AFV 20%, and a green crew decreases it 20% Some unit values for you to work with. 44/45 Soviet tank brigade, experienced=425 44/45 Soviet T-34 tank Battalion, experienced=174 44/45 Soviet Motor Rifle Battalion, experienced= 115 44/45 Soviet Anti/ Tank Company = 23 43/45 Soviet rifle Battalion, experienced=66 43/45 Soviet rifle Regiment, experienced=309 43/45 Soviet rifle Division, experienced=1400 1944 German Infantry company = 26. 1944 German Infantry battalion = 128 1944 German MKIV company, veteran, =129 1944 German MK IV battalion, veteran, =683 1944 German Panther company, veteran,= 204 1944 German Panther battalion, veteran, =1030 1944 US Infantry company, experienced= 34 1944 US Infantry battalion, Ex = 184 1944 US Sherman ~~company, Ex=125 1944 US Armor Battalion, Ex, Heavy armor Div= 414. It is interesting to compare a US Sherman Battalion coming up against a Panther Battalion, or a Soviet rifle Bttn facing a German infantry Battalion. Hope this is helpful to some other gamers. Back to MWAN #84 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1996 Hal Thinglum 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