In my armor games, when tank fires on tank, there’s a single die roll to determine (a) if a hit occurs, and (b) what the damage is. To keep the game rolling at a rapid pace, the hit percentages I use are fairly high… around 40 to 70 percent. I tend to categorize armor tokens into 3 grades (heavy, medium, light), without getting into the nitty-gritty of differentiating between defensive armor class and the strength of the firing weapon. I assume, for example, that the weapon on a ‘heavy tank’ will have a greater penetration power than one on a ‘light tank’, and, at the same time, the heavy unit will have a greater defensive capability (wrapped in heavier armor) than a lighter one. For example, when one unit fires on another, I’ll start with a basic probability of hit (POH) of 70 percent, and make the following calculation. Assume a ‘heavy tank’ fires on a ‘light tank’. (a) 70 Basic POH (b) -20 Range adjustment, stemming, let’s say, from a range of 20 inches (c) +20 Weapon penetration adjustment. Here, for every grade that the firing weapon is above the target, there’s a +10 modifier. Since ‘heavy’ is 2 grades above ‘light’ (heavy to medium to light), this results in a +20 modifier This would result in a final POH of 70 percent, and if the target is hit, I’d place a ‘hit marker’ on the target. In contrast, when the light tank fires back, the following occurs: (a) 70 Basic POH (b) -20 Range adjustment, stemming from a range of 20 inches (c) -20 Weapon penetration adjustment. Here, for every grade that the firing weapon is below the target, there’s a -10 modifier. Since ‘light’ is 2 grades below ‘heavy’, this results in a -20 modifier Here, the final POH is 30, and if the target is hit, it receives a hit marker. At the end of the bound, there’s a “damage assessment” phase, in which the total effect of all the hit markers accumulated by various targets is determined. Where the hit markers come from is, in this phase, not a consideration. A total of 3 hit markers on a heavy tank could have arisen because a lighter unit hit it twice, while a heavy unit hit it once. A hit is a hit is a hit. Mike Mcveigh disagrees with this approach. His thought is that when a ‘light tank’ fires on a ‘heavy’, the impact from the light should be minimal, negligible. In other words, when damage assessment time comes along, there really shouldn’t be any hit markers resulting from ‘lights’ firing on ‘heavies’. Light tank guns, simply put, can’t penetrate heavy armor, and the hits stemming from a light-firing-on-heavy encounter shouldn’t even be allowed, i.e., should be immediately discarded. Five Different Rule Sets...5 Different Approaches I looked at 5 different sets of ‘modern’ rules to see how they treated this aspect of the game. First was TAC FORCE, published by GDW, probably in the 80’s. A nightmare of a game, with a zillion charts. Two dice throws were used here. (a) First, the hit tables gave a reference hit number, H, and a 10-sided die roll had to be equal to or less than H to hit. (b) The second die toss looked at penetration. The firing weapon has a penetration factor, P, and the target armor a defensive factor of D. Subtract D from P, and the penetration roll has to be equal to or less than this number. In TAC FORCE, a micro-armor game, penetrating the target results in a kill. (c) If in Step (b), the D factor is greater than P, no penetration is possible, and the target is unscathed. Which means that TAC FORCE follows the McVeigh concept. Another set of rules was BODYCOUNT, for the Vietnamese War, which, I think, was published in the 80’s. Two dice throws were used. (a) The first die roll, to hit the target, was that of a 20-sided die. Here, the reference to-hit number, H, must be equaled or exceeded by the die. (b) Next, a penetration die roll, again using a 20-sided die. For weapons able to penetrate the target armor, the 20-sided die roll table listed 20 possible results, ranging from vehicle destroyed to a broken track. (c) But there was another table for weapons unable to penetrate the armor. Here, the result could range from a crewman injured to a broken track. Which means that BODYCOUNT required a data sheet for the units on the field, and the damage to each unit tracked. MEIN PANZER was next. This is a recently published set (1999), and the MEIN PANZER crowd sets up lottsa 15mm games at every HMGS convention. I grabbed a ‘junior’ version of their gaming rules, but I’m sure the procedures of ‘junior’ and ‘senior’ are the same. Two dice throws again. (a) Each weapon has a to-hit number, H. And first, a 10-sided die roll had to be equal to, or less than, H to hit. (b) Each weapon has a penetration, P, and each target has an armor value, D. Subtract the D factor from P, and a 10-sided penetration die roll had to equal, or be less than, the difference to penetrate. (c) In all cases, when D exceeded P, and penetration was impossible, the rules sheet made an exception. A toss of a ‘1’ on the penetration die always resulted in a kill, regardless of the relative sizes of P and D. And now it was COMMAND DECISION. A single 10-sided die roll was used. (a) Each weapon has a to-hit number, H. First, you look for a low toss. The die toss must be less than, or equal to, H for a hit to occur. (b) Each weapon has a penetration factor, P, and each target an armor factor, D. Now, if the H result was a hit, take the P factor and add the to-hit die roll that you just got to this P factor. To penetrate, the sum must be equal to, or greater than, the D factor of the target. So here, you look for a high die toss… but didn’t I just say that you were looking for a low toss?? Ah, well, that’s COMMAND DECISION for you. (c) Now look at the difference between the sum and the D factor. If the difference was 1, or 2, or 3, one hit on the target is scored. If the difference was 4, or 5, or 6, a total of 2 hits were scored. And if the difference was 7 to 10, the target was destroyed. (d) Here, although I didn’t have all the tables available, it appeared that any weapon, if it hit its target, could impact on it, regardless of relative armor value. Here, too, the rules required that a data sheet be maintained for each stand. I then looked at BREW UP, an oldie-but-goodie, written by Lee Tucker, published in 1974. This used 6-sided die rolls. BREW UP is a low level skirmish game, in which each token is given a data sheet. (a) Each weapon was given a small to-hit number, H, which added something to a toss of two 6-sided dice. If the adjusted total on the toss was 5 or more, the target was hit. A total of 5 is pretty low, and I noted that most of the other modifiers were negative. (b) Then, if the target was hit, there was a check for external damage. Two 6-sided dice were tossed, and the result ranged from no damage at all, to jamming the turret, or hitting the suspension (vehicle immobile). (c) After external damage, a check for internal damage. Each target had a defense armor value of D, and a table simply listed whether or not the firing weapon could penetrate the D thickness of armor. No die rolling necessary. But if the table indicated that penetration was achieved, another two 6-sided dice toss was necessary, and the results ranged from vehicle destruction to crew casualties. In essence, therefore, the above procedures indicate that if you’ve got a small scale game, where a tank token is a tank, then you don’t really want to blow up the tank with a single shot, and you’d like to see what particular damage was done to the target, regardless of the origin of the shot. In contrast, in a grand scale game, such as TAC FORCE, you’re not really interested in the nitty-gritty of the damage done to each individual token, and you’re perfectly happy to have a yes-no decision made… yes, the target was hit, and yes, the round penetrated, and yes, it blew up. End of story. My approach to modern rules is to have a single tank token represent a couple of tanks… don’t ask how many. So when a ‘couple of tanks’ fires on another ‘couple of tanks’, then, regardless of the type of unit firing, I’ll record the damage in terms of a casualty marker. Then, later in the sequence, I’ll assess the total damage to the target token and see what sort of havoc was produced by all the lead thrown at the target during the turn. Since heavy tanks have higher probabilities of hit, most of the damage markers placed on a heavy tank will be caused by other heavy tanks, and there will be proportionately fewer markers placed as the result of fire by light tanks. An alternative approach I use is to have a firing unit produce a graduated scale of damage to the target. For example, if light fires on heavy, and the probability of hit is 40 percent, then even if the light tank fails its dice throw (tosses over 40), the heavy tank, on its data sheet, will record a wee bit of damage, say, 5 damage points. And if the light actually hits the heavy, the result would be slightly more than the 5 points resulting from the ‘miss’. I implemented this procedure because it always seemed illogical to me that when a ‘couple of tanks’ fired on another ‘couple of tanks’, then all of the tanks, firing together at the same target, would, due to a lousy die roll, simultaneously miss. Surely, one or two of them, would get to PING! the target. Under this procedure, the effect over a number of turns, of having a light unit continually pepper a heavy unit, will be to accumulate all those 5 percent increments until the point is reached when the target is taken out of combat, i.e., becomes ineffective. Do I care if the turret ring was destroyed? No! Do I care if the suspension was damaged? No! Do I care if the driver’s viewing port becomes scarred and opaque? No! All I care about is the fact that an accumulation of hits on the target took it out of the fight. Back to PW Review January 2001 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 Wally Simon 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