In recently reviewing the firing procedures of COMMAND DECISION (CD) and SPEARHEAD (SH), it was interesting to note the difference in approach. Both sets of rules define a single tank stand as representing a platoon of 3 or 4 tanks. SH uses a single die roll to determine if the target is hit. a. You take the firing weapon’s attack factor, AT, subtract the target’s defense factor, DF, and add (or subtract ) the delta to a 6-sided die roll. b. The firing results table is very simple. A result of a 1 is always a miss A modified result of 2 or 3 is also a miss A modified result of 4 or 5 is a suppression (2 suppressions are a kill) A modified result of 6 is a kill. The entire platoon is wiped out. Note there’s no range adjustment, nor is there an adjustment for target size. Basically, SH equates the weapon’s accuracy in hitting a given target, to its kill capability against all possible targets. CD breaks the procedure into two parts, and uses two die rolls. a. First, there’s an accuracy roll. Each weapon has a “to hit” value, which is range dependent. Toss a 10-sided die to see if the target is hit. b. Second, there’s a ‘kill’ factor. You’ve got to see if the round penetrated. Each weapon has a penetration factor and each target has an armor value. Roll again. Add the second die roll to the gun’s penetration factor to see if the total exceeds the target’s armor value. c. To my knowledge, a single hit won’t kill a tank… 2 or 3 hits are required. To me, the CD method is more logical. There’s a distinction between a gun’s accuracy and its capability of blowing up the target. SH kinda fudges this distinction… which is okay with me, as my own armor rules blur the difference. Over the years, I’ve shied away from the CD approach simply because I don’t like the two-dice-toss requirement every time a single token on the table fires. But recently, with some spare time on my hands, I sat down and tried to come up with a procedure, using a single dice throw, that would take into account both the weapon accuracy and its relative kill capability against different targets. I drew up a couple of charts to reflect whatever parameters seemed to be pertinent, and set up a simple skirmish game to see if the logic worked . For ease of reference, and to put a historical gloss on the game, we’ll call one force the Americans, and the other, the Germans. Germans defend with 5 stands, Americans attack with 8 stands. An armor stand, i.e., a tank model, represented a platoon of 4 tanks, and an infantry stand represented a platoon of infantry. Germans Americans 1 Hvy Tank 1 Hvy Tank 1 Med Tank 2 Med Tanks, 1 Lt Tank 3 Infantry 4 Infantry Each infantry stand could fire at enemy infantry with a rifle range of 20 inches. I also gave each infantry platoon a very short range (5 inches) anti-tank capability. The other big guns all had a range of line-of-site, but I imposed a range modifier to limit the firing. Note that I stuck to the simple categorization of armor as heavy, medium and light. And I also tracked each stand in terms of its damage… when a stand took a certain number of damage points, it was off the field. Chart 1 Heavy Tank 150 Damage Points Medium Tank 125 Damage Points Light Tank 100 Damage Points Infantry 150 Damage Points The forces approached each other, and the first tank to fire was the heavy German tank, designated Platoon #2. I had assigned a probability-of-hit (POH) to each type of tank, and the heavy tank started out with an initial 70 percent. From this I subtracted a range factor, defined as the tens-digit of the range measurement, multiplied by 10. For this first blast, the range was measured to be 32 inches… the tens-digit here is 3, and 3 times 10 is 30, which means that the POH was reduced to 70-30, or 40 percent. Toss percentage dice and see if a hit occurs. If a hit does occur, then, as in most of my rules, I divide the hit chart into three regions or zones, with each zone dependent upon the initial POH number. Chart 2 Zone 1, Toss is greater than POH No effect, i.e., a miss Zone 2, Toss is more than ˝ the POH Target will a lose a couple of damage points Zone 3, Toss is less than ˝ the POH Target will lose even more damage points For this particular shot, Zone 3 would be a toss below 20, Zone 2 a toss from 21 to 40, and Zone 3 a toss above 40. The dice toss was 27, indicating the target, one of the American light tanks, had been hit, and it appeared that we were, initially, in the Zone 2 region. Now, using this single dice throw of 27, we have to modify it to see how much of a ‘kill factor’ is involved. Here, we refer to a sort of ‘penetration’ chart which will modify the POH toss of 27. Chart 3 Target Front defense Rear/flank defense Hvy Tank 0 -10 Med Tank -10 -15 Lgt Tank -15 -20 The heavy tank hit the front of the light tank, and the above chart, giving us, in effect, the defensive armor value of the front of the light tank, says that we deduct another factor of -15 from the POH throw. This gives us 27-15, or an adjusted dice throw of 12, which now drives the adjusted result down into the more lethal Zone 3 region. But we ain’t finished yet, since we now have to define the extent of the damage suffered by the target. In the next chart, Chart 4, I assumed that when a big gun hit its target, it would cause more damage than that inflicted when a smaller gun hit. Chart 4 Firing Wpn Target is Hvy Target is Med Target is Lgt Hvy Tank 15 20 25 Med Tank 10 15 20 Lgt Tank 5 10 15 This Chart 4 is used for results falling in Zone 2. For the more horrendous Zone 3 damage, add another +10 to the damage points listed in Chart 4. And so, what we get out of all of the above, is that the heavy tank platoon stand, when it targeted the light tank platoon, could have inflicted a total of 25 damage points if a Zone 2 result occurred. But since the target aspect reduced the toss, driving it into the Zone 3 region, we added another 10 points, ending up with a final total of 35 damage points. Since the light tank platoon (remember that the stand represents 4 actual tanks) has a capability of absorbing a total of 100 points (see Chart 1), the light tank is about one-third out-of-business. Summarizing the Above There’s a basic 3-step process involved: a. There’s an initial toss, indeed, the only toss, for the POH factor, obtained from the type of weapon firing, as modified by a range factor. If the toss is below the POH, a hit has occurred. This toss tells us in which zone we start out… either Zone 2 or Zone 3. b. Now, there’s an adjustment to the dice throw result, coming from the target aspect (frontal, flank, or rear) as indicated in Chart 3. Here, for example, firing on someone’s flank will adjust the resultant dice throw downward toward Zone 3. c. Finally, a look-up on Chart 4 to obtain the final damage total, and a correction, if necessary, to account for any Zone 3 results. Now, is all the above worth it? Will it put SPEARHEAD and COMMAND DECISION out of business? Rather doubtful, but it does show that multiple die rolls are not really necessary to separate weapon accuracy from weapon relative ‘kill power’. Back to My Battle Since this was, for the out-numbered Germans, a hold-your-position-to-the-last-man affair, I developed a list of movement possibilities for the American side. Each time the Americans were slated to move, I diced for a random selection (there were ten of them), ranging from ‘all units advance’, to ‘two infantry units advance, while one armor swings to the left’, to ‘one infantry swings right, while two armor units advance”, and so on. There were two types of ‘advances’ on the list… units would either move forward 5 inches or 10 inches. And there was also an occasional ‘one unit fall back 5 inches’ provision. The German units, under ‘hold’ orders, were dug in, and wouldn’t move at all, unless mandated to do so by failing a morale test. And if they did fail, they’d move back 10 inches directly toward their baseline. The sequence turned out to consist of three basic phases: first, a reference to the American movement chart, second, some simultaneous firing by both sides, and third, the resolution of any close assaults that occurred because of the American forward movement. For the simultaneous firing phase, I again listed ten possibilities, and each time the sides fired at each other, a dice throw would select which units of either side would fire. The selections ranged from ‘all infantry on both sides fire’, to ‘1 tank unit, and 2 infantry units on both sides fire’, to ‘2 German tanks and 2 American tanks fire’. As the Americans advanced upfield, and came into range of the emplaced Germans, they took casualties, but none of them failed morale tests. The morale level of a unit was a function of he number of damage points it had accumulated. Chart 1 lists the total number of damage points the various stands could absorb before they would have to be removed. In addition, each stand was given 5 boxes, and as the damage points accumulated, a loss of 30 points resulted in one box being crossed out. Each unit had a basic morale level of 80 percent, and from this was deducted 5 points for every box crossed out. I should note that for this encounter, pitting 5 German units against 8 American units, the record keeping business of tracking damage points and morale boxes was fairly minimal. As the turns kept on, the attacking force, due to an assortment of lucky dice throws… both in the firing and the close assault procedures… drove the Germans back. Around the 5th turn, as I scanned the data sheets, I noted that although the Germans were consistently being driven back, their losses were not mounting as much as I would have thought. And so, in midstream, I decided to “up the damage points”. My thought was that, here, I had gone to the trouble of drawing up my charts, and crafting a probability-of-hit (POH) table, and then modifying the POH to account for target aspect, and then broken the damage result table into two separate zones… and the little guys on the field were simply standing there, absorbing all losses! The big change was to really pump up the losses that occurred when the modified POH dice throw fell into the dreaded Zone 3 region. Before, I had said that if a Zone 2 toss appeared, use Chart 4 directly , but if a Zone 3 loss occurred, add 10 points to the listing. Now, if a target was hit in Zone 3, it would lose an additional 30 damage points. This was all the American forces wanted to hear. They became unstoppable… they tossed their POH dice with renewed vigor, and seemed to specialize in low dice throws. In fact, most of the time, the tosses were so low, there was no need to adjust them for target aspect, since they started out in the dreaded Zone 3. The additional 30 points of damage were too much for the defenders. At battle’s end, the German defenders had lost 4 of their 5 units. Their only platoon remaining on the field was Platoon #26. In contrast, the American hadn’t lost any units. Their heavy tank platoon had suffered the most damage. Chart 1 states that a heavy tank unit can absorb a total of 150 damage points, and the American unit had accumulated 135. Back to PW Review July 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