From time to time, I've hosted modern skirmish games at PW meetings using very few, perhaps 4 or 5, figures per side. A card system of movement is used in which each man's name is placed on 3 to 6 cards, all the cards shuffled randomly, a card is drawn, and the man noted on the card may move or fire. Those men with more cards in the deck will, naturally, be called on more often than the others; they can perform more actions within the bound than those with fewer cards... hence the 6 card men are veterans, while the 3 card men are recruits. Although the card sequence is the subject of much discussion, by far the most talked-over topic is that of firepower, i.e., the distinction the rules make between rifle, pistol, submachinegun and machinegun fire. 54mm figures are used; each man is 2 inches high. The game scale is derived from the figure height: 2 inches equates to 6 feet; every inch on the table top is 3 feet, or 1 yard. Rifles are given a 100 inch (300 yard) range. Not because they can't reach further, but because the time span of the skirmish action would have the participants engaging in snap shots only ... there is not too much time to slowly take aim and fire ... hence it was deemed not unreasonable to limit the range of such snap shots to the length of a football field...100 yards, or 300 feet. The basic probability of hit of the rifle is given as; P(r) = 100 - Range in inches which means that P(r) goes from 0% at a range of 100 inches to 100% (a sure hit) at zero range. Other modifiers are thrown in for target size, whether or not the firer moved, pivoted, etc., but the heart of the calculation lies in the equation as given above. For practical purposes, I find it easier to subtract from 99 than from 100, since there are no "carries", thus I use the equation: P(r) = 99 - Range Having fired, thrown the dice and hit the target by rolling less than the percentage P(r), the firer then goes to a nomograph to determine the effect of the hit on the target. The dice are thrown again and the 3 parameters of range, number of rounds fired, and random dice throw, are used to read out the casualty points incurred by the target. On the average, it takes 3 hits for a kill. Each man starts out with 100 Combat Efficiency (CE) points, and each hit will knock off around 30 points, more or less. Referring to Figure 1, it will be seen that 2 shots hitting at a range of 30 inches, coupled with a dice throw of 50, results in 28 CE loss to the target. It will be noted that with 2 shots fired, the maximum target loss is 75 CE; in other words, 2 hits will not kill a man according to the nomograph. This was purposely done for two reasons: First, with so very few figures in the skirmish set up, we don't want them to die too rapidly ... they should, for playing purposes, hang around for several bounds. So we sacrifice "realism" for "gameability" and hope our heroes last for the entire scenario. Second, there are provisions in the rules to determine if the target was killed, as indicated in the firing sequence: a. Determine probability of hit, throw dice to see if target was hit. b. If hit was scored, dice to see if target was killed. P(kill) = (1/2) [Number of rounds fired] c. If target was not killed, the dice are thrown again and the nomograph is used to determine CE loss. The low average CE loss per hit coupled with the low probability of kill has caused several PWers to dub the modern skirmish rules "Pillow Fight". For the most part, the author has ignored these Little People. However, I am mellowing in my old age, and the procedure suggested in this article concerning CE loss may assuage some of the pain these Little People experienced whilst gaming the rules. The equation used for submachinegun (SMG) fire is: P(SMG) = 59 - Range in inches which does two things: ftrst, it limits SMG fire to around 60 inches, and second, at any given range, places the SMG 40 points below the rifle in terms of accuracy. Jon Doud recently commented that the nomograph of Figure 1 doesn't really give full effect to an SMG burst. That is, that if the firer, in fine John Wayne style, fires a burst of 20 rounds at the target figure and hits him, the damage effect should be an order of magnitude above that done by a simple rifle shot. The comment is a pertinent one the nomograph does not give "credit" for the horrendous effect of multiple simultaneous hits. A simple correction for this is effected by defining the target CE loss resulting from a hit scored by firing N rounds as: CE Loss = [Value From Nomograph] + [N squared / 4] The factor [N squared / 4] increases appreciably as the number of rounds fired goes up. A rifleman snapping off a 3 shot volley would add only [3 squared / 4] or 2 CE points to the nomograph. A submachinegunner, on the other hand, who emptied his clip of 20 rounds at the target, would score [(20 squared) / 4] or 100 CE which makes for an automatic kill. Indeed this is overkill, for this 100 CE loss would be in addition to the CE loss picked off the nomograph. This late modification to the modern skirmish rules helps make the SMG into a short range killer - which is as it should be. Comments from gamers using the rules would be appreciated. Back to PW Review December 1981 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1981 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