9 replies to this topic

[William Keyser]

Well not sure if any one will respond to this but oh well here goes.
Our club decided to give Main Panzer a couple of games to try them out. First we really like most of what is in the rules. I like the Kill table and the method of determining hits and Kills. I like the idea of plug ins.

So we set up a battle from Operation Epson, using the fantastic above the battle field series of books. The reason that I feel that these are probably the best books for wargamers that I have ever seen is that they have the military maps from 44 which has 1 Kilometre squares show all the hedges etc, but the most exciting part is that the maps are usually accompanied by an aerial photo from 44 showing the same area as the map. So now not only do you have the scale but you also see what the terrain actually looked like.

So we set up the assault on St Mauvie with the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers and the 8th Royal Scots. So that is two battalions of infantry attacking on a narrow frontage of 1.5 to 2 Kilometres. The defenders are four companies of under strength German SS troops. The 8th RS are accompanied by a company of 15 Churchill’s.

So far so good, the assault now we get into the problem, since there is no listed ground scale we have to infer and use what I have read on other forums, most on TMP. Which seems to imply that the ground scale is 1" is 50 Meters. Great now we set up a table about 36" wide. Place all the figures on the table and all of a sudden the infantry are firing over 1 kilometre with panzer fausts firing at 300 meters.
No something is very wrong with the "telescoping" ground scale if it is indeed 1" is 50 meters. If we look at the panzer faust then we are looking at probably 100 meters as maximum range so does that mean the 6" is 100 meters if that is the case then the table all of a sudden would be 120". Not what we are looking for.

So the problem seems to be with the idea of getting all the toys on table concept behind the telescoping scale! So either we go in and change the ground scale which really does not work or go in and change all the ranges of the infantry fire to something more acceptable.

We will finish our battle but then we are going to have to go in and change all the ranges, as I said earlier I really like the Kill table and the method of determining the hits and kills. But the ground scale just does not work between the infantry and the tanks.

So has anyone else found this to be a problem, particularly if one is trying to present an actual battle by using accurate maps and distances?

William

[William Keyser]

Well no response here but a number of responses on TMP. So I think what we will do is change the distances to a fixed scale of 1" is 50 meters, we will also take a close look at the artillery templates. We are also going to reduce the infantry movement by 50%. I will post a new cheat sheet with the new ranges and modifiers once I am done for any one intrested.

As stated earlier I really like the rules and mechanics of hits and Kills, it is just the scale problem that is a glaring failure in portrying actual battle fields from detailed maps.

William

[Kenny Noe]

William,

Sorry for the tardiness of our reply. Our MP guru is a bit preoccupied with personal matters, otherwise I'm sure he'd be right on top of this.

I will ask him to reply, but it might be a few days. Thanks for your patience.

Kenny Noe
ODGW

[William Keyser]

Hi Kenny
Thanks, no problem, we are working on some solutions to the scale issue. As I keep stating I really like the rules and will use them going forward, the only issue is that with out a stated scale and a sliding ground scale it is impossible to lay out a battlfield using period maps.

I will post our ideas once we work through some of the numbers.
William

[Bob Benge]

Hi William,

Sorry for my lateness in responding, but I had knee surgery yesterday, worked 12 hour shifts midnight shifts the 5 previous days before that and had to take care of a cople of plumbing leaks prior to that. Not the start to the new year I was looking for.

The rules were written to 1"=50 yds for micro armor. The sliding scale only applies to short range AT weapons to 24". The infantry small arms ranges are set up as general ranges with effective ranges at 12". Ranges past 12 inches are lower percentages due to their inaccuracies. While it may seem the ranges seem excessive, they are not in pure weapons ranges. The weapons can fire out to and past the weapons in many of their statistics but are not effective at those ranges. That is why the weapon efectiveness is set at 12" (600 yds) as this is where the weapons are effective. Note that small arms are somewhat generic and that is why they are all very similar.

The sliding scale was meant to give the infantry AT weapons a bit more range so that the weapons had a little more interation in the game. Without the sliding scale, the panzerfausts, bazookas, panzerschrecks and AT Rifles would not have more than a 2-3" range. While accurate for the scale, the game play seemed to suffer in all of our playtests since infantry had little effect in the game and tanks were supreme. So the sliding scale was introduced to give a little more balance to the game. Now if you are playing with 10mm or 15mm it will seem a bit out of sorts. With those scales we typically double all movement and weapons ranges and use 1"=25yds as the scale. This makes playing with these scales feel more playable and realistic.

I hope this provides a little more insight into the method and reason.

[William Keyser]

Thanks Bob saw your response on TMP. I hope your are ok after your surgery.

Thanks for the info, it does explane a lot, however, I am still going to change the ranges of the AT weapons, as I just fundamentaly dont agree with the idea of chaging the ranges of the AT weapons vrs other weapons. To me it skews the tactics of the period regarding Infantry and armour too much.

Having said that we are really enjoying your rules and our club plans to continue using them.

Thanks
William

[Bob Benge]

Hi William,

Knee is doing great so far thank you!

No problem. We always encourage home rules and generally tailoring the game to you your tastes.

We are glad you are enjoying the game as we do. I'll be doing some new TO&E in the future so if you have any requests let me know.

[Patrick Ries]

Now if you are playing with 10mm or 15mm it will seem a bit out of sorts. With those scales we typically double all movement and weapons ranges and use 1"=25yds as the scale. This makes playing with these scales feel more playable and realistic.

I hope this provides a little more insight into the method and reason.

On a side note, we play 15 mm for years now and the far better playing experience is keeping distances as is in the rules

[William Keyser]

Hi Patrick
The problem is if you make a table set up based on historical maps, the distance are so skewed for some weapons that the combined arms tactics are changed way to much. For example tank fire at infantry now has to be done at such a long range so they are not within the 300meter range of the panzer fausts that infantry and tank tactics fall apart.

We have been doing a series of games using Ian Daglishs excellent books on the Epson, Goodwood and Bluecoat battles, in these he has period maps showing all the terrain clearly, down to the hedges at the time, usually these are accompanied by aerial recon photos of the same areas. Now not only do you have a map so you can get the distance correct but the photos show just how much the battlefield was cluttered. When we used the scales as is in the rules the infantry became so powerful out beyond what they actually could do that you had the ability of the infantry to sit in towns and create chock points that never existed.

That at least is our experience. We are going to play Hill 112 in next week and I am making new cheat sheets without the telescoping scale nonsense. I will post those here for any one interested in trying them out.

I am also in the process of adding another aspect to the game in command and control. We are doing op maps and will post that also. Basically it means that you have to plan your missions on a map. Changing the mission is now a lot harder then just zipping your units to another side of the table. The idea of course is that most attacks where planned in some detail. Including for example a foot recon by armored commanders of the area that they where going to advance over, at least commanders would attempt to look over the area. This was not always the case but we are tying to make it about planning. I will put these in to a "drop in module" format so again any one wanting to try it out can do so.

Thanks
William

[Bob Benge]

Thanks William. Can't wait to see everything. Really appreciate your thoughts on the subject too.