13 replies to this topic

[Dan Lewis]

My first game went well. Of course it helped to have another player who is a 6mm WWII enthusiast and has been looking for someone to waregame with for 6 years. He's ready to do another one in 2 weeks. I played a Mark Bevis Beda Fomm Scenario. It was so strongly weighted towards British however that I took a complete tank company away from the British that brought it down to about a 2 to 1 advantage for the Italians. But that wasn't really enough and the Italians lost a complete company of M13-40's where the british only lost a company of VIb's (who got caught out in the open). Meanwhile, none of the hull down cruiser tanks got touched. We finally called it a night. This game I designed to be played in more than one session I think. But the Italians had to retire adn wait for the other two companies of reinforcements before having another go at the dug in cruisers. At the real Beda Fomm, the Italians actually fought with a lot of courage and ended up losing some 60 tanks or so. So I gave the Italians regular troop status. Disadvantages for the Italians: Their troop quality was 10, vs British 11. The M13-40 ROF was 1 and the A9/A10 ROF was 2The M13-40 had a MOQ1 of -4 vs. the A9/A10 MOQ1 of 0. The british were hull down. So the Italians had to get within 24" to have a shot and then it was 2 or less to hit. The british meanwhile had a 11 or 10 to hit in most cases firing two times. And as the Italians got closer, the British got more lethal. So not much of a chance really for the Italians. The Hull down is the normal defenders advantage, but the difference in OM, coupled with ROF, was an overwelming advantage. If I had used the low quality amunition on the Italians (which I didn't), well need I say more? The Italians wouldn't have been able to hit anything at all. So I was wondering, what exacatly causes the M13-40 to have such a low to hit rating. Even the 47/32 AT gun is a -2. I realize that the short barrel has something to do with it. However the Soviet 37-L20 is a -3, so that doesn't explain it. It's not the fact that we have Italians, because the OM rating for Tigers with Italians is the same as the Germans. It's not ammo, that's seperate. It's not the traverse (electric vs manual) because the british tanks were manual travers and they have much higher OM than the M13-40. What's left, range finder I suppose. I know the germans had that. I looked at other low rated guns. The 75L31 (Lee/Grant) is a -3. The 3" CS in the A9 is a -4. The 75L24 in the PZIVD is a -1. Couldn't really find the pattern here. The OM for a outstanding gun such as the 75L70 only get's a +2 vs. the puny little 2 pounder that has a 0. So the range band on the OM1 seems pretty narrow. So if you only jump from 0 to +2 going from 40mm low velocity to a 75L70 high velocity...how can you drop from 0 to -4 on the 47L32 and the 3" CS?

[Dan Lewis]

PS: I also found that the game went kind of slow, partly because I'm slow and the rules are still new. But in retrospect I can see that using the alternate chart, where there's room to put in the 'to hit' and the penetration, already adjusted for TQ and range, would have been a tremendous time saver for me! So I will use this going forward and I think it will go a lot faster.

[gregoryk]

Dan,The base modifiers come from a variety of different aspects, such as turret speed, number of crew, etc. I agree that short-barreled guns are not as effective at short range as they should be. There performance at close range can be devastating, but there is a faster drop in its accuracy as you open the range. MMG has added a short barrel modifier. Also, using the playsheets found in the Download Library, which allow you to calculate in advance the penetration and To-Hit numbers. You will certainly find this saves boat loads of time.Cheers,Gregory

[Dan Lewis]

MMG has added a short barrel modifier.

Why? Surely this is already part of the calculation? Did you add long barrel modifier as well? That's about the only thing I can figure to explain the huge drop off in OM between the 47-L32 and the 2 pounder. If your telling me that's not included then I got even more of a difference to try and understand. My point was, that as I compare the Italian tank vs. say an A13, can't explan the drastic difference other than the Italian tank has the shorter barrel. Both manual traverse, both 4 crew, what else is there?

[gregoryk]

Danlewistn wrote:

MMG has added a short barrel modifier.

Why? Surely this is already part of the calculation? Did you add long barrel modifier as well? That's about the only thing I can figure to explain the huge drop off in OM between the 47-L32 and the 2 pounder. If your telling me that's not included then I got even more of a difference to try and understand. My point was, that as I compare the Italian tank vs. say an A13, can't explan the drastic difference other than the Italian tank has the shorter barrel. Both manual traverse, both 4 crew, what else is there?

The barrel length is part of the equation. Long barrels are pluses, short barrels are minuses. MMG felt that the barrel length effect should be felt at longer ranges than did the authors of MP2, instead of for all ranges. That is what our modifier does — it gives back to the short barrel guns some of the To-Hit chance they lose at close range, but at longer ranges they become less accurate.Cheers,Gregory

[Dan Lewis]

Oh, I understand. I never could download that PDF file. Got same message.

[gregoryk]

The attached downloadable file has MMG's formula.Cheers,Gregory [file name=MMG_short_barrel_fix.pdf size=82012]http://www.odgw.com/images/fbfiles/files/MMG_short_barrel_fix.pdf[/file]

[Dan Lewis]

thanks.

[Todd Reed]

I'm new to minis and to MP.How did you base the 6mm? What size? Also, did you game this on the table size recommended in the scenario?

[gregoryk]

todd.jayhawk wrote:

I'm new to minis and to MP.How did you base the 6mm? What size? Also, did you game this on the table size recommended in the scenario?

For AFV's many people, myself included, do not base them. For infantry and its assorted support weapons, we use the metal base that only costs 1¢ — the humble penny. For guns, a rectangle of ½" x ¾" or 1" works. Where possible, I try to keep them on pennies.Cheers,Gregory

[Mark 1]

Danlewistn wrote:

So I was wondering, what exacatly causes the M13-40 to have such a low to hit rating. ... I looked at other low rated guns. The 75L31 (Lee/Grant) is a -3. The 3" CS in the A9 is a -4. The 75L24 in the PZIVD is a -1. Couldn't really find the pattern here. The OM for a outstanding gun such as the 75L70 only get's a +2 vs. the puny little 2 pounder that has a 0. So the range band on the OM1 seems pretty narrow. So if you only jump from 0 to +2 going from 40mm low velocity to a 75L70 high velocity...how can you drop from 0 to -4 on the 47L32 and the 3" CS?

I don't speak for the ODGW team, but I have never found these specific values to challenge my own understanding of the history of this period.Accuracy of guns does not follow some consitant formula from one gun to another. Some guns are simply better designed, or better built, than others. Barrel length is not a perfect predictor of accuracy -- nor is it even a perfect predictorfor velocity, although there the correlation is somewhat higher, so that it might be used as a first-order proxy.Some examples from my readings of history of battle results and test-firings:The German 75mm L24 was known as a particularly accurate gun. Accurate, in this case, as in the dispersion from one round to the next. But it was low velocity, so over increasing distances the error in estimating the range could lead to reduced likelyhood of first-round hits. The 2pdr was known as a particularly accurate gun. It was also a very high-velocity gun for its time, and had pretty a flat trajectory out to about 1,000m. In the early war period it was often effective at longer ranges than other guns.The Breda 47mm guns (a copy of the Austrian Bohler) was only a modestly accurate gun, even within its effective range band. It was also only a modest velocity gun, and so ranging error compounded the inherant dispersion once you got past about 600m.There are several other well-known guns (not mentioned in this scenario) which confound the approach to derive an accuracy formula based only on barrel length or velocity. For example:The French 25mm gun had a long barrel and a high velocity. But the round was very light, and the slightest cross-wind affected it. As there was almost always some wind, it did shoot well at anything but short ranges. Of course, it was also hard to kill anything at any but short ranges, so I guess that all went hand-in-hand.The US 3-inch and 76mm guns were more accurate (lower dispersion) than the British 17pdr, even though the British gun had substantially higher velocity and a flatter trajectory. But the reticles in US gun sites were not very sophisticated, and so even if you did have a good range estimate it was hard to shoot well at long distances.The German long 75mm gun (L70) was regarded as very accurate. But the long 88mm gun (L71) was observed to be less accurate than the earlier 88mm gun (L56). It had higher velocity and a flatter trajectory, meaning ranging errors were less at long distances. But the L56 had less dispersion, so that if you did have an accurate range estimate it had a better hit probability.I don't know how many of these factors the ODGW team has taken into account, but so far I have not found anything that leaves me dissatisfied.Danlewistn wrote:

PS: I also found that the game went kind of slow, partly because I'm slow and the rules are still new. But in retrospect I can see that using the alternate chart ... would have been a tremendous time saver for me! So I will use this going forward and I think it will go a lot faster.

In another thread I urged you to consider starting with a smaller scenario. I still offer that as my counsel.I feel you are better-off starting small and working your way up over time. Otherwise it will take a long time before you experience what I consider to be one of the greatest values of MP. I find that the flow of the battle is very well done with the MP game mechanics. This is one of the reasons I am so enthusiastic about these rules. If I had not discovered this early on, I might have jumped to judgements/conclusions about the speed and scale of play that would have left me looking to other, simpler rulesets.I have played many different rulesets over the years (decades). Some have been notably more sophisticated in their modelling of guns-vs-armor. Others have been notably more simple. Right now one of my main gaming buddies is focused on the JagdPanther rules. He has been working directly with the author to bring the updated version out (after MANY years of dormant neglect). These are 1-to-1 unit scale rules that fall within the "fast play" model -- very simplistic in their combat mechanics. I find that we can play relatively large scale games (battalion per side) in reasonable timeframes. But the games are just not as satisfying to me. I like the feel of the battle with MP much better.If you start out too big, so that your time is spent making the game work instead of playing the game, you might well miss that. And that would be a mistake, IMHO.-Mark 1

[gregoryk]

Mark,Interesting post,and one with which I agree. The OM1 for these guns are easy enough to adjust for your own rules, I would like to know your sources on the guns, as I would like to find out about more guns that were common. N.B. The guns are often mounted in the AFV's of the time. For example, the M-10 mounts the US 76mm, which should fire at the same or possibly better range due to its aiming sights. But these usually fall outside the formula, which had to be adopted in order to catalogue all the guns of the war. Thanks for the info on the listed guns!I echo Mark's comments about starting small. There is a scenario posted in the Download Library for training on the various Drop-Ins of the game. From there you can move on to "Is That You, Sacha?", also in the Download Library. It has a bit of everything in a manageable package. I use it as an introductory game at conventions.Cheers,Gregory

[Dan Lewis]

I've played with the original Jagdpanzer rules and I knew that a new release was being worked on. Thanks for the information, it's very helpful. There's a lot of 'junk' in the market and has been for many years. You learn to try and validate information because it's hard to know who to belieive and who did their howework.

[Dan Lewis]

I only see the scenarios hat are 'free' not the paid ones. My rule set is registered. Is that was is meant by paid? Also, I don't have late war armor or Russian armor, so I'm limited in what I can play. But I see a lot of good stuff which should help. Thanks