Here's a deliberately vague and provocative question to get a stimulated
debate going...... <GRIN!!>
"Is one super-trained elite special forces soldier with the best
cutting-edge high-tech weapon worth 25 untrained farmers with
shotguns?"
OK, now to put it a little bit into context.....
If we have a (game) situation where there are five levels of troop quality
from 1 = Untrained up to 5 = Elite, and similarly five bands of "tech level"
where 1 = primitive firearms (that's "primitive" in
the SF sense, eg: early to mid 20th century stuff, bolt-action rifles
and such) and 5 = highly advanced weapons (plasma/fusion rifles),
then is it in any way reasonable to calculate effective firepower by a simple
multiplication of the two factors?
Being a little more specific, we have:
Troop Quality:
UNTRAINED = 1 (civilians and militia rabble) GREEN = 2 (unblooded troops,
conscripts and better militias) REGULAR = 3 (most standing armies and more
experienced conscripts)
VETERAN = 4 (experienced battle-seasoned troops)
ELITE = 5 (special forces, the best of the best)
Weapons tech:
PRIMITIVE = 1 (early 20th century firearms and simple civilian weapons)
BASIC = 2 (mid-late 20th century firearms)
ENHANCED = 3 (early 21st Century weapons - today's best,
plus early lasers, gauss etc) SUPERIOR = 4 (better lasers and gauss, early
plasma)
ADVANCED = 5 (extreme tech, advanced plasma/fusion, alien
ultratech)
The obvious extremes, as in the original question above, are Untrained troops
with Primitive weapons at 1 x 1 = 1, and Elites with Advanced weapons at 5 x 5
= 25. More average examples might be:
Veteran troops with Basic weapons = 4 x 2 = 8 Veteran troops with Superior
weapons = 4 x 4 = 16 Green troops with Superior weapons = 2 x 4 = 8 Regular
troops with Enhanced weapons = 3 x 3 = 9 Elite troops with Enhanced weapons =
5 x 3 = 15 Untrained troops with Enhanced weapons = 1 x 3 = 3
Don't worry for now what these final numbers actually MEAN in game
terms - what I'm wanting to get discussion and opinions on are how
people here feel about the RELATIVE values. This is all very simplistic at
this stage and of course takes no account of the effects of cover,
concealment, range, armour or anything else that will matter a lot. All I'm
talking about is the ability to place an effective weight of fire down on a
target area, at whatever we decide to be the effective combat range for a
given type of weapon.
Input from those who have seen real action are very welcome as always
(and by the way, John A - glad to hear you're safely back home!), but
everyone's opinions, whether armchair expert or professional, will add to the
discussion.
Over to you..... :-)
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 03:52:55PM +0000, Ground Zero Games wrote:
You're going to hate this answer, but: a linear scale can't really tell you.
Even in a basic "kill the other guys before they kill you" situation, ignoring
RoEs:
* Maybe his armour is shotgun-pellet-proof. Or not.
* Maybe his tactical information feed can show him exactly where each
enemy is at all times. Or maybe his armour is so all-encompassing that
he can only see a thirty-degree cone in the direction he's pointing his
head, and he moves at a slow walk.
And so on. I can easily enough build a scenario in which either side wins.
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 9:52 AM, Ground Zero Games <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
Maybe. More importantly, 8-12 super-trained elite special forces
soldiers with the best cutting-edge high-tech weapons are worth 250 or
more untrained farmers with shotguns. A lot of the advantages of training and
discipline come into play with unit cohesion, morale, and effective teamwork.
The horde of untrained folks are going to run away a lot sooner if they run
into problems, and aren't going to be able to use their numbers to good
advantage, and may even inflict casualties on each other by accident.
> OK, now to put it a little bit into context.....
No. A lot depends on factors beyond the weapons themselves. Body armor and
sensors play into the question as well. For instance, at night the best
weapons in the world don't help without night vision
technology, and farmers with bolt-action rifles and night vision would
lunch on anyone without night vision. Further, if the high-tech
troops are armored in, say, Traveller-type battledress, the low-tech
fighters literally cannot penetrate and hence can only injure the
high-tech troops with heavy crew-served weapons. So masses of
riflemen become irrelevant to firepower calculations and useful only to delay
and harass and hide the heavy machine guns and antitank rifles that can
actually kill the battledress.
On the other hand, if no one is wearing armor, then the tech levels of the
weapons become much less relevant and the training of the troops
become paramount. M-14s vs. Super-tech gauss rifles is small enough
of a difference that it almost gets lost in the noise compared to troop
quality, presuming that the gauss rifle is simply an assault
rifle with light-weight ammunition, high muzzle velocity (and hence
superior armor penetration) and somewhat higher rate of fire--though
if it gets too high the benefit is lost to a shoulder-fired weapon
without a built in fire control computer and stabilization system.
> will matter a lot. All I'm talking about is the ability to place an
When it comes to that, I tend to feel that crew-served weapons are as
important or more so than the rifles in question. Good machine guns can make
up for inferior rifles if you have enough of them. While the Germans had
inferior rifles to the US troops in WWII, the fact that they had a superb and
technologically superior machine gun which was integrated into every single
infantry squad more than made up for that. And the superior US combined arms
and fire support trumped the firepower of German squads in any case anyway.:)
I have deliberately ignored the question of plasma/fusion rifles, as
it all depends on how one wishes to treat them in game mechanical terms. The
precise characteristics of the weapon must be more concrete to determine the
effects of the weapon on tactics.
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 03:52:55PM +0000, Ground Zero Games wrote:
I don't hate the answer, but I fully expected it. ;-)
That's why I phrased the question as I did, and then I added all the
rest of the explanation in the post... :-)
> * Maybe his armour is shotgun-pellet-proof. Or not.
Yes, so can we all; the thing is, if we do this, then we might as well throw
away all wargames rules and reduce it to who can present the best argument to
the umpire about why their force should win.
There are innumerable other factors, as you rightly point out, that will
contribute to who ACTUALLY wins. But, in writing a rules system, we have to
have some method of determining relative effectiveness. To
take the classic and much-argued WW2 example, most folks accept that
a Tiger is more effective than a Sherman (in simplistic terms of
which is likely to win a one-on-one firefight). BUT, we have to
determine HOW much better it is, and therefore how many Shermans the Allied
player must have to "balance" the game against the German player's Tiger. You
could easily devise a specific and limited scenario which makes it quite
likely that a single Sherman could defeat a Tiger, but that does not mean that
the rules should say that the two tanks are effectively equal, or even that
the Sherman is better.
ALL I am talking about is raw weight of firepower in terms of bullets or
energy pulses being sent downrange with a reasonable chance of killing
something when they arrive, with all other factors being equal for now. The
only factors under consideration IN THIS PHASE OF THE DISCUSSION are the
combination of the firepower output of the
weapon system and the training/experience level of the guy firing it.
All the rest will be factored in later.
> Roger
> At 5:01 PM +0000 12/13/08, Ground Zero Games wrote:
> Yes, so can we all; the thing is, if we do this, then we might as
But heres the thing. Most wargames ignore certain factors like weather or
darkness. I can't think of maybe but one game where darkness was stated as a
limitation.
Who buys Night vision for troopers when every game is a daytime scenario?
> There are innumerable other factors, as you rightly point out, that
But it's not only firepower, but also command and control methods. a Char
B1bis is a FAR better tank, in terms of firepower than is a Panzer IV Ausf B.
And the bulk of french tanks Somua S's were far better than Panzer IIs and
IIIs which it faced. The key factor was not their firepower but tactics and
command and control. The lack of radios and the use of single man turrets
hamstrung the french tanks badly even in fights where they had the advantage
of weight where Germna tanks were concerned.
I'm thinking that in a stargrunt context, you should attach more command
counters to a given commander as tech levels increase. Because the platoon
commanders ability to designate targets and and issue orders goes up as tech
levels go up.
Tech level 0 you're having to tell troops where to fire by pointing. Tech
level 1, you can load a tracer round, fire at a specific target and your guys
will fire at that target. Tech and quality level 3 or 4 and you're starting to
be able to electronically designate targets. look at BFT and the other
electronic aids the US Army is using.
With an officer who has headset radios that reach all of the troops, his
ability to coherently give orders goes up in a practical way before combat is
joined, it's less easy when you've got weapons going off next to you BUT it is
still better. It also means that the 2 guys in the fox hole 40 meters on the
flank can still report accurately and coherently to the squad leader what
they're seeing.
So, really, as tech and training goes up, the number of command counters you
can give should go up as well.
> On Dec 13, 2008, at 10:52 AM, Ground Zero Games wrote:
> Here's a deliberately vague and provocative question to get a
I don't think a straight linear scale is going to work well as even
poorly motivated farmers armed with a BFG-9000 will, from a linear
scale, make them appear more dangerous than they actually are.
Perhaps if you added additional multipliers like morale, cohesion,
etc. each on a scale of 1-5? That really doesn't help the problem.
To me, and perhaps I'm WAY out there on this, but I feel the man/
woman makes the difference. How about adding up all the points that go into a
model (adding elements such as morale, cohesion, etc.) and then multiplying by
the quality?
If we add categories for morale and unit cohesion we then have four ways to
model a figure.
POINTS = (morale + cohesion + equipment) * quality
Point range would be 1 (for poorly armed dirt farmer with low morale
and no unit cohesion) to 75 points for an uber-elite troopy with
great weapons, morale, and cohesion. The same uber-elite trooper
with no cohesion (because he's by himself) would be worth 50 points. The same
gear given to a standard trooper would be worth 33 or so points. Your average
trooper with average gear, training, and morale would be worth around 24 or so
points.
Just some thoughts.
Damo
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 9:52 AM, Ground Zero Games <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
All valid points, John, but at this stage I'm not concerned with all those
other factors. Maybe I didn't explain myself very well in the first posting,
but see my reply to Roger's post. What I'm trying to get to is a STARTING
POINT for relative firepower values, which will then be modified by the
various other factors that need to be accounted for.
If I read your comments correctly, you're saying that you believe that
starting point should be JUST the troop quality, rather than a combination of
that and weapon tech?
> will matter a lot. All I'm talking about is the ability to place an
Agreed, which is why all this and more needs to be factored in at
later stages. A SAW/LMG should probably have AT LEAST the firepower
of an infantry rifle fireteam, maybe more, especially at the lower tech
levels. But we need to start by quantifying the rifle team's effect in game
terms, before we add in the LMG or whatever.
> I have deliberately ignored the question of plasma/fusion rifles, as
For the time being, think of them like their Traveller counterparts -
very advanced and powerful - though probably with less range than
lasers.
Jon (GZG)
> John
> At 5:30 PM +0000 12/13/08, Ground Zero Games wrote:
Why must it have the same FP?
Because in the context of WWII infantry, a BREN had a touch more firepower
than an Enfield. An MG 42 had FAR more firepower than a K98. In some respects,
the guys with the K98s were really
glorified ammo carriers for the MG34/MG42s.
> If I read your comments correctly, you're saying that you believe
Yes, I suppose so. Troop quality should be the driving factor, as it is with
SGII. After all, you can take the best rifle in the realms of
human imagination, and unless it is completely computer-controlled,
the single most important factor that controls whether or not you can hit the
target is the skill of the user. Give me one kid with a
bolt-action rifle who has been shooting rabbits since before puberty
over a dozen conscripts with AK-47s and ten minutes worth of
instruction on how not to kill themselves with them.
Troop quality is also a more complex issue than a single value--after
all, that country kid might have relatively high ability to use his weapon,
and good fieldcraft, but no discipline or training in teamwork or small unit
tactics. Conversely, 19th century Grenadier Guards had high morale, unit
cohesion, and discipline, but no fieldcraft to speak of.
> Agreed, which is why all this and more needs to be factored in at
OK, my personal opinion is that once you achieve selective-fire
capability, there is no where higher to go on the firepower food chain. Full
automatic weapons actually produce LESS effective firepower than short bursts,
which is why we took away the full auto from our service rifles, and those
nations that retain full auto teach their Soldiers to fire short bursts as a
rule. Increasing ROF decreases controllability and does not (without addition
of a bipod
and ammunition feed mechanism turning it into a SAW/Automatic
Rifle/Light Machine Gun) actually increase effective firepower.
> I have deliberately ignored the question of plasma/fusion rifles, as
Lasers... in Traveller, lethal against unarmored troops, but useless against
even lightly armored troops. So not generally issued.:) As for Plasma rifles,
their main selling point is in ability to penetrate battledress. In raw
firepower terms, the aren't much better than a
semi-automatic battle rifle.
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 12:10:09PM -0600, John Atkinson wrote:
> Yes, I suppose so. Troop quality should be the driving factor, as it
See also those studies that try to work out what percentage of soldiers
in WWII ever actually fired their weapons - I think it was somewhere
down in the single digits for the riflemen. (This is less true now, for a
variety of reasons, and I don't suppose all of them are known yet... but even
now I'm sure there's a certain amount of reluctance to fire.)
R
On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Roger Burton West
> <roger@firedrake.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 12:10:09PM -0600, John Atkinson wrote:
Those studies come under a great deal of question for shoddy methodology.
However, the problem was real.
Most of the problem comes from inadequate training--humans are by
nature reluctant to commit direct violence against each other except when
under the influence of extreme emotion.
You can be trained out of this reluctance, but we didn't know HOW to do that
until after Korea. Prior to WWI, the way to deal with that
problem was iron-clad drill and linear warfare. In modern warfare,
you don't have everyone operating under the eye of their officers, sergeants,
and comrades at all times. When you do, as in machine gun crews, this
reluctance was easily overcome. Modern training methods are effective, but at
a cost to mental health that goes beyond the scope of a wargame.
> Jon T. wrote:
> "Is one super-trained elite special forces soldier with the best
Only if firepower 5 really is 5 times more likely to inflict a casualty than
firepower 1 is when averaged over all possible situations (all troop quality
levels, all target armour levels etc.), and, and likewise troop quality 5
really is 5 times more likely to inflict a casualty than troop
quality 1 is in every situation. Unfortunately these requirements are
extremely unlikely to be met for any useable set of game mechanics, so in
reality you'll need to look at the probabilities actually generated by your
game mechanics.
In addition, you're actually asking two different questions here: figuring out
the *firepower* of each side is only half the work of determining how many
peasants you need to get a theoretically even fight against a squad of
super-soldiers. In order to determine the force ratio, you also need to
know each side's armour level and how it affects the enemy's firepower.
Later,
On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 1:10 PM, John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>
wrote:
> If I read your comments correctly, you're saying that you believe
I have zero military experience, but I do think that it's instructive that the
NATO round decreased in size since WWII. Certainly, there are many factors at
work, but clearly something is going on.
Jon, one thing you might consider is an obsolete firearms rule. This would
cover obsolete weapons, plus hunting weapons, hand weapons and even improvised
weapons not intended for combat. Once you have that (obviously, such weapons
are exceptions to the rule), the weapons you
have left are military-grade weapons that will kill or wound an
unarmored target if they hit, and can put out a decent enough rate of fire for
suppression. Weapons can have a penetration ability (as currently in SG2 with
"impact") that is technical in nature, as John
suggests to defeat armor/countermeasures, much as they do now.
What could increase firepower? Some kind of auto-aim feature, to
improve accuracy. Some kind of weapon that either has a very small projectile
or is a pure energy weapon, so troopers could use full auto without ammunition
or accuracy problems. I could even picture a weapon
that uses a speaker and computer-controlled fire to ensure that just
enough noise and dust are kicked up to suppress enemies, but real bullets are
only fired when the computer estimates a good probability that a shot would
hit something. Perhaps, borrowing from someone higher up in the thread, a
networking feature that helps troopers know when and in what direction targets
are most likely to appear. But I can't picture many advances that would
increase firepower by changing the actual payload that's fired.
> Troop quality is also a more complex issue than a single value--after
This highlights one of my favorite features of SG/DS: that people are
more important than gadgetry. I'd rather invest more stats to describe my
troops as units (leadership, confidence, motivation) than their stats as
individuals or their gear. It's actually a beef I have with Full Thrust, which
eliminates crew and leadership issues entirely.
I've read the reply posts so far, and I can't help but let my mind drift to
the hidden core question...
"Should we have lost in Vietnam?"
JBrewer@webtv.net
"Always strive to be a good person. If you can't do that, at least strive to
be someone other than an asshole."
[quoted original message omitted]
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 6:57 PM, John Brewer <jbrewer@webtv.net> wrote:
Eh? Don't see the relation.
Jon is discussing tactical implications of small arms. You're asking political
and strategic questions. The outcome of every single
firefight in Vietnam was favorable to the United States--but in the
long run, that wasn't the relevant question. Or rather, it wasn't relevant
enough.
On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 6:41 PM, Robert Mayberry
> <robert.mayberry@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jon, one thing you might consider is an obsolete firearms rule. This
There is no practical difference between a hunting rifle and a military rifle
if we are speaking of unarmored targets. A round that will kill a deer will
kill a man. The differences lie in how one expects to use them. Hunters and
snipers use congruent methods and hence congruent weapons.
> On Dec 13, 2008, at 5:37 PM, John Atkinson wrote:
Ok, now I want to see a GZG strategic game with all the soft factors the rest
of the genre avoids.
On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 8:01 PM, Michael Llaneza
> <maserati@speakeasy.net> wrote:
> Ok, now I want to see a GZG strategic game with all the soft factors
Sure thing. And the second Jon can find customers who are enthralled
by the idea of doing SWEAT-MS assessments, he'll put in the effort to
write the rules.
> On Dec 13, 2008, at 6:41 PM, John Atkinson wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 8:01 PM, Michael Llaneza
What's the FM for those? I should at least do some background reading.
> At 12:57 AM +0000 12/14/08, John Brewer wrote:
We DID. We drove them to the peace talks and signed a treaty. The North BROKE
the treaty 2 years later and the US failed to live up to it's obligations of
assisting it's ally.
There were in effect, 2 wars.
Assuming that the purpose of the discussion is leading to an expression of the
points value of units in a wargame, then you need to factor in the mission
types.
If the mission involves protecting the base line from the enemy, say against a
zombie horde or whatever or its a rescue the downed aircrew in no mans
land, then a small number of power armour elite troops might not be able to be
in enough places on the table to achieve the mission and simply be swamped by
the low tech hordes.
If the missions are simply to kill each other then it could be a reasonable
place to start.
As has been mentioned morale and training are not necessarily the same axis
but could be 2 different dimensions. Historically training and morale has not
always been the same. The recent discussion on mercenaries could leave you
with highly trained mercenaries that are reluctant to get killed
unnecessarily, or you could get units motivated by belief in the system but
who are not well trained.
> Assuming that the purpose of the discussion is leading to an expression
Thought the DO have some bearing on points values, the actual point
of the initial question was to determine infantry small-arms fire
resolution, not cost points. Overall combat value is a very different thing,
which needs to include command and control, mobility, survivability and all
the rest; at this time I'm only concerned with very specific question of
useful firepower output when engaging the
enemy with small-arms fire.
> If the mission involves protecting the base line from the enemy, say
Yes, and this will all be taken into account!
On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 10:00 PM, Michael Llaneza
> <maserati@speakeasy.net> wrote:
> Ok, now I want to see a GZG strategic game with all the soft factors
FM 3-24, probably also FM 3-07
_______________________________________________
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Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
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general I would agree with your hypothosis that combat power will be
proportional to the training of the soldier and the technology they are using.
Assuming other things are equal.
In regards of the exact weighting it depends on how much your technology
improves the survivability of the high tech soldier.
If super high tech gives you predator style invisibility fields, or Dalek
style force fields then farmers with shotguns, or UNIT troopers with assault
rifles are not going to do anything and will get slaughtered in droves.
Within the confines of a consistent tech universe like B5, Star Trek or GZGÂ
your numbers sound about right.
Is there any particular reason the SF trooper let the farmers get within
effective range. Because if he's that good, he'd have laid a load of booby
traps and a kill zone out before he even thought about fighting them. Then he
would find himself a nice secure point or two to do some
sniping. If he did his job even reasonably well, he should be facing half a
dozen petrified wounded survivors who dearly want to live.
The question as it stands sounds like a wild west gunfight and if he's dumb
enough to do that then who cares how good he is, he's got no common sense. His
weapon simply woundn't put out enough effective FP to
take all of them unless he's using a star trek phaser on wide beam.
> Ground Zero Games wrote:
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l"Is
there any particular reason the SF trooper let the farmers get within
effective range. "  Because they were trying to avoid a confrontation
because it would (for example) draw attention to them instead of doing the
real mission. Â They might not have been gunning for farmers. They might have
been waiting for a High Value Target (TM) and were hoping to hide with a very
low profile until then...
F.P. Kiesche III "Ah Mr.Gibbon, another damned, fat, square book. Always,
scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being presented
with Volume 2 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) Blogging at The
Lensman's Children and TexasBestGrok!
> --- On Tue, 12/16/08, Adrian1 <al.ll@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
From: Adrian1 <al.ll@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Question: small-arms tech and troop quality....
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 12:31 PM
Is there any particular reason the SF trooper let the farmers get within
effective range. Because if he's that good, he'd have laid a load of booby
traps and a kill zone out before he even thought about fighting them. Then he
would find himself a nice secure point or two to do some
sniping. If he did his job even reasonably well, he should be facing half a
dozen petrified wounded survivors who dearly want to live.
The question as it stands sounds like a wild west gunfight and if he's dumb
enough to do that then who cares how good he is, he's got no common sense. His
weapon simply woundn't put out enough effective FP to
take all of them unless he's using a star trek phaser on wide beam.
> Ground Zero Games wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 December 2008 17:31:59 Adrian1 wrote:
A lot of people seem to be completely missing the point of Jon's questions...
(it's not about how any particular scenario would be fought, but how basic
firefight mechanics could work).