Making a WW2 Mod - was Spoon Feeding WWII Genre to players

One issue with this piece-meal approach (I'll just make stats for what I
have) is that you might start applying a certain value to vehicle (armor,
weapon, movement rate) which works great for the six or seven types of
vehicles you have in your collection. For instance, you give a Panzer IIIe an
armor value of 3, the Panzer IVH a 4 and the Tiger I is a
5.  Later your acquire a Jagdtiger - is it a 6? or a Panther Va, a 4.5,
a 4.7? Does the addition of Zimmerit paste add anything?

You might need to consider the entire possible range of values (absolute best
to absolute worst) and then start assigning values to the stuff you have. One
problem with this is what happens if the range is too large for convenient
classification of the majority of the vehicles used? How
often are you going to have Tiger II's, Jagdtigers or IS-2's on the
board? How often will 155mm, 203mm or larger caliber weapons be on the
board and used for direct-fire operations?  What about naval support
like in amphibious landings - should a salvo of 16" shells even be
considered at this scale?

If you leave something off the end of the scale, there is always going
to be someone who wants to use it - SturmTigers, Maus, Karl Siege Mortar
- do you just make exception rules for those items?

The values you pick need to mesh with all the other values in a
"reasonable" way. You mileage will vary as to what reasonable is - for
instance, most people agree that the 75mm on a Panther is superior to the 75mm
found on most Shermans, but is it superior to the 105mm howitzer found on the
Jumbo Shermans? Is a BAR the same as a light machine gun? Is the MG42 more or
less effective than a Lewis machine gun because it usually only had a 50 round
belt, wheras the Browning could take a 96 round drum? (admittedly in a fixed
position, you could link multiple belts together, but on the move only 1 belt
would be loaded). It's comparison's like these that make modules like these
tricky. Usually there is a consensus that one item is better than another, but
the question is how much better.

I've gotten stuck with these questions as I am making my own home-grown
15mm WW2 skirmish game. Straight infantry actions are a breeze, but vehicles
are a pain due to the huge variety of armor and weapons and systems found on
them.

Some thoughts before you get mired in details...

--Binhan

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