Question - Minimum unit number required to be fielded in a force

Started by Roy, 03 October 2020, 11:10:26 AM

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toxicpixie

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Big Insect

Of course in the FWC 'arms race' Smart Missiles are countered by the predacious use of Reactive Armour - and the slow, cold advance of the Cyber-Undead.
Anybody for a 40 foot pylon death ray ... going "Zapppppp!" ... or a Cryo-tunnel?

But we digress and I will get into trouble lowering the tone of a serious CWC thread by bring up FWC (again)  :'(
'He could have lived a risk-free, moneyed life, but he preferred to whittle away his fortune on warfare.' Xenophon, The Anabasis

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Roy

If you're going to play FWC you need to be doing it properly.

Planet killer weapons, à la Star Wars*

Set up all your forces on the table top. Get everything fully prepared. Both sides roll a D6 for the planet killer strike. Highest score wins, their first strike impacted first. If the roll is a draw, then both sides weapon of planetary destruction struck at exactly the same time and both lose. Though, obviously, in the case of one player rolling higher than the other, the planet would be destroyed all the same  and their armies, as well as their opponents would be atomised. But still a victory of sorts! Both dice now rolled, pack up all toys and find something else to do.


* as in the movie franchise and not the the Strategic Defense Initiative of the Cold War. But then the current trend is to be rewriting the Cold War and making it Go Hot.

See what I did there? Looped the FWC discussion back to CWC  ;)
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toxicpixie

Back to CWC, a mild tidy up is all that's needed ruleswise (e.g. split factors for AI/AT) and as the original post suggested, sort the army lists (both in terms of creating reasonably accurate historical TOEs, war time exigencies, and when stuff was introduced and what's capable of using special ammo - thermobarics, I'm looing at you!)...

Anyway, back to FWC...
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Raider4

Quote from: toxicpixie on 07 October 2020, 10:41:12 AM
. . . I'm looing at you!)...

Is this some variant of turning a noun into a verb* that I've not heard before?

;)


* Like some athletes who talk about "medalling"

Lord Kermit of Birkenhead

Quote from: toxicpixie on 07 October 2020, 10:41:12 AM
when stuff was introduced and what's capable of using special ammo - thermobarics, I'm looing at you!)...

Research I did for both Leopard and BGMR seemed to indicated that thermobarics were never issued.....so nothing can use it. Rules for tac nukes are on the SMP forum - I know cause I wrote em.
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sultanbev

Fuel air explosive bombs, air dropped, have been used since the Vietnam War.
"Thermobarics" as in CWC1, don't exist for artillery used other than the Russian TOS-1 and possibly BM-30, both in post Cold War usage. Hopefully they have been deleted from CWC2.

Mark

toxicpixie

I'd like to see the Russian TOS-1 system in place - it was used in Afghanistan in the late 80's IIRC?

It's far less speculative than a lot of other bits and bobs, and I'd hope CWCII will cover the 90's... or at least get a supplement for Gulf War 1 onwards!
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sultanbev

If I recall correctly, a battalion of 12 was deployed into the Caucasus in the late 1980s for vehicle trials. So yes, they could be in CWC2,  a maximum of 3 models for the entire Soviet army!
My notes say first use was 1994 in Chechnya, where 2 battalions were deployed.

In CWC terms, the system has a minumum range of 20cm and maximum of 175cm. It is a direct fire weapon with an area effect that randomly lands like rockets. A bit like WW2 infantry guns, that are on table but their arc of fire is indirect, and the target can be observed by the firer, called in by an observer, or a pre-planned barrage.

Each launcher has a 10cm x 20cm area of effect, in which 50% of all soft targets are destroyed, even if in bunkers or open topped AFV. The aim point 1cm x 2cm area destroys everything. How you extrapolate that upwards to a full platoon/battery firing is the challenge.

Mark

toxicpixie

Panjshir Valley in '88 for live combat tests, apparently - although sources say "early 80's" which seems... unlikely...

Chechnya appears to the first time Western sources came aware of it (I suspect the Afghans weren't really differentiating between which artillery systems were actually hitting them... assuming any of them were actually being hit and they hadn't already bogged off somewhere to leave the Russians flattening empty countryside...).

The early versions are very definitely on table weapons, like a tracked battalion mortar but the later get a useful enough set of upgrades to be off table support if you want...

Damage? 2+ for everything under the template and it's dead. Suppressed on any other result ;)
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Big Insect

I will consider all requests and input .... very (very) carefully ... but these types of weapons may end up in an Optional Rules section as they distort the game play so very dramatically (a bit like Death Stars or Planet Killers)

We have had some notorious incidents of on-table use of things like Gas and Thermobarics in the Cold War Commander games ... no names mentioned (Dr Evil).

I might instigate a 'moral judgement' points penalty for their use - such as the loss of 50% of the remaining units on table for the player that 1st uses them. So that they do really become weapons of last resort.
'He could have lived a risk-free, moneyed life, but he preferred to whittle away his fortune on warfare.' Xenophon, The Anabasis

This communication has been written by a dyslexic person. If you have any trouble with the meaning of any of the sentences or words, please do not be afraid to ask for clarification. Remember that dyslexics are often high-level conceptualisers who provide "out of the box" thinking.

toxicpixie

Thing is many of them are NOT weapons of last resort, but are standard and expected kit.

The only issue with using Thermobarics in CWC is the rather iffy delivery systems available via tube artillery for loads of armies, and not restricting it to the TOS-1 (as Mark says, limited numbers, *and* 88+ at the earliest!) and air delivered munitions.

Air dropped weapons at least have to run the gauntlet of the oppositions air defence environment which adds it own level of gameplay and unreliability ;)

Putting in a "moral judgement" which has any kind of in game penalty would be an odd manoeuvre, especially in a "Cold War Gone Hot" scenario where NATO is very likely to have glassed Eastern Europe at the start of hostilities whilst the WarPac blankets Western Europe  with chemical weapons and biological agents :D If you're playing other theatres or restraining the use to conventional, then... just do that ;) And if anyone breaks that then lose gracefully and end the campaign early as it escalates to "What a strange game, the only way to win is not to play" ;)
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Lord Kermit of Birkenhead

Mark - as the victim of the gas attack it worked great for me, Russian Paras can't attack through their own gas !
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toxicpixie

Excellent Ian, that sounds like a winning recipe :D

I'm guessing that by the original rules they'd all forgotten their rubber suits!
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flamingpig0

Quote from: Ithoriel on 03 October 2020, 12:04:55 PM

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