Re: [SG] conversion for WWs

On Tue, 4 Jun 2002 09:53:00 +1000 , Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

>I intend on mainly using my Dad's Army figs for FMA <they can be the
>homeguard of the community which grew from the mining facility known as
>"Walmington on C" ;)> but I do have enough for a small SG force. 

Hi, Beth.

I'm doing something similar, with a Call of Cthulhu slant, so I've
walked a
little way down this path.

>Do bolt action rifles count as Low-Tech Assault Rifles or are they
poorer
>still? 

I'm going to differ in opinion from the others who put bolt action
rifles at
FP 0.5, and I'll give my reasons. 

I believe a bolt action rifle should be FP 1. 

If you were going to compare futuristic firepower to bolt action rifles,
yes,
it should be FP 0.5 or even lower. However, this is in an environment
where
NSL panzergrenadiers are completely encased in body armour. In WW2, you
have
troops with no armour (except for aircraft crews, and I think some naval
crews) save a helmet.

So, here's the four point rationale for FP1 for bolt action rifles.

1. Firepower Drop Off due to Casualties.

Take a "standard" Regular German squad of 10 figures: 1 LMG, 1 LMG
assistant,
a Squad Leader, and 7 riflemen. Assume for now that the SL has a rifle,
not a
submachine gun. That gives you a D4 for firepower if you have 0.5 as the
bolt
action rifle's firepower rating. If you lose a rifleman, the squad's
firepower
die would be D4. If you lost 7 riflemen, the squad's firepower rating
would be
D4. It doesn't change, because D4 is the minimum.

If you give them a FP1 for the rifle, you will see a steady decline in
firepower as a squad takes casualties. This is more realistic.

Of course, the decline ends after 4 riflemen are lost. I have a rule I
included in Hardtack to handle this issue. I called it the D2 Rule. If
you
have a firepower total of 1 or 2, the result is a "D2". Of course, there
is no
D2 in Stargrunt II. So, instead, if the firepower would result in a D2,
treat
it as a D4 Open Shift down. That is, give the squad a D4, but increase
the
range die of the target up one. This works well in regular SG2, too.

Example: a squad of Regular 4 riflemen (using FP1) firing at close range
against a squad in light cover. It would roll a D8 + D4 versus D6. If
the
squad of riflemen took two casualties, they would have a D2 firepower.
Since
you can't roll a "D2", the range die is shifted up one. They would roll
D8 +
D4 versus D8.

It's fairly easy to use in practice.

2. Weapon versus Armour and Cover Interaction

Yes, I know that Firepower is not used for armour penetration. However,
Firepower in SG2 determines the number of potential casualties. If you
use FP
0.5 you end up with a lot of D4s being rolled, which will increase the
number
of suppressions (and decrease the number potential casualties). Since
WW2 was
usually fought with squads hugging cover, you're likely to get D6 and D8
range
dice rolls even firing at figures in the first range band.

You pretty much need a FP 1 on the rifle to get the kind of casualties
you'd
expect in a WW2 firefight. 

It also allows you to handle armour in a more flexible manner. Most
soldiers
in WW2 were unarmoured. They usually had a helmet, but a lot of soldiers
(red
beret paratroopers, commandoes, partisans) had no helmets at all. With a
FP 1
firepower you can justify giving soldiers with steel pot helmets a D6
for
armour, non-helmeted soldiers a D4, and civilians the suggested "D1"
armour
rating. FP 0.5 is low enough that you don't really want to give helmeted
figures a D6 armour; you wouldn't see enough casualties.

3. Weapon Flexibility

If you fix bolt action rifles at FP 0.5, you can't go any lower. The Lee
Enfield was an excellent rifle (my dad fired them in the late 50s, and
he said
he was hitting -- virtually untrained -- bull's eyes at 300 yards with
iron
sights). If you want to model some of the worse rifles of the era, you
don't
get the chance as FP 0.5 is as low as you probably want to go. Also, I
have
pistols as FP 0.5. It doesn't feel right to have FP 0.5 for bolt action
rifles.

Also, British soldiers had a high degree of marksmanship training. The
Avalon
Hill game _Up Front_ gave them a firepower bonus based on this. If you
want to
give them a bonus in SG2, you have a little more room to maneuver if
bolt
action rifles start at FP1. 

With this in mind, you can give M1 carbines an FP 1.5, and the early
German
assault rifles an FP 2. This also gives you seeds of firepower ratings
for
later conflicts. You can make the M-16 or AK-47 an FP 2 weapon, and the
M-16
with grenade launcher an FP3. Give G.I.'s in Vietnam a helmet (D6
armour) or
helmet and flak vest (D8 armour) and you have another era covered. 

(For WW2, I'd even consider giving carbines FP 2 and the assault rifle
FP 3,
but I think 1.5 and 2 is probably more accurate.)

4. Game Speed

This ties in with point 2. If you give rifles a FP 0.5, you'll end up
with
lots of suppressions and fewer casualties. This means that there will be
fewer
morale losses, more rolling for suppression removal, and a slower pace
of the
game. 

SG2 "feels" right when full squads are rolling QD + D8 to D12 + Support
Weapon
Die. The pace drops considerably when the firepower die for the bulk of
the
squad drops to D4, which is going to be the case in all but big Russian
squads
if you use FP 0.5 for bolt action rifles.

>And the tommy guns are they OK to be treated just as SAWs? I guess
>it'd be OK if both sides were using WWIIish troops, but what if I'm to
>spring them on Derek's NSL Panzergren's?

I wouldn't treat them as SAWs. You'd want to treat actual SAWs and LMGs
as SG2
"SAWs". 

I'd give them a FP of, say, 2. You could also argue for 1.5 (due to the
lower
range than a rifle or even a carbine).

Technically they should have a range difference as well. This is going
to be
hard to implement in a standard WW2 squad, where the Squad Leader has an
SMG
(Thompson in Commonwealth and American forces). 

Since a SAW should have a longer range than the bulk of the squad, don't
worry
about it. Just give SMGs a FP of 2. If you have an entire squad made up
of
SMGs, you might want to use a rule that I came up with for _Hardtack_:
shift
the range die up 1 -- before shifting for cover -- for every range band
other
than the first. 

Now, Bren guns, BARs, and other machine guns will be your support
weapons.
I've been giving BARs a D6 support die, and a Bren should probably be in
the
same range. I'd give them D8 but they were magazine, not belt, fed. You
could
make an argument for D8, though.

A belt fed MG-34 on a bipod would be a D8 or D10. An MG-42 on a tripod
would
be a D10 or D12. A tripod mounted vickers or .50 MG would be a D12. An
American .30 calibre MG would be in the D10 range.

>Going further back and thinking of WWI has anyone tried it in SG and if
so
>how do you represent the "mad minute"?

What do you mean by "mad minute"?

>If you shift to a primarily infantry based force (just as a
>bit of a change) are there any changes you'd suggest? I've a couple
ideas
>that need some more thinking through, but someone else may have already
done
>that for me ;)

Funny, I've been thinking of something similar! I haven't done any work
on it
yet, though.

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

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