Tank charts vs Mein Panzer vs Micro Armour®: The Game- WWII

[Atebit]

My club still plays tank charts which is out of print. They like it because of the trying to be very accurate with armor ,etc.

How do the rules Mein Panzer and Micro Armour®: The Game- WWII compare? are they a good replacement? or is the detail lost?


Thanks

[Mk 1]

I have Tank Charts (my version was published by GHQ), and have played the rules, though not for quite a few years. Neither of the two game rules you mentioned address the same issues at Tank Charts.

Mein Panzer is more focussed on the turn dynamics. It uses a system of activation by unit (usually platoons), rather than each side moving and shooting everything at once. This makes a significant shift in the way the game turn works. I happen to like this approach -- it makes a more fluid game and keeps things rolling with multiple players. But the game is more of a quick-play set (low detail) when it comes to the mechanics of penetration vs. armor. This is my current preferred ruleset.

Microarmor, The Game uses a 1-to-several unit scale. Each model represents several vehicles, most often a platoon, I believe. As such, it emphasizes larger formations, and unit cohesion plays a larger role in the game mechanics than is typical in 1-to-1 unit scale games. I've never played Microarmor, The Game, but I have played other 1-to-several rulesets. The games can be quite fun, but I find they don't stir my imagination to the same extent as 1-to-1 gaming, and so I prefer to stay at the lower level.

For a significant modernization/upgrade to the Tank Charts type of gaming, I recomment Panzer War. Mobius, an occasional visitor to this site, had done an astonishing job of research and game-writing with this ruleset. I played them for several years. If you really want the delicious details of projectiles striking armor (detailed by type of round, and facing of the armor, not just gun size vs. tank type), then his rules are the ones you seek. He also has a similar moder set called Airland Battle. And they are free. No kidding. A masterpiece of detailed rules, highly professional, well supported, and no charge, period. You won't find a better deal.

All just IMHO, of course. Keep or discard at your discretion.

Hope that helps.

[Harlan]

I have played all three and I have found Tank Charts to the most accurate enjoyable; however, there are many aspects of Mein Panzer that I really like. I have played Tank Charts since the mid ‘80s if I remember correctly. I have played Mein Panzer for the last couple of years and this is the preferred rule set for most of my friends. I have played a couple other rule sets, but I have not seen any of them in several years.

Tank Charts:
Pro
• Very detail vehicle charts
• Plays very quickly
• Simple Rules
Con
• Limited Vehicles (although, I have fix this in my copy)
• Limited availability of rules
• When I have played it with other than my closest of wargamers, we have had some arguments about which armor facing applies

Mein Panzer:
Pro
• Complete list of vehicle for WWI, Spanish Civil War, WWII, Secret Weapons and What Ifs of WWII. Korean War is a future project. I would assume Arab-Israeli Wars, Cold War, and Ultra Modern are future projects, although there are some limited data tables for those time periods.
• Activation Method of Command
• It is a complete rule set. It covers everything from ground combat to naval gunfire to airborne operations.
• Very good support forum
• Downloadable updates
Con
• If you want to plan a large game, you will need several people per side
• It is more expensive of the three (in my opinion, well worth it)
• It is a little slower to play unless everyone is very familiar with the rules

I do not want to bash GHQ’s Micro Armor the Game, but we did not like it. Sorry GHQ.

I hope this helps,
Harlan

[Atebit]

Thank you for the replies. I have a better understanding of why the club still plays Tank Charts. I just hate not being able to get the manual. I wish all out of print manuals were up on lulu.com or something so that you could get them whether they were out of print or not.

I am going to also check out that free version. It looked interesting also. Thanks!

[Nazgul]

Just curious, I've heard of Tank Charts, but have never seen it in person. Exactly what information is supplied for each vehicle?

[Harlan]

Here is a sample of the entry for the M-4A3E8 (Easy Eight):

M-4A3E8(76)HVSS Easy 8 (Sherman IVAY): American, 75, 2/44
SIZE: Medium ARMAMENT: 76 L53, 2 .30 cal MG, .50 cal AAMG
PERFORMANCE: 3 FIRE FACTOR: 6*
OBSERVATION FACTOR: 3
ROAD: 26 mph CROSS-COUNTY: 16 mph
ARMOR
Turret Upper Hull Lower Hull
FRONT 102 110 107
FRONT 45º 168 181 177
SIDE 67 38 38
SIDE 45º 111 63 63
REAR 71 41 41
REAR 45º 117 68 68
25 50 100 250 500 750 1000 1250 1500 2000 2500 3000 4000
Q: 1 3 4 5 7 8 9 11 13 15 17 --- ---
P: 146 143 141 135 128 121 115 108 101 89 78 --- ---

[Nazgul]

Thanks for the information. Looks like it was pretty detailed, too bad it didn't make it. I wonder if GHQ would consider reprinting it with some modern vehicles? (hint, hint)

I've been using a Tractics / Battallions in Crisis! hybrid for some time now. Got a little bored and spent about one and one-half years gathering data on armored vehicles since 1905 to about 2005. Have almost every nation covered

[Harlan]

You can usually find a copy of Tank Charts on EBay. That is were I found my spare copy.

Harlan

[Mobius]

Here is a sample of the entry for the M-4A3E8 (Easy Eight):
ARMOR
Turret Upper Hull Lower Hull
FRONT 102 110 107
FRONT 45º 168 181 177
---

168mm! on a round turret.? LOL

That's always been a problem with that game. Over precision meant less overall accuracy. Armor thickness tend to vary by more than a mm. Cast armor varied even more, sometime up to plus or minus 7mm. But here they know it to the nearest mm. And the penetration is known to the nearest mm too so you can basically figure out the exact range to the yard needed to get a penetration.

Then the other problem they go off to the side and the armor jumps from 102mm to 168mm if they go an extra degree from 44 to 45. And they treat the Sherman turret as a square.

[Harlan]

The 168mm armor refers to a round hitting the turret at 45 degree angle. It the game, it happens, but rarely. When we play it, it is when the round goes straight down the dividing line for the side and front armor.

[Mk 1]

168mm! on a round turret.? LOL

That's always been a problem with that game. Over precision meant less overall accuracy. ...

Then the other problem they go off to the side and the armor jumps from 102mm to 168mm if they go an extra degree from 44 to 45.

Yeah, that and the list of vehicles is not nearly extensive enough. I mean any game looking at individual facings should list at least 4 different Shermans to start with, and if going to + 1mm accuracy it should list about 9 or 10.

You'd think someone would be able to put together a ruleset at that level of detail (projectiles vs. armor by facing) without all of the glaring shortfalls, eh Mobius?

No, wait a minute ... somebody has.

[Mobius]

The 168mm armor refers to a round hitting the turret at 45 degree angle. It the game, it happens, but rarely. When we play it, it is when the round goes straight down the dividing line for the side and front armor.

That's what I mean. A hit from 45° shouldn't matter on a round turret. On a square body yeah.

[Mobius]

Yeah, that and the list of vehicles is not nearly extensive enough. I mean any game looking at individual facings should list at least 4 different Shermans to start with, and if going to + 1mm accuracy it should list about 9 or 10.

You'd think someone would be able to put together a ruleset at that level of detail (projectiles vs. armor by facing) without all of the glaring shortfalls, eh Mobius?

The Tank Charts author and I used to play miniatures at the same game shop for many years. So we knew the strengths and weaknesses of each others systems. Once he sold the game it wasn't updated it or modified. I had the benefit of continuing to update and improve mine over 30 years.

We had to vie for the same players. So had to explain why your rules did this and theirs did that. In all it probably was far better to develop a rule system in a competitive situation than in isolation.

[Mk 1]

A hit from 45° shouldn't matter on a round turret.

Indeed.

Tiger crews were known to park their tanks at an angle to the expected direction of enemy fire, and then turn their turrets to face the threat. This provided optimal protection. Due to the line-of-site thickness effect of angling/sloping it was better to take a side-hit at 45° than a front hit at 0°.

But none of that applies to a rounded cast surface, like the Sherman's turret. Rather, with a rounded cast surface what matters is whether your hit is near the center (where there is almost no slope from rounding) or near the edge (where the slope due to rounding can be extremely high). A Sherman's cast turret may have offered protection up to 168mm (line-of-site), but it had nothing to do with what angle the shot came from, only where it struck the turret.

So also a Panther's mantlet, which was rounded top-to-bottom, could be penetrated by a US 3-inch or 76mm round if struck in a narrow strip near the center (top-bottom center, not left-right center), but not if struck on the rounding near the top (with some probability that a strike near the bottom, if deflected, would go through the hull roof).

And you then have variability by location regardless of slope, such as on the Tiger, which had as much as 120mm of armor protection on some portions of the mantlet, and as little as 100mm on other portions.

None of that is modelled when you provide a single "thickness" of the plate from one direction. Listing the thickness from a given angle down to the millimeter does nothing to improve the precision of the simulation ... rather it is an excercize in futility, if the variability of thickness from that given angle is not somehow modelled.

To make it work, you would really need to provide multiple thicknesses on each facing, with some probablistic mechanism of determining whether the shot strikes where the armor is thickest, or where it is most sloped, or where it is thinner, etc. If well thought out, it could still make use of the reasonably fluid "chart" approach. You'd think someone would be able to put together such a ruleset, eh Mobius?

No, wait a minute ... somebody has.

(For those who can't parse my feable wit and smilies ... you really out to check out Mobius' PanzerWar rules! )

[sultanbev]

where can we find Mobius' free rules?

Mark