New modern Combat Command Box Set idea

[Robtownsend79]

Hey peeps. I submitted a request for a new modern combat command set and got some positive feedback from GHQ. here is what I wrote, and if you like it too, perhaps you can voice your interest to the powers to be...
Thank you for taking the time to read my question, and respond. For
starters, I am very happy to see your 2016/2017 list.
Ok, so one thing that I know is lacking is a GOOD supply company for modern
warfare.
You have an amazing selection of offensive armor with; N150-Modern US Tank
Company (m1a1) N151-Modern US Mechanized Infantry Company N152-Modern US
Anti-Tank Company N155-Modern US Mechanized Infantry N156-Modern US Tank
Company (m1a2) N157-Special Forces Delta Team N161-Modern Stryker Infantry
Task Force And N162-US MRAP/Urban Combat Team 2010.

What I purpose is a Supply Company that would be used to reinforce/ SUPPLY
those other box sets offensive operations. This Supply company would consist
of 24 pieces without infantry, OR add a 50piece Infantry to represent the
drivers and co-drivers for a total of 74 individual miniatures . Here is
what I would like to see in it.
3 M1078 (2.5t FMTV) N128
3 M1083 (5t FMTV) N129
3 M1091 (Tanker FMTV) N590
3 M1086 (LWB FMTV) N594
5 (FMTV Trailers-US Modern-when made available)
5 M998 (2&4 door HMMWV) N105
2 M977 (Cargo HEMTT) N95
(Optional- 50 light INFANTRY)

I think this would be a great seller, because of the need to supply those
other units, plus would make for "High Value Targets" in supply line ambush
missions.

Thank you again for taking the time to consider my requests

Well, what do you guys think?

[Donald M. Scheef]

Sounds like a good idea for me, but since I am mostly interested in WWII, I'm going to work up equivalents for 1939-1945 era US, UK, and Germany. Perhaps Soviet, Italy, and Japan, but I don't think there's enough available for these countries for now.

Don S.

[panzergator]

Rules could be modified to use combat support and service support units as combat multipliers, ie add combat power to a unit with one on the board, and strength could degrade each time it was hit.

Combat support and service support are crucial to success in combat. The ammunition, pol, maintenance, medical, and supply are just as important to success as the combat vehicles. "We may not be the pride of the battalion, but without us, PRIDE DON'T RIDE!"

[kfeltenberger]

Rules could be modified to use combat support and service support units as combat multipliers, ie add combat power to a unit with one on the board, and strength could degrade each time it was hit.

Combat support and service support are crucial to success in combat. The ammunition, pol, maintenance, medical, and supply are just as important to success as the combat vehicles. "We may not be the pride of the battalion, but without us, PRIDE DON'T RIDE!"

I don' think I've ever been in a game where resupply even remotely becomes an issue. Rather than pick vehicles so a bit of everything is there, why not use an actual TO&E?

That said, I think GHQ would be better served simply creating a web page with the information on it that says which packs to buy and how many rather than creating a Combat Command boxed set. Remember, they're promoted as everything you need to get started for a battle, and I don't see new players buying a box of soft skin trucks when they can buy a box of armor to square off against their buddy who bought his own armor box.

[panzergator]

Hey, I didn't mean to offend anyone. If you don't have the interest in logistics, I certainly understand. We all want to be the tactical guys. I just thought it might bring an interesting dimension to the game. I agree, it's hard to buy the softskins when you are trying to build your naked combat power inf tanks and IFVs. Paper counters could be used to represent all kinds of support vehicles.

I don't play war games, although in my earlier life in the Army, logistics were always an integral part of exercises, whether "on the boards" or "in the woods." If you have a wargame group, it is way to include more folks in the game if you not only have a commander, but also an XO working the staff - S-1 responsible for personnel (casualties that don't get reported don't get replaced, even if at a lower rate than 1-for-1) an S-2 responsible for intelligence, an S-3 responsible for planning and execution of your operation, an S-4 responsible for ammunition resupply, equipment replacement, providing chow, refueling, vehicle recovery and repair... etc. And there is the S-5 for civil affairs, who might be very important if GHQ addresses the recent requests for refugees and civilian troublemakers. Everybody better start building an MP battalion to handle POWs and refugee flow, or you will be using up infantry to do it. And an armored unit is ALWAYS short infantry. Just look at the experience of the light armored divisions in WWII.

Maybe you have to play at least at battalion level for logistics to become interesting and perhaps that is difficult to accommodate, but even a company is degraded if its medic vehicle is hit or a couple medics killed, or it loses a mechanic when the maintenance track is hit. Maybe your recovery vehicle throws a track or blows an oil cooler line and two tanks can't be towed to the rear, repaired, and put back into action in the time the M88 is being repaired. Morale may go down a bit when breakfast doesn't catch up to your armored cavalry troop until 1400 and the eggs have turned green in the mermites... Assuming they are getting hot chow. God help you if the support platoon is hit by a brace of Russian attack helicopters and the ammo goes up in flames. SOMEBODY has to scramble to figure out how to get more ammo up to the front in time. But if you have a support platoon leader working the problem and a division guy trying to reallocate ammunition for him and get it to him, with a couple problems like finding the trucks, finding the ammo, and getting it to the rendezvous point, where more scrounged trucks can take it forward...

This is probably why I don't wargame. I get wrapped up in the bigger and bigger picture, and before you know it, I'm writing a division order so I can play a company-level game and the scenario has to get broader to accommodate solutions and the terrain board is the size of a high school gym.

But a little logistics COULD add an interesting dimension to your game, include more people,

For those of you who DO wargame, let me ask a couple questions:

I think I could get 8 4x8 sheets of plywood laid out in an S-shape in my garage. That would give me a battle space 4 feet wide by 64 feet long. Would that give me enough room to fight a battalion with two companies up, one following in support, and one in the rear reconstituting? Would it make the running fight long enough for logistics such as refuel and re-arm, evacuation of vehicles, medical evacuation? Could the logistics problem be on separate boards supposedly further to the rear? Would a deck of situation cards with different results for solutions according to a roll of the dice work? Say for every turn, there was a logistics roll,as well? If the scenario starts half way through the first day of the battle and you are already through most of your basic load, you are probably hoping for a chance to refuel and rearm or you have just consolidated on your objective and are preparing to continue the mission or to repel a counter-attack, you can see how logistics can be built into the mission.

You know what they say - amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics. but wargamers just wanna have fun!

[Sudwind]

The Art of Tactic rules that support the 1/100 Zvezda tank models (it uses different scales for men and planes...let's face it, the game is meant to assist sales of their models) have simple supply rules. Basically, tanks, guns and infantry (each model/stand is roughly a platoon) have about 10 "pieces" of ammo and fire from 1-3 pieces depending on the type of fire mode they choose. Trucks carry ammo to units and take about 2 turns for both the trucks and the stands loading ammo to replenish their combat load. Depots can also be formed and supplies parachuted in to units. Simple, but effective rules that make a player think about logistics. Reminds me of the old supply rules from the Wargames Digest magazines. The Art of Tactics rules are in a 3rd edition and a PDF is available for free. Maybe try those supply rules for your next game and add a logistics tail to your forces?

[redleg]

The collector in me would probably buy a supply / support combat command, even if just to get a good mix of support vehicles. I always seem to be lacking 1 or 2 support vehicles to round out a support platoon or HQ unit.

Of more interest to me personally would be artillery combat commands. Not much demand for these either from a gaming perspective since most artillery is off-board (at least in my limited experience). But from a King of Battle perspective I would spend way too much money on artillery battery combat commands.

[piersyf]

I have always preferred campaign games, and as such logistics cannot be ignored. After all, we have interdiction missions for scout teams, aircraft and artillery... besides, they make for awesome small scale games ( a squad of infantry trying to mess up a company of trucks, your recovery teams trying to drag away that damaged Tiger while under fire...). Cutting supplies reduces fighting capacity and morale, cutting medical reduces morale and lowers the replacement rate for casualties, cutting tech support reduces vehicle availability. All real world considerations that lead to awesome scenarios.

As to artillery combat commands and off board stuff? Never play against me, then. My rules are simple... if you don't have the model, you don't have it. If you want off board guns, show me the guns.

[CG2]

I keep my artillery etc on separate shelves behind each side of the table and if you don't have a model of it, you don't get that capability. I guess it's the difference between a skirmish game and a wargame. Many people prefer quicker and less complex gaming and we've all been guilty of ignoring fuel and reliability issues to blow up loads of Shermans with a few Tigers! Each to their own!

[panzergator]

CG2 - I like that idea, although I don't think it should be applied to the service support vehicles quite as stringently, given the expense.

Since I model units as part of my collecting approach, I have a J-series tank battalion and a J-series mech battalion with all support vehicles - ie the trucks.

There are a LOT of trucks and other combat support and service support vehicles. Using a SAMPLE TOE - "Fort Knox Student Manual 71-8, Close Combat Heavy Brigade Organizations," a manual intended for use by students as they studied various subjects in the Armor Officer Advanced Course in the mid-'80s and certainly changed much since, here are the numbers each headquarters company: (I attended at the end of the '70s under the H-series TOE).


HUMVEE (all models) ARMOR - 24 MECH - 26
Truck, 2 1/2-Ton ARMOR - 26 MECH - 37
Truck, 5-Ton ARMOR - 6 MECH - 35
Truck, Wrecker 5-Ton ARMOR - 1 MECH - 2
HEMMT, Cargo ARMOR - 10 MECH - 0
HEMMT, Fuel Service ARMOR - 12 MECH - 0
HEMMT, Wrecker 10-Ton ARMOR- 1 MECH - 0

TOTAL ARMOR - 80 MECH - 100

There are also 1 Humvee and 2 2 1/2-ton trucks in each company, in this case 4 companies in the tank battalion and 5 (including the AT company) in the Mech company, so the total for the Armor battalion is 92 and for the Mech battalion is 115 YOU WILL SPEND ALMOST TWICE AS MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT VEHICLES AS YOU WILL FOR THE PRIMARY COMBAT VEHICLES IN EACH BATTALION. Also note there are no HEMMTs in the Mech battalion, although that may have changed since this document - I don't know.

This does not include the standard suite of combat support vehicles - 6 M3 Scout vehicles (or 10 HUMVEE scouts), 8 M577s, 8 M113 ambulances, 6 M106 mortars, 4 or 5 M113 maintenance vehicles, and 7 M88s. The primary combat vehicles for an Armor battalion (tanks) number 58 and for a mech battalion 54 (plus the AT company of 12 M901s and 6 M113s). The Mech number may go up if there are 14 M2s in each company instead of 13. The AT company was included during the transition to Bradleys, when Mech was equipped with M113A2, and, for a time, remained once the transition to M2 was complete. At some point, someone remembered it was just for the transition and the AT company was deleted.

Please note this is for the J-series TOE in use in the 80s. Things have changed since then For the prior H-series TOE in use in the '60s and '70s, the numbers were different, as well.

[chatto]

I've never been one for absolutely following TO&E's, but I definitely agree that some more logistically - focused battle packs would be a nice mix.

I am setting up my armies to all have their respective equipment, as I also am a firm believer in "wargame" compared to skirmish games... whilst I will have a number of basic vehicles from other sources - my main army and their immediate logistics train will be trucks and the like from these ranges.

I love big wargames, and are re-jigging a number of different rulesets to make one that incorporates logistics and the like in an effective way. Essentially after X amount of turns, you begin to suffer unit degradation, to the point where after turn X, your unit cannot move due to fuel exhaustion.

Or if you fire at full rate for Y turns, you begin to roll to see if you troops conserved ammunition effectively, if not, your troops only fire one shot from each weapon regardless of actual ROF rulings until resupplied.

[panzergator]

chatto,

All the TO&Es I worked from on active duty were MTO&Es - modified TO&E. The unit strengths were adjusted to take into account where they were and what they were being asked to do. That's how, for instance, the armored cavalry units in Germany came to have 6 Sheridans rather than the three the divisional cavalry had.

[panzergator]

I found a 2011 version of the Student Text 71-8 which places all the responsibility for supply (all the old support platoon functions of the battalion headquarters company) in the a brigade distribution battalion. That reference might provide a starting point. Battalions used to get a support "slice" of divisional assets. Starting with what is authorized for the brigade distribution battalion, perhaps a Battalion Slice or Company Slice could be created as a Combat Command equivalent.

Suggestions include teams like

1- Class III, Class V, mess, and medical
2 - Ammo resupply
3 - Refuel teams
4 - a combination thereof.

[kfeltenberger]

I've never been one for absolutely following TO&E's, but I definitely agree that some more logistically - focused battle packs would be a nice mix.

I am setting up my armies to all have their respective equipment, as I also am a firm believer in "wargame" compared to skirmish games... whilst I will have a number of basic vehicles from other sources - my main army and their immediate logistics train will be trucks and the like from these ranges.

I love big wargames, and are re-jigging a number of different rulesets to make one that incorporates logistics and the like in an effective way. Essentially after X amount of turns, you begin to suffer unit degradation, to the point where after turn X, your unit cannot move due to fuel exhaustion.

Or if you fire at full rate for Y turns, you begin to roll to see if you troops conserved ammunition effectively, if not, your troops only fire one shot from each weapon regardless of actual ROF rulings until resupplied.

For modern microarmor? Turns are measured in minutes, so I'm not sure how this would be fair or add something meaningful to the game unless it was something specific to a certain scenario.

Don't get me wrong...I'm all for tracking the logistics (I made my players keep track of missile ammunition, rations, and torches when we played D&D!), but more and more I'm finding myself asking, "What does this rule bring to the overall enjoyment and playability of the game?" If the unit was returning to a FARP when they're ambushed, that's one thing, but if they're waiting for the commies to pour across the border it seems a bit out of place.

YMMV.

[CG2]

War isn't all action, it's a series of conflicts of varying scales interspersed with periods where nothing is happening. You don't use the same timescale for the quiet bits.