Modern Micro Armour question.

[OKC_Jim]

Hey Guys,
As the proud new owner of the Modern Micro Armour rules, I have a question concerning building as army. In the WW2 rules, acquire forces section, page 107, no battalion may be below 51% of full strength unless permitted by the organization chart. I can find no similar information in the Modern rules. I understand that when constructing historical forces, you take what was there. My question concerns constructing realistic hypothetical forces. Does the WW2 51% rule hold true for the Modern rules? Also, I have a question concerning the 51% rules for the WW2 rules . Does 51% mean by unit count or points value?

Thanks for your time,

Jim

[xhrit]

From what i understand, they encourage you to take mixed forces.

In the USA TOE pdf the tactical notes say you must not use the TOE as rigid lists, but rather rough guidelines, and that most forces will be tailored to the task at hand.

I take that to mean 'anything goes'.

[dnichols]

OKC Jim, I was intrigued by your question and so I got in touch with the designer John Fernandes and asked him and here is his answer. Good question, thanks for bringing it up Jim.

"No problem. This one is actually pretty easy.

The reason for the 51% rule was to prevent players from building forces made up of bits and pieces of several units without including the HQ units or weaker weapons organic to those formations... in other words, to prevent the formation of SUPER formations that do not reflect the actual makeup of the army in question.

Example: Imagine a regimental formation made up entirely of Pz.V Panthers (say 27 of these) with no infantry, armored cars, artillery etc. 27 Panthers would translate into a formation of somewhere between 100 and 140 actual tanks without any support vehicles, infantry, or artillery. This would, of course be completely ahistorical.

I left this rule out of the modern book because many of the forces involved would be hypothetical anyway (armies that never actually fought anybody like the West Germans or the Mexicans), so I didn't want to force these armies to some sort of hypothetical straight jacket.

Also, if a battalion is at at least 51% strength you would pretty much have to include a HQ stand to control it... so why not put in the rest of the unit.

I generally use the following bit of business to produce fun and "realistic" formations. After deciding to field, say, a U.S. Infantry battalion from 1983, I lay out on paper what it consists of (at full strength. I then roll a 20 sided die for each stand and remove it when I roll a 1, 2, or 3 (a 15% attrition rate).

This would give me the following (at random):

Mechanized Infantry Company: 11xTL3 Infantry/M3 Bradley, 2xM901/TOWII, 1xM106(3)

The "Lost" stands would be:

1xTL3 Infantry(A) HQ/M577, 1xTL3 Infantry(A)/M3 Bradley, 1xM901/TOWII, 1xTL3 Infantry(R)/M3 Bradley

The Battalion HQ, two infantry stands (one recon), a TOW vehicle and 2 Bradleys would be missing due to previous combat or breakdowns. The longer the unit is in action the higher this attrition loss would become (20%, 25%, or even 30%) until the unit would have to be pulled out of line for extensive rear-area maintenance.

You would not have to pay for the stands you don't receive (unless you want it that way). The uncertainty makes for much more interesting scenarios.

Once again, the 51% rule was added to prevent the forming of Taskforces (or Kampfgruppe) that would be too far out to be historical.

Hope you found this useful.

Thanks for your interest,

John F."