Hi Arrigo!
That was an unfortunate coincidence...
Yes I agree entirely re the space issue. The larger tank models make for an ever more cramped tabletop. Using the old faithful MoD Soviet Small Unit Tactics manual and keeping the groundscale as 1 inch to 40 yards as per BF:WWII, a lot of the Soviet defensive formations result in almost wheel-to-wheel deployment of models. That was also an issue for some of our WW2 games with very restrictive deployment footprints and the solution for that is simply to use the 20mm groundscales (1 game inch becomes 1.5 inches) and that worked beautifully.
I freely confess that there was definitely a 'get all the models on the table' mindset at work here - both from the cadets who love tanks and from me wanting to see my kit on the table...
Thanks for the feedback on the orbats. I'll have a good look through them. I've tried to maintain consistency throughout in terms of unit size and where to drop the axe when the ratios cause problems. I agree that the clutter caused by APCs etc becomes a massive pain in the arse and the first thing I did with the WW2 version was to make all transports carry 3 Troop stands instead of the 2 as printed on the data cards and that resulted in roughly 40% reduction in the number of transport vehicle models required. We also then did it that way when we started on the modern version.
I haven't got the orbats to hand here (in work), but I'll have a look later. Re the Soviet BMP orbat, there should be one BMP model per rifle platoon (1:3 ratio), plus one for the MG Platoon (1:2 ratio) and one for the HQ and MANPADS element, for a total of five BMP models. The WARPAC equivalents lack the MG Platoon, so have four BMP models. I can't really squeeze them in any smaller unless I allow the BMP to carry 4 Troop stands.
My apologies for the repeated stalls in the project over the years. The first bump in the road came with the sudden death ten years ago of Mark Hayes, who was doing all the rules-development, leaving me to do cards and orbats. I kept working on the cards and orbats and picked up the rules development again a couple of years ago with the discovery of Mark's notes and fragments of the original 'First Echelon' game by Greg Lyle that eventually became Battlefront: WWII (talk about re-inventing the wheel...). However, the pressures of my volunteering work in recent years led to health problems and I lost all motivation for wargaming and indeed everything else...
However, I've now completely ditched my volunteering work, which has given me a whole new lease of life and I'm doing the stuff that really matters in life, which of course includes toy soldiers... Oh and OC Domestic... Nearly forgot her then... I'll forget the names of my own hounds next... I'm back wargaming at my club for the first time in three years, so things are looking up and I will be resuming work on the project in the very short term. Indeed, discussions such as this (and the French ex-airborne artillery officer who e-mailed me this week to discuss the French orbat) give me that extra spur to get it done, so thanks very much indeed for the feedback!
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April 24, 2024, 11:33:27 AM
