Simple Panzer Grenadier system (variant)

[JasonC]

You don't know, because reading it isn't enough, you need to see what it actually does to effective tactics.  But I will substantiate the claim that it is both much simpler and much more realistic than the original.  First by analyzing infantry formation combat in the original game.  (Note that my changes to the clean and effective AT fire system are much smaller, and only those needed to keep its lethality in line with the other changes; that system was fine and worth saving, with minor tweaks).

Infantry combat, including infantry heavy weapons, in original Panzer Grenadier was a farce as realism and painfully slow as game play.

It takes 2.5 normal HMG shots at normal range without modifiers to inflict morale "damage" at the same rate a normal morale 7 infantry platoon can rally.  And there is only 1/36 chance per shot of any more permanent damage than that.  With a +1 column modifier for a moving target in the open, this falls to 1.93 shots and permanent damage chance rises to 1/18, but the infantry platoon is still a heavy, 2-1 favorite to shrug off the fire.


The consequence is that HMGs simply cannot deny open ground areas to enemy infantry in the original game.  The standing rally power per unit time of every generic infantry unit is roughly equal to 20 to 25 firepower applied to it.  Only exceptionally will infantry subjected to less fire than that decline in average morale state.  

In fact, an HMG platoon at point blank range vs a stationary infantry unit with no cover puts out less morale damage per turn than the target can continually recover from just by rallying as its action, if it needs to.  It has a 5/36 chance of causing permanent step loss.  The expectation, then, is that an infantry platoon could sit at point blank range under fire of an HMG platoon, and last half of a typical scenario, holding at its existing morale state by rallying 3 turns out of 4, and acting itself 1 turn in 4.

A single infantry type unit can "take" 4 morale hits, and recovers without permanent damage if it doesn't go below a net of 2 of them.  The result is that it is perfectly normal for a "rally power vs fire race" to involve 3 shots at a unit a turn, 1-2 resulting in morale checks, plus a rally check, and thus 4-5 2d6 evaluations and 4 units tied up in the interaction, with a net result of no progress in either direction in that unit's morale state.  Instead the effect of fire at it is simply to "use up" some portion of that unit's actions as rally actions.

This indecisiveness of ranged fire at infantry type units has another important effect.  All units readily close to point blank range intact.  Most fire, to achieve any effect, winds up being delivered at range 1 to earn the 2 column right shift for point blank fire.  Moreover, it is normal for the FP effect per firing infantry unit even at point blank range to equal only about 50% of the standing rally power of every unit.  If the shots were evenly distributed over the engaged units, they would all rally, net, from the fire output each could deliver.  As some skipped fire actions to rally themselves, this effect becomes even more pronounced.

Thus even point blank fire only becomes effective by combining more fire from multiple units onto single targets, to hurt them faster than they can rally.  This means any side intending to attack or reach decision in that area must outnumber his opponent, significantly, and leave that excess of numbers in action for an extended period of time, trying to accumulate permanent morale breakage on smaller bits of the enemy and gradually "eat" through them.

Moreover, notice that rally power "multiplies" when fire is spread over multiple targets.  It minimizes enemy rally power to have all available morale "dings" on the same targets until they are dead, then to shift to the next, because this limits the number of rally attempts and therefore the total "rally power headwind" the outgoing fire must overcome.  Because the targets cannot being to assert their rally power defensively against fire effects, until at least one morale "ding" has hit them.

This results in the following stereotypical sequence...  Attackers readily close to point blank range against all defensive fire that can be applied to them in the short period while they are doing so.  Defenders therefore do not experience their own firepower as a significant defensive element protecting them.  But then attackers must sit at very close range applying lots of firepower over multiple turns to overcome the rally power of each successive defending position chosen as the next focus.  

Many die rolls occur in this process, many of which simply cancel one another out (a hit roll cancelled by a successful morale check; a successful morale "ding" cancelled by a successful rally action immediately after it).  Many markers must be interleaved into the stacks of units and leader to record the separate morale state of each, with meaning attached to which side they are on.  Moreover, in assault combats, both sides can stack in the same hex, and the need for multiple units to deliver sufficient fire to hurt single targets encourages many units per hex and in small areas of the board.

The result, then, is what I call "spreadsheet combat".  The positions on the map have become largely irrelevant, static, and known.  I have 6 units and 3 leaders, in these morale states, you have 3 units and 2 leaders, in those morale states; these and those have or haven't acted yet getting "fire" markers or similar, some have "demoralized" like markers, everyone is rallying to shrug off past fire or firing to inflict morale "dings", which must be concentrated to inflict lasting loss but can also be spread to reduce enemy fire by shifting more of his units into "rally" actions.  

I want to open Excel to see what is going on, and make a list of all units, their states, their actions, with their locations almost afterthoughts.  And we must roll, and roll, and roll, and roll some more before *anything* actually happens, net, in this little hairball of units.  Towers of counters reach 7 high, 10 high, 12 high.  They fall over as fat fingers sort through them looking for the morale state of leader #2 to flip it or remove it as he passed or failed this or that kind of morale check.  Every morale check may happen at normal, or leader modified, or fire table modified, or demoralized state modified morale levels, each having tiny 15% impacts on single morale checks but requiring accurate calculation each time.

This is *complicated*.  And it is *pointless*, because all the rolls and actions and rallys and shots just counteract each other, with only an expectation drift and a few outlier tails of runs of luck either way actually determining whether one side gradually loses morale states and units or doesn't.  And sometimes, the attack and rally power are so evenly matched that the game becomes running out the clock before any combat result has time and probability enough to resolve.  This is fundamentally *boring*, and it is awful game design.  

Simple has no leaders, have one one morale state, allows rally to counteract fire much less reliably, inflicts many more actual loss hits that can't be dealt with by rally alone, encourages separate units over stacks.  The result is not only much faster resolution of conflicts but also much less board clutter.  Most hexes have 1-2 counters in them or none.  Most local confrontations resolve one way or the other in a couple of turns at most.  Nobody needs a spreadsheet to track what is happening over 6 turns in one little hairball of units stacked or adajcent to each other rolling endless quantities of dice for no impact for a third of the scenario clock.

Let us compare the fire and rally rules of my Simple version and see what happens when infantry tries to walk across a kilometer wide field to close with a HMG platoon.  With a moving in the open column shift, a single shot is 1/6 to cut the moving platoon in half and break it, and 1/6 to break it without step reduction.  This is a much more serious risk to run for the moving unit, and not one that can be kept up indefinitely just relying on rally power to shrug off the HMG platoon's fire.  

If such a unit moves to range 1, even if shot at only the next turn while stationary, then the HMGs will wipe it out with one shot 11% of the time, reduce it 20% of the time, and break it another 16% of the time - basically 50% to have a serious fire effect.  If the infantry is broken, it can't just spend its next action undoing that result with a rally action, because rally attempts are forbidden within 3 hexes of an enemy unit.  They would have to move off first, spending an entire turn retreating to range 4.  They would then need a couple of turn, average, to rally.  And another turn to come back.  Or they could fight it out from where they are, but halved for disruption and eliminated if disrupted again.  In addition, 25% of the HMG's range 1 fire results hurt more than 1 unit in the target hex, encouraging attackers to stay spread out instead of stacking.

Suddenly, approaching an HMG position in cover is a dangerous proposition.  And with the increased effectiveness of fire, there is another and better way - to fire first with supporting heavy weapons (this is what 81mm mortars are for), and close after the HMG is disrupted by a morale failure or reduced by a step loss result.  Either will halve the HMGs FP, and closing with them will prevent rally.  They cannot engage in a rally power "race" against limited attacker's firepower and expect to win, because it already disrupted and enemies come close, they have to give up the position and retreat, if they want to perform a rally action at all.  They also don't get 4 "morale hits" down to dead - they get 2.

Fire has been made far more effective compared to rally, combat has been made far more decisive, combat can be tried by limited forces, instead of being ineffective unless big portions of one force wail on a small portion of the enemy force for long periods of time.  And crucially, true combined arms relationships have been restored between infantry heavy weapons (HMGs and mortars), terrain, stance, fire and manuever, use of numbers, and time.