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Unit identification in PG
PICS or Alphabet
Back when play be mail was by the post office and die rolls were resolved by looking up results on the New York stock exchange (Yes that was the system in the 60's and early 70's !!) Dunnigan and Simonson came up with the PICS system for identifying individual counters. A four digit
(five digit for Arab Israei Wars {the 5th digit was for nationality}) spelled out unit class, individual model, and then 2 digits for unit number.
AVP started off their PG system with a continuation of the 4 digit PICS system, and then after a few years and a few dozen small counter sheets for books switched over to an alphabetical numbering system by individual unit type. The PICS system took up a lot of room on the counter but was very easy to read. The alphabetical sytem takes up far less space, but the font is becoming increasingly small and fairly hard to make out to older eyes. I assume the 27th grenadier platoon would be unit aa. Then there is system 3, no unit identification on counters (Cassino, Black SS, Panzer Lehr). In the newest releases we have letters in Wote and no i.d. in Lehr.
Now we have scads of examples of all three types in play, esp. in the scenario books, i.e., PICS U.S. Army counters from Bulge taking on alphabetically named S.S. or Wehrmacht counters from more recent supplements.
The mess is already made, but if it were up to you, which system of identifying counters would you use?
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