PanzerBlitz / Panzer Leader 1 Sentence Rule Fixes

Here I fix my gripes with the PanzerBlitz ruleset with rules that must be expressed in a single sentence. The rules will obviously be crude, simple, and often don't go far enough. Which is good.
If you want to play with somebody else, houserules will have to be short.

So here we go:

Gripe #0: "Spotting/PanzerBush/Smoke/Aircraft/Lack of Americans and Brits"
Rule: "Use the Panzer Leader Rules".

Gripe #1: "Heavy artillery is too powerful, small mortars are useless"
Rule: "For direct and indirect fire, (H) or M weapons with less than 10 Attack Points have their Attack Points doubled, while (H) or M weapons with more than than 15 Attack Points have their Attack Points halved."
Comment: 3" mortar fires 200 lb of projectiles per minute, a 25pdr (Sexton) 125 lb per minute.

Gripe #2: "Combined fire against "A" units is unrealistic, if one SU-76 can't penetrate a King Tiger frontally, neither can two."
Rule: Fire against "A" targets cannot be combined unless the lines of fire go through different non-adjacent hex-sides on the target, viz "Outflanked":

Comment: Vehicles will eventually take disabling damage from massed small caliber fire and, but not a whole platoon in 6 minutes. Outflanking lets you shoot at the weak rear and side armor of your enemy.

Gripe #3: "Spotting is too difficult, Reconnaissance by Death is the only option."
Rule: "Instead of attacking or moving, on a die roll of 5 or 6 in its attack phase, a unit spots a single unit, infantry within 4 hexes, or non-infantry within 10 hexes.
Comment: If you have less than an hour to take the objective, Reconnaissance by Death isn't completely unrealistic, but there is also Reconnaissance by shooting, binocular, and sending 1 guy forward.

Gripe #4: "The poor training of Soviet Units is not represented."
Rule: "A player may re-roll any natural 6 against a Soviet target, once per attack".
Comment: The USSR lost 10 times as many men in combat as the UK and USA combined. In the game most of the Situations favor the Russians, so we can make things more difficult for them.

Gripe #5: "Nobody ever runs away." 
Rule: "For every "D" result on an undispersed unit not in a Fort, roll a D6, a 5 or a 6 forces the unit to move a full move immediately, and the "D" is changed to a "DD".
Comment: Withdrawing is common, even among veteran units. The "DD" encourages you to move somewhere safe.

Gripe # 6: "Infantry in towns turn into tanks."
Rule: "The only Effect On Defense for Town hexes is that Vehicles get a +1 DRM, non-Vehicles get a + 3 DRM, individual units may be attacked."
Comment: If an SU-100 attacks infantry, they are better off in the open than in a town in PanzerBlitz.

Gripe # 7: "Nobody can start the game dug in."
Rule: "The Situation may permit the placement of immobile Improved Position counters at the start of the game which offer +2 to attacking DRMs."
Comment: A Soviet defender would usually have everything dug in.

Gripe # 8: "Where is the mud and snow?"
Rule: "Optionally, vehicles moving off road (or partly offroad) at more than half speed (round up) must roll a 1-4 after the end of their move, a 5 or 6 gives "D" result."
Comment: Tanks were constantly getting stuck and unstuck when moving offroad.  Driving 10 hexes offroad in 6 minutes (25kph) is risky in ideal weather. Obviously the 1-4 might vary by time of year, or in marshland, where offroad travel might be impossible. In heavy mud and snow movement rates would drop to 1, but that would be boring.

Gripe # 9: "Where are the Squad Leaders, running around rallying the broken units?"
Rule: "A Soviet unit must roll a 1-4 on a D6 to recover from a "D" or "DD" result, unless adjacent to a undispersed friendly unit"
Comment: Invisible Squad Leaders actually are running around rallying your troops, you just can't see them. The Soviets have fewer Squad Leaders, and running from unit to unit takes time if the troops are far apart.

Gripe #10: "Where is Fog Of War?"
Rule: "Use counter stands rear towards enemy."

Comment: Just a paper triangle with a slot cut in it. Once the counter is spotted you may dispense with the stand,

Company Dice For PanzerBlitz / Panzer Leader / Arab-Israeli War

Company Dice


In older tactical games, each counter is a free spirit, with no relationship to its peers.
A simple system for creating companies out of platoons is to have a Company Dice markers.
You have 3 platoon counters in a clump, and place a Company Die beside them, which defines the abilities of each company, 6 is Elite, 1 is Dross. If a "6" is damaged, it becomes a "5".

Watch in horror and disgust as your Green recruits hesitate in their attack, get butchered as they run away from their Veteran defenders, and spend the rest of the battle hiding in the woods like Conscripts!
Features:
  • Veteran, Seasoned, Green and Raw unit abilities.
  • Command Radius
  • Step Loss
  • Routing
Organise your counter into groups of 3. Platoons form companies, Soviet infantry companies become Regiments. Obtain some very small dice, 10mm is fine. During play, place a die beside your 3-counter platoon. If the die has a "6" face up, that indicates an Elite unit, a  "1" would be people dragged out of the office and handed a gun.





1
2
3
4
5
6

Conscript Raw Green Regular Veteran Elite
Rout 3 3 4 4 5 5
Opportunity 3 3 4 4 5 5
C3 Radius 1 2 3 4 5 6
Accuracy 1 2 3 4 5 6


In a scenario, you group some or all of your units into companies. In the picture above we have a Veteran PzIVh Company followed by a regular panzergrenadier Company. The Soviets have a Regular T-34c company and a Raw infantry Regiment in Raw trucks. The mortars in this case don't have dice, so they operate as the default level for the Soviets in this scenario, perhaps Green.
An Elite Scout platoon would have its own die, since it operates by itself.

Rout

If the unmodified Attack roll is a six, the target must take a Rout Check.
You roll a D6, you must roll number in the "Rout" row or less to pass.
If the target passes the Rout Check, nothing happens. If it fails, place a "Rout" counter (shown above) on top of the target's Company Chit. No unit in a company can fire with the "Rout" counter on its Company Chit.  At start of the movement phase the player performs a Rout check on each routed unit. If the unit passes, its rout counter is removed. 
In its movement phase, a routed unit that has LOS to a enemy unit that is currently spotted must move its maximum allowance. A routed Company moves as normal, but its Defense Strength is halved when moving. If a routing unit is forced off the edge of the board, it is eliminated.

Soviet unit subtract 1 from the Rout Check die roll. Poorly trained Soviet units often attacked with little apparent regard for casualties.

"The Jagdtiger took several hits, but American projectiles could not penetrate the 250 mm (9.8 in) frontal armor. However, the inexperienced German commander lost his nerve and turned around instead of backing down, exposed the thinner side armor, which was eventually penetrated and all six crew members were lost."-Carius, Otto (2003). Tigers in the Mud., p. 221 

Opportunity

Any undisrupted Company counter may conduct Opportunity Fire once per turn at any enemy entering an adjacent hex, even if the counter has already fired, if it passed the "Opportunity Check".
You roll a D6, you must roll the number in the "Opportunity" row or less to pass.

Accuracy

If you roll a 6 on any fire, perform an "Accuracy Check" immediately after the "Rout Check".
Roll another D6, you must roll number in the "Accuracy" row or less to pass.
If you pass, your "6" result is changed to a "1".
This gives high quality units a edge.

Step Loss 
In Panzerblitz a damaged unit is magically restored to full capacity after a short rest.
A step loss represents permanent damage, which is more realistic.
If the company suffers 2 "D" results or one "DD" result during the turn, reduce the number of the dice face by 1. So a Veteran 5-spot Company becomes a Regular 4-spot Company.
This is in addition to the D/DD effects. A unit may suffer up to 1 Step Loss reduction per turn. If a Conscript (1) Company suffers a Troop Quality reduction, all units of the company are destroyed.

Command Radius (C3)

This is the maximum number of hexes apart two counters from the same company can be. If this unit is exceed, the company must roll that number or less with a D6 at the start of each friendly movement phase. Failure means that no unit of the company may move in that turn, except when forced to rout. They may still fire.

Drawbacks

The only fiddly thing is remembering which units go with each chit. Not a problem if you just have 3 Panthers, but you might get a bit mixed up during massed infantry assaults with a mix of veteran and green troops. Your average units can do without a Company Die, use the Company Dice with the elite troops and the conscripts.

Other Ideas:

Chit Pull Company activation

If your dice are different colors, you have a chit pull activation system. You have a bag with each color in it, pull a die at random, all those colors are activated. When be bag is empty, begin a new turn.

Hesitation
If a unit moves into an open hex where it would be subject to 1:1 fire or worse if every non-dispersed enemy unit could direct fire on it, it takes a Hesitation Check. Roll a D6, a Conscript/Raw/Green requires a 4 or less to pass, a Regular/Veteran/Elite unit requires a 5 or less. If the unit fails the Hesitation Check, its movement ends immediately, it cannot enter the 1:1 fire hex on this turn. If it passes, it may carry on for the rest of the turn without further Hesitation Checks. Only one Hesitation Check per unit per turn.
 The idea is from  from the "ASL Retro" rules.

Gun depression and geometry


There is a oft-repeated story that if a tank can depress its gun more, it can hide behind obstacles better. There is more to this than meets the eye.
In the real world, lets say your tank is in front of a ridge, your gun is at maximum depression, and you are placed so your shell will miss the top of the ridge by 1mm. This gives you maximum cover from cover from folk on the other side of the ridge. Good.
Now let's say you can depress your gun by an additional 5°. Now what happen when you shoot? That's right, you hit the ridge. So you have to move to a higher point to avoid hitting the ridge, making you more visible to folk on the other side. Not less visible.

In the picture above the red tank can depress its gun more than the blue tank. So by moving to a higher position it reduces the blind spot in front of the vehicle (the big blue triangle), which is an advantage. But more of the tank is visible to the folk on the other side of the ridge.

So gun depression reduces the amount of dead ground in front of the ridge. If the enemy is still in the the dead ground after your gun is at maximum depression, you are going to have to drive over the ridge to see him. So in that situation, lack of gun depression can indeed force you to expose your entire tank.
FM 17-12: Tank Gunnery

The other myth is that there is a huge difference in depression between Russian tanks and others.
The Merkava 1 and 2 have 8.5° gun depression, Merkava 3 has 7°, TAM 7°, Leopard 2 9°, Challenger I/II 10°, M1A1/2 10°, Leclerc 8°. The various Russian tanks from T-54 and up to T-90 has 6 to 5°.

So the difference is 1-3°, which makes a difference, but not a huge difference.

Another myth is a little mound of dirt or sand in front of your hull will stop an incoming APDS round. It won't. It will slow it down, but you can shoot a tank thru a sand dune or a building.




PanzerBlitz Rules Expansion

One page of simple rules to fix the usual PanzerBlitz/Panzer Leader gripes.

Obey all PanzerBlitz rules, except:

For all direct and indirect fire:
"Heavy Artillery" is defined as "Artillery/Rocket/Aircraft Rocket over 10 Attack Strength (AS)"
Heavy Artillery units have their AS halved.
Heavy Artillery units over 20 AS have their AS halved and +1 to the Die roll.
Heavy Artillery cannot be combined, it attacks all units in the hex, and a hex can only be attacked once per turn by Heavy Artillery.
Rocket Artillery fires only once per game, attacking target hex and all 6 adjacent hexes.
"M" and "H" under 11 may combine fire, and have their Attack Strength doubled against "I" units in the open.

Overrun loses the -2 DRM.

Fire against "A" targets cannot be combined unless the lines of fire go through different non-adjacent hex-sides on the target. This is called "Outflanking":
A maximum of 2 units can combine fire against an "A" target.

Terrain has no defensive benefits except on the table below:
Terrain Modifier DRMs, Direct and Indirect

Open Wood Town Slope
non-Armor 0 +2* +3 +1
Armor 0 0 +1 +1
Non-Armor units have no modifier in woods against H and (H) fire.
Terrain DRMs still add. Fort DFs are halved.

Improved Position Counters give a additional +1 or +2 DRM to any attack on units in the hex which have not moved in that turn. They are placed only at the start of the scenario, not in towns, by agreement of the players.

Spotting as per Panzer Leader, but with range limitations: 
SPOTTING Vehicle Artillery with 0 move Other
Fired/moved No fire/mov Fired/moved No fire/mov Fired/moved No fire/mov
Open 40 15 10 4 5 3
Wood/Town 10 2 5 1 2 1
Armoured cars, CPs, Scout/Recce/Security units can only be spotted at half range (round up) if they move only 1 hex.
CPs spot for Indirect Fire as per PanzerBlitz. Any non-"C" class unit can spot for Indirect Fire like a PanzerBlitz CP, but roll an additional D6, on a 5 or 6 the fire does not arrive.

Opportunity Fire as per Panzer Leader, but only need to move 1 hex in LOS. It is not Optional.

Airpower as per Panzer Leader, Air counters here.

Step loss: Units over 8 firepower get a -2 Attack Factor token for every "DD" result. Units  4-8 firepower get a -1 Attack Factor token for every "DD" result. Any unit that gets 3 tokens is instantly eliminated.

One armored unit may take part in each CAT attack, only if it could enter the hex. Same restrictions as an infantry unit. Soviets cannot do this before 1944.

Panzer Leader "Smoke Shell Concentrations" rules are to be used using unadjusted Attack Factors.

"C" units take an entire turn to load or unload artillery 88mm or larger.

Troop Quality: If the German player rolls a "6" they may always reroll.
Soviet units must roll a 4 or less on a D6 to remove each "D" or "DD" result, unless they are adjacent to a friendly unit.
1 page document form:
Comment: These rules err on the side of simplicity. The artillery rules encourage you to suppress the enemy position with artillery and armor, then CRT with infantry. A 3" mortar fires 200 lb of projectiles per minute, a 25pdr 125 lb per minute. Heavy Artillery is better against fortifications. The "A" target rules encourage you to outflank King Tigers with your T34's. Slopes are of little defensive advantage in reality. HE hitting trees produces splinters. Spotting lets you shoot things with 88's when they can't spot you outside 5 hexes. We may use the Security unit as the German Fusilier Recce unit. Driving your tank thru infantry doesn't automatically kill them all, so overruns are reduced. Step loss encourages you to retreat a unit that has taken heavy fire. Germans often used StugIIIs in infantry assaults. Smoke is vital. Wrecks cannot easily render terrain impassible. You can use Improved Positions as trenches or "hulldown" locations for your tanks. Rockets based on Jason Cawley's idea. You need to have smoke shells. Germans have better training. In Squad Leader, the Soviets had fewer leaders, so far-apart units where hard to rally.
For Advanced Rules try Company dice for Panzerblitz Panzer Leader








D6 Step Reduction in Panzerblitz / Panzer Leader / Arab-israeli War

Summary:
Instead of the Combat Results Table where Attack Strength can be added together we have a new system.
A. Counters are organized into Companies of 3 counters.
B. Each company has a number of tanks indicated by the number of spots on a D6, placed beside the 3 counters. One spot on the die is 3 tanks.
C. The Company rolls one attack die for every 3 tanks it has left.
D. Armor penetration is all or none, A Stuart tank cannot kill a Tiger.
E. There is a dice roll to see if a hit has occurred, depending on the range.
F. Each hit kills 3 tanks in the target Company, and causes a Morale Check, which may force the Company to retreat. Losses are spread out across each platoon evenly (unrealistic, but reduces bookkeeping to the one dice).
G. There are 3 colors of dice representing Green, Average and Veteran.
H. There is a Command Radius for each Company, affecting movement rate.

Each counter is a Platoon with between 4 and 6 vehicles. Create a Company by grouping 3 counters together. Place a D6 beside the Company, the dice face reading 4 for 4 vehicle platoons, 5 for 5 vehicle platoons, 6 for 6 vehicle platoons. This number is the Company Strength Number.
Reducing the Company Strength Number by 1 means that 3 tanks were lost
For the Germans, use the (SS) platoons rather than the (W) platoons, and use 5 for their Company Strength Number.
We use 3 colors of Company Strength dice, Green for inexperienced (green) Companies, white for average troops and Red for Veteran Companies.

We do not use the CRT for direct fire against "A" vehicles. Instead we roll two D6 to hit, and if a hit is achieved we throw one D6 for each face up spot on the company die. So a full strength 5-tank platoon Company rolls 5 die. A 4-spot company rolls 4 die, and so on.

Each platoon counter attacks individually, 3 separate attacks per platoon.

To hit:
Roll two D6, subtract 2. If this is greater than or equal to the range in hexes, the target is hit.
Modifiers:
+1 Veteran firer
-1 Green firer
-1 Target in City or Woods
-1 Opportunity fire
-1 Attacker's LOS crosses slope or dune hex side adjacent to target (hull down)

To penetrate:
The Attack Strength of the firer must be greater than or equal to the Defense Strength of the target.
Add 1 to the target defense strength at greater than half the firer's maximum range. Add 1 to the Attack Strength if the range is 1 hex.

To kill:
Roll one D6 for each spot on the target Strength Number. A 5-tank platoon Company would roll 5 dice, a 4-tank platoon Company would roll 4 dice, and so on.
Each 6 rolled is a step loss for the target.

Company Destroyed:
The Company is destroyed when its strength is reduced to below 1, the dice and the 3 counters are now removed.

Morale Check:
If a step loss occurs, roll two D6. Add 1 for a Green unit, -1 for a Veteran unit. If the result is 9 or more place an "X" counter on the Company Dice. In that company's Movement Phase, it must move all its units out of LOS of any unit that could damage it with direct fire. If at the end of the turn, if all that company's units are out of LOS of any unit that could damage it with direct fire, the "X" counter is removed. A company with an "X" on its Company Die may not fire.

Example: A Veteran Panther PzKw-V(SS) 16 12 12 10 counter engages a Green Sherman M4/75 11 8 9 8 counter in a wood at 5 hexes. Both counters have Company Strength Number of 5.

To Hit: The PzKw-V rolls two D6 and subtracts 2 from the result. -1 for target in woods, -1 for Veteran firer. The dice roll is seven, -2, -1, +1 = 5, so a hit at 5 hexes or less.

To Penetrate:
PzKw-V(SS) Attack value is 16, range 12, less than half range, so 16.
Sherman defense value is 9, so the shot can penetrate.

To Kill: The PzKw-V rolls five D6, 5 is the Company Strength Number on the Company die.
The result is 6,2,4,5,1. The 5 and a 6 are always hits, so the Sherman now has a Company Strength Number of 3, with an "X" counter on it.

The Sherman can only penetrate the Panther's armour at range 1, so the Panthers can butcher Shermans (and T-34)  in open country.

Command Radius:
If a Green platoon counter is more than 1 hex away from any counter of its Company, its Movement Allowance is halved (round up). For an Average Company, 3 hexes. For a Veteran Company, 6 hexes.

Emergency Opportunity Fire
Any Veteran Company may conduct Opportunity Fire once per turn at any adjacent enemy unit, even has already fired.

See Also: PanzerBlitz Asymmetrized; version 12 of Draft 1 for a more system where you roll for each individual tank.


Company chits for Panzerblitz / Panzer Leader / AIW

Company Chits


In older tactical games, each counter is a free spirit, with no relationship to its peers.
A simple system for creating companies out of platoons is to have a Company Chit.
You have 3 platoon counters in a clump, and place a Company Chit beside them, which defines the abilities of each company.

Watch in horror and disgust as your Green recruits hesitate in their attack, get butchered as they run away from their Veteran defenders, and spend the rest of the battle hiding in the woods like Conscripts!

Features:


  • Veteran, Seasoned, Green and Raw unit abilities.
  • Command Radius
  • Step Loss
  • Routing
Print the counters above, either 3 double sided chits, or glue onto a cube. The "Seasoned-A" counter likewise has "Seasoned_B" on the rear, "Green-A" has "Green-B" on the rear "Raw-A" has "Raw-B" on the rear.
The Company Chit has a number for Routing, Roll Twice, C3 range , and Emergency Opportunity Fire.
In a scenario, you group some or all of your units into companies. Maybe one side has a Veteran SS Tiger Company, the other side have 2 Raw Infantry companies defending a key point. If you group 3 Soviet Infantry Company counters together you technically have a Regiment, but the principle is the same.

Roll twice (ROLL)

For normal Panzerblitz / Panzer Leader / AIW direct or indirect fire attacks, assaults and overruns we will give you the chance to shoot twice:

For a free second shot on attack roll of:
Veteran Seasoned Green Raw
4-6 5-6 6 -

For example, a Seasoned unit rolls a 5 when attacking an enemy. The attacker is allowed a second shot. There is no third shot. If the first shot is a "DD" and the second shot is "D", "DD" or "X" the target is eliminated.
Veteran troops on an unmodified 1-1 attack will get a dispersal 75% of the time, Raw troops 50%. This is more effective in combination with the Rout rule.

Step Loss 
In Panzerblitz a damaged unit is magically restored to full capacity after a short rest.
A step loss represents permanent damage, which is more realistic.
So if you start with a "VET 5" counter on your Company, immediately turn it over to "REG 4" if the company suffers 2 "D" results or one "DD" result during the turn. This is in addition to the D/DD effects. The "REG 4" is demoted to "GREEN 3" the next time. A unit may suffer up to 1 Troop Quality reduction per turn. If a "Raw-B" Company suffers a Troop Quality reduction, all units of the company are destroyed.

Rout (ROUT)

If the unmodified Attack roll is a six, and has no effect, the target must take a Rout Check.
Veteran-A units have a Rout value of "10", you have to roll this number or less with two D6 to pass.
If the target passes the Rout Check, nothing happens. If it fails, place a "Rout" counter (3 different images on this page with red stars) on top of the target's Company Chit. No unit in a company can fire with the "Rout" counter on its Company Chit.  A routed Company moves as normal, but its Defense Strength is halved when moving. The chit is removed in the Target's movement phase if the target rolls its Rout value number with two D6. If the attacker is not Raw, they get a free shot against the routed unit.
"The Jagdtiger took several hits, but American projectiles could not penetrate the 250 mm (9.8 in) frontal armor. However, the inexperienced German commander lost his nerve and turned around instead of backing down, exposed the thinner side armor, which was eventually penetrated and all six crew members were lost."
-Carius, Otto (2003). Tigers in the Mud., p. 221 

Emergency Opportunity Fire (EOF)

Any Company counter may conduct Opportunity Fire once per turn at any enemy entering an adjacent hex, even if the counter has already fired, if it passed the "Emergency Opportunity Test". The test involves rolling the EOF  number or less.
Comment: A lucky Veteran platoon can disrupt an enemy with a "4" Direct Fire, disrupt another with the free shot, then kill a third (adjacent) unit in the same turn.

Command Radius (C3)

This is the maximum number of hexes apart two counters from the same company can be. If this unit is exceed, the company must roll that number or less with two D6 at the start of each friendly movement phase. Failure means that no unit of the company may move in that turn, except when forced to rout. They may still fire.

Drawbacks

The only fiddly thing is remembering which units go with each chit. Not a problem if you just have 3 Panthers, but you might get a bit mixed up during massed infantry assaults with a mix of veteran and green troops. Your average units can do without a Company Chit, use Chit with the elite troops and the conscripts.

Other Ideas:

Chit Pull Company activation

If you number the chits, you have a chit pull activation system. Say 1-6, roll a D6, if it is a "3", then all the "3" chits are activated.

Order Chits

The chits are placed upside down at the end of the move, and turned over when the time comes to do something (as in MBT/Panzer). If the chit says "Move" you can move or do nothing, you can't change your mind. Soviet units stack 2 order chits, turning over the top one and placing a new order under the remaining order at the end of the turn.