Rules Changes for Soviet Armored Forces in Flames of War

Before getting into why I think changes are needed in the way that Flames of War handles Soviet armored forces, I want to first say that I think Phil Yates has put together a wonderful game. It got me into the WWII miniatures gaming hobby and has brought a lot of other people into it as well. It's a fairly well balanced, playable game that does a decent job of simulating many historical factors.

Unfortunately, I have come to think that the representation of Soviet armored forces in the game is probably the poorest in terms of historical accuracy. Instead of trying to accurately represent the way that Soviet tanks were actually employed at the tactical level, the game instead attempts to create the perceived historical flavor of the army at the strategic level: an army of huge numbers but little skill.

It does this through two methods. First, the Hen and Chicks rule which simulates the lack of command and control ability in Soviet armored units. Second, through the army lists which encourage the purchase of large tank formations.

The problem is that the Soviets rarely fielded their tanks in large formations at the tactical level. At least not until late in the mid-war period, although such formations appear to have been more common as the war transitioned into the late-war period.

Historical Evidence

I am going to digress here for a moment and discuss the German army lists. If you get the chance to read the Panzer Truppen books by Jentz you will easily recognize them as the source for much of the way that the German armored lists are put together. Both the organization charts and the combat records demonstrate this. The latter in the way that you can take different tank types in a single platoon. The combat records often describe situations where one PzIV and two PzIIIs are tasked to operate as a single combat element, and similar situations. The army list was obviously built to accommodate this kind of grouping in addition to the formal paper organization that grouped all tanks of a particular type together.

The problem is that as you read those German combat records you'll notice something else. The Russians fielded their tanks in the same way. The game forces you to field homogeneous units and encourages that they be large in size, but the German accounts usually describe small units of mixed tanks being fielded. Not just different kinds of medium tanks together, or different kinds of light tanks together, but often a mix of medium and light tanks. A large homogeneous unit was most definitely the exception rather than the rule, if you go by the available records.

Several of the German accounts basically describe a situation where small units of mixed Soviet tanks have to be dealt with in turn. Fortunately for the Germans these tanks aren't employed en mass so that while they might be outnumbered in total, they are able to outnumber the enemy in each individual combat.

Problems With Current Rules Defined

In some ways the current rules create the same result but through different means. When dealing with one large unit of tanks, on a table with a reasonable amount of terrain, it becomes difficult to bring all of your weapons to bear on the enemy. This somewhat recreates the Russian problem of bringing all their forces to bear. It does so in a completely backwards way though, by replacing several uncoordinated smaller units with one huge unit that simply is too big to maneuver.

So, what I want to do is come up with a different set of Soviet special rules that recreates the way that Soviet armor was actually used while maintaining overall game balance. The goals are as follows:

1) Allow for mixed units of armor.
2) Allow for the employment of multiple small units of armor, and even encourage it.
3) Somehow take away the advantage that multiple small units have over single large units under the core Flames of War rules.

One and two are pretty easy to manage. They simply require a reworking of the army lists to allow tanks to be taken together. Take away the multiple tank cost discount.

The last one is a bit more difficult. Perhaps alter the Centralized Control rule to allow Soviet tanks to be fielded as actual platoons. Alternately, come up with some variation on the normal command range rule mitigating some effects of being out of command, but within certain limitations. The result would allow for some maneuvering but without the flexibility of having separate units. Part of this could result in separate sections having independent break points. Perhaps a two stage command system where the second, longer, command range forces any section outside of that range to have separate break points.

These are all solutions I considered before coming up with something a bit more simple and which wouldn't require any reworking of the army lists.

Proposed Rules Changes

Be aware that these changes only apply to Mixed Tankovy Batalons, not regular Tankovy Batalons or any other forces that happen to contain tanks. The regular batalons represent the changes that were made in mid-43 in part to fix the problems that these rules are meant to represent. I may also propose a change to the hen & chicks rule for these later batalons, but if I do that it will be in a later article.

The solution I finally decided was worth playtesting goes like this:

1) Pick a Mixed Tankovy Batalon as normal from the existing mid-war list
2) Select your commander as normal and remove him from his company
3) Divide each company of tanks in your force into four equal parts, or as equal as possible.
4) Combine parts from different companies to come up with four mixed units that are as equal as possible in number (not including the commander).

For example: if you have 7 T-60, 10 T-34 and 3 KV-1e tanks, and you took one of the T-34 tanks as your commander, then you'd do the following:

The T-60 tanks would be divided as follows: 2/2/2/1
The remaining T-34 tanks would be divided as follows: 3/2/2/2
The KV-1e tanks would be divided as follows: 1/1/1/0

The final four groupings would be as follows:

Tanks: T-60/T-34/KV-1e
Group A: 2/2/1
Group B: 2/2/1
Group C: 2/3/0
Group D: 1/2/1

5) Those four units are now treated as separate companies in your Tankovy Batalon.
6) Ignore the Hen & Chicks rule, and instead replace it with the following:

Roll four skill tests at the experience level of your armored units. Each successful check results in one group of your choice that is able to move that turn. The remaining groups may take any action except moving, which means they can still shoot. The commander can always move and shoot, and does not require an activation to do so. The commander can also attach himself to any of these groups as normal, and if he does then they activate in addition to any activations that you rolled.

The result should be a more accurate representation of how Soviet armored forces operated prior to Kursk. You will now have to choose between slowly moving your forces up in pieces as you get the necessary activations, or sending only a fraction of them in quickly.

The only thing that really concerned me is that the 5+ activation for conscript units might be too harsh, but the ability of the commander to activate one unit for free should balance this out. If it does still prove too harsh, then it might be worth trying a flat 4+ activation number, but for now I want to tie it to the current skill/motivation system already in place.

If having the commander be able to automatically activate a unit proves to make the Soviets too powerful, then try taking that ability away from him. He can still move and fire as much as he wants on his own.

I have not yet had the chance to playtest these changes, but would love to do so, and would also love to hear from anyone else who decides to give these changes a try.