Sunday, February 10, 2013

Cold War Commander Hits and Saves

I decided to calculate the number of dice needed to score a hit against a target in the open for Cold War Commander/Blitzkrieg commander.   The number of dice for each hit needed was set at two and multiplied for the effect of no saving throw up to a maximum saving throw value of two.  The following table was the result:                                    save value

Hits No Save 6 5 4 3 2
1 2 2.4 3 4 6 12
2 4 4.8 6 8 12 24
3 6 7.2 9 12 18 36
4 8 9.6 12 16 24 48
5 10 12 15 20 30 60
6 12 14.4 18 24 36 72


As can be seen in some cases units with no saving throw are harder to eliminate than some units with saving throws.   Where the number of dice are equal, I would choose the higher number of hits with the lower saving throw as there is the possibility that all dice might score hits and not be saved causing a vehicle with fewer hits to be eliminated when rolling less dice. 

While looking at it and comparing the hit and save values for various vehicles in the Cold War Commander army lists, I realized that I had seen some similar values at Bob McKenzie's website for the modern version of Command Decision. Bob McKenzie
The data for the modern version of command decision was gathered from a lot of sources.  While it may not all be accurate there are quite a few similarities between the number of dice needed for the hit/save values for vehicles in Cold War Commander and the armor values listed for command decision.   There are also some that vary.   One item that really caught my attention was the armor value of the initial version of the M1 Abrams.  Based on the information on Bob's site the hit/save values for the three versions of the M1 would be
M1A1            6/4              M1A1HA      5/3     M1A2           6/3 These compare to CWC as follows:
M1 (105)       6/3              M1 (120)       6/3     M1HA          6/2

The above would tend to indicate that the early version of the M1 is over-rated in CWC.   Also, the 6/2 value for the M1HA om CWC is twice that of the M1 (120) version and that a 4/2 value would have been the next level instead of the 6/2.  But what about other NATO and Warsaw Pact tanks?   CWC values are given first and CD values are second

Challenger 1       6/3     5/3   lower
Challenger 2     6/3     6/3    same
Chieftain late      6/3     5/3    lower
Chieftain early    6/3     6/4  lower
LeClerc            6/3     6/3  same
AMX30             5/5    4/3 or 5/3 late, 6/5 early   better or much better
Leopard 2          5/4    5/3   better
Leopard 2A5/6  6/3     6/3  same  (note: CD rates leopard 2A5/6 as having most armor, but does not have the latest versions of the M1)
Leopard 1          5/5    4/4 or maybe 3/3(6/5)   better
Leopard 1A4    5/4     5/4  same
T90                    6/3    5/3 or 6/3 same
T80                    6/4    6/4 or 5/3 depending on version. same or similar
T80 early           5/4   5/4  same
T72                    5/4   5/3 6/4 or 5/4 depending on model   same
T64                    5/4   5/4 or 6/4 depending on model  same
T62  late            5/4   5/4  same
T62 early            4/4   6/5  better
T55 late              5/5   6/5  or 5/4 depending on model  better
T55 early           4/4  4/4    same

As can be seen many of the above are very close.  There are some other factors that can affect the hit/save values, such as low profiles..   British and American tanks are rated lower in CD, while German tanks are rated better.    Russian tanks come in a great variety of model variations.  Much like the continual upgrades made to the Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 or the Chieftain.  There are nine different Leopard 1's listed in the CD tables and five different Leopard 2's.    CD has at least five different variants for most of the Russian tanks with the T72 having twelve different models.

Update January, 2019.  Since I posted this I have found additional information and another set of rules - Fistful of Tows3 - that when the defense values are adjusted resulted in the same or very similar values as those for Command Decision Test of Battle.  Link to Excel Data sheet http://fft3.com/downloads/

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