Last week we had an overview of the new Team Yankee rulebook and I mentioned the stat cards. Today we are going to have a look at them.
So the first thing that jumps out are the different courage values depending on what you are rolling for. We understand that rules like Protected Ammo are gone and instead these benefits are included in the Remount score (it seems like one of the ways of making the game more streamlined).
Also ratings like Trained are gone, the Soviet T-72 is hit as if it was "Trained" but it's skill level is "Conscript". The different movement rates are interesting, and doubling through terrain seems to be an option.
A quick look at the tanks stats shows the M1 and the T-72 seem to be quite close in ability. It'll be interesting to see how the Leopard and the Chieftain/Challenger match up compared to these two.
That's it for this week, next week we will look at the Formation Cards.
Thanks for reading
Ben
Very interesting - thanks guys!
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting development. Sure would speed up normal Flames of War as well. Creating unit cards might be the next project then :)
ReplyDeleteSeems like they're really working hard to make it even more "beer and pretzley", which I'm not against. I've always found BF games have good overall outcomes - you get to a sensible conclusion through simplified game play, which is fine for me as I don't want to get too detailed, and have to track lots of different things during a game.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the "cross" stat is about? You think that's a bog type of roll?
Also interesting that they've introduced a new range for the heavier MG's - 20".
To the Ben @ Breakthrough Assault, are you just speculating that the Chieftain/Challenger & Leopard are coming out, or did I miss that confirmation elsewhere? Naturally we're all *assuming* it, but I'm just curious if BF has actually shared that yet?
From what I have seen it's not Beer and Pretzleys, it's just trying to male the game easier for people to get into.
DeleteRe British and Germans - JP said at the start of the year that we would see British and Germans in 2016.
Ben
Great! I hope they make other nations playable soon!
DeleteGj.... ROF 1.... Again soviets must be suck.... USA must be the best....
ReplyDeletethis is actually pretty true in these 2 tanks. At least there is no +1 to hit for the Soviets on the move...that is a BIG deal. The T72s will outnumber the Abrams, and it looks like the ability to kill each other is quite similar.
DeleteNot saying that it is going to be imbalanced, as points are a balancer that is not taken into account yet, but still it is again getting into this cliche that Allies are the elite with best equipment and Soviets are a horde of idiots on cheap tanks
DeleteJust to put in some numbers, the T72's main gun has a maximum RoF of about 8 rounds per minute. M1's main gun has a maximum RoF of about 10 rounds per minute (some sources say 9) which aparently translates into one of them shooting twice as fast in FoW
DeleteJade
DeleteThe auto-loader was a piece of crap. try about 4-5 rounds per minute on a good day and you might be close.
Close in stats? The Abrams is faster, has longer range, more MG's, more special rules, is better armored, harder to hit and double the ROF. I wonder of many T-72's you will need for each Abrams.
ReplyDeleteI guess "brutal" is the new name for the breakthrough gun rule since the 2A46 tank guns of the Soviets is 125mm in caliber, so it fires a larger explosive round.
This beginning to look a lot like the Cliched Soviets rubbish, US awesome nonsense... not going to call it yet but it is rather disappointing none the less...
ReplyDeleteI still hold out hope that the Soviet support options are going to make up for this in some way... but not really confident about what I see...
It seems it'll be just as easy for both tanks to hurt each other (relative AT vs FA) but the Chobham armour could change things in the Abrams favour (a recurring theme). Seems like everything the T-72 can do, the Abrams does better.
If the T-80 appears that could be the Soviet Abrams equivalent, but we shall see...
??? you expected the T-72 to be better than the Abrams? The stats seem pretty favourable for the T72 if you ask me. The Abrams was a far superior tank, but it looks like the T72 will have no issue knocking it out which is good.
DeleteThe ROF of the Abrams looks to also include the better Fire Control System of western MBTs which makes sense. So far, I'm happy with the stats. As for the cards themselves, no issue..after 2-3 looks, I`ve already have them all memorized and probably wouldn`t need them in a game.
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ReplyDeleteUntil we see how all of the forces are laid out, there's really not a way to compare. In the novel Team Yankee had 12 Abrams tanks (three platoons), 5 M113s and 2 M901s.
ReplyDeleteThat said, The Abrams and the T-72 actually met in battle in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm (this would be 4-6 years after the hypotetical events of Team Yankee). Granted the equipment involved were M1A1s and opposing T-72Ms, not necessarily the equipment described in the novel. It didn't really go well for the Iraqi T-72s.
1) Iraqi tank crews were poorly trained vis a vis most Warsaw Pack forces, and Soviets in particular, and high command tried to compensate for this by fighting the tanks from prepared positions as direct fire artillery...
Delete2) Iraqi were using mostly Chinese knock-offs of the real stuff, and their ammo was at least 2 decades out of date.,,
Like you said, things didn't go well for the Iraqis but they were working under handicaps that the Soviets would not be operating under had they chosen to start WW3 as implied in the novel.
The most Iraqi T-72 were "Asad Babil" (Lion of Babylon), a licenced production with poorer quality.
DeleteLion of Babylon was only used in 2 battalions at best, the bulk of the Iraqi T-72s were vanilla 1970s variants.
DeleteThe main problems the Iraqi T-72s had was their use of steel cored BM9, BM12 and BM15 penetrators for their FSAPDS rounds, none of which could penetrate the front of the M1A1HA with it's DU-Chobham armour.
This was true of all exported Soviet tanks - they were willing to sell you new tanks, but gave them with older or crap ammo. FOr instance, T-55s in the Middle East still use WW2-era BM412D APCBC rounds in the main, not APDS.
The contemporary SOviet T-72s of the 1980s had BM22 penetrators as standard which could penetrate early model Abrams out to 2km. Knocking them out was a different matter, as Chobham armour isn't just about thickness, but toughness too.
I am sorry, but Desert Storm is the worst comparison ever. Firstly even the soviet made T-72s for export were different from those supplied to Soviet army (and those mainly used by Iraqi were not even those) Second, the training of crews and knowledge of tank tactics in Iraqi army was non existent. Third, the US army had total air dominance and third and most importandly in this case M1 Abrams IS NOT M1A1 abrams. The former actually had hard time penetrating T72s front armor not to mention other differences.
DeleteYes M1 still was probably a better tank than T72, but it wasnt that big of a difference .
In the book Team Yankee starts out with 10 M1's, 4 M113's and 2 ITV's. The FIST-V is added.
ReplyDeleteCorrect. It was a Company Task Force w/two platoons of M1s (8 tanks) plus the CO (66) and XO (55) tanks, and the attached grunts in 113s. If you count the Frist Sergeants there were actually five M113s in the Team. Plus the M88 and as stated 2xM901s. The other platoon of M1s (4 tanks) was in Team Bravo.
DeleteI am re reading Team Yankee now.
ReplyDeleteOn the qualitative debate between the M1 and T72, as fond as I am of the T72 as a model, I would not have liked to go to war in on. Remember, for the Soviets, its main design goal was cheapness, after the expensive failure that was the T-64. For a start the auto loader, when working optimally, required the gun to come off aim and return to centre at maximum azimuth for the loader to be able to access the breech - not good in the middle of a fire fight. It did have some good points of course - for its size and weight it was remarkably well armoured, and it was fast and reliable. But a good ROF it did not have...As for effective stabilization and fire control, hard to judge really. But remember that Soviet training hours were severely limited for its 2 year conscripts, of which only half would have gone through 2 training cycles. Yes I think by comparison the US Regular soldiers, who would on average have been through 3-5 intensive annual training cycles, would have been supermen by comparison.
ReplyDeleteGame balance is always a tricky thing, but from what I saw in actual action the knock out rate for western tanks Vs Soviet supplied tanks was anything but balanced. Of course the M1s had the 120mm gun which would make a significant difference from the earlier version shown here.
ReplyDeleteYes mate. Also I think the chance of the autoloader having a catastrophic detonation on any form of penetration makes the T-72 vulnerable, whereas the M1 had protected ammo and massive blow off plates to enhance survivability....
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with the concerns about cold-war technothriller cliches showing up, which was one of my big fears about the decision to base everything off a novel.
ReplyDeleteThe T-72's stats definitely seem off to me. The thing that stands out to me most is that it's easier to hit than the M1, which seems odd to me because from what I've read Soviet tanks were generally designed to be as hard to hit as possible (which is why they made them so small). Things like ERA plating seems conspicuous in it's absence (though presumably that will be added in later somehow), as is the inability to fire ATGMs from the main gun, which seems to me like it would be a very fun feature to add.
Say what you will about historical performances of respective equipment (although I'm not entirely sure Desert Storm is the fairest comparison, since from what I've read the Soviets were notorious for cutting corners on export-grade equipment and a lot of Iraqi tanks used then were locally made knockoffs with even more things left out), my understanding is that the general agreement tends to be that a fair fight makes for a more enjoyable tabletop wargaming experience.
Yes, I suppose they could be balanced out by way of the T-72s being more numerous, but again I worry about stereotyping. I guess I'm a bit concerned that they're going to go with the Soviet army as depicted in Team Yankee itself, whereas I was wishing for something more like the fast-moving ruthlessly efficient killing machine it's depicted as in, say, Red Army.
Still, it's early days yet. Maybe they'll revise things, or there are other factors at work we haven't seen yet.
The "to hit" rating in FoW is usually based on the target crew skills not the tank design itself.
ReplyDeleteThe Iragi T72 fleet was built in Eastern Europe and some of those were assembled in Iraq, they never actually got around to making their own indigenous copy past a prototype. The Iragi T72 was essentially the same tank as the non Soviet WarPac T72 but had some extra armour added and different electronics - not necessarily less capable than the Soviet stuff either.
Iraqi tactics in 1991 and 2003 had more of an effect on their tank losses rather than just the technical state of the tanks
I believe the RoF Halted should be 2 on the T72.
ReplyDeleteI have always felt that with armor it should be more on the shooters skill than the targets. So I could see the M1 having a better To Hit. So if an M1 was shooting at both another M1 and a T72 it would have equal probability.
My initial thoughts are... I like what I see.
ReplyDeleteCertainly some departure from FOW in this.
Great stuff and great ideas.
I have to say I echo some peoples concerns about the US tank good, Russian tank bad look of the cards. I particularly note that in 1982 Isreali 105mm guns (on M60s) were unable to penetrate the front armour of Syrian T-72s.
ReplyDeleteI get easier to hit, I might even accept shorter range, but a stationary T-72 having half the rate of fire of a moving Abrahms is very hard to swallow. Sure these imbalances can be mostly mitigated by points cost, but it is off-putting to think this stereotype might come across from WW2 Flames.
Isn't that point of the (presumably) very expensive tech of the M1 Abrams fire control system which keeps the gun on the target while moving. In game terms it seems that ROF2 while on the move is not that unrealistic? Perhaps we should hold fire until the difference between Stabiliser (special rule on the T72 card) and Advanced Stabiliser (special rule on the M1 card) is revealed. Of course we won't mention the fact that the Soviet tanks in GSFG should be T80s and that T72s were only in the follow up formations in Poland and in Czechoslovakia etc
ReplyDeleteI'm sure T-80s will be along before too long....drool....
ReplyDeleteUS tank good, Russian bad - a bad thing? I mean, they feel handled pretty neutrally, and in this setting, the US is the primary force warding off Soviet invasion of Western Europe right? So, I don't mind being the good guys here.
ReplyDeleteUS tank good, Russian bad - a bad thing? I mean, they feel handled pretty neutrally, and in this setting, the US is the primary force warding off Soviet invasion of Western Europe right? So, I don't mind being the good guys here.
ReplyDelete