GROUND COMBAT
Ground Units
Nation TypeAtk DefPersonnel Storage MobileSpecial
EAReg Inf221 .1 foot
EARes Inf121 .1 foot
EAEngineers121 .1 foot engineers
EASOF421 .1 footRare, Surprise
EAPowered Inf451 .4 mech Inf
EAMech Inf 541 .6 mech
EASecurity 232 .6 mechPatrol/COIN
EAArmor8811mech
EAAviation 14 822aviation
EAArtillery 24 622mech
EAHQ012 .5 mech
EATransport 1111mech
EASupport0255mech
EATBolt10 8--aviationship based
NarnReg Inf221 .1 foot
NarnRes Inf121 .1 foot
NarnEngineers121 .1 foot engineers
NarnSOF321 .1 footrare,surprise
NarnPowered Inf441 .4 mech
NarnMech Inf 541 .6 mech
NarnGuerrillas 112 .1 footindigenous
NarnSecurity 242 .8 mechpatrol/COIN
NarnArmor10 811.1mech
NarnAviation 12 712.2aviation
NarnArtillery 20 622mech
NarnHQ012 .5 mech
NarnTransport1111mech
NarnSupport0244mech
NarnFrazi68--aviation ship based
CentauriReg Inf321 .1 foot
Centauri Res Inf221 .1 foot
CentauriEngineers221.1foot engineers
Centauri SOF421.1footrare, surprise
CentauriPowered Inf.561 .5 mech
Centauri Mech Inf 651 .6 mech
Centauri Security 242 .6 mechpatrol/COIN
CentauriArmor10 1011mech
Centauri Aviation 18 822aviation
Centauri Artillery 26 822mech
Centauri HQ022 .5 aviation
Centauri Transport 1211aviation
Centauri Support0255mech
Centauri Sentri57--aviation ship based
Minbari Reg Inf321 .1 foot
Minbari Res Inf221 .1 foot
MinbariEngineers221 .1 foot engineers
Minbari SOF421 .1 footaviation?
Minbari Powered Inf.771 .7 mechaviation?
Minbari Mech Inf 881 .9 aviation
Minbari Security 352 .6 aviation patrol/COIN
Minbari Armor18 1811aviation
Minbari Aviation 24 1022aviation
Minbari Artillery 30 1023mech
Minbari HQ122 .5 aviationJammers
Minbari Transport 1211aviation
Minbari Support1355aviation
Notes
Regrouping-certain units are not “destroyed” when they are killed. They instead have suffered such casualties that the unit itself is no longer capable of functioning at its given stats. 40% of these losses, based on defensive potential, may be regrouped next turn as “res inf”. The units that qualify for “regrouping” are: regular infantry, reserve infantry, mechanized infantry, powered infantry, and engineers.
NBC Strike-represents an attack using weapons of mass destruction. This is limited not be the availability, but by the political constraints, and what price the government is willing to pay internationally. This is a series of weapons, rather than a single warhead. An NBC strike adds 300 to the attack strength for a single combat round.
Orbital Support - if one side has uncontested space superiority, he may bombard the enemy from orbit. This has the effect of adding 100 points per heavy weapon to his side as an NBC strike over all rounds the ship has uncontested space superiority. The shots take so long to line up accuratly that any movement during that combat round (the entire week) will void this. Thus, any enemy sorties that force your ship to move will void this.
Reg Inf-regular Infantry
Res Inf-Part timers, reserves, etc.
SOF-special operations forces, rare, expensive, usually used for raids instead of battles, heavily supported (shuttles) should have a surprise attack rule
Security-MP’s. think lots of HUMMWV’s with machine guns.
Civilians-treat all civvies as 0/1/5/- units.
COIN-counter Insurgency
Transport-can supply mobility to a foot capable unit, but while moving the unit uses the transport defense.
Ground Combat Rules
Setup
First, set up the combat areas. I'd say that they could be directly proportional to the population size, such as a battle site for each 250 Mil pop, adjusted to taste. When a player is setting up defense for a planet, he must record what units are in each “combat location”. The enemy lands his troops into certain “combat locations” of his choice. The individual battles are resolved as forces from both sides in a given battle.
Assault Planning
Next, each side for each battle site picks a battle intensity rating of 10% to 40%. Add both numbers together, and add this to a percentile die roll. Add 10% to the previous winner, if any, in that zone from the previous turn, and subtract 10% from the loser, if any, from the previous turn in that zone.
A defender in a prepared defense cannot choose an intensity, but can force a -20% on his opponent. To qualify, the defender must have occupied the same location the previous turn, and have at least 1/20 of his units be engineer capable.
Damage
Damage inflicted is the attack strength of the other side times the adjusted die roll, times a constant, perhaps 25%. The constant should be adjusted to let battles last as long as you intend. A higher casualty rate will result in shorter battles.
Casualty Allocation
AgainstGroundUnits
Casualty results are allocated to units randomly.
AgainstAviationUnits
Aviation units have a unique damage procedure in a theatre with enemy ADA units. First, any damage from random allocation is applied to them. Next, calculate the total offensive potential of all enemy ADA units. Divide this into the total defensive potential of all the aviation units. Add this result to “.2” and multiply this by the defensive rating of the aviation units lost already. This is the number of additional aviation units lost during the turn (the units already lost are NOT included). EX. The Narn have5 ADA units (10 off/7 def rating). The Centauri are attacking and, included in their forces, are 12Sentris (5 off / 7 def rating). During random allocation, 3 Sentris are destroyed (total - 21 def points). The total ADA offensive potential is 50, the total Sentri defensive potential is 84. The result is .6, added to .2, to get .8 times 21 (the lost Sentris), resulting in 17. So, two more Sentris are lost and 3 additional points will be allocated to units next turn.
ExcessDamage
As alluded to above, it is possible for damage to be given in such a way that it is impossible to be allocated. EX, a flight of Sentris has 7 defensive rating each. If, say, 4 points of damage were allocated to them, none of the Sentri would be damaged. Instead, next turn, the Sentris would have 4 points more damage in addition to damage given this turn, to allocated to the fighters. All excess damage from one turn that cannot be allocated to any unit is carried over into the next turn. Alternatively, you could calculate the total defensive rating and determine how far to destruction these points move the total force, and subtract this ratio from the offensive rating. Recalcuate each turn.
In the above example, the flight of Sentris have 42 defensive points on 60 offensive. 4 points is about 1/10 of this, so 1/10th of the offensive rating is lost, giving them only 54 points. Next turn, another 5 points are allocated. This would result in one Sentri being destroyed (7 pts.) and the remaining pointsare allocated to next turn, resulting in a 2/35 loss of offensive rating, giving the 5 remaining Sentris only 23.57, or 24 points left.
Specific Allocation
AgainstGroundUnits
The attacking player can, sacrificing 1/2 of the resulting damage, target specific enemy units.
SOFUnits
SOF units have a special advantage when attempting specific allocation. They may attack, using specific allocation, with no loss in offensive potential. For each SOF unit doing this, roll 1d6. For each unit, if the results is less than 4, if the side attacking with SOF units has to allocate any damage from the enemy, 50% of this damage must be resolved against the SOF units that rolled less than 4. Any points in excess of this , as well as the remaining 50%, are allocated to the regular forces using the standard, random, method.
AgainstAviationUnits
If the attacker wishes to allocate specific damage to an aviation unit, it must sacrifice 3/4 of its effectiveness (it gets only 1/4 of the resulting damage from the damage calculations). EXCEPTION: ADA units only have the 1/2 penalty against specific allocation to aviation units.
HQs & Support Units
Typical
HQ's might allow any 10 units to attack at full strength, but if not enough HQ's are present, remaining units attack at 50% and defend at 70%. Similarly, you can treat support units as doing the same thing, with all modifiers cumulative. That also gives you a way to deal with units that are cut off from supplies, as each turn with no supplies can reduce the ability of a support unit to support by one. Ex., if a 500 point for was entirely cut off from HQ’s and supply, it would only be able to use 500 x 50% x 50%, or 125, offensive points.
MinbariHQs
The Minbari HQs have a special feature in their jammer. The jammer supplies each of the ten units“supported” by the HQ with a +2 defensive bonus. This bonus does not apply against infantry units or any other unit that does not require advanced targetting computers (you cannot jam “line of site”).
Unit Value
There should be a point/cost value to show that some units are harder to replace, and so should be protected if possible. With more time I could start working on those things that make each force unique, but that may be wasted effort for this level of complexity. Already you can tell things like the Minbari will seldom use reserves or security troops. EA forces will use artillery and the maneuver vehicles to make up for Minbari firepower advantages.
Movement
Planning
The players can now plan movement for units. A unit can only be moved from one combat location to another if it has some kind of vehicle to move in or is “mobile”. EXCEPTION: A foot mobile unit can spend a number of turns equal to 1d10 to reach an adjacent battle site. A transport company can generally provide mechanization to a single foot mobile company.
Movement
Movement occurs. For a foot mobile unit, it would reach its destination during this segment of the last turn on its die roll.
Blocking
Movement is usually automatically successful. However, if one player has complete control of a position (i.e. there are no enemy units present) he can try to “block” entry by the other player, providing the other player does not have space superiority. Roll a percentile die, with a roll less than 100 being successful. Add the blocking player’s offensive potential, divided by 10, to the roll. The player trying to move into this sector can “sacrifice” some of his units to make the move easier. For every unit he designates as “sacrificed” he subtracts 1/2 of its defensive potential from the die roll. The unit is lost. If the attempt to enter a “battle location” is successfully blocked, 1/2 of the attacker’s units are lost (based on defensive potential).
Seiges
Sieges begin/end. If a force wishes to enter a “battle location” but wants to soften the enemy up a bit, he can lay “siege” to the location. For each turn of siege, roll 1d6 and apply this much damage to the besieging player. Roll 1d10 and apply this much damage to the besieged player. The besieged player, at any time, has the option of leaving the location and fighting outside of it. This would be resolved as a regular battle with the besieging forces (the siege, in effect, would be over).
For sieges, just treat the besieged unit as being cut off from supplies, and let the decreasing effect of the support units weaken the defenders. If they can get supplies, you aren't really besieging them. They'd also have the benefits of engineer support already.
Unit Allowances
Ship carried fighters cannot be the sole friendly unit in a battle location unless allowed under scenario rules.
Comments
The side with a firepower advantage and no need to win this turn can reduce his losses by accepting a lower battle intensity. In this instance, had Side 1 gone for the maximum damage, he could do no more damage to side 2, as they were wiped. He could have taken about 15 points of losses instead of 11. As the numbers rise, that kind of distinction can be a lot of people. For instance, here that's about 2 infantry companies, call it 300 troops.