Hey all, Will here, long time no type.
I've been thinking for a bit. Since my last post in January I've played a fair bit of Bolt Action. I did invest in the US in the end, which I'll get photos up as soon as I finish finalizing my paint scheme - trying to stick to historical paint schemes with geedub's paint range is something of a pain. Still, I think I've gotten things settled, and I'll post up my findings and theories alongside my paint-tests next week, when I should have things done.
Anyway, on to the discussion for today. There's been a fair amount of talk between those of us here on the blog and among our gaming group about house rules for Bolt Action, to cover some of the rules which don't make sense or don't work at their cost, and so on. One we've solved is transports being abandoned, for example, which we do by simply applying the existing rules within a 6" radius rather than the entire board (so if you've got no other units within 6" of the transport and the enemy moves within the 6" radius, the transport is abandoned). Others are a little more difficult to solve.
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| The M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) |
In particular, I want to look at the discrepancies between automatic rifles and light machine guns. As it states in the rules; a pair of rangers armed with a light machine gun costs a total of 48 points, with two veterans that put out a total of three shots at a 30" range. Alternatively, one can take an automatic rifle, which would work out as two veterans who put out three shots, one with a reduced range of 24", for a total of 33 points. While the single shot at shorter range is something of a trade-off, when contrasted against the comparative points cost (a whole 15 extra points - enough for another ranger who is worth another shot for the same cost!) plus the team weapon penalty, meaning that if the loader is lost then the machine gun fires with reduced accuracy - none of which seems to justify its cost.
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| The M1941 Johnson Machine Gun |
At present,
boltaction.net offers an unofficial ruling on this, reducing the cost of the light machine gun to 5 points. This is a good stopgap, I suppose, but I don't think this amply represents the bonus that a light machine gun offers a squad over an automatic rifle. Historically, the US army had a lack of good, lightweight automatic weapons that would fit with their doctrines of mobile infantry while still offering competent automatic fire - instead, their answer to a lack of automatic fire support was to offer more BARs at platoon level, rather than offering a commonly available machine gun, such as possibly the M1941 Johnson LMG, and increasing the number of M1919 30cal. machine guns available to units in the field. In WW2, automatic fire was an effective way of forcing enemies to keep their heads down rather than advancing freely or spotting friendly positions; in Bolt Action, this difficulty is represented by pin markers. So why, when explosive weapons have the ability to cause multiple pins, why can't automatic weapons employed for exactly that purpose do so?
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| The Bren Gun |
To support my point, I'll compare the BAR to the three main light machine guns you'll see on the tabletop in a game of bolt action: the British Bren Gun, the Soviet DP-28, and the German MG42. While all of them use similarly sized ammunition (roughly .30cal), the BAR is the inferior weapon as a squad automatic weapon. First of all, the BAR has the lowest magazine size of any of these weapons, with a single box carrying only 20 rounds, compared to the Bren's 30, the DP's 47 round pan magazine, or the MG42's 50-round belt typical of the squad-based uses. Secondly, while the BAR has a comparable fire rate to the Bren and DP, the smaller magazine and inability to replace the barrel in use limits the firing rate somewhat to avoid overheating and warping the barrel somewhat.
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| The Maschinengewehr 42 (MG42) |
In addition, I'll point out that at present, medium machine guns, such as the M1919 .30cal, mounted MG42s, the Vickers Medium, or the SG43 are already underpowered, offering four shots at 30" with the team and fixed weapon drawbacks at 50 points - the equivalent of a 5-man rifle squad, who would get an extra shot with no drawbacks besides a 6" reduction in range.
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| The Degtyaryov Infantry Machine Gun (DP) |
So, from this point, I'll offer my two cents on what can be done about this. Squad based light machine guns should remain at 20 points, but a hit from an LMG should generate an additional pin (so two pins instead of one), which gels well with the existing capability of the German MG42s to fire 4 shots instead of the usual 3. In addition, MMGs and HMGs should cause d2 pins to their targets should they hit, to represent the pinning effect of automatic fire.
And before anyone says anything, I do think HMGs should get this as well - while the 600 rounds a minute of the DShK and M2HB .50 cals don't compare quite to the 1200+ of the MG42, the heavier round punching through cover, plus the comparison to the .30cal or Vickers Medium - both classed as a medium machine gun - only manage a maximum of 100 rounds more per minute.
So, I'll leave you with that thought. Perhaps after a few play tests I'll post up my thoughts on how this as a ruling compares to the base rules, especially to see how it works with multiple LMGs per squad (as was common in late war German grenadier squads). But until then, Will is signing off.
