Some of these rules are partially based on the house rules from Andrew Martin's Valley. The Engineering stuff is purely from personal experience, a little educated extrapolation, and the 5-series of Field Manuals. To follow that link, click on the Library Services link on the right side.
Company Commanders:
May activate any platoon for a second time. Second activation allows 1/2
move, and one action. Moving more than 1/4 base movement rate shift fire dice
down one as normal. This is in lieu of normal activation. Commander must roll
his quality dice vs. target unit's leadership. Commander may make 1/2 move and
activate a platoon. Personally, I disagree with Jon that improved
communications will eliminate company level organization. First, soldiers
identify fiercely with companies - they are good for morale. Second, the
company command level has a legitimate job which should not be done by Battalion
and couldn't be done without killing their staff officers.
Morale Checks:
A unit takes all morale checks applicable. A platoon which breaks or routs
causes the company commander to take morale check at the threat level of the
morale check which broke the platoon. If a company commander fails a morale
check, all platoons loose a level of confidence. A company commander's death
causes a morale check for loss of leader for all platoons. The platoon leader
with the best leadership is designated new company commander. This is
based on the fact that one rarely sees a DSII unit actually break before it gets
wiped out, unless it is infantry.
Artillery:
Organic artillery does not require a roll to come down. Attached artillery in
direct support of the echelon on the table (IOW, if you've got a BN HQ on the
board and the artillery is in direct support of this BN) rolls quality dice vs.
leadership. General Support artillery requires a ldrship+2 to come in.
Pre-plotted fire missions would come in on schedule all the time, and TRPs
and/or FISTs give a +1 to die roll. If you make it exactly, then it comes in,
but not in next activation, but activation after (thus giving your opponent 2
chances to move out of beaten zone). This change was based on doctrine,
and Don Maddox's
strong objection to DSII artillery being much less responsive than it is in real
life.
Obstacles:
Breach: Breaches are simulated by the breaching element remaining stationary adjacent to the obstacle for an entire activation, neither moving nor firing. Breaching may activate opportunity fire, and if this fire damages or destroys the breaching element the breach is not successful. A unit may activate certain elements to fire, then activate others to breach, but must indicate which are breaching and which are firing before any actions are taken. Non-engineer elements attempting a breach must make a confidence check at threat level +1, +2 if under fire.
Double Apron Barbed Wire Fence: Impassable to infantry, wheeled vehicles. Poor going to tracked vehicles. When tracked vehicles move through, they create a breach. Infantry may breach, Engineers may move 1/2 normal distance and breach.
Triple Standard Concertina Wire Fence: Impassable to infantry, wheeled vehicles. Difficult going for tracked, Tracked vehicles also roll a d6 when moving through. On a 1, Satan's Slinkie has gotten caught up in their roadwheels and chopped to bits, immobilizing the tank completely. Cannot be repaired at the battlefield. Must be hauled back to a depot where long-suffering mechanics will have to half-way disassemble the thing and pick little bits of metal out of the transmission. When tracked vehicles pass through, breached. Infantry may breach. Engineers may move 1/2 normal and breach. May be mined/booby trapped, in which case infantry may not breach, any unit attempting to breach is attacked as per Dirtside rules. If the first Engineer unit is wiped out, further breaching efforts by dismounted Engineers may avoid attack by rolling unit quality vs. a 4. I'm assuming the Engineers would use explosives which will clear the booby traps and the wire all at once.
Tanglefoot: Difficult going to infantry, Engineer may clear as they move through, Infantry must take an activation to breach.
Concertina Roadblock. 10 coils of Concertina. May be (with great effort) extended to cover clear terrain, but that's fairly labor-intensive. Stops all vehicles except Grav. Cold. Try to drive into it, and you're immobilized permanently. Breached by 1 element of Engineers (Dismounted or vehicle). Requires 2 elements/activations of infantry.
4-Strand Cattle fence: What most people think of when they say "Barbed Wire." Not a military obstacles. Enough can cause an area to be classed as Cultivated.
Steel Tetrahedrons, Steel Hedgehogs, Concrete Cubes, Tetrahedrons, Dragon's Teeth. Impassable to all vehicles except grav, normal going for infantry (or as per terrain). Breach requires 2 actions, 1 from CEV.
Non-nuclear craters: Impassable to wheeled, GEV, or tracked vehicles. Bridgeable. Hasty craters may be breached as per expedient AT ditches. Difficult terrain for Infantry.
Anti-tank Ditches: Impassable to wheeled, GEV, or tracked vehicles. Expedient ditches may be breached by size 3+ tracked vehicles in one activation. Ditches of 1.5 meters or greater in hard soil cannot be breached, but must be bridged.
Bridge Demolitions: 100% reliable if neither the bridge or the firing team is
under fire. If the bridge is taken under artillery fire at any point in the game
or the firing team is under fire when initiating, then roll unit quality die, 4+
indicating success. If the roll fails, the bridge is only damaged. Roll a d4 for
new maximum weight class allowed. Also roll d6.
1: No effect
2: Bridge will collapse after 2d6 vehicles pass over it.
3: Bridge will collapse after 3d6 vehicles pass over it.
4: Bridge will collapse after 2d12 hours.
5: Bridge will collapse after d6 days.
6: Bridge will collapse after 2d4 days.
Abatis: May be only be created along roads/paths bordered on both sides by woods/forest. Impassable to tracked, wheeled, GEV. Difficult for infantry. May be breached by Combat Engineer Vehicle in one action, or 2 actions by engineers. If mined or boobytrapped, any breaching or crossing element takes an attack as per normal Dirtside mine rules. These mines do not have to be marked on the table, but must be notated in the defending player's obstacle plan.
Log Hurdle: May be created on any uphill road slope. Usable only if standing timber is available.
Log Crib: As abatis, may be created on any road if standing timber is available.
Log Post Belt: May be created if standing timber is available. May not be built on hard-surface road. Set up in 100-meter strips. Impassable to all vehicles, and to infantry if reinforced with barbed wire. May be mined as per abatis. Requires 12 activations to breach. CEV activation counts as two activations. Requires additional 6 if mined. After first mine attack, further elements not attacked.
Conventional Mines: Conventional Mines in the 22nd century indicate weapons using a Self-forging fragment to attack armor (which allows them to target grav vehicles) or an area effect fragmentation to attack infantry. They use magnetic, IR, seismic, and other sensors rather than primitive pressure fuzes. Units attacked by conventional mines draw three chits, validity as per HEF vs. Infantry and MAK vs. Armor. Minefields, barring some protective minefields, are presumed to have a mixture of AP and AT mines. Note also that they have no IFF, and will attack any unit in the minefield. May included rocket engines to permit them to attack air units Note that the minefield owner always rolls for the unit moving into the minefield so that it's nature is not given away.
If desired, the minefield owner may designate a lane as being covered with IFF mines. When a friendly unit moves through these lanes, rolls a dice for the laying unit quality and a dice for the IFF quality. If BOTH rolls come up 1s, then that vehicle suffers an attack. Everything malfunctions.
Types of minefield:
Protective. Easily emplaced and removed, used for close-in protection against an enemy's final assault. Integrated into a company or platoon's defensive positions. Usually fairly shallow and of greatly variable density. A good average might be 50% chance of encounter. May consist only of AP mines, in which case vehicles can ignore.
Phony: As per type of minefield simulated, except when the defender rolls the dice to tell whether or not the unit was attacked, it never is.
Nuisance: Subset of tactical. Small and irregular, generally small. 50% chance of encounter. For game purposes, tied to a terrain feature, e.g.. "The crossroads between Hill 204 and Hill 402". May be off-route mines, in which case they attack the side armor of the vehicle, damage and validity as per IAVR.
Tactical Minefields: Used to attack enemy's ability to maneuver. Comes in four varieties. Bought in groups consisting of variable number of minefields.
Mines are marked with a cattle fence or single roll of concertina. Signs are placed at intervals reading "MINES" in language of army laying and in local language. Required by following factors.
Artillery-scattered: Standard blast radius as per normal artillery. Open sheaf gives 50% probability encounter, 2 chits, validity as per conventional mines. Tight sheaf gives 40% + (10%xguns firing).
Air-delivered: DFO may be scatterable mines, as per artillery. 60% chance of encounter, otherwise all the same.
Note that most scatterable mines have a self-destruct fuze, with variable settings from 18 hours to 7 days.
Vehicle mounted, including VTOLs. Take 8 capacity points, four for each reload. May lay either 4 fields, 50% chance encounter each 300mx120m, one action per field, or 1 field with 90% chance encounter, 550m x 320m, one action.
Man-pack. Creates 35m radius semicircle, with dispenser at center of straight edge. 50% probability encounter. May be used to close lanes/gaps in other minefields, on it's own to create a variant on the nuisance minefield, or in groups of 4 to create a 50% chance of encounter disrupt minefield 280m x 70m. Get five of them and you create a fix minefield 280m x 105m, 50% chance of encounter. May be detonated by element that laid it from up to 1000m. May be laid at cost of one element/action per dispenser. Usually not man- packed for long distances, but carried in APC.
WAMs: All within 2" of marker are attacked. This represents not a couple hundred buried mines, but a couple dozen WAMs arranged in a rough circular patter. Attack procedure is to roll as normal attack--WAM is always assumed to be at close range, may be basic, enhanced, or superior. WAM gets +2 bonus to represent surprise value. 3 chits, validities as per MAK. Damaged result is damaged, not M-kill, and it attacks top armor. May be laid as per DSII normal rules, but dispenser only takes up 4 capacity points and a reload takes up 2. May be laid by VTOLs or DFO pods from aircraft.
Mine detection (other than the tried-and-true probing method) was born in the mid- 20th century with the invention of the handheld metal detector. This device had a number of drawbacks, including inability to be mounted in a vehicle (necessitating vulnerable and slow dismounted use), and basic stupidity of the device, in that it would 'ping' on non- mine metallic objects and ignore mines without major metallic content. The Soviet Union was producing wooden mines even before this device became common, and by the 1980s mines were in existence sensitive enough to explode when a metal detector passed within a foot of them (those nasty Italians!). Countermine technology got it's first real developments in the early 21st century when the Americans adopted a ground-penetrating radar mounted on a light utility vehicle. (Under development today, to be perfected Real Soon Now [tm]) This technology was also crude and prone to false alarms, but over the succeeding century and a half the race between mine makers and mine detectors has been roughly equal. With the 22nd century's capability to produce computers intelligent enough to sort out rocks from legitimate explosives, a good sensor suite can be a lifesaver in a mine warfare environment. They are still light enough to mount in a light utility vehicle (4 capacity points), though they often are mounted as part of a complete engineering package on a larger, more survivable vehicle. Comes in three rough technology levels, basic, enhanced, and superior. Also the operator quality comes into play--veterans shift up a die, green units shift down. Their use is only possible at low speed (1/2 the unit's max in terrain scanned) and has a mere 200m (2 inch) range. Mines may also be manufactured at basic, enhanced, or superior concealment technology levels. Note that both rolls should be made be referee, and the mine field owners MUST be kept secret, so he doesn't know whether "You don't detect anything" means "I built a barbed wire fence to make you slow down and scan it" or "Your idiot operators couldn't detect it if they were driving through an ordnance dump".
Hand-held distance mine detection is possible, but requires a unit to be equipped with this stuff and nothing but (close combat weapons only, IOW, no other fun gear), and produces another die shift down. Yes, that means that a green unit using basic gear rolls a 1d2. No, hand-held shouldn't be cheaper than vehicle mounted--miniaturization is expensive. This is obviously a lot harsher than the simple metal detectors of today, but you're talking a combination of sensors and the expert computer systems to sort out granite from C-15 (or whatever they're up to by then)
Breaching Minefields: CEVs may breach 300m of mines in one activation. Roll clearance equipment quality (may be different from detection quality, above) modified for veteran/green as above vs. minefield quality for each 100m. Failure means takes attack and lane is not 'clean'.
Breaching on foot: Engineer teams may set up a lane 100m deep in one activation. Roll unit quality vs. minefield quality to avoid detonation. No more than one team at a time may breach, although multiple teams may be assigned to breach to take over where the first one was killed. After the entire length of the minefield is prepared, the breaching teams must move away from the lane and then detonate the explosives.
Breaching WAMs: Dunno how this would be accomplished, but let's say that CEVs
may attempt to clear by rolling it's mine clearance roll (as above), failure
means takes attack.
Air Defense Systems.
LADS (Laser Area Defense System) 6km (60 inch) range. Only red chits are valid for damage. Trade off range for damage.
300/450/600 Basic/Enhanced/Superior
MADS (Missile etc) 50" range, all chits valid. 8 rounds carried. Range and damage, but not something you'd want to shoot off at every GMS in the area.
300/450/600 Basic/Enhanced/Superior
If a element equipped with a LAD system and is within 12" of a enemy air vehicle, it can attack the air vehicle as if the element were being attacked by the air vehicle. Like all area defense fire, this does NOT cause the unit to lose its own activation chance. This models typical anti-aircraft fire, which is fired by every unit capable of it.
Also, just because the table ends, Area Defense does not end. The Local or Zone Area Defense still can fire at aerospace craft that would have flown nearby, if the table was larger. I believe that the points cost of LAD in the rules is too expensive. I suggest that a points cost of 15 points is more appropriate. Also a capacity of 1 point is better suited to the system.
Smoke Generators
8 capacity point item, may lay three turns worth of smoke, each 1" wide and
12" long. Takes 10 turns to recharge.
Nuclear Damper
Nuclear Dampers disrupt the normal detonation of nearby nuclear weapons. Any
nuke that was to explode within 36" range, fails to go off. ND cost 500 points
and is only available to armies that are appropriate, such as Hammer's Slammers.
A ND system occupies 10 capacity points. To really discourage nuclear weapons
(like in David Drake's Hammer's Slammers
Universe), downgrade to 200 points and jack the range up to "tabletop".
Heavy Sniper Element
This models the United State's Barrett M82, 0.50" Caliber, Special-Purpose Sniper Rifle, or the 14.5mm Crunch Gun of TNE fame.
Heavy Sniper: [Rifle team cost] Range: 18". Damage inflicted: 3 chits.
A heavy sniper team consists of 2-3 personnel with a very large caliber, extremely long range, high power sniper rifle. A sniper team has a range of 18" (or 1.8Km!) and draws THREE chits against targets. Remember that unarmored vehicles, or the REAR of vehicles with amour 1, only require 5 damage points to kill and that special damage chits ARE valid. Heavy Sniper teams, like APSW teams, are much more likely to fire effectively than ordinary riflemen.
To simulate the difficulty of locating a sniper element, do not deploy the figure on the board until it fires. Then deploy a marker and d6 dummy markers. Each time the figure fires, remove one dummy marker. A dummy marker or sniper can be eliminated by an infantry unit engaging in close assault against it. Markers may also be fired on by other weapons, treat as dug-in infantry. Do not reveal whether or not it was really a sniper even if it dies horribly. This keeps your enemy twitchy.
These weapons have attracted much media attention and a fanatic following
among elements of the gaming community. Let's face it, there's something
sexy about a huge freakin' gun. Especially for wannabes who don't
understand it. However, in Real Life [tm] such specialized equipment is
much less common than in adventure fiction and adolescent fantasy. A more
normal sniper element would have about the same firepower as a rifle team.
And the most lethal use of sniper elements, as in real life, is to use them to
call for fire support, which would mean your cute little bush miniature would
never see tabletop.
Leadership
One of my peeves with the rules is the method suggested of selecting
leadership values. By the rules, one picks chits out of the pool. This means
that the odds of getting a leader of a particular quality changes for each
unit--in effect, penalizing a platoon if the other platoons have good leaders,
or rewarding it if they have poor leaders. And woe betide the second player to
pick chits if the first one snagged a lot of the 1s. So I ginned together the
following chart.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Red | 1-8 | 10-16 | 17+ |
| Orange | 1-7 | 8-15 | 16+ |
| Blue | 1-6 | 7-14 | 15+ |
| Green | 1-5 | 6-14 | 15+ |
| Yellow | 1-6 | 7-14 | 15+ |