From: Terry Rooker Subject: MBT (Re: Hopefully Not Dumb Questions) On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, Ken wrote: > 2. Anyone have any opinions of AH's MBT? It seems interesting, but I > can't seem to find any reviews of it anywhere. > It's gotten mixed reviews. It is very much focused on hardware issues, such a weapon performance and armor protection. Some people point out it has soft factors, such as doctrine, but the doctrine rules are a joke. Any vehicle can pretty much run around the board as the player sees fit. It does cover the hardware issues very well. I was skeptical about some of the penetration results of the M-1 series against T-72s and T-80s. The Persian Gulf War substantiated the results, at least against T-72s. It is so good on the hardware issues that I've seen it frequently converted to a set of miniatures rules. So it depends upon what you are looking for. If you are interested in morale and command control, forget MBT. If you are interested in how all the hardware interacts then it is pretty good. Of course it covers US and Germans against Soviets so many lost interest after the end of the Cold War. If that's the case, the same system was also used in IDF which covers the Arab-Israeli War. So at least it has a historical basis. One last comment. When I first played MBT for a review, it "felt" different. It finally dawned on me that it "felt" like a blast from the past. There have been certain trends in game design with some shifts in emphasis and game mechanisms over the years, and MBT felt old. Presumably that's because the basic system was used 15+ years ago in some WWII games by Yaquinto. AH apparently just moved the time frame to the modern era and made adjustments for longer weapon ranges and ATGMs. It is still the same basic system. Not that there is anything fundementally wrong with the system. Rather there have been some newer ideas come along. Terry From: "Brent E. Kidwell" Subject: Re: MBT (Re: Hopefully Not Dumb Questions) I've been playing MBT and generally think it is a good set of rules to game Cold War ground combat. What I particularly like is the idea that you can play on a small unit level -- tank v. tank, platoon v. platoon, all the way up to about company/squadron level. The overall scale is small -- one hex on the map is 100 meters, each marker represents one tank, one IFV or one squad of infantry. > Some people point out it > has soft factors, such as doctrine, but the > doctrine rules are a joke. > Any vehicle can pretty much run around the board > as the player sees fit. Actually, the doctrine rules are simple but make some sense. Units with doctrine cannot act independently, i.e., if a Soviet armored platoon-level organization has doctrine, the individual tanks cannot maneuver or fire independently. To accomplish this, you take off the board all of the individual, e.g., tank markers and replace with a single unit marker with a strength designator showing the number of tanks that marker represents.. Thus, you have no ability to maneuver or fire individual units independently. The intent is to simulate perceived Soviet reliance on central command and control rather than individual unit initiative. And, if you play the Soviet side with doctrine rules in effect, you quickly learn how much they hamper your ability to act/react to NATO maneuvers. Brent. From: Terry Rooker Subject: Re: MBT (Re: Hopefully Not Dumb Questions) On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, Brent E. Kidwell wrote: > Actually, the doctrine rules are simple but make > some sense. > The intent is to simulate > perceived Soviet reliance on central command and > control rather than individual unit initiative. > And, if you play the Soviet side with doctrine > rules in effect, you quickly learn how much they > hamper your ability to act/react to NATO > maneuvers. > All of this is why the doctrine rules are a joke. First, only the Soviets have any restrictions from doctrine. This is a NATO wet dream. In MBT NATO tanks can run around the board ignoring any formation boundaries or requirements. It also ignores the NATO reliance on communications. You can't have all these tanks running around under individual initiative without talking to each other. Look at the friendly fire incidents in the Gulf War which was just about the perfect environment from the coordination perspective of C4I. Second, the Soviets wouldn't have used a centralized system if it didn't give them some advantage. Read Inside the Red Army by Suvorov or Baxter's Soviet Air Land Battle to get a better understanding why the Soviet system may have been better in some circumstances. Finally, the 'doctrine' rule clumps the tanks of a Soviet platoon into a single hex. I forget the scale of the game but IIRC that gives a Soviet platoon one half to one third of the frontage that it would have according to Soviet Doctrine. So MBT's version isn't even accurate. For a better rule to simulate this very basic part of Soviet Doctrine I'd recommend using the Battle Drill rule from GDW's Assault. Terry