Slammer SMLE - Troop Quality

Troop Quality

Each element requires a troop quality rating that represents the general level of training and experience of the figures in the unit. In a section level game you may want to give each figure its own rating, to represent the figures individual fighting ability. The entire team should still have a troop quality rating for Activation purposes. This should represent the majority or average level of the figures in the team. (Elite round up; Others round down.)

For a platoon level game, all the figures in a team should have the same rating.

Leaders, Heroes or other significant individuals should always be given an individual quality rating. These may be different from the other figures in their team.

Suggested Troop quality ratings and typical examples are as follows:

Non-combatants

Very few wars take place in a vacuum, anywhere worth fighting over has people living there already. Mostly they will try to avoid the fighting, but sometimes the war comes to them. They may try to avoid your troops or come to you for help or need protecting. Unarmed civilians can be dangerous in numbers if they are provoked to outright hostility. 

e.g. Ordinary folks, refugees, angry citizens, civilian contractors, rioters, innocent-bystanders, camp-followers, prisoners/hostages/victims, charitable aid, disaster relief, medics or nursing staff, etc.

Non combatants may also include journalists or political observers embedded with active troops.

Untrained

Figures with no formal military training and little or no combat experience. Armed civilians are usually rated as untrained. Untrained may also include Insurgents, irregulars and or tribal units. These may have some familiarity with their weapons but have little experience of being shot at by capable opponents.

Guerrillas, Partisans, Insurgents, tribal irregulars, volunteers, resistance fighters, criminals/ terrorists, etc.

Green

Figures that have completed a programme of basic military training but have little or no front-line combat experience; May include troops from second-line or supporting services, or new reinforcements in a frontline unit.

Reservists, Militia; Garrison troops, New recruits; Irregulars; Corporate Security; Civilian Police*;

Gangsters; Terrorists.

[* while Police might be treated as Green in a military situation, they may be Elite motivation.]

Trained

Fully-trained competent troops and regular soldiers;

Trained is assumed to be the default level for teams in SMLE , they gain no additional modifiers or incur any penalty. Most regular Military types would be rated as trained.

Veteran

Combat experienced well trained professional soldiers, Long service soldiers who have served a tour of duty in a combat zone. In most armies the Veterans will tend to be section or platoon leaders whilst the majority of the unit are trained or green.

Generally poorer troops should be organised into larger teams; e.g. Green = 4 - 6 figures.

Better quality troops i.e. Veteran and Elite may form smaller teams of 2 - 4 figures.

This is intended to simulate the higher level of initiative and self confidence in better quality troops.

Note, if a team has a support weapon e.g. LMG, Mortar, etc. that counts as one figure.

For Example:

A typical trained infantry team would be 3 to 5 figures.

A special forces section of 4-6 figures might have 2-3  veteran teams of 2-3 figures each.

A partisan group of 10-12 figures would have 2 green teams of 4-6 figures.

An non-combatant group of rioters or refugees could be treated as a single mob of up to 12 figures.

Our example British Infantry Section could be played as two Trained teams, The section corporal with 4-6 riflemen and the lance corporal with two men running the Bren gun.

In a set scenario the Troop Quality should be determined before the game starts, or may be randomly determined at the start of a game.

For example;

The British Infantry section mentioned previously rolls 1D6 for each element as follows:

1,2	Green	New recruits & casualty replacements
2,3,4,5	Trained	Troops who have been in the unit long enough to know their way around
6	Veteran	Experienced troopers who have been through a few hard fights

In addition one roll should be made for the section leader with a +1 dice modifier.