Bolt Action
World War II Wargames Rules

Wargame Rules Review

Bolt Action World War II Wargames Rules.

Bolt Action Second Edition is a set of skirmish wargame rules for late World War Two platoon level actions in the period from 1944 to 1945. While the back cover of the 228-page rule book promises “great battles” in the “barren deserts of North Africa”, the North African campaigns actually ended in 1943 and Bolt Action does not include the necessary vehicle stats of Italian, British, and German tanks which fought in the Western Desert campaigns.

To actually play a small, platoon-sized skirmish game of the Desert War, perhaps involving a British Crusader, Matilda, Valentine, Italian M13/40 or German Panzerkampfwagen III, wargamers will need to spend another £25 for “Bolt Action Campaign: The Western Desert”. This is just one of 23 scenario booklets covering World War Two from start to finish; a serious financial commitment of well over £600 as it stands today. Compare that to Phil Barker‘s “Wargames Rules for All-arms Land Warfare from Platoon to Battalion Level”, which cover the entire period of modern warfare from 1925 to 2000 in complete detail for just £23 plus shipping.

Based on its large fan base, Bolt Action appears to be a fun little game, but it‘s no simulation of World War Two ground warfare. For one thing, the armour rules in Bolt Action are overly simplistic and seriously flawed. What‘s worse, the scenario rules remind the player to “try and make sure no great (terrain) advantage is conferred on either side” (p. 129), effectively ruling out any determined attacks against a numerically inferior, but well entrenched opponent. The reason for this silly approach to World War Two wargaming is simple: Bolt Action, like Warhammer 40k, is designed for competitive play, where two equally priced 1000-point “armies” face off against each other. As a result, the engagements fought in Bolt Action are essentially meeting engagements of two theoretically equal forces. Even the six so-called “Attacker-Defender Scenarios” don‘t give the defender anything particularly defensible to defend. So, from Omaha Beach to Caen, through the Bocage, down Hell‘s Highway, into the Hürtgenwald, across the Siegfried Line, or up Monte Cassino, in Bolt Action “it is clear that most of the battlefield will be clear or open ground, where troops and vehicles can move without impediment” (p. 45).

The game designers appear to be at odds with even the most basic military tactics like bounding overwatch, which is stupidly called “Ambush” in Bolt Action. And, of course, you don‘t just cut your opponent‘s lines of communication, in Bolt Action you attempt to “isolate them from their supply chain” (p. 140, seriously!).

Contents

  • Title: Bolt Action Second Edition World War II Wargames Rules
  • Period: late World War Two, 1944–1945
  • Type: Skirmish Game
  • Time Scale: none given
  • Ground Scale: none given
  • Troop Scale: 1 miniature = 1 man, 1 vehicle, or 1 gun
  • Basing: 25 mm ⌀ per figure, or 25×50 mm per prone figure
  • Armour penetration benchmarks
    • Sherman vs. Lingèvres Panther: 11 % per game turn
  • Authors: Alessio Cavatore, Rick Priestly
  • Format: 228-page rule book
  • Language: English
  • Publisher: Osprey Publishing Ltd. and Warlord Games Ltd.
  • Published: 2016

Chapters

  1. Introduction, 1 page
  2. Timeline, 18 pages
  3. Basic Supplies, 2 pages
  4. Conventions of War, 3 pages
  5. Units, 1 page
  6. The Turn, 1 page
  7. Orders, 5 pages
  8. Movement, 3 pages
  9. Shooting, 11 pages
  10. Weapons, 13 pages
  11. Close Quarters, 6 pages
  12. Headquarters, 6 pages
  13. Unit Special Rules, 3 pages
  14. Artillery, 5 pages
  15. Vehicles, 21 pages
  16. Buildings, 7 pages
  17. Playing a Game of Bolt Action, 20 pages
  18. Force Selection, 60 pages
  19. Appendices, 60 pages

Bold Marketing Action
bordering on the Fraudulent

The back cover of Bolt Action Second Edition makes the bold claim “From the shattered towns of occupied France, the barren deserts of North Africa, and the sweltering jungles of the Pacific, Bolt Action provides all the rules needed to bring the great battles of World War II to your tabletop.” In a post-factual world like ours, such a bold statement may be considered perfectly acceptable, even if it borders on the fraudulent. While the game designers may think that the rules in their 228-page rule book are complete and comprehensive, that does not mean that the customer will actually be able to play any of the promised battles. Most of the vehicle and weapon statistics which are needed to play Bolt Action are sold separately, no doubt strategically parceled out across the two dozen or so expensive scenario booklets.

And, of course, the rules themselves are not complete, either. Field engineering, amphibious vehicles, swimming, fording, rafting, ski troops, parachute and glider landings, rail movement, bridge demolition, supply and logistics, casualty clearance, telephone and radio communications or the lack thereof, flag signals, smoke rounds, smoke from burning vehicles, and many other important aspects of modern warfare are not covered in Bolt Action Second Edition at all. When the designers claim that “Bolt Action provides all the rules”, perhaps they are referring to the Bolt Action universe in its £600 entirety?

Evaluation

Bolt Action is a game, not a simulation. The infantry rules play well and are easy enough to understand to allow even novice players to join a quick pick-up game.

However, proven wargame design concepts have been thrown out, presumably because that makes Bolt Action easier to play. Hitting the more vulnerable side armour of an enemy tank is made much easier in Bolt Action, as the side armour rating is applied across the entire 90° degree “side arc” of the target vehicle. In the real world, at least half of the shots fired at an armoured vehicle are glancing blows which have a good chance of bouncing off even the flimsiest armour. That‘s why sophisticated wargame rules rely on 12 distinct firing arcs instead of just four. Not in Bolt Action! If you are outside the 90° frontal arc of the enemy vehicle, you‘re welcome to hit the thinner side armour.

A silly gaming convention like that cannot work, of course, because tanks like the Sherman sport side armour which is less than half as thick as the frontal armour, so Bolt Action has to rely on an artificial work-around to patch this bug. In Bolt Action, 76 mm of rounded frontal armour qualify the Sherman as a medium tank with a 9+ armour rating. The thin 38 mm vertical side armour, however, is artificially overrated to an 8+ (instead of the 4+ or 4.5+ one might otherwise expect), to prevent the Bolt Action Sherman from being penetrated by a rifle bullet.

Faulty Research

Bolt Action treats the “classic German 88” (p. 160), the 8.8 cm L.71 Flak 35/36, and the much less effective 8.8 cm L.56 KwK 36 as the same weapon. A glaring mistake! Firing Pz.Gr. 44 shells, the 8.8 cm L.71 Flak 35/36 penetrated 355 mm of armour at 100 m range, compared to only 280 mm for the 8.8 cm L.56 KwK 36, the main armament of the Tiger I. When it comes to armour penetration, length does matter! In fact, the Tiger I was even outperformed by the smaller but longer 7.5 cm L.70 KwK 42 of the Panther, which penetrated 298 mm of armour at 100 m range.

All three guns are mistakenly classed as “super-heavy anti-tank guns” in Bolt Action, when the 8.8 cm L.71 Flak 35/36 should be in a class of its own, well above the main guns of the Panther and Tiger I. Based on this flawed assumption, the main armament of the Tiger I and Tiger II must be identical in Bolt Action game terms. What an interesting mistake to make in 2016 when there are so many historical sources which might have been consulted.

Perhaps in Bolt Action Umpteenth Edition we will see the introduction of an “extra-super-heavy anti-tank gun” to put the 8.8 cm L.71 Flak 35/36 in its proper place?

Anti-Allied Bias

Using the Bolt Action “Shooting at Vehicles” rule, the British player has a slim 11 % chance of destroying the Panther parked on D13 between La Senaudière and Lingèvres on 14th June 1944.

The Panther has 45 mm of angled turret side armour, the equivalent of 53 mm of vertical armour, unless the angle is negated by the firing Sherman‘s elevated firing position, of course. The 75 mm Sherman gun penetrates roughly 94 mm of armour at 400 m range. So, if one or even several hits are scored, penetration is virtually guaranteed. Captain Stirling must have been well aware of this fact, otherwise he would have charged right up to the Lingèvres Panther, ordered his dragoon guards crew to dismount, and attack the Panther with sticky bombs and crowbars instead.

While the German player gets to enjoy his powerful 8.8 cm L.71 Flak 35/36 “super-heavy anti-tank gun”, British and US players have to face Panthers and Tigers with the QF 6-pounder “medium anti-tank gun”, known as the 57 mm M1 Gun in US service. Clearly, all is not fair in love and war, but there are sure to be dedicated British and US Army expansions to make up for the shortcomings of Bolt Action Second Edition.

Bolt Action rates the super-heavy 8.8 cm L.71 Flak 35/36 as “platform-mounted”, giving it a 360° arc of fire and making certain that the 88 can “be pivoted in place for free before firing”. Instant traverse! Another easter egg for the German player, considering the exceptional weight of the actual 88 Flak, and its, well documented, very slow rate of traverse. The British 25-pounder gun-howitzer was platform-mounted, too; it is lighter and much easier to traverse than the 88 Flak, but Bolt Action makes no mention of this fact, requiring the British player to issue an “Advance order” to pivot the 25-pounder in place. In Bolt Action, Allied players are well advised to use captured German equipment instead of their own. In fact, Bolt Action actively encourages a certain amount of WW2 fantasy gaming “with rival German armies fighting each other?” (p.212).

Bolt Action writes off the Soviet Zis-3 field gun as “not capable of facing the even heavier tanks being deployed by the Germans” (p. 194), when the actual armour penetration values of the Zis-3 were identical or superior to those of the Zis-2 anti-tank gun, depending on the type of ammunition used. Unlike the Bolt Action designers, the German army appreciated the qualities of the Zis-3 divisional gun M1942, employing many captured 7.62 cm L.54 “Ratsch-Bumm” PaK 54 (r) for tank hunting.

Bolt Action‘s apparent anti-Allied bias continues, providing the Soviet player with vehicle stats for the “stop-gap” SU-85 tank destroyer, classed as a “heavy anti-tank gun”, but withholding the more powerful SU-100, which might just qualify as a “super-heavy anti-tank gun” with 240 mm of armour penetration when A.P.D.S. (1945) shells are fired. Given the conflict of interest of a publisher focused on selling army expansions, scenario booklets, model tanks, guns, and figures, the decision to sell an incomplete set of wargame rules makes perfect marketing sense, though.

Easily catches fire, not!

The authors of Bolt Action fell for the popular myth that Sherman tanks burned more easily than other tanks, presumably because they were powered by petrol engines. While that myth has long been debunked, that hasn‘t stopped Bolt Action from severally penalizing the Sherman when its armour is penetrated.

What is a strangely inconsistent in Bolt Action, of course, is the fact that the M10 Tank Destroyer and the M7 Priest don‘t suffer the same penalty, even though both of them are essentially Shermans with petrol engines. If Shermans “easily catch fire”, should M10s and M7s not burn just as easily when hit?

Cracking and Spalling? Ignored!

The sloped armour plates of the Panther tank are known to have suffered from faulty metals which caused extreme cracking and spalling when hit. Bolt Action conveniently ignores this, giving the Panther a very generous “heavy tank” 10+ frontal armour rating.

Tanks don‘t drive, they run!

Another silly game convention in Bolt Action is that tanks and artillery pieces can be given the same “Run” order as infantry. Vehicles with bi-directional driving capabilities, like the German Sd.Kfz. 234 family of improved 8-wheeled armoured cars, are permitted to reverse at the “full speed Run rate”. This full speed reverse running capability is extended to the entire 234 family of armoured cars, even including the Sd.Kfz. 234/4 Pakwagen, which lost its reverse driver to make room for the 7.5 cm PaK 40 anti-tank gun. Shoddy research yet again!

Was that a FlaK that just ran by, Sarge?!

Cavalry units may never remount in the course of a game, presumably because Bolt Action skirmishes are such brief affairs that mounting and remounting would be beyond the scope of the game?

Super-heavy artillery pieces like the German 8.8 cm L.71 Flak 35/36, on the other hand, are considered “fixed” weapons. They may not advance, but they may pack up all their scattered equipment and heavy ammunition, and run their normal 12″ move when given a “Run” order. Now, if Bolt Action only permitted the German player to fix bayonets on the barrel of the 88, these running charges with lance and shield might be a spectacular sight.

Peiper-Worship, what!

In the Appendix, the authors of Bolt Action attest to “a special kind of satisfaction in knowing that you have command of Kampfgruppe Peiper ...” (p. 211), but there are no rules for Tiger II tanks in this whopping 228-page Bolt Action Second Edition, nor does the Appendix deliver the scenario rules which would allow Kampfgruppe Peiper-wannabies to commit any of the atrocities from which this “special kind of satisfaction” appears to have arisen. Surely, if Bolt Action had not disqualified itself on the basis of its flawed game design already, this is the perfect moment to toss the book.

The similarities between Bolt Action and Warhammer 40k are worrying. Less than 80 years after the end of a devastating World War which left 80 million people dead, Bolt Action has perverted the Art of Gentlemanly Wargaming into a competitive blood sport where the German army is touted once more for its “stalwart weaponry” and “fearsome MG42”. Warlord Games and Osprey Games went to great length to remind anyone not yet heavily invested in “undoubtedly man-for-man the most effective fighting force in Europe” (p. 156) that fascists have the coolest uniforms and get to play with the biggest toys. That‘s what we get when the people selling the expensive rules and endless expansion sets are the same who sell the pricy miniatures to go with them.

Wargame Rules